WALT WHITMAN
IN MICKLE STREET
"_There's this little street and this little house_"
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
[Illustration: 328 MICKLE STREET
FROM A PAINTING [1908] BY MARSDEN HARTLEY]
WALT WHITMAN
IN MICKLE STREET
ELIZABETH LEAVITT KELLER
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT 1921 BY
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK
EDITOR'S NOTE
Elizabeth Leavitt Keller was born at Buffalo, N. Y., on November 3,
1839. Both her parents were descended from the first settlers of this
country, and each in turn came to Buffalo in its early days, her mother,
Sarah Ellis, by private conveyance in 1825, and her father, James S.
Leavitt, by way of the newly opened Erie Canal in 1834.
Elizabeth was the second daughter. In the spring of 1841 she was taken
to Niagara Falls, and all her childhood recollections are clustered
around that place. Returning to Buffalo in 1846, her father opened a
book-bindery, and later added a printing office and stationery store.
At nineteen years of age Elizabeth Leavitt was married to William
Wallace Keller, of Little Falls, N. Y. Seven years later she became a
widow.
Her natural instinct for nursing was developed during the Civil War and
the years that followed, but the time and opportunity for professional
training did not come until 1876, when, her two children being provided
for, she was free to apply for admission to the school for nurses
connected with the Women's Hospital in Philadelphia--one of the three
small training schools then existing in the United States.
Before her course was finished her younger sister died. Mrs. Keller left
the hospital to take care of the five motherless children, and it was
not until ten years later that she was free to resume her training. When
she graduated she was a grandmother--the only one, it need scarcely be
said, in the class.
While nursing her patient, Walt Whitman, during his last illness, she
learnt much about his personality and home life, and much also about his
unselfish friend and housekeeper, Mrs. Davis. The desire to tell the
truth about the whole case--so often misunderstood or distorted--grew
stronger with the passing years, and finally Mrs. Keller entered an old
ladies' home in her own city, where she would have leisure to carry out
her design. Here the book was commenced and completed. "After numerous
struggles and disappointments," she writes, "my second great desire--to
set Mrs. Davis in her true light--has been fulfilled--this time by a
great-grandmother!"
It is not often that a great-grandmother, after a long life of service
to others, sees her first book published on her eighty-second birthday.
Mrs. Keller uses her pen as if she were twenty or thirty years younger.
Her letters are simple but cheery, her outlook on life contented but in
no way obscured. Not deliberately, but through a natural gift, she
conveys vivid impressions of the world as it now appears to her, just as
she conveys so unpretentiously but unforgettably in her book the whole
atmosphere of Walt Whitman's world, when it had been narrowed to the
little frame house in Mickle Street, and finally to a bed of suffering
in one room of that little house.
Whatever else her book may be, it is an extraordinary instance of
revelation through simplicity; the picture stands out with all its
details, not as a work of conscious art, but assuredly as a work that
the artist, the student of life and of human nature, will be glad to
have.
CHARLES VALE
PREFACE
Had it ever occurred to me that the time might come when I should feel
impelled to write something in regard to my late patient, Walt Whitman,
I should have taken care to be better prepared in anticipation; would
have kept a personal account, jotted down notes for my own use, observed
his visitors more closely, preserved all my correspondence with Dr.
Bucke, and recorded items of more or less interest that fade from memory
as the years go by. Still, I have my diary, fortunately, and can be true
to dates.
After I had been interviewed a number of times, and had answered various
questions to the best of my knowledge and belief, I was surprised to see
several high-flown articles published, all based on the meagre
information I had furnished, and all imperfect and unsatisfactory.
Interviewers seemed to look for something beyond me; to wait expectantly
in the hope that I could recall some unusual thing in Mr. Whitman's
eccentricities that I alone had observed; words that I alone had heard
him speak; opinions and beliefs I alone had heard him express; anything
remarkable, not before given to the public. They wanted the sensational
and exclusive, if possible. I suppose that was natural.
But it set me thinking that if my knowledge was of any value or interest
to others, why not write a truthful story myself, instead of having my
words enlarged upon, changed and perverted? Simple facts are surely
better than hasty exaggerations.
I have done what I could. One gentleman (_Mr. James M. Johnston, of
Buffalo_), who has read the manuscript, and for whose opinion I have the
greatest regard, remarked as he returned it: "It appears to me that your
main view in writing this was to exonerate Mrs. Davis."
He had discovered a fact I then recognized to be the truth.
My greatest fear is that I may have handled the whole truth too
freely--without gloves.
E. L. K.
CONTENTS
I MARY OAKES DAVIS 1
II WALT WHITMAN'S HOME 8
III THE MICKLE STREET HOUSE 18
IV THE NEW RÉGIME 27
V CURIOUS NEIGHBORS 37
VI MR. WHITMAN DRIVES 47
VII BROOMS, BILLS AND MENTAL CHLOROFORM 55
VIII VISITING AND VISITORS 67
IX A BUST AND A PAINTING 73
X REST--AND ROUTINE 87
XI A SHOCK, AND SOME CHANGES 100
XII ANCHORED 113
XIII WARREN FRITZINGER 119
XIV FRIENDS, MONEY, AND A MAUSOLEUM 133
XV THE LAST BIRTHDAY PARTY 142
XVI THE NEW NURSE 150
XVII "SHIFT, WARRY" 167
XVIII WINDING UP 176
XIX THE TRIAL 182
XX CONCLUSION 187
WALT WHITMAN'S MONUMENTS, BY GUIDO BRUNO 195
WALT WHITMAN SPEAKS 207
INDEX 225
WALT WHITMAN
IN MICKLE STREET
_I write this book
in loving memory of
three of the most kind-hearted,
unselfish and capable people I ever knew
I Dedicate It
to
ALEX. McALISTER, M.D._
HALCYON DAYS
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honored middle-age,
Nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame like fresher, balmier
air,
As the days take on a mellower light,
And the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the
tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all,
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
WALT WHITMAN
WALT WHITMAN IN MICKLE STREET
I
MARY OAKES DAVIS
"_She hath wrought a good work on me.... This also that she hath done
shall be spoken of for a memorial of her._"--ST. MARK XIV: 6, 9.
"_Whitman with the pen was one man--Whitman in private life was another
man._"--THOMAS DONALDSON.
Someone has said: "A veil of silence, even mystery, seems to have shut
out from view the later home life of Walt Whitman."
There is no reason for this, but if it be really so, the veil cannot be
lifted without revealing in a true light the good woman--Mary Oakes
Davis--so closely connected with the poet's later years, and of whom he
often spoke as "my housekeeper, nurse and friend."
Mrs. Davis's life from the cradle to the grave was one of self-sacrifice
and devotion to others. Her first clear recollection was of a blind old
woman to whom her parents had given a home. In speaking of this she
said: "I never had a childhood, nor did I realize that I had the right
to play like other children, for at six years of age 'Blind Auntie' was
my especial charge. On waking in the morning my first thought was of
her, and then I felt I must not lie in bed another minute. I arose
quickly, made my own toilet and hastened to her." She continued with a
detailed account of the attention daily given to "Auntie," how she put
on her stockings and shoes, and handed her each article of clothing as
it was needed; how she brought fresh water for her ablutions, combed her
hair and made her presentable for the table; how at all meals she sat by
her side to wait upon her, and how, after helping her mother with the
dishes, she walked up and down the sidewalk until schooltime to give
"Auntie" her exercise, the walks being repeated when school was over.
It seems strange that parents could permit such sacrifice for an
outsider, however helpless, unmindful of their injustice toward the
little daughter who so willingly and unconsciously yielded up her young
life. No wonder this lesson of utter devotion to another, so early
implanted in the tender heart of the child, should in after years become
part and parcel of the woman.
When Mary was twelve years of age "Blind Auntie" died. Then came two
more years of schooling, after which the girl voluntarily assumed
another burden--the care of a melancholy, selfish invalid, a distant
relative living in the country, of whom she had heard much from time to
time. With her she stayed for six years, being in turn nurse, companion,
housekeeper or general servant, as need required.
Poor child, she failed in brightening the invalid's life--which was her
only hope in going there. All her efforts were unappreciated and
misunderstood, and it was a hard task to follow out what she conceived
to be her duty. During the first four years her sole remuneration was a
small sum of money on rare occasions, or a few articles of clothing;
during the last two, a modest monthly salary. The entire period was one
of unremitting care and self-abnegation, and at the age of twenty,
utterly disheartened, she summoned up resolution to leave.
She had long contemplated paying a visit to an old schoolmate and dear
friend, Mrs. Fritzinger, the wife of a sea-captain, whose home was in
Camden, New Jersey, and to this city she now went. Arriving, to her
great sorrow she found her friend in a serious physical condition, and
remained to nurse her through a protracted illness, which ended fatally.
On her deathbed Mrs. Fritzinger confided her two young sons to Mary's
care, and from this time on they called her mother.
Captain Fritzinger soon became blind and had to give up the sea. He
still however retained marine interests in Philadelphia, to and from
which city Mary led him daily. Then came a long illness. The Captain
appointed Mary co-guardian to his two sons, and at his death divided his
property equally between the three.
Captain Davis, a friend of the Fritzingers, had met Mary during Mrs.
Fritzinger's lifetime. He was much attracted to her, proposed marriage
and was accepted on condition that the wedding should not take place as
long as her friends had need of her. But time slipped by; it may be
Captain Davis thought their need of her would never end; so, meeting her
in Philadelphia one morning, he insisted upon their going to a
minister's and becoming man and wife. Mary, thus forcefully pressed,
consented, but exacted the promise that he would not tell the
Fritzingers until his return from the trip he was on the eve of taking.
In a few days he left Camden. His vessel was wrecked off the coast of
Maine, and he was buried where he washed ashore.
His hasty marriage and unlooked-for death prevented him from making the
intended provision for his wife, and as she shrank from any contest with
his family, all that was left to her was his name and the cherished
memory of her one brief love.
During Captain Fritzinger's nine years of blindness, and through all his
long sickness, Mary's ingrained habit of devotion to one person made her
somewhat forgetful of others; and dearly as she loved the boys who
called her mother, their happiness was too often sacrificed to their
father's infirmities. Strange--and yet not strange, perhaps--that one
whose childhood had been an unbroken martyrdom, should now be not always
conscious of the needs of a new generation.
The house in which they lived, in a little street running at right
angles to Stevens Street, was closed at dusk. Then, when she had read
the daily papers, Mary would extinguish the lights, feeling that to read
to herself, or for the boys to play games, would be selfish, as the sick
man was deprived of such enjoyments. It didn't occur to her that these
wide-awake youngsters had nothing of her own childhood spirit of
resignation, or that the noise and laughter of other boys frolicking in
the streets could have any attraction for them. They were sent early to
bed, but time and again made their escape through the window, creeping
along the shed, and so to the fence and the street.
Both boys had an innate love for the sea, and at the age of fourteen and
sixteen respectively had become so restless and urgent for a change,
that their father yielded to their wishes and procured berths for them
aboard the same ship. In two years they returned to find him dead, and
in a short time they embarked again in separate vessels and for longer
voyages.
During their first absence, Captain Fritzinger had invited another
ex-captain--an old shipmate and intimate friend--to come to his house to
board, and for mutual companionship. The new guest was in poor health
and extremely crotchety, and immediately upon his host's demise he took
possession of the bed left empty. Then ensued for Mrs. Davis two more
years of fidelity and constant care, until the one old shipmate went the
way of the other.
But even now the long-tried woman was not left without someone to
minister to, for shortly before a young orphan girl had been entrusted
to her. It was certainly her destiny to find full scope for the spirit
of self-sacrifice so early implanted, and so persistently called upon.
But it was almost inevitable for such a nature to be unconscious of the
vein of irony in human affairs, of the element of the grotesque in the
sublime. She went quietly on her accustomed way. It was her vocation to
be victimized, and her daily business to be a blessing to others.
Such was the woman who entered so closely into Walt Whitman's life
during the seven years spent in Mickle Street. She meant more to him
than he was perhaps aware of; more, certainly, than he ever cared to
admit. If she was incapable of realizing the fulness of his genius, he
seemed unable to measure the fulness of hers. But he was glad to profit
by it.
II
WALT WHITMAN'S HOME
"_And whether I come into my own to-day or in ten thousand or in ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I
can wait._"--WALT WHITMAN.
"_I only thought if I didn't go, who would?_"--MARY O. DAVIS.
After physical disability had incapacitated him for duty, Walt Whitman
went to Camden, the New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia, and there the
remaining years of his life were spent, at first in his brother's house
in Stevens Street and later in a little frame cottage, No. 328 Mickle
Street, "where he lived alone with a single attendant," as a magazine
writer phrased it. This attendant was Mary Oakes Davis.
With but one exception (_Thomas Donaldson, in "Walt Whitman the Man"_),
all writers who have touched upon Whitman's domestic life seem to have
failed to mention the interval between his two Camden homes. Fortunately
it was of short duration, but in it came the great turning point in his
career.
Of his early habits something may be learned from his brother George,
who says: "Wait was always a trying person to live with." ("_In Re Walt
Whitman._") Then he goes on to relate some of the poet's peculiarities,
irregularities and eccentricities. "He had an idea that money was of no
consequence.... He would lie abed late, would write a few hours if he
took the notion, perhaps would go off for the rest of the day. If we had
dinner at one, like as not he would come at three; always late. Just as
we were fixing things on the table he would get up and go around the
block. He was always so.
"He would come to breakfast when he got ready. If he wished to go out,
he would go, go where he was a mind to, and come back in his own time."
It cannot be denied that a person with these traits of character would
be an uncomfortable inmate to have in any home, and with Mr. Whitman
this disregard for the convenience of others grew more marked as he
advanced in years and deteriorated in body. Notwithstanding this, when
his good brother and his most excellent sister-in-law retired to their
farm in Burlington, New Jersey, they urged him to accompany them.
Their kind offer of a home Mr. Whitman thought best to decline, for
although at this time he had but a restricted popularity as an author,
he had some staunch friends in his own city, in New York, Philadelphia
and abroad, and after twelve years' residence in one locality he thought
it unwise to change.
No doubt he did not take into consideration the difficulties he would
have to encounter alone, nor realize how unfitted he was to cope with
them; but as usual he overruled all opposition and followed his own
inclination.
Or he may have had a premonition of the popularity just at hand.
First he rented a room, taking his meals at odd times and in odd places.
This he soon found to be a miserable mode of existence, for he was
crippled financially as well as physically, and even to this late day,
"his medium of circulating his views to the world was through very
limited editions, which he himself usually paid for, or which failed to
circulate at all." (_Thomas Donaldson._)
The old man with his basket of literature upon his arm, plodding his way
through the streets of Camden and Philadelphia, had long been a familiar
sight, and now with slow sales and lack of former comforts it was doubly
hard on him. But at this time his life had settled down to one great
desire, that of rewriting his book, _Leaves of Grass_, and living to see
it put before the world in a full, improved and complete form.
He believed it was to be, and this was his principal object in remaining
in a city where he had already suffered the delays and disappointments
that make the heart sick and wear out the body. Yet dark as was the
outlook, this hope buoyed him up, and after the struggles of half a
century his courage had not forsaken him.
"In the period named, he was hungry, cold and neglected," says
Donaldson; and again: "Whitman was extremely poor in Camden after his
brother moved away, and up to about 1884. His change of luck began about
then. He had previously, to use a sailor's phrase, 'been scudding under
bare poles.' He had several runs of luck after 1884."
Walt Whitman and Mrs. Davis were not personally acquainted. To be sure,
he had seen her innumerable times leading Captain Fritzinger past his
brother's house, but he had never spoken to her. As for her, the poor
old man had long been a secret pensioner upon her tender heart, drawing
a full bounty of pity therefrom.
Their first interview took place on one cold frosty morning, when in
deepest dejection he came a suppliant to her door. Surprised as she was
to find him there, she warmly invited him in, and a good breakfast soon
followed the kind reception.
With his writings she was totally unacquainted, and she naturally shared
the universal opinion of her neighbors, that he was "a little off."
Nevertheless, when from the grateful warmth and good cheer he grew
loquacious, and dilated upon his work and aired his lofty hopes, she
listened attentively, that he might not suspect that to her all this
seemed but an empty dream and delusion.
She talked encouragingly, and on his rising to go cordially invited him
to repeat his visit. He did so, and thenceforward this compassionate
woman's homely kitchen became his one haven of rest. He knew that a hot
meal and many thoughtful attentions always awaited him there; attentions
such as lacing his shoes, washing and mending his clothing, and not
infrequently superintending a refreshing foot-bath. "Being an invalid he
felt his helplessness, so attentions were doubly dear to him." (_Thomas
Donaldson._)
As the fall advanced and the weather grew severe, his bachelor quarters
became more and more unsuitable, and he was indeed fortunate in the
friendship he had so auspiciously formed. He developed into a daily
visitor, and each morning might have been seen scuffing along in his
unclasped antiquated arctics, cane in hand, and his long white hair and
beard blowing in the wind.
Mrs. Davis said that the very sight of those ungainly old arctics always
brought tears to her eyes.
During this winter (1884-5), through the generosity of a Philadelphian
(Mr. George W. Childs), and from the sale of his book, Mr. Whitman was
in a way to arrange for a payment upon a small house. He was not the man
to ask advice, and the selection he made was not a wise one. "It was a
coop at best," as Thomas Donaldson says, and a much more comfortable
home in a far more suitable location could have been secured for less
than the price he had agreed to pay. However, it promised him a regular
abiding place.
The house being occupied when he became the owner, he made an
arrangement with the tenants: they were to remain, and he would come
there to live with them, his board to offset the rent. But the scheme
did not work, and at the expiration of the first month he was left
solitary and alone with his personal household goods, consisting of a
scantily furnished bedstead, a home-made table, a rickety chair and a
large packing box. The table served as writing desk and the packing box
as kitchen and dining table. "Upon it was a small coal oil stove, where
he would cook a bite at the risk of his life." (_Thomas Donaldson._)
His daily visits to Mrs. Davis were resumed. Her back door would slowly
open and he would appear saying in a pathetic voice: "Pity the sorrows
of a poor old man, whose trembling limbs have brought him to your door."
He was always welcomed and former relations were renewed.
This continued for awhile, but light housekeeping being so great a tax
upon him, and his house being so "forlorn, dirty and untenantable,"
(_Thomas Donaldson_), Mrs. Davis went there with him in his perplexity.
How could the place be anything but cold when it was heated only by the
occasional flame of an oil lamp? Worse still, the back door was held
partly open by an accumulation of ice resulting from a ruptured water
pipe.
Seeing how matters stood, Mrs. Davis, at that time a "strong,
rosy-cheeked Jersey woman" (_Thomas Donaldson_), went to work with a
will, and the ice was rapidly dispersed by her vigorously wielded axe.
With the door closed things soon assumed a more cheerful aspect, and at
her suggestion Mr. Whitman purchased a small second-hand cooking stove,
which, unassisted, she set up and got into running order. She carpeted
his sleeping room, gave him a mattress and bedding, and in many other
ways helped to make "the coop," as Whitman himself called it, more
habitable and homelike. Then, unmindful of the distance--several
blocks--she came each evening to attend to the fire, cook the food, run
the invalid's errands and wait upon him generally.
In speaking of this time she said: "When the poor old man was not in
sight, he was so much upon my mind I could not pass one peaceful hour."
Suffice it to say, Walt Whitman had become the next object of her
solicitude.
He has been called a prophet. Was it prophetical when, some years
before, he wrote: "Though poor now even to penury, I have not been
deprived of any physical thing I need or wish for whatever, and I feel
confident I shall not in the future"?
Some have considered him a cunning man; all agree that he was a
remarkable judge of character. Understanding this woman as he did,--as
he must have done,--had he resolved to have her devote herself to him?
This question can never be truthfully answered, but whether with
premeditation or not, he certainly had gained a great influence over
her.
Although comparatively comfortable in his new home now, he did not
discontinue his accustomed morning visits, and as he persisted in his
old delinquencies he completely upset the routine of Mrs. Davis's daily
life and work.
Things ran on in this way until one morning late in February, while he
was sipping his coffee, he told her he had a proposition to make. He
said: "I have a house while you pay rent; you have furniture while my
rooms are bare; I propose that you come and live with me, bringing your
furniture for the use of both." A suggestion of this kind was so
unlooked for that she refused to give it a moment's consideration. He
said no more at the time, but a few days later again broached the
subject. And this he continued to do daily until Mrs. Davis, who
remained firm for awhile, at last began to waver.
The young orphan girl strongly opposed such a step, but Mr. Whitman's
persistence prevailed, for Mrs. Davis at last gave a reluctant consent.
The advantage was all on the poet's side, as he must have seen, but
recent events had raised his hopes and he made promises of adequate and
more than adequate returns for all that had been done or might be done
for him.
As his money was "only in sight," to use his own words, the expenses of
moving were paid by Mrs. Davis; as he was disabled, the work and worry
were hers as well; but finally all was accomplished, her goods were
transferred to his house and put in their new places, and the seven
years of their domestic life together commenced. In this way did the
"good gray poet" retire with his "single attendant" to the little frame
cottage, No. 328 Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey.
III
THE MICKLE STREET HOUSE
"_The tide turned when he entered the Mickle Street house._"--THOMAS
DONALDSON.
"_Whitman had great satisfaction in the managing skill of his
housekeeper._"--SIDNEY MORSE.
Added to "managing skill," Mrs. Davis had patience, perseverance,
determination, courage and health; furthermore--having accompanied the
Fritzinger family upon a number of ocean trips, undertaken in the hope
of benefiting Mrs. Fritzinger--she had shipboard experience which
enabled her to make available every inch of space in a house smaller
than the one she had left. It was an unpretentious brown frame
structure, sadly out of repair, and decidedly the poorest tenement in
the block. On the right was a brick house whose strong walls seemed to
be holding it up, while on the left was an alley--scarcely more than a
gutter--closed from the street by a wooden door.
This narrow passage, filled with ice and snow in the winter, often damp
and slippery even in warm weather, was unfit for general use; and as the
house was not properly drained, the cellar through its one little window
was often flooded from dripping eaves.
Three wooden steps without a banister led from the sidewalk to the front
door, which had to be closed to allow those who entered to ascend the
stairs. This narrow staircase, an equally narrow hall and two connecting
rooms called "the parlors" comprised the first floor of the main
building. Between the parlors were folding doors, and each room had an
exit into the hall. There were two windows in the front parlor and a
single one in the back. Between and under the front windows was an
entrance to the cellar, with old-fashioned slanting doors.
The rear and smaller portion of the house was divided into but two
apartments, the kitchen below and a sleeping room above. At the back of
the kitchen was a small shed, and quite a large yard. Some people
believed that this yard, with its pear tree and grape vine, had been the
main attraction of the place for Mr. Whitman.
On ascending the staircase, a small landing and the back sleeping room
were reached; then, turning about, came more stairs, with a larger
landing, part of which had been made into a clothespress. Apart from
this landing and a little den, sometimes known as "the anteroom," the
upper portion of the main building had only one room. But the two doors
in it, and a deep rugged scar across the low ceiling, testified to its
having formerly been divided by a partition. As one of the doors was
permanently fastened, the only access was through the den, anteroom, or
"adjoining apartment," as it was also occasionally called.
In the larger room was a fireplace with a mantel shelf above. There were
two windows corresponding with the windows below, while the smaller room
or den, reduced to one-half its proper width by some pine shelves and an
outjutting chimney, had like the room below but one. The outlook from
this window, into which the sun made but a few annual peeps, was the
brick wall on one side, the back roof on the other, and a glimpse of the
sky.
The situation of the house was anything but inviting, and the locality
was one that few would choose to live in. It was near both depot and
ferry, and as the tracks were but a block away, or scarcely that, being
laid in what would have been the centre of the next street, there was
an uninterrupted racket day and night. The noise of the passenger and
excursion trains--for the excursions to the coast went by way of
Camden--was only a minor circumstance compared with that of the freight
trains as they thundered by, or passed and re-passed in making up.
Close at hand was a church with a sharp-toned bell, and a "choir of most
nerve-unsettling singers" (_Thomas Donaldson_); and as if this were not
enough, there was at times a most disagreeable odor from a guano factory
on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware.
Such was the house to which Mary Davis had now come, and where through
the strange, busy days of the next seven years she was destined to be
Walt Whitman's indispensable "housekeeper, nurse and friend"--or, from
the outsider's point of view, his "single attendant."
The spring of 1885 was far advanced before things were fairly in running
order, for from the first there had been no intermission in the poet's
erratic mode of living, and Mrs. Davis had been obliged to devote much
time to his personal wants. Somehow he had a way of demanding attention
which she found it impossible to resist.
Truly she had been hampered on all sides, this faithful Martha-Mary; so
many things to be seen to, so many things to handle and rehandle and
change about before an established place for them could be found; the
strenuous cleaning, for the former tenants had left the place extremely
dirty; and the pondering over repairs, and deciding which were
absolutely essential and unpostponable, and which could be put off for a
little while longer.
She first carpeted, furnished and settled the parlors, intending the
back one as the sleeping room for her young charge, until her marriage
in the fall, when it could be used as a spare room. But Mr. Whitman had
different intentions, for he at once appropriated both rooms, and would
not allow the doors separating them to be closed.
One of the front windows became his favorite sitting place, and here he
wrote, read his papers and sat while entertaining his friends. He was
delighted with these rooms, and in them he enjoyed himself to his
heart's content: first in getting things into disorder at once, and then
in keeping them so.
The back room, which became kitchen, dining room and sitting room
combined, was so compactly filled that many people remarked its close
resemblance to the cabin of a ship, in the way of convenience as
compared with space. It was lighted by one window, and over the ingrain
carpet a strip of stair carpeting made a pathway from the hall to the
outer door.
On the sitting room side were a lounge, sewing machine, two rocking
chairs, a stand and some small pieces of furniture; on the other was a
dining table against the wall, one leaf extended and always set, with
the dining chairs pushed under it when not in use; the range--a
veritable giant--standing in place of the dwarf it had ousted; a sink
with cubby-hole below, crowded to overflowing with pots and kettles, and
shelves above loaded with dishes while their enclosing doors were
closely hung with kitchen utensils. As the lower shelf only could be
reached by hand, a stool (a chair that had lost its back) was kept under
a projection of the range.
The shed, where Mr. Whitman's stove was set up, was packed with
household goods and chattels, classified and stored ready for momentary
use, and around the walls were suspended the extra chairs.
A shelf in the inside cellarway off the hall was the only pantry, and
the sides of the cellarway the only tin-cupboard; then for want of a
place for the flour barrel, it was left standing opposite the cellar
door in the hall. In this part of the house people went by feeling, not
by sight, and strangers as a rule always collided with the barrel before
entering the kitchen.
The little passage between the back part of the house and the wall of
the one adjoining it--simply a pathway to the back entrance of the
cellar--Mrs. Davis canopied with old sails and utilized as a laundry.
Here she kept her washing bench, tubs and pails, and here she washed and
ironed when the weather permitted. This furnished the view from the back
parlor window.
The cellar and its hanging shelf had their share of plunder, and here
the firewood was sawed and split.
As for pictures, there were more than enough for all the rooms, and
between them wall pockets, paper racks and brackets abounded.
Her family of birds--a robin she had rescued from a cat, a pair of
turtle doves and a canary--she attached to the kitchen ceiling. She made
a little place in the shed for her cat's bed, and found a shelter for a
few hens in the small outhouse. Her dog, more aristocratic, slept on the
lounge.
On a shelf over the dining table were a clock, some china vases, and a
stuffed parrakeet. No wonder that upon entering the house the first
thing observed was the over-filled appearance of each small room.
Upon a bracket in the front parlor she placed a model of a ship that had
been given to Captain Fritzinger by the maker. This pleased Mr. Whitman
exceedingly, for he had often noticed and admired it. He said that the
first time he had desired to write anything was when he saw a ship in
full sail. He tried to describe it exactly and failed; had often since
studied ships in the vain hope of getting the whole beautiful story into
words, but had never been able to do so.
The mantels of both parlors Mrs. Davis heaped with shells and
curiosities from distant parts of the world. Some of them were rare and
valuable.
Such was the inside of the house after it had passed through Mary's
transforming hands. There were many things in it that might have been
better elsewhere, perhaps. But where? It was only a little house, and
Mary had come to it from a larger one, with all her possessions. She
had nowhere else to put them now, without losing them. If Mr. Whitman
had any sense of being over-crowded, it was his own fault. She had come
at his urging--and he had taken the two large parlors on the first
floor, and the large front chamber with the anteroom above, entirely for
his own use, thus leaving for the two women the kitchen (which he shared
with them in its aspect of dining room) and the only remaining room in
the house--the little back chamber on the second floor. Into this, they
condensed and squeezed their more personal belongings.
IV
THE NEW RÉGIME
"_I know an old story. It goes back to 1826, when a monument to
Bellman, the Swedish poet, was unveiled in Stockholm. The King and
Queen were there, and Bellman's old wife. And the King spoke of the
dead poet, and praised him in a flight of purple phrases; but the old
wife said, 'Oh yes, but if your Majesty only knew what a nuisance he
was about the house....' But frankly, wouldn't you like to know what
kind of a nuisance the poet was at home?_"--VANCE THOMPSON.
Discovering so quickly that her new charge was decidedly a self-centered
person, and seeing that waiting upon him promised to be her chief
occupation, Mrs. Davis planned her work accordingly, and being an early
riser was able to devote the untrammelled morning hours to preparations
for the day.
Mr. Whitman usually arose at nine o'clock, but in this, as in all
things, he consulted his own wishes alone. His breakfast hour was any
time during the forenoon; and no doubt he did not understand how or why
this could discommode his new housekeeper.
When the signal came--one that Mrs. Davis soon learned, three or four
loud peremptory raps upon the floor above--she dropped whatever she
might be doing and hastened upstairs.
Since Mr. Whitman's first stroke of paralysis, nearly twenty years
before, he had become so disabled that he required much assistance while
dressing, and for this he was not at all diffident in asking. Besides,
he was "very curiously deliberate."
There being no water on the second floor, Mrs. Davis carried up and down
all that he needed for his baths,--and he used water freely. Then when
fully dressed he consulted his own feelings in regard to coming
downstairs.
In his mother's house in Long Island, and in his brother's in Camden,
Walt had seldom taken his meals with the family. While living in
Brooklyn, New Orleans and Washington, his meal times were of no
importance to anyone except himself, and he could not see why this rule
should not apply to his own house, or any house where he might be
staying. To him regular meals were a bondage he could not endure.
Going up and down stairs was a difficult task, and after coming to the
Mickle Street house he seldom did so unaided, so the old signal was
repeated when he was ready to descend, and again Mrs. Davis hastened to
him.
As he never would tell what he wanted until he was seated at the table,
she always kept a supply of special things on hand; nothing
elaborate,--maybe steak, chops, oysters or eggs. He never found fault
with his food, and although he did not often commend it he must have
been fully appreciative, for all through his letters and conversations,
as given in the various books about him, are allusions to Mary's good
cooking.
Occasionally, to suit her own convenience, she would have his breakfast
prepared; but if she mentioned this fact while helping him to dress he
would invariably say, "Ah! I will not eat anything for awhile." When the
dishes had been set aside to be kept warm, and Mary was again busily
engaged,--the wash perhaps partly hung on the line, or her deft hands in
the dough,--the peremptory signal would come, and on being helped down
and seated at the table he would coolly demand something entirely
different from what she had provided.
He commenced housekeeping by inviting company--lord or beggar--to dine
with him, and would keep these guests at the table for hours; even
"when he was eating off a dry goods box for a table, and drinking milk
warmed over a coal oil lamp, and a few crackers with it, he would ask
you to dine, with the dignity of a prince, and never apologize or
mention the food." (_Thomas Donaldson._)
A biographer (_Horace Traubel_) says, "He was very simple in his tastes,
taking only two meals in a day." True; but the day was nearly consumed
in getting and serving these two meals, with the after work that
followed. To Mrs. Davis's surprise he did not hesitate to entertain
visitors in his sleeping room if they arrived while he was there, and
many of them would remain until "the wee sma' hours." There was a charm
in fellowship with him, and ill and lethargic as he had grown, it was
said: "Walt Whitman's friends rarely visited him without having a good
laugh over something or other"; and "gifted with a clear resonant voice,
the poet often gratifies his friends as he sits by a blazing wood
fire--which is his delight--singing old-fashioned songs."
It was this irregularity that had worn upon his sister-in-law, for
during the years in which she had endured Walt's thoughtlessness, she
had had the care of Edward, the irresponsible, feeble-minded brother;
and when, by the doctor's advice, she left Camden for the country, the
home was tendered to Walt with this option: he was to conform to their
way of living and cease turning night into day.
He did indeed have "runs of luck" after 1884, and who can deny that the
greatest of these was in securing the undivided attention of a
warm-hearted, unselfish woman, and in her making it possible for him to
live untrammelled, in his own home? Surely the tide turned when this
good woman ceased to be an independent being and became the strong prop
on which he leaned; a shield between him and all annoyances.
While perplexed with settling the house, and having no time to go over
the same ground twice, although the condition of the parlors troubled
her, Mrs. Davis had let them go, awaiting a favorable time to clean and
regulate them thoroughly. This opportunity came in the summer, during
the first of Mr. Whitman's temporary absences.
Since he had been in his own house, old friends had occasionally called
to take him to spend the day with them. This time he was asked to remain
a week. He gladly availed himself of the change, and his housekeeper
was no less pleased to have a week to herself. In it she did her best to
restore order, and when she had finished was really proud of the
improvement she had effected.
Mr. Whitman returned. He at once discovered what had taken place during
his absence, and his consternation knew no bounds! He said that he had
left _everything exactly_ as he wished it to remain; where he could find
it; now the very things he needed most were gone; in fact he could find
nothing he wanted, and in the future he forbade _anyone_ to meddle with
his private property; he desired and expected to find--at all times and
upon all occasions--his personal matters unmolested, undisturbed, left
entirely alone.
Mrs. Davis mildly replied that she had only taken from the room some
useless papers, scraps of letters, old envelopes, bits of twine and
wrapping paper.
He declared that these were the very things he needed most; the ones he
specially missed.
She remonstrated, but to no purpose; he silenced her; just how, she
could not comprehend.
To Walt Whitman's credit be it said, he never spoke an unkind word to
Mrs. Davis; never was arrogant or overbearing to her; never belittled
her or put her down before others; always treated her as an equal;
relied upon her judgment and often sought her advice;--but he would have
his own way, and she with her yielding nature soon gave in; the struggle
was only a short one; before winter commenced, confusion once more
reigned.
In due time piles of periodicals were stacked on the table and on
chairs; newspapers, letters, envelopes and bundles of manuscript were in
the corners; and as he had immediately set about the work he had so
greatly at heart, cuttings, rejected scraps of paper and general litter
soon covered the floor, the confusion gradually making its way into the
next room and threatening to invade the hall.
The front parlor became a veritable editor's sanctum; nothing but the
smell of printer's ink and the sound of the press were wanting.
Some of his poems he altered and revised again and again, and in a short
time the large waste basket Mary had placed in the room was filled to
overflowing. As he would not allow her to remove or empty the basket,
it became the foundation of a hillock of débris. Sometimes when he
seemed off-guard she would surreptitiously remove a few dust pans full,
but he was not deceived, and even this she had to discontinue.
The first summer and fall in his own house were decidedly pleasant and
beneficial to Mr. Whitman. He worked as he felt able or inclined; was
encouraged with the progress he was making, and gratified with the
prospect before him. He believed, and must have seen, that situated so
advantageously the one desire of his life was to be consummated, and
that even though it were to be accomplished in a slow way, he would live
to see his book completed and in a form to meet his most sanguine
wishes.
Visitors retarded his work, but this was no real detriment, nor did he
feel the time lost that he spent in returning visits. Making over the
old material and adding to it the poems he had composed since the issue
of the last edition, was something he could lay down and take up at any
time. And he certainly did enjoy agreeable company, delighting
whole-heartedly in their companionship as he dispensed the hospitality
of his own board.
By degrees Mrs. Davis accustomed herself to her new surroundings and
was no longer astonished at any of Walt's remarkable ways or
unreasonable requests; besides, she remembered that the step she had
taken was after all self-imposed, that all her friends had protested,
and that it was now irrevocable; so with good sense and in good time she
became, if not fully reconciled, at least resigned. She didn't exactly
regret coming to Mickle Street, but she could judge from the few months
she had passed there what the years to come might bring; yet even with
this outlook she resolved not to shrink from but bravely to face the
future, whatever might betide; and so unconsciously she transferred to
Walt Whitman the devotion she had given to others.
She seldom left the house when he was there alone, for with that
enigmatical instinct chronic patients develop he knew, and always wanted
something, whenever she was busiest or on a momentary absence. Therefore
after awhile she put all other considerations aside, and gave her full
energies to the work she had undertaken; individual wishes were
surrendered as she strove to adjust her ways to the erratic ones of the
old man; familiar customs were discarded and former friends neglected.
She seemed almost to lose her personality and to become a part of the
house and the peculiar life lived there.
She was never obtrusive, and did all things in a quiet manner. If
company lingered until midnight she remained up to assist her charge to
bed; she humored his vagaries, and always had a smile and a pleasant
word for him. When he was inclined to be despondent, she cheered him;
when he was in pain, she had some simple remedy at hand; when he was in
danger of overtaxing his strength, she gently cautioned him; and if the
disorder of his rooms troubled her, she did not let him guess how much.
At first she supposed he was not in a position to purchase new clothing,
and did her best to make him presentable in what he had, while she
patiently awaited the time when the expected money should come in; and
through her efficiency in washing, darning, patching and mending he soon
presented a much improved appearance, often commented on.
His brother, his good sister-in-law, his other relatives and all his
friends rested in peace. They knew the hands he was in, the shoulders
upon which the burden had fallen.
V
CURIOUS NEIGHBORS
"_Mr. Whitman and his housekeeper were closely watched by some curious
people who had never lived near a poet before. In addition they minded
their own business. That Camden should contain two such people in one
street was enough to create wonder._"--THOMAS DONALDSON.
The inhabitants not only of Mickle Street, but of contiguous ones, were
deeply interested in the strange couple who had come to live among them,
and kept a close watch upon every movement. Their vigilance troubled
Mrs. Davis, for she could see no reason why anyone should be curious
about them. It was different with Mr. Whitman, who never saw anything he
did not choose to. "I don't think a man ever existed so entirely
indifferent to criticism and slander." (_Sidney Morse._)
If Mrs. Davis chanced to go to her front door, half a dozen women would
appear at theirs; if she swept her sidewalk, her broom seemed to set in
motion half a dozen others. If she left her house for five minutes or
remained away for hours, she would find sentinels awaiting her return.
Sometimes as she was approaching home she would hear a shrill childish
voice call out: "Mama! Mama! here she comes!" Or she would see a young
urchin--presumably on guard--scamper into the house to give the alarm.
"They seemed always upon the alert, and saw to it that whatever went
into Mr. Whitman's house should have an eye escort in and an eye escort
out." (_Thomas Donaldson._)
From behind curtains, shutters and blinds Mrs. Davis could see and
instinctively feel eyes fastened upon her, and what appeared especially
remarkable was that this intrusive neighborly interest failed to die out
or lessen with time. It was a matter of genuine personal curiosity, keen
and continuing, and not of the transient attention any newcomer might
awaken.