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Page 52
This voting power of Dennis was particularly valuable at the quarterly
meetings of the proprietors of the Naguadavick Ferry. My wife inherited
from her father some shares in that enterprise, which is not yet fully
developed, though it doubtless will become a very valuable property. The
law of Maine then forbade stockholders to appear by proxy at such
meetings. Polly disliked to go, not being, in fact, a "hens'-rights
hen," transferred her stock to me. I, after going once, disliked it more
than she. But Dennis went to the next meeting, and liked it very much.
He said the arm-chairs were good, the collation good, and the free rides
to stockholders pleasant. He was a little frightened when they first
took him upon one of the ferry-boats, but after two or three quarterly
meetings he became quite brave.
Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. Indeed, being, as I
implied, of that type which is called shiftless, he was only too happy
to be told daily what to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting or
in any way original in his discharge of that duty. He learned, however,
to discriminate between the lines of his life, and very much preferred
these stockholders' meetings and trustees' dinners and Commencement
collations to another set of occasions, from which he used to beg off
most piteously. Our excellent brother, Dr. Fillmore, had taken a notion
at this time that our Sandemanian churches needed more expression of
mutual sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were remiss. He said, that,
if the Bishop came to preach at Naguadavick, all the Episcopal clergy of
the neighborhood were present; if Dr. Pond came, all the Congregational
clergymen turned out to hear him; if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians;
and he thought we owed it to each other, that, whenever there was an
occasional service at a Sandemanian church, the other brethren should
all, if possible, attend. "It looked well," if nothing more. Now this
really meant that I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lectures
on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that he did not hear one of my
course on the "Sandemanianism of Anselm." But I felt badly when he said
it; and afterwards I always made Dennis go to hear all the brethren
preach, when I was not preaching myself. This was what he took
exceptions to,--the only thing, as I said, which he ever did except to.
Now came the advantage of his long morning-nap, and of the green tea
with which Polly supplied the kitchen. But he would plead, so humbly, to
be let off, only from one or two! I never excepted him, however. I knew
the lectures were of value, and I thought it best he should be able to
keep the connection.
Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has observed in the outset
of this memoir. She risked Dennis one night under the eyes of her own
sex. Governor Gorges had always been very kind to us, and, when he gave
his great annual party to the town, asked us. I confess I hated to go. I
was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's "Mystics," which Haliburton had
just sent me from Boston. "But how rude," said Polly, "not to return the
Governor's civility and Mrs. Gorges's, when they will be sure to ask why
you are away!" Still I demurred, and at last she, with the wit of Eve
and of Semiramis conjoined, let me off by saying that, if I would go in
with her, and sustain the initial conversations with the Governor and
the ladies staying there, she would risk Dennis for the rest of the
evening. And that was just what we did. She took Dennis in training all
that afternoon, instructed him in fashionable conversation, cautioned
him against the temptations of the supper-table,--and at nine in the
evening he drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand
star-_entr�e_ with Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who were staying
with us. We had put Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his
glasses: and the girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of looking at
him. He sat in the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the
agreeable to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fernanda; I
complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great case of
D'Aulnay _vs._ Laconia Mining Company; I stepped into the dressing-room
for a moment, stepped out for another, walked home after a nod with
Dennis and tying the horse to a pump; and while I walked home, Mr.
Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through the library into the
Gorges's grand saloon.
Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And even
here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for stakes to
fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it,--and says that
single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant Eve that she
is! She joined Dennis at the library-door, and in an instant presented
him to Dr. Ochterlony, from Baltimore, who was on a visit in town, and
was talking with her as Dennis came in. "Mr. Ingham would like to hear
what you were telling us about your success among the German
population." And Dennis bowed and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly,
"I'm very glad you liked it." But Dr. Ochterlony did not observe, and
plunged into the tide of explanation; Dennis listened like a
prime-minister, and bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, the
same thing. Polly declared it was just like Haliburton's Latin
conversation with the Hungarian minister, of which he is very fond of
telling. "_Qu�ne sit historia Reformationis in Ungari�?_" quoth
Haliburton, after some thought. And his _confr�re_ replied gallantly,
"_In seculo decimo tertio_," etc., etc., etc.; and from _decimo
tertio_[P] to the nineteenth century and a half lasted till the oysters
came. So was it that before Dr. Ochterlony came to the "success," or
near it, Governor Gorges came to Dennis, and asked him to hand Mrs.
Jeffries down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy.
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