_The Howe Children Invent a “Patagonian Language,” Edit a Newspaper,
“The Listener,” Write Plays and Songs.—They Give “Parlor Concerts”
and Take Part in Tableaux and Private Theatricals.—William Story and
Thackeray._
I HAVE spoken of the Institution for the Blind as our intermittent or
occasional home. The autumn of 1854 found us established there for a
stay of more than a year.
The Crimean War was then going on, our parents being much interested in
it. Their sympathies were with the Allies as against Russia, the little
Howes duly reflecting the opinion of their parents. We followed the
course of events in _Punch_ and the _Illustrated London News_. Indeed,
the _London Charivari_, with its excellent cartoons by Tenniel, John
Leech and others, played quite a part in our early political education.
We duly admired the sprightly Lord Palmerston, smiled at funny little
Lord John Russell perpetually wheeling a reform bill in a perambulator,
and entirely disapproved of “Dizzy” with his acrobatic tricks. Although
_Punch_ approved of Louis Napoleon, ally of England, our parents never
did. Popular sympathy in America was, if I remember aright, on the side
of Russia, witness the ballad of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
Queen Victoria’s very sick;
Napoleon’s got the measles;
Sebastopol’s not taken yet.
Pop goes the weasel!
This song would seem to indicate the prevalence of measles at that time.
Certain it is that some cases developed in the other part of the
Institution and the five Howe children promptly caught the disease,
sister Julia becoming very ill. Our mother had a very anxious and
fatiguing experience. She wrote to her sister Annie as follows:
See that your children get measles _young_. Baby suffered very
little. Each older one was worse in proportion to the
comparative age. Donald[3] has passed the whole week here, day
and night.
Footnote 3:
Mrs. McDonald, matron of the School for Idiots, who had been nurse and
housekeeper for my mother in Rome.
The delights of convalescence obliterate the memories of the sickness
itself. “Dip” toast, prunes and the reading aloud of the “Leila” books
we found very comforting.
Our literary activities seem to have been greatly stimulated at this
period, although it must be confessed that they were principally carried
on by sister Julia. It was she who wrote the plays that overcame our
elders with laughter. It was she who, with my mother’s help, edited _The
Listener_, a weekly periodical which chronicled all the doings of
family, friends and the Stevenson School, touching also upon public
affairs. Each issue covers four pages of large letter-paper. Some
stories were contributed by our friend and schoolmate, Clara Gardner.
The occasional editorials by my mother are in her own beautiful hand.
But the main body of the paper was faithfully written by the little
editor, in her quaint, crabbed, yet legible hand. The birth of our
sister Maud was thus chronicled by Julia—then ten and a half years old: