The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 eBook
Various
Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard,
sat coiled up in one of the creviced houses made by
the jutting boards. She remembered how she used
to play in them, before she went into the mill.
The mill,—even now, with the vague dread
of some uncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all
fear in its old hated shadow. Whatever danger
was coming to them lay in it, came from it, she knew,
in her confused, blurred way of thinking. It
loomed up now, with the square patch of ashen sky above,
black, heavy with years of remembered agony and loss.
In Lois’s hopeful, warm life this was the one
uncomprehended monster. Her crushed brain, her
unwakened powers, resented their wrong dimly to the
mass of iron and work and impure smells, unconscious
of any remorseless power that wielded it. It was
a monster, she thought, through the sleepy, dreading
night,—a monster that kept her wakeful
with a dull, mysterious terror.
When the night grew sultry and deepest, she started
from her half-doze to see her father come stealthily
out and go down the street. She must have slept,
she thought, rubbing her eyes, and watching him out
of sight,—and then, creeping out, turned
to glance at the mill. She cried out, shrill
with horror. It was a live monster now,—in
one swift instant, alive with fire,—quick,
greedy fire, leaping like serpents’ tongues out
of its hundred jaws, hungry sheets of flame maddening
and writhing towards her, and under all a dull and
hollow roar that shook the night. Did it call
her to her death? She turned to fly, and then—He
was alone, dying! He had been so kind to her!
She wrung her hands, standing there a moment.
It was a brave hope that was in her heart, and a prayer
on her lips never left unanswered, as she hobbled,
in her lame, slow way, up to the open black door,
and, with one backward look, went in.
* * * *
*
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
The publication, now brought to a close, of a new
edition of the novels of Cooper[6] gives us a fair
occasion for discharging a duty which Maga has too
long neglected, and saying something upon the genius
of this great writer, and, incidentally, upon the
character of a man who would have been a noticeable,
not to say remarkable person, had he never written
a line. These novels stand before us in thirty-two
goodly duodecimo volumes, well printed, gracefully
illustrated, and, in all external aspects, worthy of
generous commendation. With strong propriety,
the publishers dedicate this edition of the “first
American novelist” to “the American People.”
No one of our great writers is more thoroughly American
than Cooper; no one has caught and reproduced more
broadly and accurately the spirit of our institutions,
the character of our people, and even the aspects of
Nature in this our Western world. He was a patriot
to the very core of his heart; he loved his country
with a fervid, but not an undiscerning love: it
was an intelligent, vigilant, discriminating affection
that bound his heart to his native land; and thus,
while no man defended his country more vigorously
when it was in the right, no one reproved its faults
more courageously, or gave warning and advice more
unreservedly, where he felt that they were needed.
