When we got back from Mount Vernon, and entered our boardin'-house, Cicely went right up to her room. But I, feelin' kinder beat out (eloquent emotions are very tuckerin' on a tower), thought I would set down a few minutes in the parlor to rest, before I mounted up the stairs to my room.

But truly, as it turned out, I had better have gone right up, breath or no breath.

For, while I was a settin' there, a tall, sepulchral lookin' female, that I had noticed at the breakfast-table, come up to me; and says she,- "I beg your pardon, mom, but I believe you are the n.o.ble and eloquent Josiah Allen's wife, and I believe you are a stoppin' here."

Says I calmly, "I hain't a stoppin'-I am stopped, as it were, for a few days."

"Wall," says she, "a friend of mine is comin' to-night, to my room, No. 17, to give a private seansy. And knowin' you are a great case to investigate into truths, I thought mebby you would love to come, and witness some of our glorious spirit manifestations."

I thanked her for her kindness, but told her "I guessed I wouldn't go. I didn't seem to be sufferin' for a seancy."

"Oh!" says she: "it is wonderful, wonderful to see. Why, we will tie the medium up, and he will ontie himself."

"Oh!" says I. "I have seen that done, time and agin. I used to tie Thomas J. up when he was little, and naughty; and he would, in spite of me, ontie himself, and get away."

"Who is Thomas J.?" says she.

"Josiah's child by his first wife," says I.

"Wall," says she, "if we have a good circle, and the conditions are favorable, the spirits will materialize,-come before us with a body."

"Oh!" says I. "I have seen that. Thomas J. used to dress up as a ghost, and appear to us. But he didn't seem to think the conditions wus so favorable, and he didn't seem to appear so much, after his father ketched him at it, and give him a good whippin'." And says I firmly, "I guess that would be about the way with your ghosts."

And after I had said it, the idee struck me as bein' sort o' pitiful,-to go to whippin' a ghost. But she didn't seem to notice my remark, for she seemed to be a gazin' upward in a sort of a muse; and she says,-

"Oh! would you not like to talk with your departed kindred?"

"Wall, yes," says I firmly, after a minute's thought. "I would like to."

"Come to-night to our seansy, and we will call 'em, and you shall talk with 'em."

"Wall," says I candidly, "to tell the truth, bein' only wimmen present, I'll tell you, I have got to mend my petticoat to-night. My errents have took me round to such a extent, that it has got all frayed out round the bottom, and I have got to mend the fray. But, if any of my kindred are there, you jest mention it to 'em that she that wuz Samantha Smith is stopped at No. 16, and, if perfectly convenient, would love to see 'em. I can explain it to 'em," says I, "bein' all in the family, why I couldn't leave my room."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS JEFFERSON S GHOST.]

Says she, "You are makin' fun: you don't believe they will be there, do you?"

"Wall, to be honest with you, it looks dubersome to me. It does seem to me, that if my father or mother sot out from the other world, and come down to this boardin'-house, to No. 17, they would know, without havin' to be told, that I was in the next room to 'em; and they wouldn't want to stay with a pa.s.sel of indifferent strangers, when their own child was so near."

"You don't believe in the glorious manifestations of our seansys?" says she.

"Wall, to tell you the plain truth, I don't seem to believe 'em to any great extent. I believe, if G.o.d wants to speak to a human soul below, He can, without any of your performances and foolishness; and when I say performences and when I say foolishness, I say 'em in very polite ways: and I don't want to hurt anybody's feelin's by sayin' things hain't so, but I simply state my belief."

"Don't you believe in the communion of saints? Don't you believe G.o.d ever reveals himself to man?"

"Yes, I do! I believe that now, as in the past, the pure in heart shall see G.o.d. Why, heaven is over all, and pretty nigh to some."

And I thought of Cicely, and couldn't help it.

"I believe there are pure souls, especially when they are near to the other world, who can look in, and behold its beauty. Why, it hain't but a little ways from here,-it can't be, sense a breath of air will blow us into it. It takes sights of preparation to get ready to go, but it is only a short sail there. And you may go all over the land from house to house, and you will hear in almost every one of some dear friend who died with their faces lit up with the glow of the light shinin' from some one of the many mansions,-the dear home-light of the fatherland; died speakin' to some loved one, gone before. But I don't believe you can coax that light, and them voices, down into a cabinet, and let 'em shine and speak, at so much an evenin'."

"I thought," says she bitterly, "that you was one who never condemned any thing that you hadn't thoroughly investigated."

"I don't," says I. "I don't condemn nothin' nor n.o.body. I only tell my mind. I don't say there hain't no truth in it, because I don't know; and that is one of the best reasons in the world for not sayin' a thing hain't so. When you think how big a country the land of Truth is, and how many great unexplored regions lay in it, why should Josiah Allen's wife stand and lean up aginst a tree on the outmost edge of the frontier, and say what duz and what duzn't lay hid in them mysterius and beautiful regions that happier eyes than hern shall yet look into?

"No: the great future is the fulfillment of the prophecies, and blind gropin's of the present; and it is not for me, nor Josiah, nor anybody else, to talk too positive about what we hain't seen, and don't know.

"No: nor I hain't one to say it is the Devil's work, not claimin' such a close acquaintance with the gentleman named, as some do, who profess to know all his little social eccentricities. But I simply say, and say honest, that I hain't felt no drawin's towards seancys, nor felt like follerin' 'em up. But I am perfectly willin' you should have your own idees, and foller 'em."

"Do you believe angels have appeared to men?"

"Yes, mom, I do. But I never heard of a angel bein' stanch.e.l.led up in a box-stall, and let out of it agin at stated times, like a yearlin' colt. (Excuse my metafor, mom, I am country bred and born.) And no angel that I ever heard on, has been harnessed and tackled up with any ropes or strings whatsoever. No! whenever we hear of angels appearin' to men, they have flown down, white-winged and radiant, right out of the heavens, which is their home, and appeared to men, entirely unbeknown to them. That is the way they appeared to the shephards at Bethlahem, to the disciples on the mountain, to the women at the tomb."

"Don't you believe they could come jest as well now?"

"I don't say they couldn't. There is no place in the Bible, that I know of, where it says they shall never appear agin to man. But I s'pose, in the days I speak of, when the One Pure Heart was upon earth, Earth and Heaven drew nearer together, as it were,-the divine and the human. And if we now draw Heaven nearer to us by better, purer lives, who knows," says I dreamily (forgettin' the mejum, and other trials), "who knows but what we might, in some fair day, look up into the still heavens, and see through the clear blue, in the distance, a glimpse of the beautiful city of the redeemed?

"Who knows," says I, "if we lived for Heaven, as Jennie Dark lived for her country, in the story I have heard Thomas J. read about, but we might, like her, see visions, and hear voices, callin' us to heavenly duties? But," says I, findin' and recoverin' myself, "I don't see no use in a seansy to help us."

"Don't you admit that there is strange doin's at these seansys?"

"Yes," says I. "I never see one myself; but, from what I have heard of 'em, they are very strange."

"Don't you think there are things done that seem supernatural?"

"I don't know as they are any more supernatural than the telegraph and telefone and electric light, and many other seemin'ly supernatural works. And who knows but there may still be some hidden powers in nature that is the source of what you call supernatural?"

"Why not believe, with us, voices from Heaven speak through these means?"

"Because it looks dubersome to me-dretful dubersome. It don't look reasonable to me, that He, the mighty King of heaven and earth, would speak to His children through a senseless Indian jargon, or impossible and blasphemous speeches through a first sphere."

"You say you believe G.o.d has spoken to men, and why not now?"

"I tell you, I don't know but He duz. But I don't believe it is in that manner. Way back to the creation, when we read of G.o.d's speakin' to man, the voice come directly down from heaven to their souls.

"In the hush of the twilight, when every thing was still and peaceful, and Adam was alone, then he heard G.o.d's voice. He didn't have to wait for favorable conditions, or set round a table; for, what is more convincin', I don't believe he had a table to set round.

"In the dreary lonesomeness of the great desert, G.o.d spoke to the heart- broken Hagar. She didn't have to try any tests to call down the spirits. Clear and sudden out of heaven come the Lord's voice speaking to her soul in comfort and in prophecy, and her eyes was opened, and she saw waters flowin' in the midst of the desert.

"Up on the mountain top, G.o.d's voice spoke to Abraham; and Lot in the quiet of evening, at the tent's door, received the angelic visitants. Sudden, unbeknown to them, they come. They didn't have to put n.o.body into a trance, nor holler, so we read.

"In the hush of the temple, through the quiet of her motherly dreams, Hannah heard a voice. Hannah didn't have to say, 'If you are a spirit, rap so many times.' No: she knew the voice. G.o.d prepares the listenin' soul His own self. 'They know my voice,' so the Lord said.

"Daniel and the lions didn't have to 'form a circle' for him to see the one in shinin' raiment. No: the angel guest came down from heaven unbidden, and appeared to Daniel alone, in peril; and as he stood by the 'great river,' it said, 'Be strong, be strong!' preparin' him for conflict. And Daniel was strengthened, so the Bible says.

"G.o.d's hand is not weaker to-day, and His conflicts are bein' waged on many a battle-field. And I dare not say that He does not send His angels to comfort and sustain them who from love to Him go out into rightous warfare. But I don't believe they come through a seansy. I don't, honestly. I don't believe Daniel would have felt strengthened a mite, by seein' a materialized rag-baby hung out by a wire in front of a hemlock box, and then drawed back sudden.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEAVENLY VISITORS.]

"No: Adam and Enoch, and Mary and Paul and St. John, didn't have to say, before they saw the heavenly guests, 'If you are a spirit, manifest it by liftin' up some table-legs.' And they didn't have to tie a mejum into a box before they could hear G.o.d's voice. No: we read in the Bible of eight different ones who come back from death, and appeared to their friends, besides the many who came forth from their graves at Jerusalem. But they didn't none of 'em come in this way from round under tables, and out of little coops, and etcetery.

"And as it was in the old days, so I believe it is to-day. I believe, if G.o.d wants to speak to a human soul, livin' or dead, He don't need the help of ropes and boxes and things. It don't look reasonable to think He has to employ such means. And it don't look reasonable to me to think, if He wants to speak to one of His children in comfort or consolation, He will try to drive a hard bargain with 'em, and make 'em pay from fifty cents to a dollar to hear Him, children half price. Howsomever, everybody to their own opinions."