OCTOBER hath 31 days THERE was a time when still rhymed to the wild Rib that had made her, Woman was atune to every Adder, every Lion, every Tiger, every Wood thing, every Water-wight, every Sky-wanderer; every Apple was to her a whole Superstition, and to quiet and to tame that Bone, she whispered "Lord! Lord!" But yet a little while and she is most grisly impudent. As the Earth sucked down her Generations, Body for Body, became she less hollow for the Lord's priming. Any prating Fellow with a Lute at bottom, a handful of Frills, a Knee turned out and a sweeping Feather, could, in one Verse, sing her full of Earth, and indeed for what our Minstrels have to account themselves guilty, will perhaps, with the Tibia of Caesar, lie unchartered in the Tomb of no Man's memory a long lethal Æon. He was Lord-my-own and Cock-Sparrow of her trembling, he was both Adder in the Grass and Pippin on the Bough, he was the rush waving and the Bolt upon the Door, and the exceeding crammed Larder wherein she sat filching, a nibbling Mouse of Pang and Pang again. And yet by yet a Body and a Body went under, and she lost both God and man. So deviled of Appetite that no Food was her winning Portion. God passed, and Man passed and Maternity went by as but the Dust under the Heel of wan marching, and she saw herself becoming thin Batter and no-why's Bread, and she leaned at her Casement and wept most bitterly. She climbed down the Stairs, by Stair made her moan, and into the Streets went by Lamp-post and Pillar, singing and sobbing: "Auprès de ma blonde!" by Haberdasher and Butcher. At every Gate and Post she lamented and hummed, her Hands upon the Copings, passing and bewailing, and went yet further and heard the Lark singing, and listened until it was the Heron crying by the Sedges, and the nightfall's true rising nightly nightingale. The Birds were off the Earth, and the Sky covered with Claws going South, a she sat where the Wheat sprang not and was now a Cud in a Winter Mouth, and she saw that her Years were mounting, and she returned homeward, and Godless and fearless, made Fear and a God of the yellow Hair of Dame Musset, wandering about the grassless Sods of her Garden, leaning aver and anon upon the Sun-dial without its Hours, or bending over the Fountain that never poured forth that gentle Spray for which it and she were pining, or just plain walking, her Hands well wrapped in the Folds of her dust-colored man-saver, or, as it was originally registered and patent applied for, Winter-woolens-for-the-Woman-over-forty. Did then Daisy Downpour, for so she might as well be called as any other, let down her mouse-colored-insufficient-hemi-spherical-quantity of Hair, thrilled loose a Shoulder, thus exposing to the gaze of Dame Musset (had she looked) the machine-hooked glory of a Pair of near-pink Undergarments, most luringly loosened in the Weave at full good four Points. "If this," said Daisy, "does not secure me God, then a linen Rose tossed at my Love's hour of Need, should bring her to my Surface!" And casting it, Dame Musset went around and around. Under Foot it went, and down into the Earth, and there descended, Dame Musset still pacing and thinking of a Girl's Eye from which she had skimmed the Milk of Love, and whether she should again promenade the Impasse des deux Anges, and trust to the Bed-airing instincts of the said Girl, to bring her in Mob-cap, and all June of Bosom to the utter third-storey Window left, from which point of Vantage Dame Musset had first seen her winking a House-wife's Eye at the little Scullion in the Pantry Window opposite, from whom the Bed-airer had removed her Wiles and Ways for a short yet thrifty Glance in the direction of Musset, --or should she not? For Flank on Flank, Jew on Christian, had bedded throughout her gentle Fore-fathers to the tune of many an aristocratic Artery athwart many a crude Civilian, to give her the uncertainty now in the Hooves of her Feet, one Heathen and one Gentlewoman, and to make her yet Angle before she stopped to think and to withdraw the Bait from thick Waters and from thin, pleased in the one vein with the Housemaid and in the other sighing for Quality. Nay, it was beneath her! As was also the prying, overlooking Eye of Daisy Downpour, for she was known in the Arrondissement as Corset maker, and a woman so much of the People that she had clung to them, Palm on Palm, down to the very first, who had decided to plant Orchids in his Bean-rows, and thus started all the strain of difference between a Lady and no Lady at all. "Alas and alas!" sighed Dame Musset, "to think that blue Blood should set so many out of reach! Yet were I one of the direct Peerage, could I not confer the Order of the Garter upon her, thus bring her, like a Calf on a Rope, slowly balking to my Bed, through the Land unknown, over the hedges of How-So, slipping and sliding past the Zone of unfit, in by a Leg at least, until incarnation by generation, the Calf becomes the Bird of Paradise, to lean all moulting Love upon my Spartan Chest, there to pluck at my heart's Armour, until the Visor is lifted--but no!" thought she, "I get my Armoury mixed, that is another Spot!" Still she paced. "If," said she, "I could mould the Pot nearer to the Heart's desire, I would have my Scullion's Eye lie in the Head of Billings-On-Coo, with the Breasts of Haughty on the Hips of Doll, on the Leg of Moll, with the Shins of Mazie, under the Scullion's Eye which lies in the Head of Billings-On-Coo. The Buttocks of a Girl I saw take a slip and slither one peelish day in Fall, when on her way to Devotion in side Aisles of the Church of the St Germain des Prés, to lie on the back of the Hips of Doll, on the Leg of Moll, whose Shins are Mazie's, all under the Eye of the Scullion, Etc., and the rowdy Parts of a scampering Jade in Pluckford Place, on the front of the Back that was a Girl seen one peelish day, all under the Scullion's Eye, with the Breasts of Haughty on the Hips of Doll, with the Leg of Moll, whose Shins are Mazie's, all under the Scullion's Eye, in the Head of Billings-on-Coo. But the Hand," she said, "must be Queen Anne's, to smooth down the Dress with the rightful and elegant Gesture necessary to cover the Hip that was and the rowdy Part, etc., and the things that there were done! Oh monstrous Pot!" she sighed, "oh heinous Potter, oh refined, refined, refined Joke, that once smashed to bits it must go a go-going, and when once concocted must eternally be by another's Whim! We should be able to order our Ladies as we would, and not as they come. Could any haphazard be as choice as I could pick and prefer, if this Dearing were left scattered about at Leg-counter and Head-rack? Ah, how I could choose were I not floor-walked and pounced upon at every Step!" Yet never by so much as a Feature did she choose, in her roving, one Tendon, nay not so much as a Sternum bone or a coxal of Daisy Downpour; and by so much Indifference, packed down on Scorn, became she first God, then God Almighty, then God Dumbfounding, and still later God help us, and finally God Damn to Daisy Downpour. Year on Year she leaned in her pink hook-weave Under-kirtel, singing, "Auprès de ma Blonde," and Autumn by Autumn tossed a tattered linen Rose, and age by age became more God-haunted and Demon-seeking, until Dame Musset, who was in a way an Amazon unhorsed, feared her more than she noticed her, and noticed her yet more than she liked her, and liked her not at all. "That woman," said she to her Folly, Señorita Fly-About, "knows when I go and come, when I bed and when I arise, and all she has asked of me these ten Years is that on the Day I shall find a need of her, I shall place a Pot of Geraniums on my Sill, and she will come flying to me, a Drupe of a Juno in Flannels, to thaw me down, shall I, as I Say but hint that State by the simplest Pot of rosy Geraniums set out upon my Sill, and has turned her Eye that way so long and so tirelessly that I dread me one of these days she will fancy the Flower into growing there indeed, and for such a Catastrophe" she said, sinking into her Furs, and drawing a duvet about her, "I shall need Friends, Friends of a noble Tarnish, as flocking as Shad-roe, and all of them stout of Heart, high and sharp of Heel. All Women," she apostrophised, "are not Women all, and I fear that, in yonder Bosom leaning upon her Casement, grows a Garden of Hope, and that with it she would crown and feather me with the Pinions of celestial Glory only to destroy me with these same Implements, for in the Mind," said she, "of the Woman lost twice there is only one Furrow in which to grow a Seed, and much dead Matter to nourish it, and alas! in that mundane Skull, that Fontanel of Baby-lady-woman, grows one Weed, myself!" "Be not afraid," twittered Mazie Tuck-and-Frill, "you shall be well surrounded." "God help us!" said Patience Scalpel, draining her Glass, "not one good hammer-throwing, discus-casting, coxy Prepuce amongst you!" "Oh wry Luck and wrong cast! Is the Belly-strap of Venus to slip Sling and slew me to my dimming? Am I to be cuddled to the Grave in three Pins and a Yard of warm Woman's Pelt?" cried Dame Musset. "All in my willy-nilly years, when I should find Custom only, and never a sly waylaying Drab in the dark to gin and make a catch of me, no longing lingering at Turnstile and Toll-gate, at Door-lock and Key-hole!" "Time passes," said Patience. * SPRING FEVERS, LOVE PHILTERS AND WINTER FEASTS NOW, was it the same in the Hap-hour of the World, when whelks whispered in the brink of the Night, rocked in the Cradle of Time's Ditch, taking their Will-of-the-wisp, all in a flux of Tenses and Turns? The simplicity of their nature was upon them, Cap and Shoe. What they gave out was but the Earth given bide, until some billion of improving Years later, having toiled for the worse, and having made a stink of Advancement, became Queen-Man and King-Woman, under the Bells of the Bride's Wake, and Corpse Sleep, with Butter and Mustard on their Alms-bread for Charity, snitching in Larder cold end upon cold end of most comical Mutton, to fatten the lift to a Strumpet's turn, or buck up her Roup with promise of Glut, bridling her Kick with the trace of Contention; the Snood upon her a jiffy too late; greasing the Firkin for the Passover plate--from Slime unto Dream one long Mystery of Æons-pot, steaming on the Hip of the Lamb, bringing us forward, hand over hand, up to the Standard, baa upon bleat, until, we say, we have it presented to us on an Anno Domini Salver, that Christians now think nothing of head-dipping to bite the Pippin in tub-water and Cow's-trough; while but a thought backward the Heathen, lang syne, heaped Mystic on Magic, to bring about the same end--will she or won't he? So Philters and Drams, and which-ways for Maidens all forlorn in tatters of Love's hope. Drain they not draughts of last Year's Snow, of late year's Bitter, tainted with Sassifras and sickened with Shag, to wax the rough Highway on which Love balks at a canter, to make them a byword of she loves me, he loves me, and the not to the not? Some go in Weal Chains and Woe Anchors, neck tied and night worn, Thumb worried and Lip lavished for the good it may cast up on the Knees of the Morrow, or on the Neck of the stiff God of Chance. But Philter by falter, and Hope upon Clutch, and the more Peels spilt over Shoulder the more spelled of a Girl. And saying riddle me this, or meddle me that, contriving the Potion as ever you may, hiccup hic jacet, brings up nothing but naught with a Dear on its back. Was there a whisper of Ellen or Mary, of Rachel or Gretchen, of Tao or Hedda or Bellorinabella y Bellorella, or Tancred of Injen in the Old Winds, or of Wives whispering a thing to a Wife? What's in a name before Christ? Were all Giants' doings a Man's, and no mountain-top moultings of a Goblin well-papped to the Heel? To say nothing and less of Myths Tongue-tied with Girl-talk, or a petal of Dog-fennel seeking a bi-fatal Breeze? Blowing inland for Trace, and out-ocean for Scent, and nosing to Ground for Spoor of her want? Higg over Bluff, and jogg over Moor, prancing down Gullies and preen up an Alley. Whirling and hooting of a Miss with her Missus? No Time without God, no end without Christ! In Cave's Mouth it was bruited as Love-by-a-hair, when the Thigh-bone of Mother brought Daughter to rights, and the Breastbone of wishings, made Weaksisters at home. We have it clipped from a grass Breeze, and gleaned from a Bluff's brow, Leaf upon Leaf, incredible Autumns deep, forgotten by all but the Blood-hounds of deduction, that Priscilla herself was prone to a Distaff, and garbled her John for her Jenny in Cupboard would get no Dog a Bone. Winter feast on Summer starve bring all Brooks to churning, and pass the Whey as ever you may, your Hands will print the Butterspot on the Foolscap of confession. So eat your Winter Lettuce, and say your Spring Beads, seek your Mirror, or stand in the cold at the hour of Midnight, or put what you will under your Pillow to know what you can in the Dawn of it, or see the Moon over your Shoulder, roving and hunting the world for an Omen, you'll get her, you'll have her, you'll take her and lose her, you'll miss by an Item, and over-reach by a Yard, undervalue, overestimate, hotbed or cold! The Branch does not bend unless for a passing, and some must go first, and some must come after. And how is the Jungle so twig-thick and underfoot, if not because a Bison, and a Bison and a Bison went by? So take the first Hair from your Head, and boil it with Mare's milk and wrap in a Napkin and bring the Goat inside out, then till the old Mother of six pans of her Earth, and next to the fur-side, lay the Nap to the Horns' end, and thereover cast a peep of No-Doubting-Sappho, blinked from the Stews of Secret Greek Broth, and some Rennet of Lesbos to force a get-up in the near Resurrection, and put on a Horseshoe to ride Luck's Mare at a Gallop a trot, and when the Mass bubbles and at the River's lip quivers, call it dear Cyprian, and take her under your Wing on the warm side, and but her no buts! Or would you less Trouble? Away Girl! *