Ziphen Central

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander. Note from the blogger: St. Roch’s chapel still exists in New Orleans, and greatly resembles the description given by Mrs. Alexander more than a century ago. Here is more information about the cemetery and chapel, and here is a collection of photographs from the place which I found very interesting.

“No visit to New Orleans is complete without a pilgrimage to St. Roque, and you must go there. I have some wishes to make, and will go with you.”

So said my friend, whom I will call “Nell.,” for short.

“Some wishes to make?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she said. “According to an old legend, one may get any wish granted by walking to St. Roque—never stopping on the way—saying a prayer, and making a wish.”

“How easy! And who, pray, might St. Roque be?” I asked.

“O, he was just a saint,” she said, lightly, “a very holy man. I don’t know much about him, but I do know that wishes are granted at St. Roque’s Church. I’ve tried it. I wished once for money, and got it.”

Nell. was not raised a Catholic, but has drifted that way from superstition and association.

Seeing that I was still unbelieving, she appealed to Miss Cecilia, a lovely Creole girl, a native of the city, and a pure and tender lamb of the Catholic fold. (keep reading)

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

Once I knew a joyous maiden,
Happy as a summer bird,
Laughing, singing ‘mong the flowers;
Her young heart with pleasure stirred.
O the happy days of childhood!
How they flit like phantoms by!
While I retrospect those hours,
Wondering vaguely: Was it I?

How I marveled then at faces
Growing graver with the years,
And at eyes that lost their brightness,
Quenched their light in bitter tears!
Now I marvel at the gladness
Of the days so long gone by,
While I sit a silent weeper,
Wondering: Can this be I?

Happy hours—they have fled forever;
Happy heart has left my breast;
Childhood’s days have fled like shadows,
Womanhood hath brought no rest.
All alone in wintry darkness
Sit I as the days go by,
Thinking of my happy girlhood,
Wondering: Can this be I?

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

“Matilda,” said Mr. Sanders, putting his head in at the kitchen door, “Brother Grice and Brother Lee, from Bumbleton, are here, and will remain to dinner.”

Mr. Sanders was a preacher, who preached at Bumbleton once a month; Matilda was his wife.

“Mercy on me!” she said, staring at him; but in a moment her gaze wandered past him across the field—still farther. She was wondering what she would have for dinner.

“Well,” said Mr. Sanders, fidgeting about the door, “they are in the sitting room, and I must go back. It is ten o’clock, Matilda.”

“I know,” she said, trying to smile. “I’ll have dinner on time; never fear. Go back to your company.”

He looked back as he turned to go, saying, in a hesitating sort of way: “You—you can make out, Matilda.”

“I think so,” she answered. “Did I ever fail?” (keep reading)

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

Last night in dreams I wandered
By the river’s pebbly strand,
While a bonnie boy and winsome girl
Held me by either hand.

But in my dream they vanished,
Though I sought them far and wide
With prayers and tears of anguish
By the river’s rolling tide.

I awoke. Wet was my pillow
With my unavailing tears,
And I knew that my bonnie babes
Were gone on the tide of years.

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

Johnnie was pouting. Ignore the fact, if you choose; but pouting he was, and in a way that drove all the sunny brightness from his face and the joyous light from his eyes. His rosy lips were thrust out, and he had just as many wrinkles on his forehead as there was room for; and, being a broad forehead, it held a good many.

The little man had met with something that even we grown-up children do not like. He had met with a disappointment, but was not philosopher enough to face it bravely. His heart had been set on a new pair of boots, and his father had seen fit to refuse them to him. Johnnie’s boots were not worn out by any means; they only twisted over the heel a little, after the manner of boys’ boots, and a white spot or two suggested the breaking through of restless toes; but father thought they could be shined up a while yet. Johnnie differed with him, and took it out in pouting. Was ever a young man of nine years so mistreated? He glowered from his corner, after he had pushed little May and her sympathetic chatter away and had made her crack the white arm of Miss Dolly and cry over it till her pretty eyes were red. He watched his mother, and wondered how she could bear to see him in such trouble. Surely no boy in the round world had ever been treated so badly before; surely no boy was ever so miserable. Lizzie, his eldest sister, had really turned her face away as she left the room, lest he should see her laughing; but he did, and gulped it down with the rest.

He wondered what kind old grandfather thought of the way they all acted toward his grandson; but, being buried in his newspaper, possibly he did not think of it at all.

Suddenly grandpa threw down his paper, and said: “Dear, dear dear! Things were not so in my young days.” (keep reading)