Our Hundred Days in Europe | Page 5

during
the whole return passage? I hope the reader will see why I mention
these facts. They explain and excuse many things; they have been
alluded to, sometimes with exaggeration, in the newspapers, and I
could not tell my story fairly without mentioning them. I got along well
enough as soon as I landed, and have had no return of the trouble since

I have been back in my own home. I will not advertise an assortment of
asthma remedies for sale, but I assure my kind friends I have had no
use for any one of them since I have walked the Boston pavements,
drank, not the Cochituate, but the Belmont spring water, and breathed
the lusty air of my native northeasters.
My companion and I required an attendant, and we found one of those
useful androgynous personages known as courier-maids, who had
travelled with friends of ours, and who was ready to start with us at a
moment's warning. She was of English birth, lively, short-gaited,
serviceable, more especially in the first of her dual capacities. So far as
my wants were concerned, I found her zealous and active in providing
for my comfort.
It was no sooner announced in the papers that I was going to England
than I began to hear of preparations to welcome me. An invitation to a
club meeting was cabled across the Atlantic. One of my countrywomen
who has a house in London made an engagement for me to meet friends
at her residence. A reverend friend, who thought I had certain projects
in my head, wrote to me about lecturing: where I should appear, what
fees I should obtain, and such business matters. I replied that I was
going to England to spend money, not to make it; to hear speeches,
very possibly, but not to make them; to revisit scenes I had known in
my younger days; to get a little change of my routine, which I certainly
did; and to enjoy a little rest, which I as certainly did not, at least in
London. In a word, I wished a short vacation, and had no thought of
doing anything more important than rubbing a little rust off and
enjoying myself, while at the same time I could make my companion's
visit somewhat pleasanter than it would be if she went without me. The
visit has answered most of its purposes for both of us, and if we have
saved a few recollections which our friends can take any pleasure in
reading, this slight record may be considered a work of supererogation.
The Cephalonia was to sail at half past six in the morning, and at that
early hour a company of well-wishers was gathered on the wharf at
East Boston to bid us good-by. We took with us many tokens of their
thoughtful kindness; flowers and fruits from Boston and Cambridge,

and a basket of champagne from a Concord friend whose company is as
exhilarating as the sparkling wine he sent us. With the other gifts came
a small tin box, about as big as a common round wooden match box. I
supposed it to hold some pretty gimcrack, sent as a pleasant parting
token of remembrance. It proved to be a most valued daily companion,
useful at all times, never more so than when the winds were blowing
hard and the ship was struggling with the waves. There must have been
some magic secret in it, for I am sure that I looked five years younger
after closing that little box than when I opened it. Time will explain its
mysterious power.
All the usual provisions for comfort made by seagoing experts we had
attended to. Impermeable rugs and fleecy shawls, head-gear to defy the
rudest northeasters, sea-chairs of ample dimensions, which we took
care to place in as sheltered situations as we could find,--all these were
a matter of course. Everybody stays on deck as much as possible, and
lies wrapped up and spread out at full length on his or her sea-chair, so
that the deck looks as if it had a row of mummies on exhibition.
Nothing is more comfortable, nothing, I should say, more indispensable,
than a hot-water bag,--or rather, two hot-water bags; for they will burst
sometimes, as I found out, and a passenger who has become intimate
with one of these warm bosom friends feels its loss almost as if it were
human.
Passengers carry all sorts of luxuries on board, in the firm faith that
they shall be able to profit by them all. Friends send them various
indigestibles. To many all these well-meant preparations soon become
a mockery, almost an insult. It is a clear case of Sic(k) vos non vobis.
The tougher neighbor is the gainer by these acts of kindness;