Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867

Tableau 1. Captain John Smith (Miss Euphrosyne de Lacy) was to be represented prostrate and bound, ready for execution; Powhatan (Miss Florence Smythe) sitting upon a log; savages with clubs (Misses Clara Browne, A. Van Boodle, E. Van Boodle, Heister, Booster, etc., etc.) standing around; Pocahontas holding the knife in her hand, ready to cut the cords with which Captain John Smith is bound.—Curtain.

Tableau 2. Captain John Smith released and kneeling before Pocahontas, whose hand is extended in the act of raising him and presenting him to her father. Savages in various attitudes of surprise. Clubs fallen from their hands. Strontian flame to be kindled.—Curtain.

This was a portion of the programme for the evening, as arranged behind the scenes. The first part went off with wonderful éclat , and at its close there were loud cries for Pocahontas. She appeared for a moment. Bouquets were flung to her; and a wreath, which one of the young ladies had expected for herself in another part, was tossed upon the stage, and laid at her feet. The curtain fell.

"Put the wreath on her for the next tableau ," some of them whispered, just as the curtain was going to rise, and one of the girls hastened to place it upon her head.

The disappointed young lady could not endure it, and, in a spasm of jealous passion, sprang at Myrtle, snatched it from her head, and trampled it under her feet at the very instant the curtain was rising. With a cry which some said had the blood-chilling tone of an Indian's battle-shriek, Myrtle caught the knife up, and raised her arm against the girl who had thus rudely assailed her. The girl sank to the ground, covering her eyes in her terror. Myrtle, with her arm still lifted, and the blade glistening in her hand, stood over her, rigid as if she had been suddenly changed to stone. Many of those looking on thought all this was a part of the show, and were thrilled with the wonderful acting. Before those immediately around her had had time to recover from the palsy of their fright, Myrtle had flung the knife away from her, and was kneeling, her head bowed and her hands crossed upon her breast. The audience went into a rapture of applause as the curtain came suddenly down; but Myrtle had forgotten all but the dread peril she had just passed, and was thanking God that his angel—her own protecting spirit, as it seemed to her—had stayed the arm which a passion such as her nature had never known, such as she believed was alien to her truest self, had lifted with deadliest purpose. She alone knew how extreme the danger had been. "She meant to scare her,—that's all," they said. But Myrtle tore the eagle's feathers from her hair, and stripped off her colored beads, and threw off her painted robe. The metempsychosis was far too real for her to let her wear the semblance of the savage from whom, as she believed, had come the lawless impulse at the thought of which her soul recoiled in horror.

"Pocahontas has got a horrid headache," the managing young ladies gave it out, "and can't come to time for the last tableau ." So this all passed over, not only without loss of credit to Myrtle, but with no small addition to her local fame,—for it must have been acting; and "wasn't it stunning to see her with that knife, looking as if she was going to stab Bella, or to scalp her, or something?"

As Master Gridley had predicted, and as is the case commonly with new-comers at colleges and schools, Myrtle came first in contact with those who were least agreeable to meet. The low-bred youth who amuse themselves with scurvy tricks on freshmen, and the vulgar girls who try to show off their gentility to those whom they think less important than themselves, are exceptions in every institution; but they make themselves odiously prominent before the quiet and modest young people have had time to gain the new scholar's confidence. Myrtle found friends in due time, some of them daughters of rich people, some poor girls, who came with the same sincerity of purpose as herself. But not one was her match in the facility of acquiring knowledge. Not one promised to make such a mark in society, if she found an opening into its loftier circles. She was by no means ignorant of her natural gifts, and she cultivated them with the ambition which would not let her rest.

During the year she spent in the great school, she made but one visit to Oxbow Village. She did not try to startle the good people with her accomplishments, but they were surprised at the change which had taken place in her. Her dress was hardly more showy, for she was but a school-girl, but it fitted her more gracefully. She had gained a softness of expression, and an ease in conversation, which produced their effect on all with whom she came in contact. Her aunt's voice lost something of its plaintiveness in talking with her. Miss Cynthia listened with involuntary interest to her stories of school and schoolmates. Master Byles Gridley accepted her as the great success of his life, and determined to make her his sole heiress, if there was any occasion for so doing. Cyprian told Bathsheba that Myrtle must come to be a great lady. Gifted Hopkins confessed to Susan Posey that he was afraid of her, since she had been to the great city school. She knew too much, and looked too much like a queen, for a village boy to talk with.

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw tried all his fascinations upon her, but she parried compliments so well, and put off all his nearer advances so dexterously, that he could not advance beyond the region of florid courtesy, and never got a chance, if so disposed, to risk a question which he would not ask rashly, believing that, if Myrtle once said No , there would be little chance of her ever saying Yes .

When the first wave of patriotism rolled over the land at the outbreak of the late Rebellion, fathers and mothers were proudly willing to send forth sons and daughters to take their part in the struggle. The young men were speedily marshalled and marched to the scene of action; but the young women were not so fortunate in getting off to places in the hospitals before the first ardor of excitement had cooled. Indeed, all hospital organization was in such an imperfect state that no definite plan could be made for ladies desiring to enter upon the good work.

Then came grave doubts from sage heads as to the propriety and expediency of young women's going at all. One said that they would always be standing in the way of the doctors; another, that they would run at the first glimpse of a wounded man, or certainly faint at sight of a surgical instrument; others still, that no woman's strength could endure for a week the demands of hospital life. In fact, it was looked upon as the most fanatical folly, and suggestions were made that at least a slight experiment of hospital horrors ought to be made before starting on such a mad career. Accordingly, in Boston, a few who cherished the project most earnestly began a series of daily visits to the Massachusetts General Hospital. To the courtesy and kindness of Dr. B. S. Shaw and the attending surgeons,—especially Dr. J. Mason Warren,—these novices were indebted for the privilege of witnessing operations and being taught the art of dressing wounds. The omission of fainting on the part of the new pupils rather disappointed general expectation; and though the knowledge gained in a few weeks was superficial, yet for practical purposes the nurses were not deemed totally incompetent.

After receiving a certificate of fitness for the work from medical authority, it was discouraging at last to be denied the consent of parents. However, some favored ones went forth, and, returning home in a few months, brought back such accounts of satisfaction in finding themselves of use, and of their enjoyment in ministering to our suffering soldiers, that at length the prejudices which withheld consent were overcome, and one of the last of those who went was allowed to take part in the most interesting duties to which the war called women.