Category: Ailenroc’s Book

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

“Miss Sims and Miss Nellie Sims, and Miss Horn and Miss Mary Ann Horn, and Miss Hendon, all must come to Mr. J. R. Coleman’s on the twenty-fifth day of December, to a quilting. Be sure to came, and don’t fail to bring your needles with you.”

So read an invitation received by my mother, and including the whole family except my father and brother, who pretended to be very angry over the slight.

I had never been to a big quilting, and, of course, looked forward to the day with great anticipations. I was surprised that my sisters cared so little for the invitation and indulged in so much laughter concerning it.

We had not been living in the country long, and the Colemans were among our first acquaintances. They were “good livers”—a good, old-fashioned family—and, while not going in for style at all, lived well in a rough manner.

Mrs. Coleman was uneducated, but she had a brother who had been off to school, and who, I thought, was an exception. Viewed in the calm light of riper years, his face was very foolish. His forehead and chin retreated from a large nose, and his pale hair and light blue eyes gave him a washed-out appearance; but I thought him charming. He seemed to be quite literary, and I loved books better than anything; so, of course, we were congenial spirits. He was twenty, I was fifteen, and I had no hesitation in appropriating his visits to myself. In the foolishness of my foolish heart, I no doubt put on airs. Indeed, my brother often assured me that I needed taking down a peg. Alas! The taking down came soon enough. Read More

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

Twilight throws her dusty mantle
Over earth and over sea,
And the gentle dews are falling
On the flowers that dot the lea.

The bright stars are looking downward,
And the moon resplendent shines,
Making dewdrops sparkle brilliant
As the gems that fill the mines.

There is one who just has left her;
Long years she has loved him well,
But his words to-night have filled her
With a bliss she cannot tell.

Yes, he told the old, old story;
But to her ‘twas strange and new.
Now the world seems doubly glorious,
Sparkling through its veil of dew.

From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander

When Jeems Henry’s name first appeared in the Buglehorn as a candidate for the office of constable, I was just as proud as proud could be. Jeems Henry always stood high in my estimation, and I was glad that others had a good opinion of him also. To be sure, it was not much of an office, but Jeems Henry soon reconciled me to that. He illustrated it by a ladder, and made it look beautiful to my eyes. Of course, every one knows that you ascend a ladder step by step and round by round, and I must confess that I built in my imagination a stairway that rivaled Jacob’s; only, his led to heaven, and mine to the presidency.

It was a right pretty little notice that was in the paper. Things were said of Jeems Henry that I could have told them long before, concerning his good looks, good morals, and fine sense, and I took real pleasure in reading it. “Several friends” wrote it out, so it said, and I was wrathy all over when the opposition hinted that it was Jeems Henry himself. But he didn’t run after office—not he. He told me in confidence that if his party chose to give it to him, he would accept, but he did not ask for office.

Old Peter Doolittle ran against him, and, like an old scamp, as he is, he must rake up a great chance of tales against Jeems Henry, and narrate them all over the country, till, if I hadn’t known them to be false, I couldn’t have voted for him myself. But Jeems Henry paid him back in his own coin. He picked up some things about old Peter that were true, and published them in the Buglehorn, and old Peter’s son sent Jeems Henry word that he would thrash him on first sight. After that you may know I was uneasy all the time. I was troubled all day and dreamed bad dreams all night, till I wished the election was safely over. Read More