TOM'S FORT
During the next week there was what is termed by Congregationalists a
"Conference Meeting," at the town of Hebron, distant fifteen miles from
the Old Squire's. Gram and he made it a rule to attend these meetings;
and on this occasion they set off on Monday afternoon with old Sol and
the light driving wagon, in Sunday attire, and did not return till the
following Monday. Wealthy went with them; but the rest of us young folks
were left, with many instructions, to keep house and look after things
at the farm.
Haying was now over; and the wheat and barley were in; but an acre more
of late-sown oats still remained to be harvested, also an acre of
buckwheat. There was not a little solicitude felt for this acre of
buckwheat. With it were connected visions of future buckwheat cakes and
maple sirup. I was assured by Ellen and the others who had come to the
farm in advance of me, that the maple molasses and candy "flapjacks,"
made on pans of hard snow, during the previous spring, had been
something to smack one's mouth for.
The Old Squire had bidden Addison, who was practically in charge, to mow
the oats on Tuesday, and the buckwheat on Thursday, if the weather
continued good. Asa Doane was coming to assist us. The oats were to be
turned on Wednesday and drawn in on Friday. The buckwheat would need to
lie in the swath till the next week and be turned once or twice, in
order to cure properly.
We had also a half acre of weeds to pull, in a part of the potato field
which had thus far been hoed but once; and an acre of stubble to clear
of stones, preparatory to ploughing. The Old Squire did not believe that
abundant leisure is good for boys, left alone under such circumstances.
"If you get the loose stones all off the stubble and have time, you can
begin to draw off the stone heaps from the piece which we are going to
break up in the south field," he said finally, as he got into the wagon
and took the reins to drive away. But he laughed when he said it; and
Addison laughed, too; for we thought that he had already laid out a long
stint for us. Halstead was grumbling about it to himself. "Wonder if he
thinks we can do a whole season's work in a week," he exclaimed,
spitefully. "Never saw such a man to lay off work! Wants a week to play
in, himself, but expects us to stay at home and dig like slaves!"
"Oh, he doesn't want us to hurt ourselves," said Addison. "He will be
satisfied if we manage the grain, the weeds and the stones on the
stubble. It really isn't so very much for four of us. We could do it in
one half the time, by working smart, and have the rest of the time to
play in."
Gram had left corresponding work for the girls, indoors, besides
cooking, getting the three daily meals and caring for the dairy.
We set to work that afternoon and pulled the weeds, finishing this task
before five o'clock. Ellen had found time to make a brief call on Kate
Edwards; and at supper, she informed us that Tom had invited us all to
come to his "fort," that evening. "He is going to have a fire there and
roast some of his early Pine Knot corn," continued Ellen. "He says he
has got a whole basketful of ears, all nice in the milk and ready to
roast."
"Where is his 'fort?'" I inquired, for this was the first that I had
heard of such a fortification, although the others appeared to know
something about it.
"Oh, Tom thinks he has got a great fort over there!" said Halse. "It's
no more a fort, like some I've seen, than our sheep pen!"
"Oh, but it is," replied Ellen. "It is a terribly rocky place. Nobody
can get into it, if Tom hasn't a mind to let them."
"Pooh!" exclaimed Halse. "One little six pound cannon would knock it all
down over his head."
"I don't think so," persisted Ellen.
"What do you know about cannon?" cried Halse.
"Well, I don't know much about them," replied Ellen. "But I do not
believe that a small cannon would knock down rocks as big as this
house."
This argument increased my curiosity, and Addison now told me something
about the so-called fortress. "It is a queer sort of place," said he; "a
kind of knoll, with four or five prodigious great rocks around it. I
guess we never have been over there since you came, though we passed in
sight of it the day we went to dig out the foxes. It is on the line
between Mr. Edwards' south field on one side, and the woods of our
pasture where those big yellow birches and rock maples are, on the
other. Those great rocks lie close together there, on that little knoll,
just as if they had been dropped down there like so many big kernels of
corn in a hill.
"From what I have read about geology," continued Addison, reflectively,
"I think it is likely that some mighty glacier, in long past ages, piled
them there. One could imagine that a giant had placed them there, or had
dropped them, accidentally out of his big leather apron, as he strode
across the continent, in early times."
"Oh, hear him!" cried Halse. "Ad will be out giving lectures on geology
next!"
"No," said Addison, laughing, "I don't want to give lectures. I don't
know how the rocks got there, but they got there somehow, for there they
are. Two of them, as Nell says, are almost as large as a house; and they
all stand around, irregularly, enclosing a sort of little space inside
them, as large as--how big is it, Doad?"
"Oh, I should think that it was as large as our sitting-room," she
replied.
"It is bigger than that," said Ellen. "It is as big as the sitting-room
and parlor together."
"Perhaps it is," assented Theodora. "But it isn't like rooms at all; it
is an odd place and there are nooks like little side rooms running back
between where the sides of the great rocks approach each other. It is a
real pleasant place, sort of gigantic and rustic. I don't wonder that
Thomas and Kate like to go there."
"None of these big rocks quite touch together," continued Addison, "but
Tom has built up between them with stones, all around, except one narrow
place which he calls the fort gate. He has built up all the open places,
six or seven feet high, so that it is really like a fort: and he has
made a stone fireplace against one of the rocks inside, with a little
chimney of flat stones running up the side of the rock, so that he can
have a fire there without being plagued by the smoke."
"And he's got a woodpile in there," said Ellen, "and seats to sit on,
round his fireplace. It is a cozy place, I tell you; the wind doesn't
strike you at all in there; and the knoll is quite a good deal higher
than the ground about it. You climb up a little path and turn the corner
of one big rock, and then go in between that one and another, for
fifteen or twenty feet, till you come to the open place inside, where
the fireplace is. Tom and Kate gave a little party there last fall. Tom
was a number of days building the fireplace and the wall and getting
ready. We all went there one evening and Kate and I played there one
afternoon, a week after that. But I guess they haven't been there at
all this spring and summer. I haven't heard them say anything about it
for a long time, till this afternoon. 'Tell the boys and Doad to come
over here this evening,' Tom said, as I was coming away. 'I'm going to
roast corn down at my fort to-night.'"
"Let's all go over after it gets dark and storm his fort!" exclaimed
Halse. "We can take sods and pitch them over the rocks into his fort
after he gets in there and is roasting corn!"
"I don't think that would be a very polite way of accepting his
invitation," said Theodora.
"That would be contrary to all the laws of war, to storm a neighboring
nation's fort, before war was declared!" said Addison, laughing. "That
would be a sad piece of international treachery."
"Oh, dear, only hear the big words roll out!" cried Halse. "Ad's a
walking dictionary."
"Well, dictionaries are always handy to have about," said Theodora,
smoothing away the rudeness of this ill-natured remark. Addison did not
mind, however; it was only occasionally that Halse's flings disturbed
him.
"Yes, let's all go," said he. "We will get our milking off early and our
chores done. Then we will take a lantern and start; for it will be nine
o'clock before we get back home, and we shall have to go through the
little piece of woods between here and the Aunt Hannah lot."
The girls had prepared a nice supper. Ellen had been making pop-overs,
and Theodora had fried a great panful of crispy doughnuts. They cut a
sage cheese to go with these; and rather unwisely Ellen made a pot of
fresh coffee. It tasted much better than that which we ordinarily had at
breakfast; for she roasted the coffee, then ground it smoking hot from
the oven, and poured it into the pot before it had time to lose its
delicate aroma. They set on a brimming pitcherful of cream to put in it;
and we each had two cupfuls, at table, in consequence of which we all
felt very bright and jolly throughout the evening. But this was not a
wise procedure, from a hygienic point of view; I scarcely slept at all
that night.
In the twilight we loaded our pockets with early apples, then went
across the fields, through the pasture and over the hill, toward the
fort. The great trees in the Aunt Hannah lot pasture favored a covert
approach, and we drew near, very quietly, to surprise our friends. It
was now dusk, and halting under a great beech, we reconnoitered the
rocks on the knoll for some moments. Smoke was rising from out the fort;
at least we could smell it; and presently a pale gleam of firelight
shone up into the leafy top of a great black cherry tree which stood
within the space enclosed by the rocks. But not a word could we hear
spoken inside, or about the fort.
"Perhaps Kate hasn't come down from the house yet," Ellen said. "Let's
steal up softly till we are at the foot of the knoll; then you boys rush
up the path and surprise Tom. Shout 'Surrender, your fort is ours!' as
you rush in."
We approached, apparently without being discovered, and then emerging
suddenly from under the shadow of the great trees, ran up the path and
around the corner of the rock at the gateway with tumultuous cheers!
But we soon found that instead of surprising the fort, we had been
beguiled into a trap, ourselves. Kate and Tom had guessed our tactics,
in advance, and were watching us all the while. We rushed into the
narrow passage, but found our progress arrested there by four or five
stout bars; and then bang! went Tom's gun, from the rocks over our
heads. He and Kate were both up there in a strong position; and Tom's
only response to our shouts was, "Throw down your arms or we will open
fire on you with grape and canister!"
"We may as well surrender," said Addison, laughing. "Nell, you proved a
very bad general. You've lost your whole army before striking a single
blow."
"So I see," replied Ellen. "I'm disgraced and shall be superseded at
once."
In 1866 the circumstance of superseding one general by another was still
very familiar in the minds of every one, old and young, in the United
States.
We were now admitted to the fort. To me, at that time, Tom's fort was a
great novelty. I present a photograph of it, as the knoll and rocks now
appear; but the walls have mostly fallen down. I believe that the place
was stormed once by a party of boys who broke down much of the light
stone wall, in imitation of sieges, in ancient warfare. But that evening
it was all new to me and made a lasting impression on my boyish fancy.
They had a fire burning; and a row of short Pine Knot corn ears stood
roasting in front of it. There were two long seats consisting each of a
board placed on piles of flat stones with another board for the back,
held in its place by short stakes, driven into the ground. The light
shone on the great rough sides of the schistose rocks and on the trunks
of the cherry tree and two white birch trees inside the enclosed space.
It was so much shut in as to seem like a room in a house; yet overhead
the stars could be seen shining. Sufficient warmth was radiated from the
fire to make us all quite comfortable as we sat around.
Kate had brought down a large ball of butter and half a dozen
case-knives. We buttered our corn and feasted on it, then finished off
on Early Sweet Bough, Sweet Harvey and August Pippin apples. After every
few minutes, Tom would ascend, by stone steps which he had built up, to
the top of the largest rock of the group, to see if any "enemies" were
about, as he said. It was possible that Alfred Batchelder, or the Murch
boys, or Ned Wilbur, might come around and scale the wall.
As we sat by the fire, regaling ourselves, we talked after the manner of
the young to whom everything under the sun looks possible of
achievement, to whom life looks long enough for every plan that tickles
the fancy and to whom as yet the hard experiences of life have
administered few rebuffs.
Oh, for that splendid courage of youth again! that joyous confidence
that everything can be done! It is the heritage of young hearts. It is
given us but once; and it was then ours.
"I would like to command a strong, big fort on the frontier of the
country," exclaimed Tom. "The enemy wouldn't surprise me. I would be
ready for them. If they attacked me they would get it hot, I tell you!
"I mean to study and try to get an appointment to West Point," he
continued, enthusiastically. "Then I may command a fort somewheres. I
tell you, West Point is the place to go! Don't you say so, Ad?"
"It is a good place to get a military education," replied Addison. "And
a military education is a great thing to have, if there is a war. But
there may never be another war, Tom; most of folks hope there will not
be; but I shouldn't much wonder if there were another, before many
years."
"Oh, I hope not," exclaimed Theodora, fervently. In fact, the Civil War
with its sad afflictions was still too fresh in the minds of all in our
family to be spoken of without a sense of bereavement.
"But I don't think that I should like a military life altogether,"
continued Addison. "Promotion is dreadfully slow, unless there's war;
and even after you are a general, there is no money in it. I want to go
into something that will give me all the money I want; and I want a lot
of it."
"I had rather have fame than money," exclaimed Tom. "Nothing makes
anybody feel so good, as to know that folks are saying, 'He did a big
thing. Nobody else could have done it.'"
"Tom, you want to be a hero," said Theodora.
"Well, I do," replied Tom. "I don't want to be such a hero as there are
in novels. But I want to do something that will put me right up in the
world."
I remember that I felt much like that myself, but did not quite like to
say so outright.
"The trouble is that in common every-day life there do not seem to be
many chances to do great things," remarked Addison, thoughtfully. "There
are always a few distinguished men, like General Grant, General Sherman
and President Lincoln, but only a few. There couldn't be a thousand
famous men in a nation at once. We couldn't think of so many, even if
they all had done great deeds. We could not even remember the names of
so many heroes. So it is pretty plain that only a few, five or six,
perhaps, of the millions of boys and girls in the country, can be really
famous. All the rest have got to take a lower place and make the best of
it. But if a fellow can plan and carry out enterprises to make lots of
money, he can do a great deal with it in the world."
"I don't care just for money!" cried Tom again; "I want to _do_
something!"
"Tom, you ought to be an explorer," said Theodora; "a discoverer, like
Livingstone, or Sir John Franklin, or Dr. Kane. If you could discover
the North Pole, or a new race of people in Africa, you would be famous."
"I should like that," exclaimed Tom. "I should like to make a voyage up
north. I can stand any amount of cold; and I never saw the sun so hot
yet that I couldn't work, or run a mile, under it. Those folks that get
sun-struck must be sort of sick, pindling fellows, I guess."
"Tom, I think that you would make a real go-ahead explorer," said Ellen.
"I hope you will stick to it."
"Well, it takes money to fit out exploring expeditions," said Addison.
"But there are other discoveries fully as important as those in the far
north, or in Africa; discoveries in science bring the best kind of fame,
like those of Franklin, Morse, Tyndall, Darwin and Pasteur. There is no
end to the discoveries that can be made in science. It is the great
field for explorers, I think. Grand new discoveries will be made right
along now, and the more there are made the more there will be made; for
one scientific discovery always seems to open the way to another."
"Oh, but I don't know anything about science," exclaimed Tom. "I don't
believe I ever shall."
"No one does without hard study," replied Addison. "But any one can
afford to study if by doing so some splendid new invention can be
brought about."
"Dora, what are we girls going to do?" said Kate, laughing. "It makes me
feel lonesome to hear the boys talk of the great exploits they mean to
perform."
"There doesn't seem to be so much that girls can do," replied Theodora,
with a sigh. "Still, I know of one thing I wish to do very much," she
continued with a glance at Addison.
"What is it?" said Tom. "What are you going to astonish the world with?"
"Oh, I haven't the courage to talk about it," replied Theodora. "And it
looks so hard to me and I shall need to study so long to get prepared,
that I sometimes think I never shall do it."
"Well, girls can all make school-mistresses," said Addison.
"Kate is going to make something besides a school-mistress," said Ellen.
"Kate means to study chemistry and be a chemist."
"She said last winter that she meant to learn how to telegraph and be a
telegraph operator," said Halse, laughing.
"Yes, I did," replied Kate, coldly. "But I have changed my mind. I
don't know much about chemistry yet, but I think I like it. I mean to
study it and I mean to learn all about drugs, too, and have a pharmacy
in some large pleasant town. I'll make as much money as Addison; for I
think money is a great thing."
"Shall you have a soda-fountain in your drug store and sell soda with a
'stick' in it?" asked Halse.
"I don't think so," replied Kate. "But if I do, I shall hire somebody
like you to tend the 'stick' part of it."
Halse had sat poking fun at all the others, while they talked of their
plans, pretending to be on the point of fainting away, when Addison, Tom
and Theodora discussed different pursuits in life; and this retort from
Kate hit him hard; he was angry. "I would not work for anyone with a
tongue like yours," he exclaimed.
"Never mind," replied Kate. "We will not quarrel about that now. It is
rather too far ahead. It will take you years and years to get education
enough to tend a soda-fountain," she added, mischievously. "Perhaps you
know enough already about putting the 'stick' in it, as you call it; I'm
rather afraid you do from what I heard your friend Alfred Batchelder say
a few days ago. It doesn't sound well for little boys like you to talk
about 'sticks' in soda."
Halse usually fared ill when he attempted jokes at Kate's expense. It
seemed odd to the rest of us that he did not learn to avoid such
efforts; but he never did; he was always worsted, promptly, and always
got angry. "Tom, if I had such a sister as you've got, I'd tie a hot
potato in her mouth," he exclaimed.
"She is a terrible girl," said Tom, with a wink. "Her tongue is just
like a new whalebone whip with a silk snapper on it. Takes the skin
right off. But as she is all the sister I've got, I try to put up with
her.
"She is a pretty good sister," he added, going across where Kate sat and
sitting down beside her. "I don't know what I should do without her."
"Thank you, Tommy dear," said Kate. "I know now that you want me to coax
father to let you take 'White-foot' (their colt) to the Fair. Perhaps I
will; but it will not amount to anything. You will not get a premium on
White-foot, if you take him. He isn't big and handsome enough. You've
looked at him till your eyes think he is, but he isn't. I shall not tell
father that I think he will take a premium, because I want father to
respect my judgment more than that."
"Kate, you don't know anything about colts!" cried Tom. "That's the best
colt in this town!"
"O my! O my!" groaned Kate. "Once let a boy begin to dote on a colt,
particularly if he calls it _his_ colt, and he can soon see beauty,
size, speed, everything else in it, in matchless perfection. It's a kind
of disease, a horse-disease that gets into his eye. Tom's got it badly.
Please excuse his boasting!
"Here, Tom, pass this nice buttered ear of corn over to Halse, and tell
him that I didn't mean to hurt his feelings--quite so badly," she added.
"I only meant to hurt them a little."
This was like Kate; she would always talk like that; but she rarely said
more than was true and never treasured up ill-feeling, nor wished others
to do so.
But Halse would not accept her peace-offering.
"Ah, well," sighed Ellen, "I really am afraid that there is nothing I
shall ever be able to do that will bring me either fame or money. I
cannot think of a thing that I am good for."
"Oh, yes, there is!" cried Addison. "You have a sure hand on pop-overs,
Nell, pop-overs and cookies."
"Right, Ad, I can make pop-overs," replied Ellen, laughing. "Perhaps I
can get a living, cooking."
"Well, that is a pretty important thing, I think," remarked Thomas,
candidly. "Somebody must know how to cook, and I like to have victuals
taste good."
"I do not think those who cook get much credit for their labors," said
Kate. "Mother and I are cooking every day and our men folks come in, sit
down at table and swallow it all, with never a word of praise when we
cook well; but if we make a mistake, and bread, or cake, or pie does not
taste quite right, then they will growl and look at us as surly as if we
had never cooked well in all our lives. I think that is rather hard
usage and poor thanks for long service. Mother does not mind it. 'Oh,
that is something you must get used to, Kate,' she says to me. 'Men
folks always behave so. We never get much praise for our cooking.' But I
do mind it. When I've made a nice batch of tea rolls, or cakes, I want
them to know it and to act as if they appreciated it."
"That is just the way it is at our house," said Ellen.
"Yes," remarked Theodora. "The only way our boys ever show that they
appreciate our good biscuit, or cake, is by eating about twice as much
of it, which of course makes it all the harder for us to cook more. When
we get a poor batch of bread it will last twice as long as good;--that's
one comfort."
"Why, Doad, I never heard you talk like that before," said Halse, with a
look of surprise.
"No more did I," remarked Addison. "Theodora, I am scandalized."
"I know it is horrid," she replied. "But I have thought it, if I never
have said it, many and many a time, when I've nearly roasted myself over
the hot stove, this summer, and thought I had enough cooked to last two
days, at least; and then in would march you three hungry boys, to table,
and eat it all up, eat my whole panful of doughnuts and finish off with
eight or ten cookies apiece, just because they were good, or a little
better than usual. If they had been a little poorer they would have
lasted two days, surely."
"Doad, you are getting positively wicked," said Addison. "I don't see
what has come over you. You are not yourself."
"She is only telling the cold truth," exclaimed Kate. "Boys all seem to
think that victuals grow ready cooked in the house somewheres, and that
the more they can eat the better it ought to suit us. Here's Tom, a
pretty good sort of boy generally, but he will come into the pantry,
after he has been racing about out-of-doors, and commit ravages that it
will take me hours of hot, hateful work to repair. Oh, he is a perfect
pantry scourge, a doughnut-and-cooky terror! Why, I have had what I knew
must be half a big panful of doughnuts, or cookies, enough for supper
and breakfast, certainly; and then about three or four o'clock of a hot
August afternoon, I would hear Tom's boots clumpering in the pantry, and
by the time I would get there, he would be just sneaking out, grinning
like a Chessy-cat, with his old mouth full and his pockets bulging out.
I will look in my pan and there will not be enough left to put on a
plate once! Then I know I have got to build a fire, get on my old floury
apron and go at it again, when I've just got cool and comfortable, after
my day's work!
"When he does that, I sometimes think I don't know whether I love him
well enough to cook for him, or not. For when he is hungry and comes
tearing in like that, he will carry off more than he can eat. His eyes
want all he sees. He will carry off lots more than he can possibly eat;
I've found it, time and again, laid up out in the wood-shed; and once I
found eight of my doughnuts hid in a hole in the garden wall. He thought
that he could eat the whole panful, but found that he couldn't."
"Oh, that was only laying up a store against days of famine," said Tom,
calmly. "Some days the pantry is awfully bare; and Kate, too, has a
caper of hiding the victuals. I call that a plaguey mean trick--when a
fellow's hungry! I clear the pan when I do find it, to get square with
her."
"Well," Addison remarked, "the girls have presented their side of the
work pretty strongly; but I rather guess the boys could say something on
their side;--how they have to work in the hot sun, all day long, to
plough and harrow and sow and plant and hoe the crops, to get the bread
stuff to cook into food. The girls want cooked victuals, too, as well as
we. The hot, hard work isn't all on one side."
"That's so!" echoed Tom and Halse, fervently.
"I often come in tired, hot and sweaty after a drink of water, in the
sweltering summer afternoons, and find our girls in the cool
sitting-room, rocking by the windows, looking as comfortable as you
please, reading novels," continued Addison.
"That's so!" we boys exclaimed.
"Not that I grudge them their comfort," Addison went on, laughing. "I
don't. I like to see them comfortable. Besides girls ought not to work
so hard and long as boys; they are not so strong, nor so well able to
work in the heat. But I think that a great deal of the hardship that
Kate and Doad and Nell complain of, about cooking over the hot stove, is
due to a bad method which all the women hereabouts seem to follow. They
cook twice every day. Fact, they seem to be cooking all the time. They
all do their cooking in stoves, with small ovens that will not hold more
than three or four pies, or a couple of loaves of bread at once. By the
next day they have to bake again, and so on. In summer, particularly,
their faces are red from bending over the hot stove about half the
time."
"But what would you do, Addison?" asked Theodora.
"I'll tell you what I would do," replied Addison. "I would do just what
I suggested to Gram last spring. The old lady was getting down to peep
into the stove oven and hopping up again about every two minutes. She
looked tired and her face was as red as a peony. 'Gram,' said I, 'I'll
tell you what I'll do, if you want me to. I'll take the oxen and cart
and go over to the Aunt Hannah lot, and draw home some brick there are
in an old chimney over there; and then we will get a cask of lime and
some sand for mortar, and have a mason come half a day and build you a
good big brick oven, beside the wash-room chimney. It can be seven or
eight feet long by four or five wide, big enough to bake all the pies,
bread, pork and beans and most of the meat you want to cook for us, in a
week. Then after you have baked, Saturday afternoon, you no need to have
much more cooking to do till the next Saturday. All you need do over the
stove will be to make coffee and tea, boil eggs and potatoes once in a
while and warm up the food.' 'There's an oven that goes with the
sitting-room chimney,' said she; 'I used always to bake in it; but
somehow I have got out of the way of it, since we began to use stoves.'
I couldn't get her to say that she wanted an oven, so I did nothing
about it. But I know it would be a great deal easier, after she got the
habit of it again."
"But how could you have hot tea-rolls every night and morning, Addison,
with an oven like that?" asked Ellen.
"I should not want them, myself," replied Addison. "They nearly always
smell so strongly of soda that I do not like them; and I do not think
they are wholesome. For my own part I like bread better, or bread made
into toast."
"Well, Ad, I think that sounds like a pretty good plan," said Kate.
"Mother has an oven, too; but we never use it now, except to smoke bacon
in. I think it would save us a great deal of hard work, if we baked in
it once a week."
"Hark," said Tom, suddenly.
Far aloft, overhead, a faint "quark-quock" was heard.
"'Tis a flock of wild geese, going over," said Addison. "It's early in
the season for them to be on their way to the south."
"Gram says that's a sign of an early winter," said Ellen.
We sat listening to the occasional quiet note of the flock gander for
some moments till they passed out of hearing toward the lake. Addison
then lighted our lantern; and after accompanying Tom and Kate a part of
the way to the Edwards place, across the fields, we bade them good night
and made our own way home.
Neighbor Wilbur had called at the door, during the evening, and left our
mail on the doorstep. There was a letter for me from my mother, and also
a circular from some swindling fellow in "Gotham," informing me most
positively that for the sum of one dollar, a powder would be forwarded
to me by mail, which, when dissolved and applied to my upper lip, would
produce a moustache in the course of three or four weeks. I laid it
away, thinking that I was perhaps not quite old enough for so ambitious
an effort, but that it might be of importance to me, later.
We went to "Tom's fort" again on Wednesday evening; and I remember that
one of the stones in the fireplace exploded that night. It burst in
several pieces with a sharp report like that of a pistol. One of these
hit Halse, scorching his wrist somewhat. At first we thought that
someone had mischievously put powder in the fireplace; but after
examining the pieces of stone carefully, Addison decided that it had
burst from some unequal expansion of its substance, or of moisture in
it, due to the heat.
That night, too, those long-delayed ambrotypes came home from artist
Lockett. Lockett sent them up to us by Mr. Edwards, who had driven to
the village that day.
In the sitting-room, that evening, after returning from the "fort," we
examined them with great interest, each anxious to see what the result
had been to us, personally. Halstead, I recollect, was wofully
disappointed in his. Truth to say, the picture was far from good; and it
is supposed that he destroyed it, later, in a fit of pique, for it
mysteriously disappeared.
Indeed, the history of that day's little crop of ambrotypes is rather
tragic. The Old Squire's and Gram's, alas, were lost in the farmhouse
fire (1883). Addison's and Theodora's shared the same fate. Ellen lent
hers to her first sweetheart, a college student named Cobb, at Colby
University. He was unfortunately drowned a few months later; and for
some cause the ambrotype was not returned. Little Wealthy's alone has
survived the vicissitudes of time.
The pictures in this book are mainly from photographs taken
subsequently.