UNCLE PEABODY'S WAY AND MINE
I am old and love my ease and sometimes dare to think that I have earned
it. Why do I impose upon myself the task of writing down these memories,
searching them and many notes and records with great care so that in
every voice and deed the time shall speak? My first care has been that
neither vanity nor pride should mar a word of all these I have written
or shall write. So I keep my name from you, dear reader, for there is
nothing you can give me that I want. I have learned my lesson in that
distant time and, having learned it, give you the things I stand for and
keep myself under a mask. These things urge me to my task. I do it that
I may give to you--my countrymen--the best fruitage of the great garden
of my youth and save it from the cold storage of unknowing history.
It is a bad thing to be under a heavy obligation to one's self of which,
thank God, I am now acquitted. I have known men who were their own worst
creditors. Everything they earned went swiftly to satisfy the demands
of Vanity or Pride or Appetite. I have seen them literally put out of
house and home, thrown neck and crop into the street, as it were, by one
or the other of these heartless creditors--each a grasping usurer with
unjust claims.
I remember that Rodney Barnes called for my chest and me that fine
morning in early June when I was to go back to the hills, my year's work
in school being ended. I elected to walk, and the schoolmaster went with
me five miles or more across the flats to the slope of the high country.
I felt very wise with that year's learning in my head. Doubtless the
best of it had come not in school. It had taken me close to the great
stage and in a way lifted the curtain. I was most attentive, knowing
that presently I should get my part.
"I've been thinking, Bart, o' your work in the last year," said the
schoolmaster as we walked. "Ye have studied six books and one--God help
ye! An' I think ye have got more out o' the one than ye have out o' the
six."
In a moment of silence that followed I counted the books on my fingers:
Latin, Arithmetic, Algebra, Grammar, Geography, History. What was this
one book he referred to?
"It's God's book o' life, boy, an' I should say ye'd done very well in
it."
After a little he asked: "Have ye ever heard of a man who had the
Grimshaws?"
I shook my head as I looked at him, not knowing just what he was driving
at.
"Sure, it's a serious illness an' it has two phases. First there's the
Grimshaw o' greed--swinish, heartless greed--the other is the Grimshaw
o' vanity--the strutter, with sword at belt, who would have men bow or
flee before him."
That is all he said of that seventh book and it was enough.
"Soon the Senator will be coming," he remarked presently. "I have a long
letter from him and he asks about you and your aunt and uncle. I think
that he is fond o' you, boy."
"I wish you would let me know when he comes," I said.
"I am sure he will let you know, and, by the way, I have heard from
another friend o' yours, my lad. Ye're a lucky one to have so many
friends--sure ye are. Here, I'll show ye the letter. There's no reason
why I shouldn't. Ye will know its writer, probably. I do not."
So saying he handed me this letter:
"CANTERBURY, VT.,
June 1.
"DEAR SIR--I am interested in the boy Barton Baynes. Good words
about him have been flying around like pigeons. When school is out
I would like to hear from you, what is the record? What do you
think of the soul in him? What kind of work is best for it? If you
will let me maybe I can help the plans of God a little. That is my
business and yours. Thanking you for reading this, I am, as ever,
"God's humble servant,
KATE FULLERTON."
"Why, this is the writing of the Silent Woman," I said before I had read
the letter half through.
"Rovin' Kate?"
"Roving Kate; I never knew her other name, but I saw her handwriting
long ago."
"But look--this is a neatly written, well-worded letter an' the sheet is
as white and clean as the new snow. Uncanny woman! They say she carries
the power o' God in her right hand. So do all the wronged. I tell ye,
lad, there's only one thing in the world that's sacred."
I turned to him with a look of inquiry and asked:
"What is it?"
"The one and only miracle we know-the gate o' birth through which comes
human life and the lips commanding our love and speaking the wisdom of
childhood. Show me how a man treats women an' I'll tell ye what he
amounts to. There's the test that shows whether he's a man or a spaniel
dog."
There was a little moment of silence then--how well I remember it! The
schoolmaster broke the silence by adding:
"Well ye know, lad, I think the greatest thing that Jesus Christ did was
showing to a wicked world the sanctity o' motherhood."
That, I think, was the last lesson in the school year. Just beyond us I
could see the slant of Bowman's Hill. What an amount of pains they gave
those days to the building of character! It will seem curious and
perhaps even wearisome now, but it must show here if I am to hold the
mirror up to the time.
"I wonder why Kate is asking about me," I said.
"Never mind the reason. She is your friend and let us thank God for it.
Think how she came to yer help in the old barn an' say a thousand
prayers, my lad. I shall write to her to-day, and what shall I say as to
the work?"
"Well, I've been consulting the compass," I answered thoughtfully, as I
looked down at the yielding sand under my feet. "I think that I want to
be a lawyer."
"Good! I would have guessed it. I suppose your week in the court room
with the fine old judge and the lawyers settled that for ye."
"I think that it did."
"Well, the Senator is a lawyer, God prosper him, an' he has shown us
that the chief business o' the lawyer is to keep men out o' the law."
Having come to the first flight of the uplands, he left me with many a
kind word--how much they mean to a boy who is choosing his way with a
growing sense of loneliness!
I reached the warm welcome of our little home just in time for dinner.
They were expecting me and it was a regular company dinner--chicken pie
and strawberry shortcake.
"I wallered in the grass all the forenoon tryin' to git enough berries
for this celebration--ayes!--they ain't many of 'em turned yit," said
Aunt Deel. "No, sir--nothin' but pure cream on this cake. I ain't a
goin' to count the expense."
Uncle Peabody danced around the table and sang a stanza of the old
ballad, which I have forgotten, but which begins:
_Come, Philander, let us be a-marchin'._
How well I remember that hour with the doors open and the sun shining
brightly on the blossoming fields and the joy of man and bird and beast
in the return of summer and the talk about the late visit of Alma Jones
and Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln!
While we were eating I told them about the letter of old Kate.
"Fullerton!" Aunt Deel exclaimed. "Are ye sure that was the name, Bart?"
"Yes."
"Goodness gracious sakes alive!"
She and Uncle Peabody gave each other looks of surprised inquiry.
"Do you know anybody by that name?" I asked.
"We used to," said Aunt Deel as she resumed her eating. "Can't be she's
one o' the Sam Fullertons, can it?"
"Oh, prob'ly not," said Uncle Peabody. "Back east they's more Fullertons
than ye could shake a stick at. Say, I see the biggest bear this mornin'
that I ever see in all the born days o' my life.
"It was dark. I'd come out o' the fifty-mile woods an' down along the
edge o' the ma'sh an' up into the bushes on the lower side o' the
pastur. All to once I heerd somethin'! I stopped an' peeked through the
bushes--couldn't see much--so dark. Then the ol' bear riz up on her hind
legs clus to me. We didn't like the looks o' one 'nother an' begun to
edge off very careful.
"Seems so I kind o' said to the ol' bear: 'Excuse me.'
"Seems so the ol' bear kind o' answered: 'Sart'nly.'
"I got down to a little run, near by, steppin' as soft as a cat. I could
just see a white stun on the side o' it. I lifted my foot to step on
the stun an' jump acrost. B-r-r-r-r! The stun jumped up an' scampered
through the bushes. Then I _was_ scairt. Goshtalmighty! I lost
confidence in everything. Seemed so all the bushes turned into bears.
Jeerusalem, how I run! When I got to the barn I was purty nigh used up."
"How did it happen that the stone jumped?" I asked.
"Oh, I guess 't was a rabbit," said Uncle Peabody.
Thus Uncle Peabody led us off into the trail of the bear and the problem
of Kate and the Sam Fullertons concerned us no more at that time.
A week later we had our raising. Uncle Peabody did not want a public
raising, but Aunt Deel had had her way. We had hewed and mortised and
bored the timbers for our new home. The neighbors came with pikes and
helped to raise and stay and cover them. A great amount of human
kindness went into the beams and rafters of that home and of others like
it. I knew that The Thing was still alive in the neighborhood, but even
that could not paralyze the helpful hands of those people. Indeed, what
was said of my Uncle Peabody was nothing more or less than a kind of
conversational firewood. I can not think that any one really believed
it.
We had a cheerful day. A barrel of hard cider had been set up in the
dooryard, and I remember that some drank it too freely. The he-o-hee of
the men as they lifted on the pikes and the sound of the hammer and
beetle rang in the air from morning until night. Mrs. Rodney Barnes and
Mrs. Dorothy came to help Aunt Deel with the cooking and a great dinner
was served on an improvised table in the dooryard, where the stove was
set up. The shingles and sheathes and clapboards were on before the day
ended.
When they were about to go the men filled their cups and drank to Aunt
Deel.
I knew, or thought I knew, why they had not mentioned my Uncle Peabody,
and was very thoughtful about it. Suddenly the giant Rodney Barnes
strode up to the barrel. I remember the lion-like dignity of his face as
he turned and said:
"Now, boys, come up here an' stand right before me, every one o' you."
He ranged them in a circle around the barrel. He stood at the spigot and
filled every cup. Then he raised his own and said:
"I want ye to drink to Peabody Baynes--one o' the squarest men that ever
stood in cowhide."
They drank the toast--not one of them would have dared refuse.
"Now three cheers for the new home and every one that lives in it," he
demanded.
They cheered lustily and went away.
Uncle Peabody and I put in the floors and stairway and partitions. More
than once in the days we were working together I tried to tell him what
Sally had told me, but my courage failed.
We moved our furniture. I remember that Uncle Peabody called it "the
houseltree." We had greased paper on the windows for a time after we
moved until the sash came. Aunt Deel had made rag carpets for the parlor
and the bedroom which opened off it. Our windows looked down into the
great valley of the St. Lawrence, stretching northward thirty miles or
more from our hilltop. A beautiful grove of sugar maples stood within a
stone's throw of the back door.
What a rustic charm in the long slant of the green hill below us with
its gray, mossy boulders and lovely thorn trees! It was, I think, a
brighter, pleasanter home than that we had left. It was built on the
cellar of one burned a few years before. The old barn was still there
and a little repairing had made it do.
The day came, shortly, when I had to speak out, and I took the straight
way of my duty as the needle of the compass pointed. It was the end of a
summer day and we had watched the dusk fill the valley and come creeping
up the slant, sinking the boulders and thorn tops in its flood, one by
one. As we sat looking out of the open door that evening I told them
what Sally had told me of the evil report which had traveled through
the two towns. Uncle Peabody sat silent and perfectly motionless for a
moment, looking out into the dusk.
"W'y, of all things! Ain't that an awful burnin' shame-ayes!" said Aunt
Deel as she covered her face with her hand.
"Damn, little souled, narrer contracted--" Uncle Peabody, speaking in a
low, sad tone, but with deep feeling, cut off this highly promising
opinion before it was half expressed, and rose and went to the water
pail and drank.
"As long as we're honest we don't care what they say," he remarked as he
returned to his chair.
"If they won't believe us we ought to show 'em the papers--ayes," said
Aunt Deel.
"Thunder an' Jehu! I wouldn't go 'round the town tryin' to prove that I
ain't a thief," said Uncle Peabody. "It wouldn't make no differ'nce.
They've got to have somethin' to play with. If they want to use my name
for a bean bag let 'em as long as they do it when I ain't lookin'. I
wouldn't wonder if they got sore hands by an' by."
I never heard him speak of it again. Indeed, although I knew the topic
was often in our thoughts it was never mentioned in our home but once
after that, to my knowledge.
We sat for a long time thinking as the night came on. By and by Uncle
Peabody began the hymn in which we joined:
"Oh, keep my heart from sadness, God;
Let not its sorrows stay,
Nor shadows of the night erase
The glories of the day."
"Say--by thunder!--we don't have to set in the shadows. Le's fill the
room with the glory of the day," said Uncle Peabody as he lighted the
candles. "It ain't a good idee to go slidin' down hill in the
summer-time an' in the dark, too. Le's have a game o' cards."
I remember that we had three merry games and went to bed. All outward
signs of our trouble had vanished in the glow of the candles.
Next day I rode to the post-office and found there a book addressed to
me in the handwriting of old Kate. It was David Hoffman's _Course of
Legal Study_. She had written on its fly-leaf:
"To Barton Baynes, from a friend."
"That woman 'pears to like you purty thorough," said Uncle Peabody.
"Well, let her if she wants to--poor thing!" Aunt Deel answered. "A
woman has got to have somebody to like--ayes!--or I dunno how she'd
live--I declare I don't--ayes!"
"I like her, too," I said. "She's been a good friend to me."
"She has, sart'n," my uncle agreed.
We began reading the book that evening in the candle-light and soon
finished it. I was thrilled by the ideal of human service with which the
calling of the lawyer was therein lifted up and illuminated. After that
I had no doubt of my way.
That week a letter came to me from the Senator, announcing the day of
Mrs. Wright's arrival in Canton and asking me to meet and assist her in
getting the house to rights. I did so. She was a pleasant-faced, amiable
woman and a most enterprising house cleaner. I remember that my first
task was mending the wheelbarrow.
"I don't know what Silas would do if he were to get home and find his
wheelbarrow broken," said she. "It is almost an inseparable companion of
his."
The schoolmaster and his family were fishing and camping upon the river,
and so I lived at the Senator's house with Mrs. Wright and her mother
until he arrived. What a wonderful house it was, in my view! I was awed
by its size and splendor, its soft carpets and shiny brass and mahogany.
Yet it was very simple.
I hoed the garden and cleaned its paths and mowed the dooryard and did
some painting in the house. I remember that Mrs. Ebenezer Binks--wife
of the deacon and the constable--came in while I was at the latter task
early one morning to see if there were anything she could do.
She immediately sat down and talked constantly until noon of her family
and especially of the heartlessness and general misconduct of her son
and daughter-in-law because they had refused to let her apply the name
of Divine Submission to the baby. It had been a hard blow to Mrs. Binks,
because this was the one and only favor which she had ever asked of
them. She reviewed the history of the Binkses from Ebenezer--the
First--down to that present day. There had been three Divine Submissions
in the family and they had made the name of Binks known wherever people
knew anything. When Mrs. Wright left the room Mrs. Binks directed her
conversation at me, and when Mrs. Wright returned I only got the spray
of it. By dinner time we were drenched in a way of speaking and Mrs.
Binks left, assuring us that she would return later and do anything in
her power.
"My stars!" Mrs. Wright exclaimed. "If you see her coming lock the door
and go and hide in a closet until she goes away. Mrs. Binks always
brings her ancestors with her and they fill the house so that there's no
room for anybody else."
When the day's work was ended Mrs. Wright exclaimed:
"Thank goodness! the Binkses have not returned."
We always referred to Mrs. Binks as the Binkses after that.
Mrs. Jenison, a friend of the Wrights, came in that afternoon and told
us of the visit of young Latour to Canton and of the great relief of the
decent people at his speedy departure.
"I wonder what brought him here," said Mrs. Wright.
"It seems that he had heard of the beauty of Sally Dunkelberg. But a bee
had stung her nose just before he came and she was a sight to behold."
The ladies laughed.
"It's lucky," said Mrs. Wright. "Doesn't Horace Dunkelberg know about
him?"
"I suppose he does, but the man is money crazy."
I couldn't help hearing it, for I was working in the room in which they
talked. Well, really, it doesn't matter much now. They are all gone.
"Who is young Latour?" I asked when Mrs. Jenison had left us.
"A rake and dissolute young man whose father is very rich and lives in a
great mansion over in Jefferson County," Mrs. Wright answered.
I wondered then if there had been a purpose in that drop of honey from
the cup of the Silent Woman.
I remember that the Senator, who returned to Canton that evening on the
Watertown stage, laughed heartily when, as we were sitting by the
fireside, Mrs. Wright told of the call of the Binkses.
"The good lady enjoys a singular plurality," he remarked.
"She enjoys it better than we do," said Mrs. Wright.
The Senator had greeted me with a fatherly warmth. Again I felt that
strong appeal to my eye in his broadcloth and fine linen and beaver hat
and in the splendid dignity and courtesy of his manners.
"I've had good reports of you, Bart, and I'm very glad to see you," he
said.
"I believe your own marks have been excellent in the last year," I
ventured.
"Poorer than I could wish. The teacher has been very kind to me," he
laughed. "What have you been studying?"
"Latin (I always mentioned the Latin first), Algebra, Arithmetic,
Grammar, Geography and History."
"Including the history of the Binkses," he laughed.
There was never a note of humor in his speeches, but he was playful in
his talk at times, especially when trusted friends were with him.
"She is a very excellent woman, after all," he added.
He asked about my aunt and uncle and I told him of all that had befallen
us, save the one thing of which I had spoken only with them and Sally.
"I shall go up to see them soon," he said.
The people of the little village had learned that he preferred to be let
alone when he had just returned over the long, wearisome way from the
scene of his labors. So we had the evening to ourselves.
I remember my keen interest in his account of riding from Albany to
Utica on the new railroads. He spoke with enthusiasm of the smoothness
and swiftness of the journey.
"With no mishap they now make it in about a half a day," he said, as we
listened with wonder. "It is like riding in a house with a good deal of
smoke coming out of the chimney and in at the windows. You sit on a
comfortable bench with a back and a foot-rest in front and look out of
the window and ride. But I tremble sometimes to think of what might
happen with all that weight and speed.
"We had a little mishap after leaving Ballston Spa. The locomotive
engine broke down and the train stopped. The passengers poured out like
bees. We put our hands and shoulders on the train and pushed it
backwards about a third of a mile to a passing station. There the
engine got out of our way and after an hour's wait a horse was hitched
to the train. With the help of the men he started it. At the next town
our horse was reinforced by two others. They hauled us to the engine
station four miles beyond, where another locomotive engine was attached
to the train, and we went on by steam and at a fearful rate of speed."
Mrs. Wright, being weary after the day's work, went to bed early and, at
his request, I sat with the Senator by the fire for an hour or so. I
have always thought it a lucky circumstance, for he asked me to tell of
my plans and gave me advice and encouragement which have had a marked
effect upon my career.
I remember telling him that I wished to be a lawyer and my reasons for
it. He told me that a lawyer was either a pest or a servant of justice
and that his chief aim should be the promotion of peace and good will in
his community. He promised to try and arrange for my accommodation in
his office in the autumn and meanwhile to lend me some books to read
while I was at home.
"Before we go to bed let us have a settlement," said the Senator. "Will
you kindly sit down at the table there and make up a statement of all
the time you have given me?"
I made out the statement very neatly and carefully and put it in his
hands.
"That is well done," said he. "I shall wish you to stay until the day
after to-morrow, if you will. So you will please add another day."
I amended the statement and he paid me the handsome sum of seven
dollars. I remember that after I went to my room that night I stitched
up the opening in my jacket pocket, which contained my wealth, with the
needle and thread which Aunt Deel had put in my bundle, and slept with
the jacket under my mattress.
The Senator and I were up at five o'clock and at work in the garden.
What a contrast to see him spading in his old farm suit! Mrs. Wright
cooked our breakfast and called us in at six.
I remember we were fixing the fence around his pasture lot that day when
a handsomely dressed gentleman came back in the field. Mr. Wright was
chopping at a small spruce.
"Is Senator Wright here?" the stranger inquired of me.
I pointed to the chopper.
"I beg your pardon--I am looking for the distinguished United States
Senator," he explained with a smile.
Again I pointed at the man with the ax and said:
"That is the Senator."
Often I have thought of the look of astonishment on the face of the
stranger as he said: "Will you have the kindness to tell him that
General Macomb would like to speak with him?"
I halted his ax and conveyed the message.
"Is this the hero of Plattsburg?" Mr. Wright asked.
"Well, I have been there," said the General.
They shook hands and went up to the house together.
I walked back to the hills that evening. There I found a letter from
Sally. She and her mother, who was in ill health, were spending the
summer with relatives at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She wrote of riding
and fishing and sailing, but of all that she wrote I think only of these
words now:
"I meet many good-looking boys here, but none of them are like you.
I wonder if you remember what you said to me that day. If you want
to unsay it, you can do it by letter, you know. I think that would
be the best way to do it. So don't be afraid of hurting my
feelings. Perhaps I would be glad. You don't know. What a long day
that was! It seems as if it wasn't over yet. How lucky for me that
it was such a beautiful day! You know I have forgotten all about
the pain, but I laugh when I think how I looked and how Mr. Latour
looked. He laughed a good deal going home, as if thinking of some
wonderful joke. In September I am going away to a young ladies'
school in Albany. I hate it. Can you imagine why? I am to learn
fine manners and French and Spanish and dancing and be good enough
for any man's wife. Think of that. Father says that I must marry a
big man. Jiminy Crimps! As if a big man wouldn't know better. I am
often afraid that you will know too much. I know what will happen
when your intellect sees how foolish I am. My grandmother says that
I am frivolous and far from God. I am afraid it's true, but
sometimes I want to be good--only sometimes. I remember you said,
once, that you were going to be like Silas Wright. Honestly I
believe that you could. So does mother. I want you to keep trying,
but it makes me afraid. Oh, dear! How sad and homesick I feel
to-day! Tell me the truth now, when you write."
That evening I wrote my first love-letter--a fairly warm and moving
fragment of history. My family have urged me to let it go in the record,
but I have firmly refused. There are some things which I can not do even
in this little masquerade. It is enough to say that when the day ended I
had deliberately chosen two of the many ways that lay before me.