_The Alarming Three Bears of the Howe Coat-of-arms.—Brutality at the Old
Boston Latin School.—Boyish Mischief.—Papa’s Church.—Grandmother
Cutler Rebukes Wemyss, the Biographer of Washington and
Marion.—Grandfather Ward, His Liberality and His Stern Calvinism._
SOME one has said that it is hard to live under the shadow of a great
name. It has been my great privilege and happiness to live, not under
the shadow, but in the light of two honored names, those of my father
and mother. They were honored and beloved because of their own love for
and service to their fellow-men.
My father was nearly eighteen years older than my mother. He had had the
responsibility and care of his young blind pupils for ten years before
his marriage. Hence he was well fitted to take an active part in our
training, especially as he dearly loved children. The absence in Europe,
for more than a year, of my mother and the two younger children, Harry
and Laura, brought Julia and myself under his care when we were
respectively five and six years old. We thus early formed the habit of
close companionship with him, to which, as the elder, we had special
claim. Indeed, we all followed him about to such a degree that he once
exclaimed jestingly, “Why, if I went and sat in the barn I believe you
children would all follow me!”
The housekeeper who was with us in these early years would sometimes
say, “You do not know what a good father you have.” Of course we did
not. We knew that “Papa” made us his companions whenever he could
possibly do so. We knew that as “a good physician” he bound up our small
wounds and cared for us when we were sick. We knew that if we did wrong
we must expect his firm yet gentle rebuke. Did he not tell me about a
naughty little devil I had swallowed, bidding me open my mouth so that
he could get hold of its tail and pull it out? Lessons of thrift and
generosity he early inculcated. We received a penny for every horseshoe
and for every pound of old iron we picked up about the place.
He constantly sent, by our hands, gifts of the delicious fruit of the
garden to our schoolmates and to the blind children.
When our mother played the most delightful tunes for us to dance, Papa
would join in the revels, occasionally pleading “a bone in his leg” as
an excuse for stopping. Together they planned and carried out all sorts
of schemes for our amusement and that of our little friends.
When, at a child’s party in midwinter, fireworks suddenly appeared
outside the parlor window, the great kindness of our parents in doing so
much for our amusement began to dawn upon my childish mind. Indeed, the
Howe juvenile parties were thought very delightful by others besides
ourselves.
Our parents told us stories of their youth, in which we were greatly
interested. My father must have been a very small boy when he was
alarmed by the Howe coat of arms—three bears with their tongues out. I
fancy he came across this vision in the attic and that it was banished
there by Grandfather Howe, who was a true Democrat.
Father also told us that the family was supposed to be related to that
of Lord Howe. I find the same statement made in Farmer’s genealogy of
the descendants of “John Howe of Watertown freeman 1640, son of John
Howe of Hodinhull Warwickshire.”
Anecdotes of his school-days showed that my father, despite his feelings
in the presence of the three bears, was a very courageous boy. At Latin
School the master whipped him for some small fault, but could not
succeed in his amiable intention of making the child cry, “though he
whipped my hand almost to jelly.” His Federalist schoolmates were as
brutal as their master. Because Sam Howe, almost the only Democrat in
school, refused to abandon his principles, they threw him down-stairs.
Grandfather Howe lost a great deal of money by the failure of the United
States government to pay him for the ropes and cordage which he, as a
patriotic Democrat, supplied to them in large quantities during the War
of 1812. Hence, when his son went to college, young Sam Howe helped to
pay his way by teaching school in vacation. The country lads, some of
whom were bigger than he, thought they could get the better of the new
schoolmaster. He restored order by the simple but sometimes necessary
process of knocking down the ringleader. The handsome young collegian
found more difficulty in managing the girls!
He must have been very young when he assured his sister that the pump
had a very agreeable taste on a frosty morning. The confiding girl
followed his suggestion, but found it difficult to remove her tongue
from the cold iron.
Among his many pranks at college, the most original was a nocturnal
visit to a fellow-collegian who had a store of good things in his room.
“Sam” Howe entered the window as a ghost and carried off a turkey. When
the unfortunate owner of the feast waked up and looked out of the
window, he saw a dim white figure rising in the air. Later on, the bones
of the bird neatly picked were laid in front of his door. The boy was
greatly worried and fully convinced that some supernatural being had
visited his room. The affair so preyed on his mind that his
fellow-students finally explained the joke.
Strange to say, my father did not have much patience with his son when
brother Harry displayed at Harvard the same kind of mischievous
ingenuity. They had both inherited this quality from Grandfather Howe if
we may judge by the following story.
Having promised to pay Sammy a penny for every rat he caught, the old
gentleman surreptitiously withdrew the rodents from the trap. But Sammy
was quite equal to the occasion. He parried by making the same animal
serve for several mornings, until his father exclaimed, “Sammy, that rat
begins to smell!”
Grandfather Howe was very fond of building, a taste inherited by his
descendants. When there was a question of his erecting a house on her
property, his second wife said to him, “But your children would never
permit it.” The old gentleman’s wavering resolve at once became fixed.
He had no notion of listening to dictation from his sons and daughters.
So he built the house, which, of course, became the property of our
step-grandmother and went ultimately to her heirs, instead of to his own
descendants, the Howes.
My father always cherished the memory of his own mother, Patty Gridley,
who was a very beautiful woman, of a lovely and sympathetic nature.
He liked to see his daughters sitting at their needlework. “It reminds
me of my mother,” he would say. He could not bear to see bread wasted,
because of her early teachings of thrift. On the top of his father’s
house, there had been a cask or vat into which the lees of wine were
thrown and left to ferment into vinegar.
With our mother, also, we had a delightful comradeship. Having been
brought up with undue strictness herself, she resolved that her children
should not suffer in the same way. Hence we had a happy familiarity with
our parents; yet we felt their superiority to ourselves. Mother taught
us many things, after the fashion of mothers—lessons in the conduct of
life and in social observance, of course. To be considerate of others,
to enjoy small and simple pleasures, to take good things in
moderation—these were a part of her philosophy. If we made a noise after
the baby was asleep, we instantly heard her whispered warning, “Hush!”
Indeed, it was an offense in her eyes to disturb any one’s rest.
Her efforts to teach us punctuality were not altogether successful.
There were dreadful moments when sister Julia and I were so late in
dressing for a party that Mamma would be reduced almost to despair.
Sister Laura saw these things and, being a wise little maiden, resolved
that when her turn came to go into society she would be punctual. She
carried out her resolution.
When we were old enough, our mother took us to the Church of the
Disciples, by my father’s desire. He himself went only occasionally, but
then Papa had a church of his own, which we sometimes attended. In the
great hall of the Institution for the Blind, he held at six o’clock
every morning a brief service for the pupils. The deep reverence of his
voice as he read a lesson from the Bible, the solemn tones of the organ,
the sweetness and beauty of the fresh young voices as the blind larks
suddenly burst forth into their morning hymn of praise, were things
never to be forgotten. Truly Papa’s church was not like any other!
Many stories of her young days we heard from our mother. They were
different in many ways from our own happy and athletic childhood. It is
true that, like ourselves, she belonged to a family of six brothers and
sisters, who had merry times together. But the great misfortune of
losing her mother shadowed her young life. Aunt Eliza Cutler (afterward
Mrs. Francis), who took, as far as she was able, the latter’s place, was
most conscientious in fulfilling her duties. But she was very strict
with her young charges. Witness the story of the little girl whom Julia
invited to tea. After this rash act her courage completely failed her.
She did not dare bring her visitor down-stairs, and sat miserably
waiting the course of events. The delay seemed to her interminable, but
at length a message was sent up, coldly inviting “Miss Ward,” as she was
called even in childhood, to bring her friend down to tea. She never
repeated the offense.
Our mother was very fond of her grandmother Cutler, who spent the last
years of her life under her son-in-law’s roof. She was a woman of
literary tastes as well as of personal charm. The niece of General
Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” Grandma Cutler possessed a goodly share
of spirit. Thus when Wemyss, the biographer of Washington and Marion,
dined at the home of Grandfather Ward, Mrs. Cutler took the careless
historian to task:
“Mr. Wemyss, how is it that you say in your _Life_ of the General that
you have never heard what became of his sister Esther, my mother?”
The old lady was a flaming Huguenot, as her letters show.
I fear that, despite the fact that she had been a belle in the
Revolutionary period, she took snuff. Our mother told us that the Ward
family carriage was in the habit of stopping at “Lorillard’s,” then a
small tobacco-shop, to buy great-grandmother’s favorite brand—this, if I
remember aright, was Maccaboy.
In our mother’s story of her early life the dominating figure was that
of her father, Samuel Ward, the third of the name. She fully recognized
his great affection for his children and his almost painful desire to
shield them from all evil. Evidently to Grandfather Ward “the world, the
flesh, and the devil” were not outworn features of a half-forgotten
creed, but dreadful realities. He was as liberal in giving money to good
causes as he was illiberal in his religious views. During a period of
hard times (perhaps in 1837), he suggested to our mother that they
should take care of the conservatory themselves, sending away the
gardener.
“For I will not cut down my charities,” quoth Grandfather Ward.
He left a large fortune for those days, but it was a good deal
diminished by the management of his brother, who did not understand real
estate. The Grange, formerly the property of Alexander Hamilton, was a
part of it. The Ward family desired to have this sold to a great-uncle,
for the nominal price of ten thousand dollars. My father very properly
protested, yielding in the end, for the sake of peace. Some twenty-five
years later it was worth one or two million dollars, but the family were
unable to hold it after the panic of Black Friday, September, 1869.
------------------------------------------------------------------------