GREEN PEACE.
Not many children can boast of having two homes; some, alas! have hardly
one. But we actually had two abiding-places, both of which were so dear
to us that we loved them equally. First, there was Green Peace. When our
mother first came to the place, and saw the fair garden, and the house
with its lawn and its shadowing trees, she gave it this name, half in
sport; and the title clung to it always.
The house itself was pleasant. The original building, nearly two hundred
years old, was low and squat, with low-studded rooms, and great posts in
the corners, and small many-paned windows. As I recall it now, it
consisted largely of cupboards,--the queerest cupboards that ever were;
some square and some three-cornered, and others of no shape
[Illustration: MAUD.]
at all. They were squeezed into staircase walls, they lurked beside
chimneys, they were down near the floor, they were close beneath the
ceiling. It was as if a child had built the house for the express
purpose of playing hide-and-seek in it. Ah, how we children did play
hide-and-seek there! To lie curled up in the darkest corner of the
“twisty” cupboard, that went burrowing in under the front stairs,--to
lie curled up there, eating an apple, and hear the chase go clattering
and thumping by, that was a sensation!
Then the stairs! There was not very much of them, for a tall man
standing on the ground floor could touch the top step with his hand. But
they had a great deal of variety; no two steps went the same way: they
seemed to have fallen out with one another, and never to have “made up”
again. When you had once learned how to go up and down, it was very
well, except in the dark; and even then you had only to remember that
you must tread on the farther side of the first two steps, and on the
hither side of the next three, and in the middle of four after, and
then you were near the top or the bottom, as the case might be, and
could scramble or jump for it. But it was not well for strangers to go
up and down those stairs.
There was another flight that was even more perilous, but our father had
it boarded over, as he thought it unsafe for any one to use. One always
had a shiver in passing through a certain dark passage, when one felt
boards instead of plaster under one’s hand, and knew that behind those
boards lurked the hidden staircase. There was something uncanny about
it,--
“O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted.”
Perhaps the legend of the hidden staircase was all the more awful
because it was never told.
Just to the right of the school-room, a door opened into the new part of
the house which our father had built. The first room was the great
dining-room; and very great it was. On the floor was a wonderful carpet,
all in one piece, which was made in France, and had belonged to Joseph
Bonaparte, a brother of the great Emperor. In the middle was a medallion
of Napoleon and Marie Louise, with sun-rays about them; then came a
great circle, with strange beasts on it ramping and roaring (only they
roared silently); and then a plain space, and in the corners birds and
fishes such as never were seen in air or sea. Yes, that _was_ a carpet!
It was here we danced the wonderful dances. We hopped round and round
the circle, and we stamped on the beasts and the fishes; but it was not
good manners to step on the Emperor and Empress,--one must go round
them. Here our mother sang to us; but the singing belongs to another
chapter.
The great dining-room had a roof all to itself,--a flat roof, covered
with tar and gravel, and railed in; so that one could lie on one’s face
and kick one’s heels, pick out white pebbles, and punch the bubbles of
tar all hot in the sun.
But, after all, we did not stay in the house much. Why should we, with
the garden calling us out with its thousand voices? On each side of the
house lay an oval lawn, green as emerald. One lawn had the
laburnum-tree, where at the right time of year we sat under a shower of
fragrant gold; the other had the three hawthorn-trees, one with white
blossoms, another with pink, and a third with deep red, rose-like
flowers. Other trees were there, but I do not remember them. Directly in
front of the house stood two giant Balm-of-Gilead trees, towering over
the low-roofed dwelling. These trees were favorites of ours, for at a
certain time they dropped down to us thousands and thousands of sticky
catkins, full of the most charming, silky cotton. We called them the
“cottonwool-trees,” and loved them tenderly. Then, between the trees, a
flight of steps plunged down to the green-house. A curious place this
was,--summer-house, hot-house, and bowling-alley, all in one. The
summer-house part was not very interesting, being all filled with seeds
and pots and dry bulbs, and the like. But from it a swing-door opened
into Elysium! Here the air was soft and balmy, and full of the smell of
roses. One went down two steps, and there were the roses themselves!
Great vines trained along the walls, heavy with long white or yellow or
tea-colored buds,--I remember no red ones. Mr. Arrow, the gardener,
never let us touch the roses, and he never gave us a bud; but when a
rose was fully open, showing its golden heart, he would often pick it
for us, with a sigh, but a kind look too. Mr. Arrow was an Englishman,
stout and red-faced. Julia made a rhyme about him once, beginning,--
“Poor Mr. Arrow, he once was narrow,
But that was a long time ago.”
Midway in the long glass-covered building was a tiny oval pond, lined
with green moss. I think it once had goldfish in it, but they did not
thrive. When Mr. Arrow was gone to dinner, it was pleasant to fill the
brass syringe with water from this pond, and squirt at the roses, and
feel the heavy drops plashing back in one’s upturned face. Sometimes a
child fell into the pond; but as the water was only four or five inches
deep, no harm was done, save to stockings and petticoats.
The bowling-alley was divided by a low partition from the hot-house, so
that when we went to play at planets we breathed the same soft, perfumed
air. The planets were the balls. The biggest one was Uranus; then came
Saturn, and so on down to Mercury, a little dot of a ball. They were of
some dark, hard, foreign wood, very smooth, with a dusky polish. It was
a great delight to roll them, either over the smooth floor, against the
ninepins, or along the rack at the side. When one rolled Uranus or
Jupiter, it sounded like thunder,--Olympian thunder, suggestive of angry
gods. Then the musical tinkle of the pins, as they clinked and fell
together! Sometimes they were British soldiers, and we the Continentals,
firing the “iron six-pounder” from the other end of the battle-field.
Sometimes, regardless of dates, we introduced artillery into the Trojan
war, and Hector bowled Achilles off his legs, or _vice versa_.
The bowling-alley was also used for other sports. It was here that
Flossy gave a grand party for Cotchy, her precious Maltese cat. All the
cat-owning little girls in the neighborhood were invited, and about
twelve came, each bringing her pet in a basket. Cotchy was beautifully
dressed in a cherry-colored ribbon, which set off her gray, satiny coat
to perfection. She received her guests with much dignity, but was not
inclined to do much toward entertaining them. Flossy tried to make the
twelve cats play with one another, but they were shy on first
acquaintance, and a little stiff. Perhaps Flossy did not in those days
know the proper etiquette for introducing cats, though since then she
has studied all kinds of etiquette thoroughly. But the little girls
enjoyed themselves, if the cats did not, and there was a great deal of
chattering and comparing notes. Then came the feast, which consisted of
milk and fish-bones; and next every cat had her nose buttered by way of
dessert. Altogether, the party was voted a great success.
Below, and on both sides of the green-house, the fertile ground was set
thick with fruit-trees, our father’s special pride. The pears and
peaches of Green Peace were known far and wide; I have never seen such
peaches since, nor is it only the halo of childish recollection that
shines around them, for others bear the same testimony. Crimson-glowing,
golden-hearted, smooth and perfect as a baby’s cheek, each one was a
thing of wonder and beauty; and when you ate one, you ate summer and
sunshine. Our father gave us a great deal of fruit, but we were never
allowed to take it ourselves without permission; indeed, I doubt if it
ever occurred to us to do so. One of us still remembers the thrill of
horror she felt when a little girl who had come to spend the afternoon
picked up a fallen peach and ate it, without asking leave. It seemed a
dreadful thing not to know that the garden was a field of honor. As to
the proverbial sweetness of stolen fruit, we knew nothing about it. The
fruit was sweet enough from our dear father’s hand, and, as I said, he
gave us plenty of it.
How was it, I wonder, that this sense of honor seemed sometimes to stay
in the garden and not always to come into the house?
[Illustration: LAURA WAS FOUND IN THE SUGAR-BARREL.]
For as I write, the thought comes to me of a day when Laura was found
with her feet sticking out of the sugar-barrel, into which she had
fallen head foremost while trying to get a lump of sugar. She has never
eaten a lump of sugar, save in her tea, since that day. Also, it is
recorded of Flossy and Julia, that, being one day at the Institution,
they found the store-room open, and went in, against the law. There was
a beautiful polished tank, which appeared to be full of rich brown
syrup. Julia and Flossy liked syrup; so each filled a mug, and then they
counted one, two, three, and each took a good draught,--and it was
train-oil!
But in both these cases the culprits were hardly out of babyhood; so
perhaps they had not yet learned about the “broad stone of honor,” on
which it is good to set one’s feet.
I must not leave the garden without speaking of the cherry-trees. These
must have been planted by early settlers, perhaps by the same hand that
planned the crooked stairs and quaint cupboards of the old
house,--enormous trees, gnarled and twisted like ancient apple-trees,
and as sturdy as they. They had been grafted--whether by our father’s or
some earlier hand I know not--with the finest varieties of
“white-hearts” and “black-hearts,” and they bore amazing quantities of
cherries. These attracted flocks of birds, which our father in vain
tried to frighten away with scarecrows. Once he put the cat in a
bird-cage, and hung her up in the white-heart tree; but the birds soon
found that she could not get at them, and poor pussy was so miserable
that she was quickly released.
I perceive that we shall not get to the summer home in this chapter; but
I must say a word about the Institution for the Blind, which was within
a few minutes’ walk of Green Peace.
Many of our happiest hours were spent in this pleasant place, the home
of patient cheerfulness and earnest work. We often went to play with the
blind children when our lessons and theirs were over, and they came
trooping out into the sunny playground. I do not think it occurred to us
to pity these boys and girls deprived of one of the chief sources of
pleasure in life; they were so happy, so merry, that we took their
blindness as a matter of course.
Our father often gave us baskets of fruit to take to them. That was a
great pleasure. We loved to turn the great globe in the hall, and,
shutting our eyes, pass our fingers over the raised surfaces, trying to
find different places. We often “played blind,” and tried to read the
great books with raised print, but never succeeded that I remember. The
printing-office was a wonderful place to linger in; and one could often
get pieces of marbled paper, which was valuable in the paper-doll world.
Then there was the gymnasium, with its hanging rings, and its wonderful
tilt, which went up so high that it took one’s breath away. Just beyond
the gymnasium, were some small rooms, in which were stored worn-out
pianos, disabled after years of service under practising fingers. It was
very good fun to play on a worn-out piano. There were always a good many
notes that really sounded, and they had quite individual sounds, not
like those of common pianos; then there were some notes that buzzed, and
some that growled, and some that made no noise at all; and one could
poke in under the cover, and twang the strings, and play with the
chamois-leather things that went flop (we have since learned that they
are called hammers), and sometimes pull them out, though that seemed
wicked.
Then there was the matron’s room, where we were always made welcome by
the sweet and gracious woman who still makes sunshine in that place by
her lovely presence. Dear Miss M---- was never out of patience with our
pranks, had always a picture-book or a flower or a curiosity to show us,
and often a story to tell when a spare half-hour came. For her did
Flossy and Julia act their most thrilling tragedies, no other spectators
being admitted. To her did Harry and Laura confide their infant joys and
woes. Other friends will have a chapter to themselves, but it seems most
fitting to speak of this friend here, in telling of the home she has
made bright for over fifty years.
Over the way from the Institution stood the workshop, where blind men
and women, many of them graduates of the Institution, made mattresses
and pillows, mats and brooms. This was another favorite haunt of ours.
There was a stuffy but not unpleasant smell of feathers and hemp about
the place. I should know that smell if I met it in Siberia! There were
coils of rope, sometimes so large that one could squat down and hide in
the middle, piles of hemp, and dark mysterious bins full of curled hair,
white and black. There was a dreadful mystery about the black-hair bin;
the little ones ran past it, with their heads turned away. But they
never told what it was, and one of them never knew.
But the crowning joy of the workshop was the feather-room,--a long room,
with smooth, clean floor; along one side of it were divisions, like the
stalls in a stable, and each division was half filled with feathers. Boy
and girl readers will understand what a joy this must have been,--to sit
down in the feathers, and let them cover you up to the neck, and be a
setting hen! or to lie at full length, and be a traveller lost in the
snow,--Harry making it snow feathers till you were all covered up, and
then turning into the faithful hound and dragging you out! or to play
the game of “Winds,” and blow the feathers about the room! But old
Margaret did not allow this last game, and we could do it only when she
happened to go out for a moment, which was not very often. Old Margaret
was the presiding genius of the feather-room, a half-blind woman, who
kept the feathers in order and helped to sew up the pillows and
mattresses. She was always kind to us, and let us rake feathers with the
great wooden rake as much as we would. Later, when Laura was perhaps ten
years old, she used to go and read to old Margaret. Mrs. Browning’s
poems were making a new world for the child at that time, and she never
felt a moment’s doubt about the old woman’s enjoying them: in after
years doubts did occur to her.
It was probably a quaint picture, if any one had looked in upon it: the
long, low room, with the feather-heaps, white and dusky gray; the
half-blind, withered crone, nodding over her knitting, and the little
earnest child, throwing her whole soul into “The Romaunt of the Page,”
or the “Rhyme of the Duchess May.”
“Oh! the little birds sang east,
And the little birds sang west,
Toll slowly!”
The first sound of the words carries me back through the years to the
feather-room and old blind Margaret.