I have seen her at last. She is a hundred and seven years old, and
remembers George Washington quite distinctly. It is somewhat confusing,
however, that she also remembers a contemporaneous Josiah W. Perkins of
Basking Ridge, N. J., and, I think, has the impression that Perkins was
the better man. Perkins, at the close of the last century, paid her some
little attention. There are a few things that a really noble woman of a
hundred and seven never forgets.
It was Perkins, who said to her in 1795, in the streets of Philadelphia,
“Shall I show thee Gen. Washington?” Then she said careless-like (for
you know, child, at that time it wasn't what it is now to see Gen.
Washington), she said, “So do, Josiah, so do!” Then he pointed to a
tall man who got out of a carriage, and went into a large house. He was
larger than you be. He wore his own hair--not powdered; had a
flowered chintz vest, with yellow breeches and blue stockings, and a
broad-brimmed hat. In summer he wore a white straw hat, and at his farm
at Basking Ridge he always wore it. At this point, it became too evident
that she was describing the clothes of the all-fascinating Perkins: so I
gently but firmly led her back to Washington. Then it appeared that she
did not remember exactly what he wore. To assist her, I sketched the
general historic dress of that period. She said she thought he was
dressed like that. Emboldened by my success, I added a hat of Charles
II., and pointed shoes of the eleventh century. She indorsed these with
such cheerful alacrity, that I dropped the subject.
The house upon which I had stumbled, or, rather, to which my horse--a
Jersey hack, accustomed to historic research--had brought me, was
low and quaint. Like most old houses, it had the appearance of being
encroached upon by the surrounding glebe, as if it were already half in
the grave, with a sod or two, in the shape of moss thrown on it, like
ashes on ashes, and dust on dust. A wooden house, instead of acquiring
dignity with age, is apt to lose its youth and respectability together.
A porch, with scant, sloping seats, from which even the winter's snow
must have slid uncomfortably, projected from a doorway that opened most
unjustifiably into a small sitting-room. There was no vestibule, or
locus poenitentiae, for the embarrassed or bashful visitor: he passed
at once from the security of the public road into shameful privacy.
And here, in the mellow autumnal sunlight, that, streaming through the
maples and sumach on the opposite bank, flickered and danced upon the
floor, she sat and discoursed of George Washington, and thought of
Perkins. She was quite in keeping with the house and the season, albeit
a little in advance of both; her skin being of a faded russet, and her
hands so like dead November leaves, that I fancied they even rustled
when she moved them.
For all that, she was quite bright and cheery; her faculties still quite
vigorous, although performing irregularly and spasmodically. It was
somewhat discomposing, I confess, to observe, that at times her lower
jaw would drop, leaving her speechless, until one of the family would
notice it, and raise it smartly into place with a slight snap,--an
operation always performed in such an habitual, perfunctory manner,
generally in passing to and fro in their household duties, that it was
very trying to the spectator. It was still more embarrassing to observe
that the dear old lady had evidently no knowledge of this, but believed
she was still talking, and that, on resuming her actual vocal utterance,
she was often abrupt and incoherent, beginning always in the middle of
a sentence, and often in the middle of a word. “Sometimes,” said her
daughter, a giddy, thoughtless young thing of eighty-five,--“sometimes
just moving her head sort of unhitches her jaw; and, if we don't happen
to see it, she'll go on talking for hours without ever making a sound.”
Although I was convinced, after this, that during my interview I had
lost several important revelations regarding George Washington through
these peculiar lapses, I could not help reflecting how beneficent were
these provisions of the Creator,--how, if properly studied and applied,
they might be fraught with happiness to mankind,--how a slight jostle
or jar at a dinner-party might make the post-prandial eloquence of
garrulous senility satisfactory to itself, yet harmless to others,--how
a more intimate knowledge of anatomy, introduced into the domestic
circle, might make a home tolerable at least, if not happy,--how a
long-suffering husband, under the pretence of a conjugal caress,
might so unhook his wife's condyloid process as to allow the flow of
expostulation, criticism, or denunciation, to go on with gratification
to her, and perfect immunity to himself.
But this was not getting back to George Washington and the early
struggles of the Republic. So I returned to the commander-in-chief, but
found, after one or two leading questions, that she was rather inclined
to resent his re-appearance on the stage. Her reminiscences here were
chiefly social and local, and more or less flavored with Perkins. We got
back as far as the Revolutionary epoch, or, rather, her impressions of
that epoch, when it was still fresh in the public mind. And here I came
upon an incident, purely personal and local, but, withal, so novel,
weird, and uncanny, that for a while I fear it quite displaced George
Washington in my mind, and tinged the autumnal fields beyond with a red
that was not of the sumach. I do not remember to have read of it in the
books. I do not know that it is entirely authentic. It was attested to
me by mother and daughter, as an uncontradicted tradition.
In the little field beyond, where the plough still turns up musket-balls
and cartridge-boxes, took place one of those irregular skirmishes
between the militiamen and Knyphausen's stragglers, that made the
retreat historical. A Hessian soldier, wounded in both legs and utterly
helpless, dragged himself to the cover of a hazel-copse, and lay there
hidden for two days. On the third day, maddened by thirst, he managed
to creep to the rail-fence of an adjoining farm-house, but found himself
unable to mount it or pass through. There was no one in the house but
a little girl of six or seven years. He called to her, and in a faint
voice asked for water. She returned to the house, as if to comply
with his request, but, mounting a chair, took from the chimney
a heavily-loaded Queen Anne musket, and, going to the door, took
deliberate aim at the helpless intruder, and fired. The man fell back
dead, without a groan. She replaced the musket, and, returning to the
fence, covered the body with boughs and leaves, until it was hidden. Two
or three days after, she related the occurrence in a careless, casual
way, and leading the way to the fence, with a piece of bread and butter
in her guileless little fingers, pointed out the result of her simple,
unsophisticated effort. The Hessian was decently buried, but I could not
find out what became of the little girl. Nobody seemed to remember. I
trust, that, in after-years, she was happily married; that no Jersey
Lovelace attempted to trifle with a heart whose impulses were so prompt,
and whose purposes were so sincere. They did not seem to know if she had
married or not. Yet it does not seem probable that such simplicity of
conception, frankness of expression, and deftness of execution, were
lost to posterity, or that they failed, in their time and season, to
give flavor to the domestic felicity of the period. Beyond this,
the story perhaps has little value, except as an offset to the usual
anecdotes of Hessian atrocity.
They had their financial panics even in Jersey, in the old days.
She remembered when Dr. White married your cousin Mary--or was it
Susan?--yes, it was Susan. She remembers that your Uncle Harry brought
in an armful of bank-notes,--paper money, you know,--and threw them in
the corner, saying they were no good to anybody. She remembered playing
with them, and giving them to your Aunt Anna--no, child, it was your own
mother, bless your heart! Some of them was marked as high as a hundred
dollars. Everybody kept gold and silver in a stocking, or in a “chaney”
vase, like that. You never used money to buy any thing. When Josiah went
to Springfield to buy any thing, he took a cartload of things with him
to exchange. That yaller picture-frame was paid for in greenings. But
then people knew jest what they had. They didn't fritter their substance
away in unchristian trifles, like your father, Eliza Jane, who doesn't
know that there is a God who will smite him hip and thigh; for vengeance
is mine, and those that believe in me. But here, singularly enough, the
inferior maxillaries gave out, and her jaw dropped. (I noticed that her
giddy daughter of eighty-five was sitting near her; but I do not pretend
to connect this fact with the arrested flow of personal disclosure.)
Howbeit, when she recovered her speech again, it appeared that she was
complaining of the weather.
The seasons had changed very much since your father went to sea.
The winters used to be terrible in those days. When she went over to
Springfield, in June, she saw the snow still on Watson's Ridge. There
were whole days when you couldn't git over to William Henry's, their
next neighbor, a quarter of a mile away. It was that drefful winter that
the Spanish sailor was found. You don't remember the Spanish sailor,
Eliza Jane--it was before your time. There was a little personal
skirmishing here, which I feared, at first, might end in a suspension of
maxillary functions, and the loss of the story; but here it is. Ah, me!
it is a pure white winter idyl: how shall I sing it this bright, gay
autumnal day?
It was a terrible night, that winter's night, when she and the century
were young together. The sun was lost at three o'clock: the snowy night
came down like a white sheet, that flapped around the house, beat at the
windows with its edges, and at last wrapped it in a close embrace. In
the middle of the night, they thought they heard above the wind a voice
crying, “Christus, Christus!” in a foreign tongue. They opened the
door,--no easy task in the north wind that pressed its strong shoulders
against it,--but nothing was to be seen but the drifting snow. The next
morning dawned on fences hidden, and a landscape changed and obliterated
with drift. During the day, they again heard the cry of “Christus!” this
time faint and hidden, like a child's voice. They searched in vain: the
drifted snow hid its secret. On the third day they broke a path to the
fence, and then they heard the cry distinctly. Digging down, they found
the body of a man,--a Spanish sailor, dark and bearded, with ear-rings
in his ears. As they stood gazing down at his cold and pulseless figure,
the cry of “Christus!” again rose upon the wintry air; and they turned
and fled in superstitious terror to the house. And then one of the
children, bolder than the rest, knelt down, and opened the dead man's
rough pea-jacket, and found--what think you?--a little blue-and-green
parrot, nestling against his breast. It was the bird that had echoed
mechanically the last despairing cry of the life that was given to save
it. It was the bird, that ever after, amid outlandish oaths and wilder
sailor-songs, that I fear often shocked the pure ears of its gentle
mistress, and brought scandal into the Jerseys, still retained that one
weird and mournful cry.
The sun meanwhile was sinking behind the steadfast range beyond, and I
could not help feeling that I must depart with my wants unsatisfied.
I had brought away no historic fragment: I absolutely knew little or
nothing new regarding George Washington. I had been addressed variously
by the names of different members of the family who were dead and
forgotten; I had stood for an hour in the past: yet I had not added to
my historical knowledge, nor the practical benefit of your readers. I
spoke once more of Washington, and she replied with a reminiscence of
Perkins.
Stand forth, O Josiah W. Perkins of Basking Ridge, N. J. Thou wast of
little account in thy life, I warrant; thou didst not even feel the
greatness of thy day and time; thou didst criticise thy superiors; thou
wast small and narrow in thy ways; thy very name and grave are unknown
and uncared for: but thou wast once kind to a woman who survived thee,
and, lo! thy name is again spoken of men, and for a moment lifted up
above thy betters.