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MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES
By
KATE SANBORN
AUTHOR OF
"ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM," "ABANDONING AN
ADOPTED FARM," "OLD-TIME WALL PAPERS," ETC.
_WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS_
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1915
[Illustration, _Frontispiece_:
GREETINGS AND WELCOME TO EVERY READER
(KATE SANBORN)]
To
ALL MY FRIENDS EVERYWHERE
ESPECIALLY TO MY BELOVED
"NEW HAMPSHIRE DAUGHTERS" IN MASSACHUSETTS,
MY PUPILS IN SMITH COLLEGE,
ALSO AT PACKER INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN,
AND ALL THOSE WHO HAD THE PATIENCE TO LISTEN TO MY
LECTURES,
WITH GRATEFUL REGARDS TO THOSE DARTMOUTH GRADUATES
WHO, LIKING MY FATHER, WERE ALWAYS GIVING HIS
AMBITIOUS DAUGHTER A HELPING HAND
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
My Early Days--Odd Characters in our Village--Distinguished Visitors
to Dartmouth--Two Story-Tellers of Hanover--A "Beacon Light" and a
Master of Synonyms--A Day with Bryant in his Country Home--A Wedding
Trip to the White Mountains in 1826 in "A One-Hoss Shay"--A Great
Career which Began in a Country Store
CHAPTER II
A Friend at Andover, Mass.--Hezekiah Butterworth--A Few of my Own
Folks--Professor Putnam of Dartmouth--One Year at Packer Institute,
Brooklyn--Beecher's Face in Prayer--The Poet Saxe as I Saw
him--Offered the Use of a Rare Library--Miss Edna Dean Proctor--New
Stories of Greeley--Experiences at St. Louis
CHAPTER III
Happy Days with Mrs. Botta--My Busy Life in New York--President
Barnard of Columbia College--A Surprise from Bierstadt--Professor
Doremus, a Universal Genius--Charles H. Webb, a truly funny "Funny
Man"--Mrs. Esther Herman, a Modest Giver
CHAPTER IV
Three Years at Smith College--Appreciation of Its Founder--A
Successful Lecture Tour--My Trip to Alaska
CHAPTER V
Frances E. Willard--Walt Whitman--Lady Henry Somerset--Mrs. Hannah
Whitehall Smith--A Teetotaler for Ten Minutes--Olive Thorn
Miller--Hearty Praise for Mrs. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood.)
CHAPTER VI
In and near Boston--Edward Everett Hale--Thomas Wentworth
Higginson--Julia Ward Howe--Mary A. Livermore--A Day at the Concord
School--Harriet G. Hosmer--"Dora Distria," our Illustrious Visitor
CHAPTER VII
Elected to be the First President of New Hampshire's Daughters in
Massachusetts. Now Honorary President--Kind Words which I Highly
Value--Three, but not "of a Kind"--A Strictly Family Affair--Two
Favorite Poems--Breezy Meadows
ILLUSTRATIONS
GREETINGS AND WELCOME TO EVERY READER
(KATE SANBORN) _Frontispiece_
THE STREET FRONTING THE SANBORN HOME AT HANOVER, N.H.
MRS. ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA
PRESIDENT BARNARD OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE
PROFESSOR R. OGDEN DOREMUS
SOPHIA SMITH
PETER MacQUEEN
SAM WALTER FOSS
PINES AND SILVER BIRCHES
PADDLING IN CHICKEN BROOK
THE ISLAND WHICH WE MADE
TAKA'S TEA HOUSE AT LILY POND
THE LOOKOUT
THE SWITCH
HOW VINES GROW AT BREEZY MEADOWS
GRAND ELM (OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS OLD)
MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES
CHAPTER I
My Early Days--Odd Characters in our Village--Distinguished Visitors
to Dartmouth--Two Story Tellers of Hanover--A "Beacon Light" and a
Master of Synonyms--A Day with Bryant in his Country Home--A Wedding
Trip to the White Mountains in 1826 in "A One Hoss Shay"--A Great
Career which Began in a Country Store.
I make no excuse for publishing these memories. Realizing that I have
been so fortunate as to know an unusual number of distinguished men
and women, it gives me pleasure to share this privilege with others.
One summer morning, "long, long ago," a newspaper was sent by my
grandmother, Mrs. Ezekiel Webster, to a sister at Concord, New
Hampshire, with this item of news pencilled on the margin:
"Born Thursday morning, July 11, 1839, 4.30 A.M., a fine little girl,
seven pounds."
I was born in my father's library, and first opened my eyes upon a
scenic wall-paper depicting the Bay of Naples; in fact I was born just
under Vesuvius--which may account for my occasional eruptions of
temper and life-long interest in "Old Time Wall-papers." Later our
house was expanded into a college dormitory and has been removed to
another site, but Vesuvius is still smoking placidly in the old
library.
Mine was a shielded, happy childhood--an only child for six years--and
family letters show that I was "always and for ever talking," asking
questions, making queer remarks, or allowing free play to a vivid
imagination, which my parents thought it wise to restrain. Father felt
called upon to write for a child's paper about Caty's Gold Fish, which
were only minnows from Mink Brook.
"Caty is sitting on the floor at my feet, chattering as usual, and
asking questions." I seem to remember my calling over the banister to
an assembled family downstairs, "Muzzer, Muzzer, I dess I dot a
fezer," or "Muzzer, come up, I'se dot a headache in my stomach." I
certainly can recall my intense admiration for Professor Ira Young,
our next door neighbour, and his snowy pow, which I called "pity wite
fedders."
As years rolled on, I fear I was pert and audacious. I once touched
at supper a blazing hot teapot, which almost blistered my fingers, and
I screamed with surprise and pain. Father exclaimed, "Stop that noise,
Caty." I replied, "Put your fingers on that teapot--and don't
kitikize." And one evening about seven, my usual bedtime, I announced,
"I'm going to sit up till eight tonight, and don't you 'spute." I know
of many children who have the same habit of questions and sharp
retorts. One of my pets, after plying her mother with about forty
questions, wound up with, "Mother, how does the devil's darning needle
sleep? Does he lie down on a twig or hang, or how?" "I don't know,
dear." "Why, mother, it is surprising when you have lived so many
years, that you know so little!"
Mr. Higginson told an absurd story of an inquisitive child and wearied
mother in the cars passing the various Newtons, near Boston. At last
the limit. "Ma, why do they call this West Newton?" "Oh, I suppose for
fun." Silence for a few minutes, then, "Ma, what _was_ the fun in
calling it West Newton?"
I began Latin at eight years--my first book a yellow paper primer.
I was always interested in chickens, and dosed all the indisposed as:
Dandy Dick
Was very sick,
I gave him red pepper
And soon he was better.
In spring, I remember the humming of our bees around the sawdust, and
my craze for flower seeds and a garden of my own.
Father had a phenomenal memory; he could recite in his classroom pages
of Scott's novels, which he had not read since early youth. He had no
intention of allowing my memory to grow flabby from lack of use. I
often repeat a verse he asked me to commit to memory:
In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages that strike your mind,
And which perhaps you may have reason
To think on at another season;
Be not contented with the sight,
But jot them down in black and white;
Such respect is wisely shown
As makes another's thought your own.
Every day at the supper table I had to repeat some poetry or prose and
on Sunday a hymn, some of which were rather depressing to a young
person, as:
Life is but a winter's day;
A journey to the tomb.
And the vivid description of "Dies Irae":
When shrivelling like a parched scroll
The flaming heavens together roll
And louder yet and yet more dread
Swells the high Trump that wakes the dead.
Great attention was given to my lessons in elocution from the best
instructors then known, and I had the privilege of studying with
William Russell, one of the first exponents of that art. I can still
hear his advice: "Full on the vowels; dwell on the consonants,
especially at the close of sentences; keep voice strong for the close
of an important sentence or paragraph." Next, I took lessons from
Professor Mark Bailey of Yale College; and then in Boston in the
classes of Professor Lewis B. Monroe,--a most interesting, practical
teacher of distinctness, expression, and the way to direct one's voice
to this or that part of a hall. I was given the opportunity also of
hearing an occasional lecture by Graham Bell. Later, I used to read
aloud to father for four or five hours daily--grand practice--such
important books as Lecky's _Rationalism_, Buckle's _Averages_, Sir
William Hamilton's _Metaphysics_ (not one word of which could I
understand), Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, and Spencer, till my head was
almost too full of that day's "New Thought."
Judge Salmon P. Chase once warned me, when going downstairs to a
dinner party at Edgewood, "For God's sake, Kate, don't quote the
_Atlantic Monthly_ tonight!" I realized then what a bore I had been.
What a treat to listen to William M. Evarts chatting with Judge Chase!
One evening he affected deep depression. "I have just been beaten
twice at 'High Low Jack' by Ben the learned pig. I always wondered why
two pipes in liquid measure were called a hogshead; now I know; it was
on account of their great capacity." He also told of the donkey's
loneliness in his absence, as reported by his little daughter.
I gave my first series of talks at Tilden Seminary at West Lebanon,
New Hampshire, only a few miles from Hanover. President Asa D. Smith
of Dartmouth came to hear two of them, and after I had given the whole
series from Chaucer to Burns, he took them to Appleton & Company, the
New York publishers, who were relatives of his, and surprised me by
having them printed.
I give an unasked-for opinion by John G. Whittier:
I spent a pleasant hour last evening over the charming little
volume, _Home Pictures of English Poets_, which thou wast kind
enough to send me, and which I hope is having a wide
circulation as it deserves. Its analysis of character and
estimate of literary merit strike me as in the main correct.
Its racy, colloquial style, enlivened by anecdote and citation,
makes it anything but a dull book. It seems to me admirably
adapted to supply a want in hearth and home.
I lectured next in various towns in New Hampshire and Vermont; as St.
Johnsbury, where I was invited by Governor Fairbanks; Bath, New
Hampshire, asked by Mrs. Johnson, a well-known writer on flowers and
horticulture, a very entertaining woman. At one town in Vermont I
lectured at the large academy there--not much opportunity for rest in
such a building. My room was just off the music room where duets were
being executed, and a little further on girls were taking singing
lessons, while a noisy little clock-ette on my bureau zigzagged out
the rapid ticks. At the evening meal I was expected to be agreeable,
also after the lecture to meet and entertain a few friends. When I at
last retired that blatant clock made me so nervous that I placed it at
first in the bureau drawer, where it sounded if possible louder than
ever. Then I rose and put it way back in a closet; no hope; at last I
partially dressed and carried it the full length of the long hall, and
laid it down to sleep on its side. And I think that depressed it. In
the morning, a hasty breakfast, because a dozen or more girls were
waiting at the door to ask me to write a "tasty sentiment" before I
left, in their autograph albums, with my autograph of course, and
"something of your own preferred, but at any rate characteristic."
My trips to those various towns taught me to be more humble, and to
admire the women I met, discovering how seriously they had studied,
and how they made use of every opportunity. I remember Somersworth,
New Hampshire, and Burlington, Vermont. I lectured twice at the Insane
Asylum at Concord, New Hampshire, invited by Dr. Bancroft. After
giving my "newspaper wits" a former governor of Vermont came up to
shake hands with me, saying frankly, "Miss Sanborn, your lecture was
just about right for us lunatics." A former resident of Hanover, in a
closed cell, greeted me the next morning as I passed, with a torrent
of abuse, profanity, and obscenity. She too evidently disliked my
lecture. Had an audience of lunatics also at the McLean Insane Asylum,
Dr. Coles, Superintendent.
I think I was the first woman ever invited to make an address to
farmers on farming. I spoke at Tilton, New Hampshire, to more than
three hundred men about woman's day on the farm. Insinuated that
women need a few days _off_ the farm. Said a good many other things
that were not applauded. Farmers seemed to know nothing of the
advantages of co-operation, and that they were as much slaves (to the
middlemen) as ever were the negroes in the South. They even tried to
escape from me at the noise of a dog-fight outside. I offered to
provide a large room for social meetings, to stock it with books of
the day, and to send them a lot of magazines and other reading. Not
one ever made the slightest response. Now they have all and more than
I suggested.
When but seventeen, I was sent for to watch with Professor Shurtleff,
really a dying man, and left all alone with him in the lower part of
the house; he begged about 2 A.M. to be taken up and placed in a
rocking-chair near the little open fire. The light was dim and the
effect was very weird. His wig hung on one bedpost, he had lost one
eye, and the patch worn over the empty eye socket had been left on the
bureau. My anxiety was great lest he should slip from the chair and
tip into the fire. I note this to mark the great change since that
time. Neighbours are not now expected to care for the sick and dying,
but trained nurses are always sought, and most of them are noble
heroines in their profession.
Once also I watched with a poor woman who was dying with cancer. I
tried it for two nights, but the remark of her sister, as I left
utterly worn out, "Some folks seem to get all their good things in
this life," deterred me from attempting it again.
Started a school a little later in the ell of our house for my friends
among the Hanover children--forty-five scholars in all. Kept it going
successfully for two years.
I dislike to tell a story so incredible and so against myself as this.
One evening father said, "I am going to my room early tonight, Katie;
do not forget to lock the back door." I sat reading until quite late,
then retired. About 2.30 A.M., I was startled to hear someone gently
open that back door, then take off boots and begin to softly ascend
the stairs, which stopped only the width of a narrow hall from my
room. I have been told that I said in trembling tones, "You're trying
to keep pretty quiet down there." Next moment I was at the head of the
stairs; saw a man whom I did not recognize on the last step but one. I
struck a heavy blow on his chest, saying, "Go down, sir," and down he
tumbled all the way, his boots clanking along by themselves. Then the
door opened, my burglar disappeared, and I went down and locked the
back door as I had promised father I would. I felt less proud of my
physical prowess and real courage when my attention was called to a
full account of my assault in the college papers of the day. The young
man was not rooming at our house, but coming into town quite late,
planned to lodge with a friend there. He threw gravel at this young
man's window in the third story to waken him, and failing thought at
last he would try the door, and if not locked he would creep up, and
disturb no one. But "Miss Sanborn knocked a man all the way
downstairs" was duly announced. I then realized my awful mistake, and
didn't care to appear on the street for some time except in recitation
hours.
The second time I lectured in Burlington, I was delayed nearly half an
hour at that dreadful Junction, about which place Professor Edward J.
Phelps, afterwards Minister to England, wrote a fierce rhyme to
relieve his rage at being compelled to waste so much precious time
there. I recall only two revengeful lines:
"I hope in hell his soul may dwell,
Who first invented Essex Junction."
Oh, yes, I do remember his idea that the cemetery near the station
contained the bodies of many weary ones who had died just before help
came and were shovelled over.
It happened that Mrs. Underwood, wife of the demented governor, who
had alluded so truthfully to my lecture, was in the audience, and
being gifted with genuine clairvoyant powers, she rose and begged the
audience not to disperse, as she could distinctly see me pacing
nervously up and down the platform at the Junction in a long sealskin
coat and hat trimmed with band of fur. I arrived at last with the
sealskin and the hat, proving her correct, and they cheered her as
well as myself.
Our little village had its share of eccentric characters, as the old
man who was impelled by the edict of the Bible to cut off his right
hand as it had "offended him." But lacking surgical facilities, the
effort left one hand hanging limp and useless. His long white beard,
how truly patriarchal!
Poor insane Sally Duget--a sad story! Her epitaph in our cemetery is
pathetic. With all her woe she was quick at repartee. A man once asked
her, "Shall you ever marry, Sally?" "Well, yes, if you and I can make
a bargain."
Elder Bawker with his difficulties in locomotion.
Rogers, who carried the students' washing home to his wife on Sunday
afternoons for a preliminary soak. The minister seeing him thus
engaged, stopped him, and inquired:
"Where do you think you will go to if you so constantly desecrate the
Holy Sabbath?"
"Guess I'll go right on doing laundry work for the boys."
The aged janitor who, in a brief scare about smallpox, was asked if he
had ever had it: "No, but I've had chances."
An old sinner who, being converted, used to serve as a lay evangelist
at the district schoolhouse where in winter religious meetings were
held. Roguish lads to test him sprinkled red pepper, a lot of it, on
the red hot stove. He almost suffocated, but burst out with: "By God,
there's enemies to religion in this house! Hist the winders!"
The rubicund butcher of that period (we had no choice) was asked by a
long-time patron how he got such a red face. "Cider apple sass." The
same patron said, "You have served me pretty well, but cheated me a
good deal." "Yes, sir, but you have no idea how much I've cheated
you."
Our one milliner, positively brilliant in her remarks, when a lady
sent back her bonnet twice on the ground that it was not becoming,
said, "Remember you have your face to contend with."
Our only and original gravedigger, manager in general of village
affairs.
After the death of a physician, his wife gave a stained-glass window
to the Episcopal Church of St. Luke, the beloved physician. She asked
Jason if he liked it. He said, "It don't strike me as a particular
speaking likeness of Dr. Tom."
To one of the new professors who ventured to make a few suggestions,
"Who be yaou anyway?"
He enjoyed buttonholing people he met in our "graveyard" and pointing
out where they "must shortly lie."
Our landlord--who that ever saw Horace Frary could forget him? If a
mother came to Hanover to see her boy on the 2.30 P.M. train, no meal
could be obtained. He would stand at the front door and explain,
"Dinner is over long ago." He cared personally for about thirty oil
lamps each day, trimmed the wicks with his fingers, and then wiped
them on his trousers. Also did the carving standing at the table and
cleaning the dull knife on the same right side--so the effect was
startling. One day when he had been ill for a short time his wife
said: "Dr. Dixi Crosby is coming this way now, I'll call him in."
"Don't let him in now," he begged, "why d---- it, I'm _sick_!"
I must not omit the strictly veracious witness who was sworn to
testify how many students were engaged in a noisy night frolic at
Norwich. "As fur as I know, there was betwixt six and seven."
"Webb Hall," who today would figure as a "down and out," made many
amusing statements. "By the way I look in these ragged clothes, you
might take me for a Democrat, but I'm a red hot Republican."
He was obsessed by the notion that he had some trouble with a judge in
Concord, New Hampshire. He said fiercely, "I will buy two guns, go to
Concord, kill Judge Stanton with one, and shoot myself with the other,
or else wait quietly till spring and see what will come of it." A
possible precursor of President Wilson's Mexican policy.
He was accused by a woman of milking a cow in her pasture; pleaded
guilty, but added, "I left a ten-cent piece on the fence."
An East Hanover man is remembered for his cheek in slyly picking
lettuce or parsley in the gardens of the professors and then selling
them at the back door to their wives.
And a farmer from Vermont who used to sell tempting vegetables from
his large farm. He was so friendly he cordially greeted the ladies who
bought from him with a kiss. Grandmother evaded this attention by
stating her age, and so was unmolested. The names of his family were
arranged in alphabetical order. "Hannah A., give Miss Kate another cup
of coffee; Noah B., pass the butter; Emma C., guess you better hand
round the riz biscuit."
Life then was a solemn business at Hanover. No dancing; no cards; no
theatricals; a yearly concert at commencement, and typhoid fever in
the fall. On the Lord's Day some children were not allowed to read the
_Youth's Companion_, or pluck a flower in the garden. But one old
working woman rebelled. "I ain't going to have my daughter Frances
brought up in no superstitious tragedy." She was far in advance of her
age.
I have always delighted in college songs from good voices, whether
sung when sitting on the old common fence (now gone) at the "sing out"
at the close of the year, or merrily trolling or tra-la-laing along
the streets. What a surprise when one glorious moonlight night which
showed up the magnificent elms then arching the street before our
house--the air was full of fragrance--I was suddenly aroused by
several voices adjuring me, a lady of beauty, to awake. I was
bewildered--ecstatic. This singing was for me. I listened intently and
heard the words of their song:
Sweet is the sound of lute and voice
When borne across the water.
Then two other sweets I could not quite catch, and the last lines sung
with fervor:
But sweeter still is the charming voice
Of Professor Sanborn's daughter.
Two more stanzas and each with the refrain:
The prettiest girl on Hanover Plain is
Professor Sanborn's daughter.
Then the last verse:
Hot is the sun whose golden rays
Can reach from heaven to earth,
And hot a tin pan newly scoured
Placed on the blazing hearth,
And hot a boy's ears boxed for doing
That which he hadn't orter,
But hotter still is the love I bear
For Professor Sanborn's daughter.
with chorus as before.
I threw down lovely flowers and timidly thanked them. They applauded,
sang a rollicking farewell, and were gone. If I could have removed my
heart painlessly, I believe that would have gone out too. They had
gone, but the blissful memory! I leaned on the window sill, and the
moon with its bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But listen,
hark! Only two doors beyond, the same voices, the same melodious
tones, and alas, yes, the same words, every verse and the same
chorus--same masculine fervour--but somebody else's daughter.
A breakfast comment: "It's a terrible nuisance this caterwauling in
the middle of the night in front of the house!" For once I was silent.
Many distinguished men were invited to Dartmouth as orators at
commencement or on special occasions, as Rufus Choate, Edward Everett,
John G. Saxe, Wendell Phillips, Charles Dudley Warner, and Dr. Holmes,
whom I knew in his Boston study, overlooking the water and the gulls.
By the way, he looked so young when arriving at Hanover for a few
lectures to the Medical School that he was asked if he had come to
join the Freshman class.
There were also Edwin P. Whipple, the essayist, and Walt Whitman, who
was chosen one year for the commencement poet. He appeared on the
platform wearing a flannel shirt, square-cut neck, disclosing a
hirsute covering that would have done credit to a grizzly bear; the
rest of his attire all right. Joaquin Miller was another genius and
original.
Another visitor was James T. Fields of Boston, the popular publisher,
poet, author, lecturer, friend, and inimitable raconteur, who was
always one of my best friends.
When Mr. and Mrs. Fields were invited to Hanover, he and his beautiful
wife were always guests at our home. Their first visit to us was an
epoch for me. I worked hard the morning before they were to arrive,
sweeping, dusting, polishing silver, and especially brightening the
large, brass andirons in father's library. I usually scoured with
rotten stone and oil, but on this great occasion, adopting a receipt
which I had happened to see in a newspaper, I tried vinegar and
powdered pumice-stone. The result at first was fine.
I had barely time after all this to place flowers about the house and
dress, and then to drive in our old carryall, with our older horse, to
the station at Norwich, just across the Connecticut River, to meet the
distinguished pair and escort them to our house. As I heard the train
approaching, and the shrill whistle, I got nervous, and my hands
trembled. How would they know me? And what had I better say? My aged
and spavined horse was called by father "Rosinante" for Don Quixote's
bony steed, also "Blind Guide" and "Heathen Philosopher." He looked
it--and my shabby carryall! But the train was snorting for a stop,
and the two guests soon came easily to my vehicle, and Mr. Fields
seemed to know me. Both shook hands most cordially and were soon in
the back seat, full of pleasant chat and the first exciting ordeal was
over. At tea table Mr. and Mrs. Fields sat on either side of father,
and the stories told were different from any I had ever heard. I found
when the meal was over I had not taken a mouthful. Next we all went to
the College Church for the lecture, and on coming home we had an
evening lunch. All ate heartily but me. I ventured to tell one story,
when Mr. Fields clapped his hands and said, "Delightful." That was
food to me! I went to bed half starved, and only took enough breakfast
to sustain life. Before they left I had written down and committed to
memory every anecdote he had given. They have never been printed until
now, and you may be sure they are just as my hero told them. My only
grief was the appearance of my andirons. I invited our guests to the
open fire with pride, and the brass was covered with black and
green--not a gleam of shine.
Often Mr. Fields's jokes were on himself--as the opinion of a man in
the car seat just beyond him, as they happened to be passing Mr.
Fields's residence on the Massachusetts coast. The house was pointed
out on "Thunderbolt Hill" and his companion said, "How is he as a
lecturer?"
"Well," was the response, "he ain't Gough by a d----d sight."
How comically he told of a country druggist's clerk to whom he put the
query, "What is the most popular pill just now?" And the quick answer,
"Schenk's--they do say the Craowned Heads is all atakin' of 'em!"
Or the request for his funniest lecture for the benefit of a hearse in
a rural hamlet!
His experience in a little village where he and Mrs. Fields wanted to
find a boarding-house: The lady of the house demurred; she had "got
pretty tired of boarders," but at last capitulated with, "Well, I'll
let you come in if you'll do your own stretching." This proved to mean
no waitress at the table.
The morning after their arrival, he went out for a long walk in the
mountain air, and returning was accosted by his host: "I see you are
quite a predestinarian." As he was resting on one of the wooden
chairs, the man said: "I got those chairs for piazzary purposes," and
enlarged on the trouble of getting good help in haying time: "Why, my
neighbour, Jake Stebbins, had a boy in his gang named Henry Ward
Beecher Gooley. He was so dreadful pious that on extra hot mornings
he'd call 'em all together at eleven o'clock and ask 'em to join in
singing, 'Lord, Dismiss us with Thy Blessing.'"
All these anecdotes were told to me by Mr. Fields and I intend to give
only those memories which are _my own_.
Mr. Fields was wonderfully kind to budding authors. Professor Brown
sent him, without my knowledge, my two-column appreciation of dear Tom
Hood, after his memorials were written by his son and daughter. And
before many weeks came a box of his newest books for me, with a little
note on finest paper and wide margin, "hoping that your friendship may
always be continued towards our house."
I cannot speak of Mr. Fields and fail to pay my tribute of loving
admiration to his wife, Annie Fields. When I first met that lady in
her home at 148 Charles Street, she was so exquisitely dainty,
refined, spirituelle, and beautiful, I felt, as I expressed it,
"square-toed and common." She was sincerely cordial to all who were
invited to that sacred shrine; she was the perfect hostess and
housekeeper, the ever-busy philanthropist, a classic poet, a strong
writer of prose when eager to aid some needed reform. Never before had
I seen such a rare combination of the esthetic and practical, and she
shone wherever placed. Once when she was with us, I went up to her
room to see if I could help her as she was leaving. She was seated on
the floor, pulling straps tightly round some steamer rugs and a rainy
day coat, and she explained she always attended to such "little
things." As one wrote of her, after her death, she made the most of
herself, but she made more of her husband. Together they went forward,
side by side, to the last, comrades and true lovers.
Two of all the wonderful literary treasures in their drawing-room
produced a great impression on me, one a caricature of Thackeray's
face done by himself with no mercy shown to his flattened, broken
nose. A lady said to him: "There is only one thing about you I could
never get over, your nose." "No wonder, madam, there is no bridge to
it." The other was an invitation to supper in Charles Lamb's own
writing, and at the bottom of the page, "Puns at nine."
Two famous story-tellers of the old-fashioned type were Doctor Dixi
Crosby of Hanover, and his son "Ben," who made a great name for
himself in New York City as a surgeon, and also as a brilliant
after-dinner speaker. Doctor Crosby's preference was for the
long-drawn-out style, as this example, which I heard him tell several
times, shows:
A man gave a lecture in a New England town which failed to elicit much
applause and this troubled him. As he left early next morning on the
top of the stage-coach, he interviewed the driver, who seemed not
anxious to talk. "Did you hear much said about my lecture last night?
Do you think it pleased the audience?"
"Oh, I guess they were well enough satisfied; some were anyway."
"Were there any who expressed dissatisfaction?"
"I would not pry into it, stranger; there wasn't much said against it
anyhow."
"Now you have aroused my curiosity. I must beg you to let me know. Who
criticized it, and what did they say? It might help me to hear it."
"Well, Squire Jones was the man; he does not say much one way or
other. But I'll tell you he always gets the gist of it."
"And what was his verdict?"
"If you must know, Squire Jones he said, said he, he thought
'twas--awful shaller."
Doctor Ben's Goffstown Muster was a quicker tempo and had a better
climax. 'Twas the great occasion of the annual military reviews. He
graphically described boys driving colts hardly broken; mothers
nursing babies, very squally; girls and their beaux sitting in the
best wagon holding hands and staring about (as Warner said to me,
"Young love in the country is a solemn thing"); the booths for sale of
gingerbread, peanuts, cider, candies, and popcorn; the marshal of the
day dashing here and there on his prancing steed. All was excitement,
great crowds, and the blare of the band. Suddenly an aged pair,
seemingly skeletons, so bony and wan were they, were seen tottering
toward the fence, where they at last stopped. They had come from the
direction of the graveyard. The marshal rushed forward calling out,
"Go back, go back; this is not the general resurrection, it is only
the Goffstown Muster."
Doctor Ben Crosby was one of the most admirable mimics ever known and
without a suspicion of ill-nature. Sometimes he would call on us
representing another acquaintance, who had just left, so perfectly
that the gravest and stiffest were in danger of hysterics. This power
his daughter inherited.
John Lord, the historical lecturer, was always a "beacon light" (which
was the name he gave his lectures when published) as he discussed the
subjects and persons he took for themes before immense audiences
everywhere. His conversation was also intensely interesting. He was a
social lion and a favourite guest. His lectures have still a large
annual sale--no one who once knew him or listened to his pyrotechnic
climaxes could ever forget him or them. It was true that he made nine
independent and distinct motions simultaneously in his most intense
delivery. I once met him going back to his rooms at his hotel carrying
a leather bag. He stopped, opened it, showing a bottle of Scotch
whiskey, and explained "I am starting in on a lecture on Moses." There
was a certain simplicity about the man. Once when his right arm was in
a sling, broken by a fall from a horse, he offered prayer in the old
church. And unable to use his arm as usual, he so balanced his
gyrations that he in some way drifted around until when he said "Amen"
his face fronted the whitewashed wall back of his pulpit. He turned to
the minister standing by him, saying in a very audible whisper, "Do
you think anybody noticed it?"
He was so genuinely hospitable that when a friend suddenly accepted
his "come up any time" invitation, he found no one at home but the
doctor, who proposed their killing a chicken. Soon one was let out,
but she evaded her pursuers. "You shoo, and I'll catch," cried the
kind host, but shrank back as the fowl came near, exclaiming: "Say,
West, has a hen got teeth?" At last they conquered, plucked, and
cooked her for a somewhat tardy meal, with some potatoes clawed up in
the potato field. Once, when very absent-minded, at a hotel table in a
country tavern, the waitress was astonished to watch him as he took
the oil cruet from the castor and proceeded to grease his boots.
Doctor John Ordronaux, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at Dartmouth
and various other colleges and medical schools, was another erudite
scholar, who made a permanent impression on all he met. While yet at
college, his words were so unusual and his vocabulary so full that a
wag once advertised on the bulletin board on the door of Dartmouth
Hall, "Five hundred new adjectives by John Ordronaux."
He was haunted by synonyms, and told me they interfered with his
writing, so many clamouring for attention. He was a confirmed bachelor
with very regular habits; wanted his bed to be left to air the entire
day, he to make it himself at precisely 5.30 P.M., or as near as
possible. His walk was peculiar, with knees stiffly bent out and
elbows crooked as if to repel all feminine aggression, "a progressive
porcupine" as someone described his gait. His hour for retiring was
always the same; when calling leaving about 9.30. Rallied about his
methodical habits, he was apt to mention many of his old friends who
had indulged themselves in earthly pleasures, all of whom he had the
sad pleasure of burying.
He was a great admirer of my mother for her loveliness and kind
interest in the students; after her death he was a noble aid to me in
many ways. I needed his precautions about spreading myself too thin,
about being less flamboyantly loquacious, and subduing my excessive
enthusiasm and emotional prodigality. Once after giving me a drive, he
kindly said, as he helped me out, "I have quite enjoyed your cheerful
prattle." Fact was, he had monologued it in his most sesquipedalian
phraseology. I had no chance to say one word. He had his own way of
gaining magnetism; believed in associating with butchers. Did you ever
know one that was anæmic, especially at slaughtering time? From them
and the animals there and in stables, and the smell of the flowing
blood, he felt that surely a radiant magnetism was gained. Those he
visited "thought he was real democratic and a pleasant spoken man." He
told of an opportunity he once had for regular employment, riding on
the stage-coach by the side of a farmer's pretty daughter. She
suggested that he might like a milk route, and "perhaps father can
get you one." So formal, dignified, and fastidious was he that this
seems improbable, but I quote his own account.
Doctor Ordronaux visited at my uncle's, a physician, when I was
resting there from overwork. After his departure, uncle received a
letter from him which he handed to me saying, "Guess this is meant for
you." I quote proudly:
I rejoice to have been permitted to enjoy so much of Miss
Sanborn's society, and to discover what I never before fully
appreciated, that beneath the scintillations of a brilliant
intellect she hides a vigorous and analytic understanding, and
when age shall have somewhat tempered her emotional
susceptibilities she will shine with the steady light of a
planet, reaching her perihelion and taking a permanent place in
the firmament of letters.
Sounds something like a Johnsonian epitaph, but wasn't it great?
I visited his adopted mother at Roslyn, Long Island, and they took me
to a Sunday dinner with Bryant at "Cedarmere," a fitting spot for a
poet's home. The aged poet was in vigorous health, mind and body.
Going to his library he took down an early edition of his
_Thanatopsis_, pointing out the nineteen lines written some time
before the rest. Mottoes hung on the wall such as "As thy days so
shall thy strength be." I ventured to ask how he preserved such
vitality, and he said, "I owe a great deal to daily air baths and the
flesh brush, plenty of outdoor air and open fireplaces." What an
impressive personality; erect, with white hair and long beard; his
eyebrows looked as if snow had fallen on them. His conversation was
delightfully informal. "What does your name mean?" he inquired, and I
had to say, "I do not know, it has changed so often," and asked, "What
is the origin of yours?" "Briant--brilliant, of course." He told the
butler to close the door behind me lest I catch cold from a draught,
quoting this couplet:
When the wind strikes you through a hole,
Go make your will and mind your soul;
and informing me that this advice was found in every language, if not
dialect, in the world. He loved every inch of his country home, was
interested in farming, flowers, the water-view and fish-pond, fond of
long walks, and preferred the simple life. In his rooms were many
souvenirs of early travel. His walls were covered with the finest
engravings and paintings from the best American artists. He was too
willing to be imposed upon by young authors and would-be poets. He
said: "People expect too much of me, altogether too much." That Sunday
was his last before his address on Mazzini in Central Park. He
finished with the hot sun over his head, and walking across the park
to the house of Grant Wilson, he fell down faint and hopelessly ill on
the doorstep. He never rallied, and after thirteen days the end came.
An impressive warning to the old, who are selfishly urged to do hard
tasks, that they must conserve their own vitality. Bryant was
eighty-four when killed by over-exertion, with a mind as wonderful as
ever.
I will now recount the conditions when Ezekiel Webster and his second
wife took their wedding trip in a "one hoss shay" to the White
Mountains in 1826.
Grandma lived to be ninety-six, with her mind as clear as ever, and
two years before her death she gave me this story of their experiences
at that time. My mother told me she knew of more than thirty proposals
she had received after grandfather's death, but she said "she would
rather be the widow of Ezekiel Webster, than the wife of any other
man." The following is her own description.
The only house near the Crawford Notch was the Willey House, in
which the family were living. A week before a slide had come
down by the side of the house and obstructed the road. Mr.
Willey and two men came to our assistance, taking out the horse
and lifting the carriage over the débris.
They described the terrors of the night of the slide. The rain
was pouring in torrents, the soil began to slide from the tops
of the rocks, taking with it trees, boulders, and all in its
way; the crashing and thundering were terrible. Three weeks
later the entire family, nine in number, in fleeing to a place
of refuge, were overtaken by a second slide and all buried.
The notch was then as nature made it; no steam whistle or car
clatter had intruded upon its solitude. The first moving object
we saw after passing through was a man in the distance. He
proved to be Ethan Crawford, who kept the only house of
entertainment. He was walking leisurely, drawing a rattlesnake
along by its tail. He had killed the creature and was taking it
home as a trophy. He was a stalwart man, who had always lived
among the mountains, and had become as familiar with the wild
beasts as with the cat and dog of his own home. He said that
only a few days before he had passed a bear drinking at a
spring. He led the way to his house, a common farmhouse without
paint, or carpet, or cushioned seat. The landlady was spinning
wool in the kitchen.
Mr. Crawford supplied the table when he could by his gun or
fishing-rod; otherwise the fare was meagre. When asked for
mustard for the salt meat, they said they had none, at least in
the house, but they had some growing.
A young turkey halted about in the dining-room gobbling in a
noisy way, and the girl in attendance was requested by Mr.
Webster, with imperturbable gravity, either to kindly take it
out or to bring its companion in, for it seemed lonely. She
stood in utter confusion for a minute, then seized the
squawking fowl and disappeared.
When Mr. Crawford was asked if ladies ever went up Mount
Washington, he said two had been up, and he hoped never to see
another trying it, for the last one he brought down on his
shoulders, or she would have never got down alive.
The first night I asked for a change of bed linen. No attention
was paid to my request, and after waiting a long time I found
the landlady and asked her if she would have the sheets
changed. She straightened up and said she didn't think the bed
would hurt anybody, for only two ministers from Boston had
slept in it. We stayed some days and although it was the height
of the season, we were the only guests. Nothing from the
outside world reached us but one newspaper, and that brought
the startling news of the death of Adams and Jefferson on the
fourth of July, just fifty years after their signing the
Declaration of Independence.
The large leghorn bonnet which Mrs. Webster wore on that eventful
journey hangs in my collection of old relics. She told me it used to
hit the wheel when she looked out. And near it is her dark-brown
"calash," a big bonnet with rattans stitched in so it would easily
move back and forward. Her winter hood was of dark blue silk, warmly
wadded and prettily quilted.
Who would not wish to live to be a hundred if health and mental
vigour could be retained? This rare old lady wrote lively, interesting
letters on all current topics, and was as eager to win at whist,
backgammon, or logomachy as a child. Her religion was the most
beautiful part of her life, the same every day, self-forgetting,
practical Christianity. She is not forgotten; her life is still a
stimulus, an inspiration, a benediction. The love and veneration of
those who gathered about her in family reunions were expressed by her
nephew Dr. Fred B. Lund, one of the most distinguished surgeons of
Boston:
To her who down the pathway of the years
Serene and calm her blessed way she trod,
Has given smiles for smiles, and tears for tears,
Held fast the good in life, and shown how God
Has given to us His servants here below,
A shining mark to follow in our strife,
Who proves that He is good, and makes us know
Through ten decades of pure and holy life
How life may be made sweeter at its end,
How graces from the seasons that have fled
May light her eyes and added glory lend
To saintly aureole about her head.
We bring our Christmas greeting heartily,
Three generations gathered at her feet,
Who like a little child has led, while we
Have lived and loved beneath her influence sweet.
[Illustration: THE STREET FRONTING THE SANBORN HOME AT HANOVER, N.H.]
Levi Parsons Morton, born at Shoreham, Vermont, May 16, 1824, was
named for his mother's brother, Levi Parsons, the first American
missionary to Palestine. He was the son of a minister, Reverend Daniel
Morton, who with his wife Lucretia Parsons, like so many other
clergymen, was obliged to exist on a starvation salary, only six
hundred dollars a year. Among his ancestors was George Morton of
Battery, Yorkshire, financial agent in London of the _Mayflower_. Mr.
L.P. Morton may have inherited his financial cleverness from this
ancestor.
After studying at Shoreham Academy, he entered a country store at
Enfield, Massachusetts, and was there for two years, then taught a
district school, and later entered a general store at Concord, New
Hampshire, when only seventeen. His father was unable to send him to
college, and Mr. Estabrook, the manager of the store, decided to
establish him in a branch store at Hanover, New Hampshire, where
Dartmouth College is located, giving him soon afterward an interest in
the business. Here he stayed until nearly twenty-four years old. Mr.
Morton immediately engaged a stylish tailor from Boston, W.H. Gibbs,
or as all called him, "Bill Gibbs," whose skill at making even cheap
suits look smart brought him a large patronage from the college
students. Once a whole graduating class were supplied with dress suits
from this artist. Mr. Morton had a most interesting store, sunny and
scrupulously clean, with everything anyone could ask for, and few ever
went out of it without buying something, even if they had entered
simply from curiosity. The clerks were trained to be courteous without
being persistent. Saturday was bargain day, and printed lists of what
could be obtained on that day at an absurdly cheap rate were widely
distributed through the neighbouring towns. People came in large
numbers to those bargains. Long rows of all sorts of odd vehicles were
hitched up and down the street. A man would drop in for some smoking
tobacco and buy himself a good straw hat or winter cap. A wife would
call because soda was offered so cheaply and would end by buying a
black silk dress, "worth one dollar a yard but selling for today only
for fifty cents." Mr. Morton was perhaps the original pioneer in
methods which have built up the great department stores of the present
day. If he had received the education his father so craved for him he
would have probably had an inferior and very different career.
Mr. Morton greatly enjoyed his life at Hanover; he was successful and
looking forward to greater openings in his business career. My
father, taking a great fancy to this enterprising, cheery young man,
invited him to dine each day at our house for nearly a year. They were
great friends and had a happy influence upon each other. There were
many jolly laughs and much earnest talk. He met Miss Lucy Kimball of
Flatlands, Long Island, at our house at a Commencement reception, and
they were soon married. She lived only a few years.
Mr. Morton was next in Boston in the dry-goods house of James Beebe
Morgan & Company, and was soon made a partner. Mr. Morgan was the
father of Pierpont Morgan. It is everlastingly to Mr. Morton's honour
that after he failed in business in New York he was able before long
to invite his creditors to dinner, and underneath the service plate of
each creditor was a check for payment in full.
Preferring to give money while living, his whole path has been marked
by large benefactions. My memory is of his Hanover life and his
friendship with my father, but it is interesting to note the several
steps in his career: Honorary Commissioner, Paris Exposition, 1878;
Member 46th Congress, 1879-81, Sixth New York District; United States
Minister to France, 1881-85; Vice-President of the United States,
1889-93; Governor of New York, 1895-6.
Mr. Morton recently celebrated at his Washington home the ninety-first
anniversary in a life full of honours, and what is more important--of
honour.