Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 48, June, 1854

When vegetables are preserved in vinegar, they form _pickles_. When sugar is the preserving medium, they are variously named according to the mode of preparation. Fruits, flowers, herbs, roots, and juices, boiled with sugar or syrup, and employed in pharmacy, as well as for sweetmeats, are called _confections_ (Latin, _conficere_, to make up). _Liquid confects_ consist of fruits, either whole or in pieces, preserved by immersion in fluid transparent syrup: apricots, green citrons, and some foreign fruits, are treated in this way. _Dry confects_ are prepared by boiling in syrup those parts of vegetables adapted to this method, such as citron and orange-peel, &c.; they are then taken out and dried in an oven. _Marmalades_, _jams_, and _pastes_ are soft compounds made of the pulp of fruits, or other vegetable substances, beaten up with sugar or honey; oranges, apricots, pears, &c., are treated in this way. _Jellies_ are the juices of fruits--currants, gooseberries, apples, &c.--boiled with sugar to such a consistence as, on cooling, to form a trembling jelly. _Conserves_ are dry confects, made by beating up flowers, fruits, &c. with sugar not dissolved. _Candies_ are fruits candied over with sugar, after having been boiled in the syrup.

The best syrup for preserving fruits is made by dissolving two parts of double-refined sugar in one part of water, boiling a little, skimming, and filtering through a cloth. This gives a good smooth syrup, which does not readily ferment nor crystallize.

The specimens of preserved food in the Great Exhibition were exceedingly numerous; they included animal and vegetable productions, fruits, &c. One interesting specimen was a canister containing boiled mutton, prepared by the exhibitor, Mr. Gamble, for the Arctic Expedition in 1824. A large number of these canisters were landed from the ship _Fury_, on the beach where the ship was wrecked in Prince Regent's Inlet, and were found by Captain Sir John Ross in August, 1833, in a state of perfect preservation, although annually exposed to a temperature of 92° below, and 80° above zero. Had it not been for the large store of provisions left by Parry near the spot where the _Fury_ was wrecked, Ross's expedition must have perished.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Hence the term employed by Liebig and his followers, _eremacausis_, or _slow-burning_.]

[Footnote 2: "The colorless, fresh-cut surfaces of a potato, of a turnip, or of an apple, when exposed to the air, soon become brown. In all such substances, the presence of a certain quantity of water, by which the molecules are enabled to move freely on one another, is a condition necessary to the production, by temporary contact with air, of a change in form and composition, a resolving of the original body into new products, which continues uninterrupted till no part of the original compound is left. This process has been distinguished by the name of _putrefaction_."--_Liebig._]

[Footnote 3: The flour and biscuit which are taken out to sea in the British navy are packed in casks of wrought-iron. These were formerly painted, to prevent rust, and also to make them water-tight; but the paint was found to give a bad taste to the flour, &c., and they are now coated outside with a waterproof composition of caoutchouc, black resin, and Venice turpentine.]

THE PEDESTRIAN TOUR.

BY PAULINE FORSYTH.

BETWEEN the projecting a scheme in the mind and its actual accomplishing, the difference is as great as that between the appearance of some Eastern city seen from a distance in the moonlight, with its picturesque domes and minarets silvered by the rays that throw over the darkest spots an unreal glamour of purity and brightness, and the same place viewed in the broad daylight, while standing in the midst of its narrow and dirty streets. It is as if we had devised some airy palace, beautiful and complete in its smallest details, and found ourselves, when going about to build it, with no materials ready but a little clay and a few stones and sticks, and those of the most crooked and unpliable materials. Few persons realize, before they are twenty-five, the resolutely prosaic actualities of the world as it is. Almost every one in his early youth is fully persuaded that he is about to perform an important part in some deeply interesting drama, and it is a hard lesson that disenchants him, and shows that he has been acting the part of Don Quixote with the world for Sancho Panzo.

Frederic Lanier was a young man of nineteen. His early life had been passed in the country; but when he was fifteen he had been sent to New York to complete his education, and to reside in the mean time with his uncle, Mr. Lawrence. The very day after his arrival in the city had been marked by an important event. He had seen Adelaide Marshall, and had fallen in love with her. This love had accompanied him during the one year he had spent at the High School, and his three succeeding ones at the college. The lady was six years older than himself, but that was an additional attraction. Her stately and graceful movements, her majestic presence, and the calm and regular beauty of her face, never lost their charm to him. He was too much in love to observe that in the light of her blue eyes there was no warmth, but a cold and critical scrutiny, and that her mouth closed with a severe and slightly satirical expression. She was to him a perfect Helen.

About soon to be elevated to the rank of a Senior, he had begun to think himself in a position to show his passion more openly than he had hitherto ventured to do. He little suspected that the lofty Adelaide had divined his feelings from the first, and had received his timid attentions with sensations of gratified pride and amusement that, unmingled with any softer feeling, promised little for the success of his suit. The lady, accustomed to admiration, considered all homage as her due; and, looking on Frederick Lanier as a mere boy, she talked to him familiarly when she so inclined, and made use of him in a gracious and royal manner without the slightest tender consideration for his feelings, or fear of the consequences. She had known many men and boys to fall in love with her, and, when they had found out that she did not and would not reciprocate their affection, the worst that had ever happened was that they had married somebody else; and this she calmly contemplated as the probable termination of Frederick Lanier's passion, while he was internally vowing a lifelong devotion to the lady of his heart.

He had discovered that she was to pass two or three weeks at the White Mountains during the month of July. He decided to arrange his summer wanderings so as to be there at the same time. Meantime, a vague desire to be alone, to feed on his own thoughts free from the importunate interruptions of even the members of his own family, induced him to follow the example of several of his college companions, and undertake a pedestrian tour.

This proposal was not received with any approbation by his uncle's family.

"Now, Fred," said his cousin Emily, "this is too bad. We were going to have such a pleasant time at Lake George this summer, and had relied upon you to go with us. Father will have to be away a great deal, and I am sure I don't know what we shall do without you to go about with us. I have asked Bessie Graham to accompany us, too, and I particularly wanted you to become better acquainted with her."

"Bessie Graham! Why, she is a little girl."

"She is nearly seventeen," replied Emily.

"Well, she is a very small specimen of womankind, and I have no particular admiration for little women; besides, she is somewhat of a chatter-box, is she not?"

"She talks a little, but not too much," was the reply.

"And laughs a great deal. I like dignified manners better."

"For instance, Miss Adelaide Marshall's," said Emily, with a little irritation in her tone. "You are going to the White Mountains, you say?"

"Yes."

"And I heard Miss Marshall say, the other day, that she intended to pass two or three weeks there; so that accounts for your plan. It is a most absurd fancy of yours to fall in love with that iceberg. I have as much expectation of seeing you return with Mount Washington in your pocket, as with Miss Marshall on your arm."

Frederick Lanier grew red even to the tips of his ears with embarrassed indignation at thus having the most cherished secret of his heart rudely laid bare to the light of common day. He became only the more determined to escape, where he could dwell in peace on the one idea that engrossed all his thoughts.

"When do you think of leaving?" asked Emily.

"To-morrow," he replied.

"And Bessie comes the day after. And when will you return?"

"Perhaps by the last week in August."

"And Bessie will be gone by that time. It is too bad!"

"I do not understand what Bessie Graham has to do with my movements. I might change my plans to suit you, Emily, but not a little chattering thing like your friend."

Emily said nothing; she had had schemes of her own, and Frederick had completely destroyed them, but she deigned no explanation.

"I think of going along the Hudson River until I reach the northern extremity of the State, when I shall cross over to the Green Mountains in Vermont, and go through that State into New Hampshire. I hope to find myself at the foot of the White Mountains by the middle of July."

"The very time Miss Marshall expects to arrive there. She is going on horseback with her brother. Her mother and sister are to accompany them in the carriage."

"Ah!" said Frederick, endeavoring, in a most transparently artful manner, to appear ignorant and indifferent.

"If you are going so soon," said his aunt, "we had better see if your wardrobe is in a fit state for so long an absence."

"I shall need very little," replied Frederick; "the less the better, as I intend to carry it myself."

"I have a little light valise I can lend you," said a cousin of his, John Williams, who happened to be passing the evening there.

The offer was accepted, and the rest of the time was passed in discussing the many delightful and romantic adventures that pedestrian tourists have met with both in Europe and America.

With a heart full of hope and joyous expectation, Frederick took his valise and a stout stick, with which all prudent pedestrians provide themselves, and saw with delight the dusty pavements merging into the dustier road, and the houses becoming more and more widely separated.

He had intended to choose the byways rather than the main road, and to make it convenient to stop at farm-houses instead of the country taverns along his route, thinking by this means to be able to see more of the people, and to gain a little insight into habits and customs with which he felt as though he ought to be somewhat more familiar. He had anticipated a great deal of pleasure from the variety of character and mode of life which would thus be brought under his notice; but his first attempt proved so unsatisfactory, that he gave up all farther idea of intruding on the privacy of those who were unprepared for receiving strangers.

He had stopped at a farm-house, and asked if he could be lodged for the night just at eight o'clock. He found the occupants preparing to retire, and, though they made him welcome, and entertained him hospitably, yet he could not help perceiving that he gave them additional trouble; and, when he found that they would not receive payment for it, he decided that it was a false position in which he had placed himself, and that nothing but necessity should induce him to adopt the same course again. He lacked the cheerful assurance with which some men can make themselves at home anywhere, without a suspicion that others are not equally pleased with their society.

The next morning, feeling rather footsore and unrefreshed, after his unusual exertions of the day before, Frederick took advantage of a stage that was going in the same direction with himself, and rode to the village in which he had decided to pass the night. Here he amused himself by wandering about the beautiful and romantic country around, and returning when he was weary to the country inn. This he found so much easier and pleasanter a mode of travelling than the fatiguing one of walking, that he went almost to the foot of the Green Mountains before he thought of resuming it. Then, ashamed of his faint-heartedness, he left the stage, and, shouldering his valise again, he walked for some hours quite vigorously.

He entered the little village of Hillsdale just as the moon was rising, and, after a supper such as none but a pedestrian could eat, he strolled out to enjoy the loveliness of the summer evening and his own meditations, by the banks of a clear and rapid stream, the beauty of which had attracted his notice as he was entering the village. He walked for some distance up its banks, and then, throwing himself down on a grassy mound, he lay in a sort of musing trance, watching the moonlight shimmering on the flashing waters, and listening to the tinkling music of their flow, while his imagination was busily engaged in inventing deeds of heroism and chivalric daring, by which he fancied himself proving to the lady of his love that he was worthy of one so noble and high-souled.

Midnight stole unawares upon him while thus engaged, and, with reluctant steps, he sought the Eagle Hotel, where he had decided to pass the night. A decision not difficult to arrive at, as there was no other public house in the place. The next morning he discovered, to his great annoyance, that he had lost his purse in his evening ramble. He sought for it in vain; and when the landlord, conjecturing from his movements that he was about to depart, asked him if he would like his bill, he could not help a guilty conscious feeling stealing over him as he tried to answer, in an off-hand way, that he intended to pass a few days in Hillsdale.

If Frederick Lanier had not been so unaccustomed to the ways of the world, he would have stated his situation frankly to the landlord, and then have made himself easy until he could receive remittances from home. But, as it was, he kept his affairs to himself; and, while waiting for an answer to the letter he had written home, he went in and out, took his meals, read the paper, and did his best to pass the time away without addressing a remark to any one.

It struck him that he had never been among people quite so rural and primitive, and he was right. But, as the arrival of a stranger was a rare event among them, so he was of proportionate importance. And they were also gifted with the usual sociability of the New Englanders; and a young man that did not seem inclined to tell who he was, and where he came from, and where he was going to, and seemed to have nothing to do but to go regularly to the post-office, and then with his fishing-rod to the river, from which he always returned empty-handed, was an object of wonder and suspicion.

Frederick Lanier, unconscious of the speculations of which he was the object, began to be greatly worried and perplexed by not receiving the letter for which he was anxiously waiting. He grew daily more restless and uneasy.

"He's got a bad conscience, depend upon it," said the landlord, oracularly, as he sat in the midst of his satellites and customers listening to the hasty strides with which Frederick Lanier was pacing up and down the room over their heads.

At length a paragraph in a newspaper brought their suspicions to an open expression.

"That's him, depend upon it," said the landlord. "James Wilson. J. W.; them's the very letters on his portmantle. Five hundred dollars reward. That will be doin' a pretty good business for one day."

"Are you going to take him up, Squire?" asked one of the men in the bar-room.

"Certingly. Think I am going to let such a chance slip through my fingers? It's him--it's as like him as two peas. Read that, friend," continued the landlord, addressing himself to Frederick as he was going hastily through the room, and planting himself so that the young man could not pass him.

Frederick took the paper, and read an advertisement offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of a clerk in a bank of a neighboring town, who had absconded with two or three thousand dollars. As Frederick glanced over the description of the runaway, it struck him that James Wilson must have been rather an ill-looking fellow. A broad-shouldered, down-looking, dark-haired, swarthy-complexioned man would be rather an unpleasant person to meet in a lonely place, he thought. He returned the paper to the landlord, saying, carelessly--

"Do you think there is any probability that the thief will be taken?"

"Well, I guess so, if we look sharp."

Something in the landlord's tone struck Frederick disagreeably. He glanced around, and the distrustful, watchful expression on the countenances of those about him revealed at once the nature of the suspicions against him.

"You surely do not suspect me of being this James Wilson?" asked he, in surprise.

"I guess you'll have hard work to prove that you are anything else. What is your name?"

"Frederick Lanier."

"And what business do you follow?"

"I am a student in New York city. My uncle, with whom I reside there, is Mr. Oliver Lawrence. You may have heard of him?"

But no. Well known as Mr. Lawrence was in Wall Street, his reputation did not extend to Hillsdale. Frederick saw that the mention of his uncle's name produced no effect. He glanced again over the description of the defaulter.

"I surely am neither swarthy nor down-looking," said he, catching at a straw.

"Wall, I don't think you be 'ither," said a young man, who seemed to look with some compassion on Frederick in his painful position.

"Asa Cutting, who asked your opinion?" said the landlord, magisterially. "Young man," continued he to Frederick, "I hain't once seen the color of your eyes sence you've ben in my house."

He must have seen them at that moment, for they were bent on him full of flashing indignation. But he went on.

"If you are a college-larnt young man, you can read Greek most likely?"

"Yes."

"Wall, I've got a Greek book here that I would like to have you read out of."

And, after some searching, a small book bound in paper was handed to Frederick. He took it readily, hoping to prove by his scholarship the truth of his assertions. To his disappointment, it was a little Chinese or Japanese pamphlet that had found its way to this remote place.

"This is not Greek; it is Chinese," said he.

"Hum!" said the landlord, in a tone of contempt; "that jest shows how much you know about it. If that ain't Greek, I would like to know what is. Do you ever see paper like that nowadays? That's Greek paper; it was invented ages before Chiny was ever heard of."

"Wall," said Asa Cutting, "I always have thought that them scratches in that book that pass for letters were jest like the scratches on the tea-chists in my store."

"Asa Cutting, what you think is nothin' to nobody, and what you say had better be the same. Young man, sence Greek is unbeknown to you, may be you'll have better luck with Latin."

"I can read Latin," said Frederick, modestly.

"Do you see them letters on my sign? You can read them out of the window here."

"You mean the motto, '_E pluribus unum_,' I suppose?" said Frederick.

"Yes," said the landlord. "What do they stand for now?"

"'One of many,'" said Frederick.

"I thought how it would be," exclaimed the landlord, triumphantly. "'One of many!' What, in the name of common sense, does that mean? No, young man; don't you see they are put under the eagle, and they mean, 'The eagle's flight is out of sight?'"

"I think you are mistaken, Square," said the pertinacious Asa; "I am sure the stranger is right."