Friday, September 22, 2017

THE FIRST LADY OF EVANSTON - Cornelia Gray Lunt - BOOK I, Chapter 2 - The Little Dishes

This is the next installment in the autobiography of Cornelia Gray Lunt of Evanston, Illinois: Sketches of Childhood and Girlhood, Chicago, 1847-1864.  For more about the life and times of Miss Lunt, please see the first installment:                                   

http://undereverytombstone.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-first-lady-of-evanston-cornelia.html




 BOOK I
Chapter Two
The Little Dishes

March 19, 1849.

THE LITTLE GIRL looked down in an ecstasy too deep for words - Then looking up at the smiling faces round the table the barriers broke - "Oh are they mine!  My little dishes!  Oh Mother they are big, not like the others for dolls and babies!  Oh Mother they have little posies and green springs, and a gold band against the green.  They are beautiful, they are beautiful!" she repeated, as she bent lower and clasped her hands in a delight even too great to touch the treasures.

Yes, it was her (6th) Birthday, but who could have thought she was to have such a surprise; All on a tray at her own plate when she came down to breakfast!  Why the plates were as big as saucers, and anyone could drink out of the lovely cups, and there would be plenty of tea for them all in that little Tea-pot with its Creamer and Sugar, almost like the old ones of Great Grand-mother Patten's that Mother loved so much.

But her awe deepened and her heart beat fast at the words she heard - "A party? A real party," and she could ask six little girls that very day for Saturday afternoon!  Addie, their neighbour's daughter three years her senior, would go with her from house to house.  Her spirits overflowed. She rushed for a paper to have her Mother write the names and just what to say; and from that moment the great event took precedence of all others in thought and speech - and the hours were long until the little coat was buttoned tight, the comforter tied about her throat, for March winds were cold and the Lake sang a sinister song - "Don't be too happy little girl!  A storm is brewing!"

What cared the proud little lady holding hands with Addie and tripping along so happily.  "Isn't it great to have a party?  Did you have one when you were six?"  "It isn't a party was the strangely scornful reply. It's just six children.  That doesn't make a party.  It takes lots more.  I had twenty-five once" - and all joy was blotted out.  A queer pain burned in her eyes, she winked away something hot and blistering, and at first Addie's words hardly penetrated to consciousness.  "You could ask them - You know lots of little girls at the school.  I know lots of little girls right round here - Come on - if you want a real party."  And the way was opened.  A sudden sense of power and confidence aroused. - No questions made her hesitate.  It was a party she wanted - and she breathed again with pride, and called at every house in the neighbourhood her companion indicated; and when she saw some children playing in groups near by to each one was repeated carefully her Mother's message, the invitation for Saturday afternoon. Strangely elate (sic), only half understanding Addie's warning, she returned to her "Little Dishes" with no disturbing fears, no terrifying questions, no punitive anticipations, no conscious asking - "Why did ye so?"  Oh no! She was afraid of nothing.  It was to be a real party, and holding that thought to her little heart she exulted and never trembled once.  She had no realization of wrong - Why should she? - Addie said that it was to be a fine party and that she needn't tell anyone.

As clear as today it now rises before me.  It stands high at the very beginning of memory - That Saturday afternoon.  The scene as I first saw it - when  my Aunt called quickly - "Oh look! what can it mean? See all those children coming," and I ran with the others to the door, to behold what to my vision was a regiment of white frocked children!  I see now those colored sashes and switching skirts, and feel the same astonished sensation - inexplicable and dreamlike for the moment, while I looked on breathlessly as they reached the house, fully forty in number when all the different companies arrived.  As I have not so much as forgotten the shining faces, or my sudden shyness as my astonished Mother and Aunts who had time for no single inquiry, made them doubtless as welcome and comfortable as conditions and circumstances permitted.   

The spirit of adventure is of great assistance to disobedience, and there was no piety within to disturb me at that moment.  "A party - a real party." - I had a real party.  And my little dishes.  It was enough - bliss could mount no higher.   What secret feeling in me ascended to its throne?  What nascent delight in hospitality had birth?  What happiness in having and giving brought colour to the cheeks, and warmed a little heart that heard a hundred jubilant notes and not one discord as the enchanting afternoon began?  It might have been imaginary music that sang within - No forebodings - No shadows crowded thickly, the disregarded Mother's directions penetrated to no secret chamber of memory.  Oh the merry hours!  the gladness of my first party, with no fears of a price to be paid or that a profoundly significant lesson must be taught.  Pride and pleasure ran a race as we shouted and played, and my kind Aunts, proficient in ways to entertain, made the hours fly.

I lived in so rich a present there was nothing to be desired, until opening a door into the dining-room, eager for my "little dishes" to be displayed, my eyes beheld a place alive with curious preparations.  Lo! the big table was spread with many dishes, the pyramidal centre-piece with apples, and I saw cakes and candies and nuts and raisins as I peered eagerly, and then rushed to the door from which steps descended to the kitchen.

There was my Mother sitting before the slanting cellar door, in her lap a flat-iron with hammer raised above the nuts to be cracked.  She looked up as I looked down, the naughty little girl standing on the top step smiling!  Mother, Mother, where are my little dishes, Can't I have my little dishes?"  and something in her stern glance turned my eyes to busy Mahaly spreading with butter and sugar the thin slices of bread. What did it all mean?  all this activity and haste so manifest.  It was odd and menacing.  I had never before seen excitement apparent , and I stared and repeated eagerly - You said I could have my little dishes." One sudden look - and fright stirred and hurt.  "You are a naughty girl, you will not have your little dishes for a long time.  You have been disobedient - You will be punished when the little girls have gone."  As if I had known punishment instead of indulgence all my six years I shivered - terror for a second shadowed and enveloped me as I backed swiftly out of sight and returned to the merry throng.  The terror was unreal, the party was real, and the feast that followed reassuring.  But as dusk descended the ghost of fear spoke insistently - Don't go yet, please; don't go, please don't - as they trooped away in smiling groups, well filled and well pleased and with no penalties or explanations to meet or make.

As the last one was departing, one little stranger, the guest of a friend who brought her, thanked me prettily for being allowed to come, and gave me a sense of surprised gratification and new importance.  At that moment the intervening door opened and I heard the ominous call repeated, as I hung defiantly back, until without one further word my hand was grasped and dragging feet could no longer help me.  Into the adjacent bed-room we passed, and I remember even a curious creaking of the hinges as the door closed.  I remember how the carved Bureau mirror reflected my Mother's face as in a fog - And how I screamed and screamed.  It was the first hurt of my little life, my first punishment.  With a firm hand castigation of a primitive sort was being administered.  The spanking was not severe in fact but terrible in fancy, and as I felt each deliberate stroke I writhed in futile rebellion and a sense of injury.  I had not realized my offence - its weight or measure could not appeal without adequate explanation.  I shrieked again and again thinking to lessen deserved pain - My Mother's gentle hand had become a sledge-hammer to me.

That same little uninvited visitor who came with her cousin rose like salvation to save me! - Oh Mother, I didn't invite Teresa Foot, I didn't invite Teresa Foot, I didn't, I didn't" over and over as each fresh stroke fell.

Ah' that deep intuitive feeling that excuses and palliates and believes that the climax of full criminality not having been reached, Justice should be stayed.  But I sought redress in vain, and I realize again that stubborn resistance of spirit, of outraged pride.  I was not toned to repentance or to any clear understanding of the nature of my disobedience, - Why! I had not invited Teresa Foot, whose name I will remember as I do my own, and as long - and I had not had my little dishes."

My face was wet with tears under its heavy curls was lifted at last.  Never mind little girl, it is all over.

The storm the Lake threatened had burst and passed.
        

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