We stopped some time at one of the plantations, to rest ourselves and refresh the horses.We had a chatty conversation with several gentlemen present; but there was one person, a middle aged man, with an absent look in his face, who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again into the meditations which our coming had interrupted.The planters whispered us not to mind him--crazy.They said he was in the Islands for his health; was a preacher; his home, Michigan.They said that if he woke up presently and fell to talking about a correspondence which he had some time held with Mr.Greeley about a trifle of some kind, we must humor him and listen with interest; and we must humor his fancy that this correspondence was the talk of the world.
It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature and that his madness had nothing vicious in it.He looked pale, and a little worn, as if with perplexing thought and anxiety of mind.He sat a long time, looking at the floor, and at intervals muttering to himself and nodding his head acquiescingly or shaking it in mild protest.He was lost in his thought, or in his memories.We continued our talk with the planters, branching from subject to subject.But at last the word "circumstance," casually dropped, in the course of conversation, attracted his attention and brought an eager look into his countenance.He faced about in his chair and said:
"Circumstance? What circumstance? Ah, I know--I know too well.So you have heard of it too." [With a sigh.] "Well, no matter--all the world has heard of it.All the world.The whole world.It is a large world, too, for a thing to travel so far in--now isn't it? Yes, yes--the Greeley correspondence with Erickson has created the saddest and bitterest controversy on both sides of the ocean--and still they keep it up! It makes us famous, but at what a sorrowful sacrifice! I was so sorry when I heard that it had caused that bloody and distressful war over there in Italy.It was little comfort to me, after so much bloodshed, to know that the victors sided with me, and the vanquished with Greeley.--It is little comfort to know that Horace Greeley is responsible for the battle of Sadowa, and not me.
"Queen Victoria wrote me that she felt just as I did about it--she said that as much as she was opposed to Greeley and the spirit he showed in the correspondence with me, she would not have had Sadowa happen for hundreds of dollars.I can show you her letter, if you would like to see it.But gentlemen, much as you may think you know about that unhappy correspondence, you cannot know the straight of it till you hear it from my lips.It has always been garbled in the journals, and even in history.Yes, even in history--think of it! Let me--please let me, give you the matter, exactly as it occurred.I truly will not abuse your confidence."Then he leaned forward, all interest, all earnestness, and told his story--and told it appealingly, too, and yet in the simplest and most unpretentious way; indeed, in such a way as to suggest to one, all the time, that this was a faithful, honorable witness, giving evidence in the sacred interest of justice, and under oath.He said:
"Mrs.Beazeley--Mrs.Jackson Beazeley, widow, of the village of Campbellton, Kansas,--wrote me about a matter which was near her heart --a matter which many might think trivial, but to her it was a thing of deep concern.I was living in Michigan, then--serving in the ministry.
She was, and is, an estimable woman--a woman to whom poverty and hardship have proven incentives to industry, in place of discouragements.
Her only treasure was her son William, a youth just verging upon manhood;religious, amiable, and sincerely attached to agriculture.He was the widow's comfort and her pride.And so, moved by her love for him, she wrote me about a matter, as I have said before, which lay near her heart --because it lay near her boy's.She desired me to confer with Mr.Greeley about turnips.Turnips were the dream of her child's young ambition.While other youths were frittering away in frivolous amusements the precious years of budding vigor which God had given them for useful preparation, this boy was patiently enriching his mind with information concerning turnips.The sentiment which he felt toward the turnip was akin to adoration.He could not think of the turnip without emotion; he could not speak of it calmly; he could not contemplate it without exaltation.He could not eat it without shedding tears.All the poetry in his sensitive nature was in sympathy with the gracious vegetable.With the earliest pipe of dawn he sought his patch, and when the curtaining night drove him from it he shut himself up with his books and garnered statistics till sleep overcame him.On rainy days he sat and talked hours together with his mother about turnips.When company came, he made it his loving duty to put aside everything else and converse with them all the day long of his great joy in the turnip.
And yet, was this joy rounded and complete? Was there no secret alloy of unhappiness in it? Alas, there was.There was a canker gnawing at his heart; the noblest inspiration of his soul eluded his endeavor--viz: he could not make of the turnip a climbing vine.Months went by; the bloom forsook his cheek, the fire faded out of his eye; sighings and abstraction usurped the place of smiles and cheerful converse.But a watchful eye noted these things and in time a motherly sympathy unsealed the secret.Hence the letter to me.She pleaded for attention--she said her boy was dying by inches.
"I was a stranger to Mr.Greeley, but what of that? The matter was urgent.I wrote and begged him to solve the difficult problem if possible and save the student's life.My interest grew, until it partook of the anxiety of the mother.I waited in much suspense.--At last the answer came.
