IT was a wonderful thing to see the way he rose and stepped forward,
and stood before the people, and their cheering was like the shout of
winds in a forest.” So spake our old schoolmaster, Appleton Hall, as he
told us of Daniel Webster and the famous Bunker Hill address.
His black eyes glowed as he went on: “There was something grand in the
look of the man, for he was tall and strong-built, and stood straight
as an arrow, and his soul was in his face. A godlike and solemn face it
was, like that of St. Paul, as I think of him after reading the twelfth
chapter of Romans. He had a wonderful authority in his face, and what a
silence it commanded after that first greeting had passed, and before he
had opened his mouth to speak. My eyes grew dim as I looked at him. He
wore a blue coat, with bright brass buttons on it, and a buff waistcoat,
and his great black-crested, swarthy head was nobly poised above his
white linen. His dark eyes were deep set under massive brows. Now
comes the first sentence of that immortal speech. His voice is like a
deep-toned bell as he speaks with great deliberation the opening words:
'This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling
which the occasion has excited.'
“Near him, and looking into his face, were two hundred veterans of the
Revolution, some in their old uniforms, many crippled by wounds and bent
by infirmities.
“It was a mighty thing to hear when he looked into their faces and
said: 'Venerable men, you have come down to us from a former generation.
Heaven has bountifully lengthened out your lives that you might behold
this joyous day.'
“Well I remember how, when he had ceased, the people were still for half
a moment dreading to break the spell. Suddenly they were like a sea in a
wind, although many held their places and were loath to go, and lingered
awhile talking of the speech, and I among them. And I saw the vast crowd
slowly break and go drifting away by thousands, and I fancied that some
of the men held their heads a bit higher, and that certain of those near
me were trying the Websterian tone. Since then that tone and that manner
have become as familiar as the flag. At the inn I heard much talk of
the great man--idle words which one may hear to this day and be none the
wiser, but possibly much the worse for it.
“Some said that he always took a tumbler of brandy before he made a
speech; but I observed that these gossipers had the odor of rum about
them. There was, too, a relish of Me and Dan'l in all their talk.
However, the tradition has come down to us, and had its effect in the
life of this village, and of others like it. However well you may do,
young men, there will be those seeking ever to pull you down to their
level, and if they cannot move your character they will attack your
reputation.”
I have often thought of these words of the schoolmaster. They showed me
some of the curious monkey traits of man. Through them I began to know
Griggsby, to which I had lately come. I suddenly discovered that I was
living in the Websterian age, and a high-headed, reverberating time it
was.
But, first, let me introduce myself. People have always called me
“Havelock, of Stillwater,” though I am plain Uriel Havelock. I have
little in my purse, but there are treasures in my memory, and I am
trying here to give them to the world with all my joyous thoughts about
them and never a feeling of ill will.
I write of that time when the fame of Webster was on every lip, although
his soul had passed some twenty years before. All through the North,
from the Atlantic to far frontiers beyond the Mississippi, men in beaver
hats and tall collars were playing Daniel Webster. They dressed as he
had dressed, and had his grand manners, while their diaphragms were
often sorely strained in an effort to deliver his deep, resounding
tones. The peace of most farms and villages was disturbed by Websterian
shouts of ready-made patriotism from the lips of sires and sons.
Webster was a demi-god, in the imagination of the people, with a voice
of thunder and an eye to threaten and command. Countless anecdotes
celebrated his wit, his eloquence, and his supposed capacity for
stimulants. He was not the only man of that period who suffered from the
inventive talent of his successors. Powers of indulgence and of reckless
wit were conferred upon them in a way to excite the wonder and emulation
of the weak. Daniel Webster especially had been a martyr to such
flattery. He never deserved it. Wearied by his great labors, he may now
and then have resorted to stimulants; but his reputation as an absorber
of strong drink is a baseless fabrication. Those brimming cups of his
have been mostly filled with fiction.
Nevertheless, he was handed down to posterity as a product of genius
and stimulation--a sublime toper. In that capacity he filled a long-felt
need of those engaged in the West Indian trade and the innkeepers. In
those days, it should be remembered, an inn-keeper was a man of some
account. With that imaginary trait of greatness at the fore, the
resounding Websterian age began.
When still a boy I left home and went to live in Griggsby. It was
a better place to die in; but that does not matter, since, going to
Griggsby to live, I succeeded. At school among my fellow-students was
a boy I greatly envied. Bright and handsome, as a scholar he was at
one end of the class, and I at the other; and that was about the way
we stood in local prophecy. I wonder when people will learn that
scholarship should not be the first, or even the second, aim of a
schooling. For it is not what the mind takes in that makes the man, but
what the mind gives out; it is not the quantity of one's memories, but
the quality of one's thoughts. Character makes the man and also the
community. It was character that made Griggsby, and Griggsby in turn
made characters.
Old John Henry Griggs was the first sample of its finished product.
He had been keeping up with Webster, as he thought, ever since he left
school, and in that effort was both a drunkard and a “distinguished
statesman.” Though he modestly disclaimed these great accomplishments, a
majority of his fellow-citizens conferred them upon him. The result was
a public peril.
Among the students at school was a girl that I loved. Her name was
Florence Dunbar, which had a fine sound, while mine, like many other
names of Yankee choosing, was a help to humility and a discouragement
to pride. Then, again, Florence was rich and beautiful, while I was poor
and plain. She had come to Griggsby from the West, where her father
had gone in his youth and had made a fortune. They had sent her and her
brother back to the old home to be educated. I had come to Griggsby from
a stumpy farm on the edge of the forest ten miles away.
Now, this plainness of mine, I soon discovered, was largely due to my
mother's looking-glass, aided and abetted by untiring efforts on the
part of all the family to keep me humble. I often wondered how it
came about that I was the only one in the house whose looks were a
misfortune. It did not seem just that I should be singled out to carry
all the ugliness for that generation of Havelocks. I would not have
minded a generous share, but it seemed to me that I was the only one who
had been hit by the avalanche. One day I confided to my elder brother
this overwhelming sense of facial deformity. To my surprise, he assured
me that I had a face to be proud of, while his had kept him awake
of nights and caused him to despise himself. That exchange of views
increased our confidence in ourselves a little, if not our knowledge. By
and by a neighbor moved into that lonely part of the world where we were
living. I shall never forget the day I went to play with the strange
children, and especially the moment when I stood before their
looking-glass combing my hair. To my joy and astonishment, I saw a new
face, of better proportions and smaller defects, and with only one twist
in it. I tarried so long at the glass that the mother of the family
smiled and said that she feared I was a rather foolish boy.
When I went home I proceeded with as little delay as possible to my
mother's looking-glass, where I found the long, gnarled face of old
with its magnified freckles. I wondered at this difference of opinion
regarding my personal appearance between the two glasses, but with noble
patriotism decided that my mother's mirror was probably right. As a
discourager of sinful pride that gilt-bound, oval looking-glass was
a great success. It lengthened the face and enlarged every defect; it
crumpled the nose and put sundry twists in the countenance. There have
been two ministers and three old maids in our family, and in my opinion
that looking-glass did it. Of course, other things helped, but the glass
was mainly responsible. I myself would have been a minister if it had
not fallen to my lot to break a yoke of steers, and that saved me. In
the course of this task I acquired an accomplishment inconsistent with
the life of a clergyman. I kept it long enough to trim the beech trees
about my father's house, and it lasted through many calls to repentance.
Then, too, my father discovered that I had an unusual talent for lying.
He did his best to destroy it, and would have succeeded if he had not
appealed to the wrong side of me--a side which never had much capacity
for absorbing information. Now as the cow jumped over the moon in my
story book, I could not understand why it should be thought wicked for
her to jump over the stable in my conversation. But my story lacked
verisimilitude. It wouldn't do. Indeed, for a time I felt as if the cow
had landed on me. It was a great monopoly that controlled the output of
the human imagination, those days, and while most of my elders were in
it, as I knew, they wouldn't give me a chance. I persevered. It cost me
great pain, but I persevered. My father lost heart and consulted with
the Rev. Appleton Hall, who was principal of the village school at
Griggsby, and he undertook to make a man of me. That was how I came to
go there, and to live in a small room rudely furnished by my father,
where I did my own cooking. The school principal began to call me
“Havelock of Stillwater,” Stillwater being our township in the woods,
and others followed his example. Mr. Hall did not waste any time in
trying to convince me that lying produced pain. I knew that. He took the
positive side of the proposition and soon taught me that the truth pays.
In the main, the looking-glasses of Griggsby were kind to me, and the
weight of evidence seemed to indicate that my face was not a misfortune,
after all. Still, I had no conceit of it.
The big buildings of the town, the high hats and “lofty” manners of the
great men, excited my wonder and admiration. At first they were beyond
my understanding, and did not even amuse me.
I had a profound sense of inferiority to almost every one I met, and
especially to Florence Dunbar. I suppose it was a part of that ample
gift of humility which had been pounded into my ancestors and passed on
to me with the aid of the beech rod, the looking-glass, and the shrill
voice of Elder Whitman in the schoolhouse. For a long time my love for
Florence was a secret locked in my own breast.
Summer had returned to the little village in the hills, and one Saturday
in June I gathered wild flowers in the fields and took them to Florence.
She received them with a cry of joy, and asked me to show her where they
grew; so away we went together into the meadows by a wayside, and, when
our hands were full, sat under a tree to look at them. Then, poor lad!
I opened my heart to her, and I remember it was in full bloom. I shall
never forget the sweet, girlish frankness with which she said:
“I'm sorry, but I cannot love you.”
“I didn't think it would be possible,” I said.
“Oh yes, it would be _possible_,” she explained; “but, you see, I love
another.”
I remember well how her frankness hurt me. I turned away, and had
trouble to breathe for a moment. She saw the effect of her words, and
said, by way of comfort: “But I think you're very, very nice; Henry
likes you, too.”
Henry was her brother and my chum at school.
“I wish you would tell me what to do with him,” she went on, after
a moment. “He's drinking, and behind in his work, and I am terribly
worried.”
“It's nothing to worry about,” I said, though not in perfect innocence.
“All great men drink--it helps 'em stand the strain, I suppose.”
“Havelock, you talk like a child,” she answered. “These leading men
are leading us in the wrong direction. You boys think that they are so
wonderful you begin to take after them. Look at Ralph. He's going to the
bad as fast as possible. I'd pack up and go home with Henry if--”
Her eyes filled with tears. I sat silent and full of shame, and quite
aware of her secret. She loved Ralph Buckstone, the good-looking son of
the great Colonel.
“You love him, don't you?” I said, sorrowfully.
She smiled at me through a spray of clover blossoms with cheeks as red
as they, but made no answer.
At that moment Colonel Buckstone himself came galloping along on his big
black horse, shotgun in hand, with two hounds at his heels. He pulled up
with a knowing look, shook his head, and then rode away with only a wave
of his hand.
Florence and I rose and walked along in silence for a while, then she
said:
“I'm sorry for you, and I will never tell what you have told me, never.”
“And I will never tell what you have told me,” I said.
“I'm willing you should tell _him_,” she answered. “He may as well know,
even if he doesn't care.”
Temptation beset me even then, but in those first months my natural
innocence was like a shield. By and by I began to feel the weight of it,
and to lighten the load a little. That wonderful comedy which was being
enacted in the life around me had begun to excite my interest when I
went home to work in the fields for the summer.
I returned to school in the autumn, a big swarthy youth of seventeen.
Before the end of that year the first of these many adventures of mine
opened the gate of a better life before me.
It was a day in December. Henry and Florence Dunbar, Ralph Buckstone,
and I were skating on the lake. The ice was new, and bent a little under
our feet as we flew, out on the glassy plain in pursuit of Florence,
more daring and expert than the rest of us. The day was cloudless,
and the smooth lake roof shone in the sunlight. An hour later we were
returning, with Florence a hundred or more feet ahead of us, when I
heard the snap of the breaking ice and saw her go down like a stone
falling through a skylight. I skated straight for the break, and, taking
a deep breath, crashed among the broken slabs of ice and down into cold,
roaring water. My hand touched something, and I seized it--her coat,
as I knew by the feeling. Then came that little fraction of a minute
in which one must do the right thing and do it quickly. I could see,
of course, and could hear the shouts of the boys, the click of skates
passing near, and the stir of the shattered ice. That saved us, that
sound of the wavering ice. I made for it, got my hand through, and
caught a shinny stick in the hands of Henry Dunbar, who was lying flat
near the edge of the break. There we hung and lived until the boys came
with a pole and got us out. Chilled? No. I was never so hot in my life
until I began to feel the wind.
One day soon after that my father came into the village and said that
I was to board at the house of Mr. Daniel W. Smead, have three square
meals a day, and a room with four windows and a stove in it. Poor lad! I
did not know until long after that Florence and Henry paid the bill.
My father said that he had sold the big Wilkes mare and her foal, and I
supposed that that accounted for his generosity.
Florence would have it that I had saved her life, although the truth is
that if I had not gone down after her one of the other boys would have
done so, I am sure, or she might even have reached the air alone. How
she pitied me after that! Almost every day she tried to show me her
gratitude with some little token--a flower, a tender word or look, or
an invitation to supper. I loved her with all the steadfastness of the
true-born Yankee, but it seemed to me now that my love was hopeless. I
could never ask her to marry me, for how could she say no to me with all
that burden of gratitude in her heart? How could I have got an honest
answer if I had been unfair enough to ask it?