We have already mentioned the delight of the Clemens children in Uncle
John Quarles's farm. To Little Sam it was probably a life-saver. With
his small cousin, Tabitha,--[Tabitha Quarles, now Mrs. Greening,
of Palmyra, Missouri, has supplied most of the material for this
chapter.]--just his own age (they called her Puss), he wandered over
that magic domain, fording new marvels at every step, new delights
everywhere. A slave-girl, Mary, usually attended them, but she was only
six years older, and not older at all in reality, so she was just a
playmate, and not a guardian to be feared or evaded. Sometimes, indeed,
it was necessary for her to threaten to tell “Miss Patsey” or “Miss
Jane,” when her little charges insisted on going farther or staying
later than she thought wise from the viewpoint of her own personal
safety; but this was seldom, and on the whole a stay at the farm was
just one long idyllic dream of summer-time and freedom.
The farm-house stood in the middle of a large yard entered by a stile
made of sawed-off logs of graduated heights. In the corner of the yard
were hickory trees, and black walnut, and beyond the fence the hill fell
away past the barns, the corn-cribs, and the tobacco-house to a brook--a
divine place to wade, with deep, dark, forbidden pools. Down in the
pasture there were swings under the big trees, and Mary swung the
children and ran under them until their feet touched the branches, and
then took her turn and “balanced” herself so high that their one wish
was to be as old as Mary and swing in that splendid way. All the woods
were full of squirrels--gray squirrels and the red-fox species--and many
birds and flowers; all the meadows were gay with clover and butterflies,
and musical with singing grasshoppers and calling larks; there were
blackberries in the fence rows, apples and peaches in the orchard, and
watermelons in the corn. They were not always ripe, those watermelons,
and once, when Little Sam had eaten several pieces of a green one, he
was seized with cramps so severe that most of the household expected him
to die forthwith.
Jane Clemens was not heavily concerned.
“Sammy will pull through,” she said; “he wasn't born to die that way.”
It is the slender constitution that bears the strain. “Sammy” did pull
through, and in a brief time was ready for fresh adventure.
There were plenty of these: there were the horses to ride to and from
the fields; the ox-wagons to ride in when they had dumped their heavy
loads; the circular horsepower to ride on when they threshed the wheat.
This last was a dangerous and forbidden pleasure, but the children would
dart between the teams and climb on, and the slave who was driving would
pretend not to see. Then in the evening when the black woman came along,
going after the cows, the children would race ahead and set the cows
running and jingling their bells--especially Little Sam, for he was a
wild-headed, impetuous child of sudden ecstasies that sent him capering
and swinging his arms, venting his emotions in a series of leaps and
shrieks and somersaults, and spasms of laughter as he lay rolling in the
grass.
His tendency to mischief grew with this wide liberty, improved health,
and the encouragement of John Quarles's good-natured, fun-loving slaves.
The negro quarters beyond the orchard were especially attractive. In
one cabin lived a bed-ridden, white-headed old woman whom the children
visited daily and looked upon with awe; for she was said to be a
thousand years old and to have talked with Moses. The negroes believed
this; the children, too, of course, and that she had lost her health in
the desert, coming out of Egypt. The bald spot on her head was caused by
fright at seeing Pharaoh drowned. She also knew how to avert spells and
ward off witches, which added greatly to her prestige. Uncle Dan'l was a
favorite, too-kind-hearted and dependable, while his occasional lockjaw
gave him an unusual distinction. Long afterward he would become Nigger
Jim in the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn tales, and so in his gentle
guilelessness win immortality and the love of many men.
Certainly this was a heavenly place for a little boy, the farm of Uncle
John Quarles, and the house was as wonderful as its surroundings. It
was a two-story double log building, with a spacious floor (roofed in)
connecting the two divisions. In the summer the table was set in the
middle of that shady, breezy pavilion, and sumptuous meals were served
in the lavish Southern style, brought to the table in vast dishes that
left only room for rows of plates around the edge. Fried chicken, roast
pig, turkeys, ducks, geese, venison just killed, squirrels, rabbits,
partridges, pheasants, prairie-chickens--the list is too long to be
served here. If a little boy could not improve on that bill of fare and
in that atmosphere, his case was hopeless indeed. His mother kept him
there until the late fall, when the chilly evenings made them gather
around the wide, blazing fireplace. Sixty years later he wrote of that
scene:
I can see the room yet with perfect clearness. I can see all its
buildings, all its details: the family-room of the house, with the
trundle-bed in one corner and the spinning-wheel in another a wheel
whose rising and falling wail, heard from a distance, was the
mournfulest of all sounds to me, and made me homesick and low-
spirited, and filled my atmosphere with the wandering spirits of the
dead; the vast fireplace, piled high with flaming logs, from whose
ends a sugary sap bubbled out, but did not go to waste, for we
scraped it off and ate it;... the lazy cat spread out on the
rough hearthstones, the drowsy dogs braced against the jambs,
blinking; my aunt in one chimney-corner and my uncle in the other
smoking his corn-cob pipe; the slick and carpetless oak floor
faintly mirroring the flame tongues, and freckled with black
indentations where fire-coals had popped out and died a leisurely
death; half a dozen children romping in the background twilight;
splint-bottom chairs here and there--some with rockers; a cradle
--out of service, but waiting with confidence.
One is tempted to dwell on this period, to quote prodigally from these
vivid memories--the thousand minute impressions which the child's
sensitive mind acquired in that long-ago time and would reveal
everywhere in his work in the years to come. For him it was education
of a more valuable and lasting sort than any he would ever acquire from
books.