I believe it was on Epiphany morning, or somewhere about that period, when Lizzie ran into the kitchen to me, where I was thawing my goose-grease, with the dogs among the ashes--the live dogs, I mean, not the iron ones, for them we had given up long ago,--and having caught me, by way of wonder (for generally I was out shoveling long before my 'young lady' had her nightcap off), she positively kissed me, for the sake of warming her lips perhaps, or because she had something proud to say.
'You great fool, John,' said my lady, as Annie and Iused to call her, on account of her airs and graces;'what a pity you never read, John!'
'Much use, I should think, in reading!' I answered, though pleased with her condescension; 'read, Isuppose, with roof coming in, and only this chimney left sticking out of the snow!'
'The very time to read, John,' said Lizzie, looking grander; 'our worst troubles are the need, whence knowledge can deliver us.'
'Amen,' I cried out; 'are you parson or clerk?
Whichever you are, good-morning.'
Thereupon I was bent on my usual round (a very small one nowadays), but Eliza took me with both hands, and Istopped of course; for I could not bear to shake the child, even in play, for a moment, because her back was tender. Then she looked up at me with her beautiful eyes, so large, unhealthy and delicate, and strangely shadowing outward, as if to spread their meaning; and she said,--'Now, John, this is no time to joke. I was almost frozen in bed last night; and Annie like an icicle.
Feel how cold my hands are. Now, will you listen to what I have read about climates ten times worse than this; and where none but clever men can live?'
'Impossible for me to listen now, I have hundreds of things to see to; but I will listen after breakfast to your foreign climates, child. Now attend to mother's hot coffee.'
She looked a little disappointed, but she knew what Ihad to do; and after all she was not so utterly unreasonable; although she did read books. And when Ihad done my morning's work, I listened to her patiently; and it was out of my power to think that all she said was foolish.
For I knew common sense pretty well, by this time, whether it happened to be my own, or any other person's, if clearly laid before me. And Lizzie had a particular way of setting forth very clearly whatever she wished to express and enforce. But the queerest part of it all was this, that if she could but have dreamed for a moment what would be the first application made me by of her lesson, she would rather have bitten her tongue off than help me to my purpose.
She told me that in the Arctic Regions, as they call some places, a long way north, where the Great Bear lies all across the heavens, and no sun is up, for whole months at a time, and yet where people will go exploring, out of pure contradiction, and for the sake of novelty, and love of being frozen--that here they always had such winters as we were having now. It never ceased to freeze, she said; and it never ceased to snow; except when it was too cold; and then all the air was choked with glittering spikes; and a man's skin might come off of him, before he could ask the reason.
Nevertheless the people there (although the snow was fifty feet deep, and all their breath fell behind them frozen, like a log of wood dropped from their shoulders), yet they managed to get along, and make the time of the year to each other, by a little cleverness.
For seeing how the snow was spread, lightly over everything, covering up the hills and valleys, and the foreskin of the sea, they contrived a way to crown it, and to glide like a flake along. Through the sparkle of the whiteness, and the wreaths of windy tossings, and the ups and downs of cold, any man might get along with a boat on either foot, to prevent his sinking.
She told me how these boats were made; very strong and very light, of ribs with skin across them; five feet long, and one foot wide; and turned up at each end, even as a canoe is. But she did not tell me, nor did Igive it a moment's thought myself, how hard it was to walk upon them without early practice. Then she told me another thing equally useful to me; although I would not let her see how much I thought about it. And this concerned the use of sledges, and their power of gliding, and the lightness of their following; all of which I could see at once, through knowledge of our own farm-sleds; which we employ in lieu of wheels, used in flatter districts. When I had heard all this from her, a mere chit of a girl as she was, unfit to make a snowball even, or to fry snow pancakes, I looked down on her with amazement, and began to wish a little that I had given more time to books.