Part 11

As a rule, Patience spells the words in accordance with the standards of today, but there are frequent departures from those standards, and many times she has spelled a word two or three different ways in the same composition. For example, she will spell “spin” with one n or two n’s indifferently: she will spell “friend” correctly, and a little later will add an e to it; she will write “boughs” and “bows” in the same composition. On the other hand she invariably spells tongue “tung,” and positively refuses to change it, and this is true also of the word bosom, which she spells “busom.”

There are indications that the poems and the stories are in course of composition at the time they are being produced on the ouija board. Indeed, one can almost imagine the author dictating to an amanuensis in the manner that was necessary before stenography was invented, when every word had to be spelled out in longhand. At times the little table will move with such rapidity that it is very difficult to follow its point with the eye and catch the letter indicated. Then there will be a pause, and the pointer will circle around the board, as if the composer were trying to decide upon a word or a phrase. Occasionally four or five words of a sentence will be given, then suddenly the planchette will dart up to the word “No,” and begin the sentence again with different and, it is to be presumed, more satisfactory words.

Sometimes, though rarely, Patience will begin a composition and suddenly abandon it with an exclamation of displeasure, or else take up a new and entirely different subject. Once she began a prose composition thus:

“I waste my substance on the weaving of web and the storing of pebbles. When shall I build mine house, and when fill the purse? Oh, that my fancy weaved not but web, and desire pricketh not but pebble!”

There was an impatient dash across the board, and then she exclaimed:

“Bah, ’tis bally reasoning! I plucked a gosling for a goose, and found down enough to pad the parson’s saddle skirts!”

At another time she began:

“Rain, art thou the tears wept a thousand years agone, and soaked into the granite walls of dumb and feelingless races? Now——”

There was a long pause and then came this lullaby:

Oh, baby, soft upon my breast press thou, And let my fluttering throat spell song to thee, A song that floweth so, my sleeping dear: Oh, buttercups of eve, Oh, willynilly, My song shall flutter on, Oh, willynilly. I climb a web to reach a star, And stub my toe against a moonbeam Stretched to bar my way, Oh, willynilly. A love-puff vine shall shelter us, Oh, baby mine; And then across the sky we’ll float And puff the stars away. Oh, willynilly, on we’ll go, Willynilly floating.

“Thee art o’erfed on pudding,” she added to Mrs. Curran. “This sauce is but a butter-whip.”

And now, having briefly referred to the technique of the poems, and explained the manner in which they are transmitted we will make a more systematic presentation of them. For a beginning, nothing better could be offered than the Spinning Wheel lullaby heretofore referred to.

In it we can see the mother of, perhaps, the Puritan days, seated at the spinning wheel while she sings to the child which is supposed to lie in the cradle by her side. One can view through the open door the old-fashioned flower garden bathed in sunlight, can hear the song of the bird and the hum of the bee, and through it all the sound of the wheel. But!—it is the song of a childless woman to an imaginary babe: Patience has declared herself a spinster.

Strumm, strumm! Ah, wee one, Croon unto the tendrill tipped with sungilt, Nodding thee from o’er the doorsill there.

Strumm, strumm! My wheel shall sing to thee. I pull the flax as golden as thy curl, And sing me of the blossoms blue, Their promise, like thine eyes to me.

Strumm, strumm! ’Tis such a merry tale I spinn. Ah, wee one, croon unto the honey bee Who diggeth at the rose’s heart.

Strumm, strumm! My wheel shall sing to thee, Heart-blossom mine. The sunny morn Doth hum with lovelilt, dear. I fain would leave my spinning To the spider climbing there, And bruise thee, blossom, to my breast.

Strumm, strumm! What fancies I do weave! Thy dimpled hand doth flutter, dear, Like a petal cast adrift Upon the breeze.

Strumm, strumm! ’Tis faulty spinning, dear. A cradle built of thornwood, A nest for thee, my bird. I hear thy crooning, wee one, And ah, this fluttering heart.

Strumm, strumm! How ruthlessly I spinn! My wheel doth wirr an empty song, my dear, For tendrill nodding yonder Doth nod in vain, my sweet; And honey bee would tarry not For thee; and thornwood cradle swayeth Only to the loving of the wind!

Strumm, strumm! My wheel still sings to thee, Thou birdling of my fancy’s realm!

Strumm, strumm! An empty dream, my dear! The sun doth shine, my bird; Or should he fail, he shineth here Within my heart for thee!

Strumm, strumm! My wheel still sings to thee.

Who would say that rhyme or measured lines would add anything to this unique song? It is filled with the images which are the essentials of true poetry, and it has the rhythm which sets the imagery to music and gives it vitality. “The tendrill tipped with sungilt,” “the sunny morn doth hum with lovelilt,” “thy dimpled hand doth flutter like a petal cast adrift upon the breeze”—these are figures that a Shelley would not wish to disown. There is a lightness and delicacy, too, that would seem to be contrary to our notions of the adaptiveness of blank verse. But these are technical features. It is the pathos of the song, the expression of the mother-yearning instinctive in every woman, which gives it value to the heart.

And yet there is a pleasure expressed in this song, the pleasure of imagination, which makes the mind’s pictures living realities. In the poem which follows Patience expresses the feelings of the dreamer who is rudely awakened from this delightful pastime by the realist who sees but what his eyes behold:

Athin the even’s hour, When shadow purpleth the garden wall, Then sit thee there adream, And cunger thee from out the pack o’ me. Yea, speak thou, and tell to me What ’tis thou hearest here.

A rustling? Yea, aright! A murmuring? Yea, aright! Ah, then, thou sayest, ’tis the leaves That love one ’pon the other. Yea, and the murmuring, thou sayest, Is but the streamlet’s hum.

Nay, nay! For wait thee. Ayonder o’er the wall doth rise The white faced Sister o’ the Sky. And lo, she beareth thee a fairies’ wand, And showeth thee the ghosts o’ dreams.