Rip-Rap
Man, like a book, must have an index. He is divided into chapters, sections, pages, preface, and appendix; in size, quarto, octavo, or duodecimo, and bound in cloth, morocco antique, or half calf. The dress, the gait, the behavior are an index to the contents of this strange book, and give you the number of the page.
But I think we may also estimate character by the way one knocks at the door of a house, or rines the bell. We have friends whose coming is characteristically indicated by the sound at the door. They think to surprise us, but their first touch of the door reveals the secret, and we rush out in the hall, crying: “I knew it was you!” The greeting we receive at many a household is: “I knew the ring!”
We look with veneration at the old doorknocker, which, black with the stain of elements, and telling a story of many generations, hangs at the entrance of the homestead. It has none of the frivolous jingle of a modern door-bell. It never jokes, but speaks in tones monosyllabic, earnest, solemn, and always to the point. In olden times, the houses were wide apart, and people so busy it was not more than once or twice a week that the old iron clapper sounded at all, and then it would go off with such sudden bang that the whole family jumped, and wondered who was coming there.
The long-promised visit from a neighbor was to take place that night. The hickory-nuts were cracked, the cider was already in the pitcher, the apples were wiped, and the doughnuts piled up in the closet. The children sat at the fire waltlnor for the arrival of the quests. It seemed as if the visitors would never come; but at last, rousing up all the echoes of hall, and cellar, and garret, the long- silent knocker went Rip — 7’ap! and there was a shaking off of the snow, and running up stairs with hats, and pulling up of chairs at the hearth, and snuffing of candles, and hauling out of the knitting-work, and loud clatter and guffaw of voices, some of which have for a good while been still. At the first clap of the knocker, silence fell dead. There is a very festoon of memories hanging on the old door. The sailor-boy far at sea wonders if it looks just as It used to when he played on the sill, and imagines himself standing with his hand on the knocker, and in his dream is startled to hear it go off, waking up to find that it is only an ice-glazed rope in the rigging, going “Rip — rap! Rip — rap!”
The hearty, enthusiastic man always gives a characteristic ring. When he puts his hand on the knob, it seems as if the bell would go crazy. It flies up and down the house with racket, and after it seems to be about through, starts up again, as if it meant to apologize for stopping. The nurse runs down from the bedroom, and the cook comes up from the kitchen, and the children bend over the banisters, and the father, who was taking an afternoon nap, bounds to the floor, shouting: “What on earth Is the matter?” And you look at the clapper of the bell, and find it swinging yet, as if it were getting ready for another volley.
When our inanimate friend comes to see us, he makes no disturbance. His liver has for several years been on a strike, and his blood acts as if it would have stopped circulation entirely, but for its respect for William Harvey. In his ordinary walk, each step is so undecided that you know not whether he is going on, or is about to stop and spend the evening. As he pulls your bell, you hear the tongue creak in the socket, but no decided ring. You go out in the hall to see if the bell is in motion. You wait for a more decided demonstration, and in about five minutes there is just one, little, delicate tap that lets you know the gentleman at the door is still breathing. The door-bell imposes on such men, and hangs idly about, gossiping with bedroom and parlor bells, and deserves to have a good shaking.
Beggars have a characteristic knock. This man with a printed certificate that he was blown up with Vesuvius, and drowned in the Mississippi, and afterward killed on the New Jersey Central, and considerably injured in other respects, comes against your basementdoor with an emphasis indescribable. He feels that you have what belongs to him. His knuckles are hard by much practice. When he strikes your door, it means, “Stand and deliver!” But some night, about ten o’clock, you hear something at the basement. It is a cold night, and you think it is only the wind rattling the shutters; but after a while you hear it again — a faint tap, as though it were not made with the knuckle, but the nail of the little finger. You open the door, and before a word is returned, you read in her face: “No fire! No bread for the children! No coverlets to keep them warm! No hope!” She had been at a dozen doors before, but had knocked so softly there was no response. She did not dare to touch the bell lest it miorht with crarrulous tongue tell all her woe. Is any one watching that woman in the thin shawl? Did any ear listen to the craunch of that woman’s foot in the crisp snow? When she struck the nail of her little finger against the cold basementdoor, was the stroke drowned by the night-wind? No! It sounded fardier dian the heavy bang of the sturdy beggar — louder than the clang of forge, or pounding of gauntleted fist of warrior at casde - gate. Against the very door of heaven it struck, and sounded through the long, deep corridors of Infinite pity: “Rip — rap! Rip — rap!”
Children luill wake up early in the morning. Perhaps you have been disturbed in the night, and gone wandering around the room in your somnolent state, as much confused as ourselves on one occasion, when, at midnight, we heard a croupy cough in the nursery, and gave the ipecac to the wrong baby. Just as you begin your last morning nap, you hear a stir in the adjoining room. The trundle-bed is evidently discharging a lot of bare feet on the floor. You hear suppressed laughter at the door, slipping out into an occasional shout as one of them applies the force of a tickle to the bottom of the other’s feet. You are provoked to be interrupted at such unseasonable hours, and proclaim children a nuisance. You are glad that the door is locked. But they ratde the knob. They blow through the keyhole. They push slips of paper under the door, and, getting more and more bold, they knock. Ten fingers, tipped with the rosy tints of the morn, are running races up and down the panel. Your indignation begins to cool, and your determination not tO’ admit is giving way. The noise of fingers is intermingled with the stroke of dimpled fists. At last you open the door, and there bursts in a snow-flurry of night-gowns, and they bound along, brunette and blonde, wild as young Arabs. The lock that would have confounded burglar, and the bolt that strongest hand could not have broken, flew open at the touch of the tip - end of a baby’s finger.
The roughest knock that ever strikes the door is a sheriff’s knock as he comes to levy on the furniture. The gentlest knock is that of a comforter as she arrives to tell us of the good times coming. The gladdest, merriest ring of the door-bell is at the holiday festival, when six children, after long absence, come to the homestead, all talking at once, and asking questions, without waiting for answers before they ask more, and talking ov;er boyhood and girlhood days, and bringing down the old cradle from the garret, and dressing up mother in her faded wedding-dress, and continuing to laugh, and cry, and kiss, and shout, and turn somersaults, and cut up and cut down, till the door-bell is mad at the disturbance, and solemnly vows: “I will never ring again for such a company as this!” And it keeps its word. Better each one take a leaf of the Christmas-tree, for it is the last one that shall ever grow in that house. The door - bell had told many a lie, pretending that some one worth seeing had come, but this time it told the truth. That was the last holiday scene in which the six mingled. Another bell took up the strain, but it was deep and slow, and the sound came down from the old church-belfry as though the door-bell of heaven had tapped at the going in of a soul. Not one of the six was compelled to stand, with weary rip - rap, banging at the celestial door, for the faces of their friends were pressed against the window, watching. And the table was already spread, and the pomegranates, piled up on the caskets, were so ripe that the rinds did burst at the first touch of the lip.
And with oldest wine of heaven, more than eighteen hundred years ago by two scarred hands pressed from grapes of Eshcol, they did rise up, chaUce gleaming to chalice, and drank: “To THE rescue!”