OUR TEACHERS.
I do not know why we had so many teachers. No doubt it was partly
because we were very troublesome children. But I think it was also
partly owing to the fact that our father was constantly overrun by needy
foreigners seeking employment. He was a philanthropist; he had been
abroad, and spoke foreign languages,--that was enough! His office was
besieged by “all peoples, nations, and languages,”--all, as a rule,
hungry,--Greeks, Germans, Poles, Hungarians, occasionally a Frenchman or
an Englishman, though these last were rare. Many of them were political
exiles; sometimes they brought letters from friends in Europe, sometimes
not.
Our father’s heart never failed to respond to any appeal of this kind
when the applicant really wanted work; for sturdy beggars he had no
mercy. So it sometimes happened that, while waiting for something else
to turn up, the exile of the day would be set to teaching us,--partly to
give him employment, partly also by way of finding out what he knew and
was fit for. In this way did Professor Feaster (this may not be the
correct spelling, but it was our way, and suited him well) come to be
our tutor for a time. He was a very stout man, so stout that we
considered him a second Daniel Lambert. He may have been an excellent
teacher, but almost my only recollection of him is that he made the most
enchanting little paper houses, with green doors and blinds that opened
and shut. He painted the inside of the houses in some mysterious
way,--at least there were patterns on the floor, like mosaic-work,--and
the only drawback to our perfect happiness on receiving one of them was
that we were too big to get inside.
I say this is almost my only recollection of this worthy man; but candor
compels me to add that the other picture which his name conjures up is
of Harry and Laura marching round the dining-room table, each
shouldering a log of wood, and shouting,--
“We’ll kill old Feaster!
We’ll kill old Feaster!”
This was very naughty indeed; but, as I have said before, we were often
naughty.
One thing more I do recollect about poor Professor Feaster. Flossy was
at once his delight and his terror. She was so bright, so original,
so--alas! so impish. She used to climb up on his back, lean over his
shoulder, and pull out his watch to see if the lesson-hour were over. To
be sure, she was only eight at this time, and possibly the scenes from
“Wilhelm Tell” which he loved to declaim with republican fervor may have
been rather beyond her infant comprehension.
One day Flossy made up her mind that the Professor should take her way
about something--I quite forget what--rather than his own. She set
herself deliberately against him,--three feet to six!--and declared that
he should do as she said. The poor Professor looked down on this fiery
pygmy with eyes that sparkled through his gold-bowed spectacles. “I haf
refused,” he cried in desperation, “to opey ze Emperor of Austria, mees!
Do you sink I will opey _you?_”
Then there was Madame S----, a Danish lady, very worthy, very
accomplished, and--ugly enough to frighten all knowledge out of a
child’s head. She was my childish ideal of personal uncomeliness, yet
she was most good and kind.
It was whispered that she had come to this country with intent to join
the Mormons (of course we heard nothing of this till years after), but
the plan had fallen through; she, Madame S----, did not understand why,
but our mother, on looking at her, thought the explanation not so
difficult. She had a religion of her own, this poor, good, ugly dame. It
was probably an entirely harmless one, though she startled our mother
one day by approving the action of certain fanatics who had killed one
of their number (by his own consent) because he had a devil. “If he did
have a devil,” quoth Madame, beaming mildly over the purple
morning-glory she was crocheting, “it may have been a good thing that he
was killed.”
As I say, this startled our mother, who began to wonder what would
happen if Madame S---- should take it into her head that any of our
family was possessed by a devil; but neither poison nor dagger appeared,
and Madame was never anything but the meekest of women.
I must not forget to say that before she began to teach she had wished
to become a lecturer. She had a lecture all ready; it began with a
poetical outburst, as follows:
“I am a Dane! I am a Dane!
I am not ashamed of the royal name!”
But we never heard of its being delivered. I find this mention of Madame
S---- in a letter from our mother to her sister:--
“Danish woman very ugly,
But remarkably instructive,--
Drawing, painting, French, and German,
Fancy-work of all descriptions,
With geography and grammar.
She will teach for very little,
And is a superior person.”
I remember some of the fancy-work. There were pink-worsted roses, very
wonderful,--really not at all like the common roses one sees in gardens.
You wound the worsted round and round, spirally, and then you ran your
needle down through the petal and pulled it a little; this, as any
person of intelligence will readily perceive, made a rose-petal with a
dent of the proper shape in it. These petals had to be pressed in a book
to keep them flat, while others were making. Sometimes, years and years
after, one would find two or three of them between the leaves of an old
volume of “Punch,” or some other book; and instantly would rise up
before the mind’s eye the figure of Madame S----, with scarlet face and
dark-green dress, and a very remarkable nose.
Flossy reminds me that she always smelt of peppermint. So she did, poor
lady! and probably took it for its medicinal properties.
Then there was the wax fruit. You young people of sophisticated to-day,
who make such things of real beauty with your skilful,
kindergarten-trained fingers, what would you say to the wax fruit and
flowers of our childhood? Perhaps you would like to know how to make
them. We bought wax at the apothecary’s, white wax, in round flat cakes,
pleasant to nibble, and altogether gratifying,--wax, and chrome-yellow
and carmine, the colors in powder. We put the wax in a pipkin (I always
say “pipkin” when I have a chance, because it is such a charming word;
but if my readers prefer “saucepan,” let them have it by all means!)--we
put it, I say, in a pipkin, and melted it. (For a pleasure wholly
without alloy, I can recommend the poking and punching of half-melted
wax.) Then, when it was ready, we stirred in the yellow powder, which
produced a fine Bartlett color. Then we poured the mixture--oh,
joy!--into the two pear or peach shaped halves of the plaster mold, and
clapped them together; and when the pear or peach was cool and dry, we
took a camel’s-hair brush and painted a carmine cheek on one side. I do
not say that this was art, or advancement of culture; I do not say that
its results were anything but hideous and abnormal; but I do maintain
that it was a delightful and enchanting amusement. And if there was a
point of rapture beyond this, it was the coloring of melted wax to a
delicate rose hue, and dipping into it a dear little spaddle (which, be
it explained to the ignorant, is a flat disk with a handle to it) and
taking out liquid rose-petals, which hardened in a few minutes and were
rolled delicately off with the finger. When one had enough (say, rather,
when one could tear one’s self away from the magic pipkin), one put the
petals together; and there you had a rose that was like nothing upon
earth.
After all, were wax flowers so much more hideous, I wonder, than some
things one sees to-day? Why is it that such a stigma attaches to the
very name of them? Why do not people go any longer to see the wax
figures in the Boston Museum? Perhaps they are not there now; perhaps
they are grown forlorn and dilapidated--indeed, they never were very
splendid!--and have been hustled away into some dim lumber-room, from
whose corners they glare out at the errant call-boy of the theatre, and
frighten him into fits. Daniel Lambert, in scarlet waistcoat and
knee-breeches! the “Drunkard’s Career,” the bare recollection of which
brings a thrill of horror,--there was one child at least who regarded
you as miracles of art!
Speaking of wax reminds me of Monsieur N----, who gave us, I am inclined
to think, our first French lessons, besides those we received from our
mother. He was a very French Frenchman, with blond mustache and imperial
waxed à la Louis Napoleon, and a military carriage. He had been a
soldier, and taught fencing as well as French, though not to us. This
unhappy gentleman had married a Smyrniote woman, out of gratitude to her
family, who had rescued him from some pressing danger. Apparently he did
them a great service by marrying the young woman and taking her away,
for she had a violent temper,--was, in short, a perfect vixen. The evils
of this were perhaps lessened by the fact that she could not speak
French, while her husband had no knowledge of her native Greek. It is
the simple truth that this singular couple in their disputes, which
unfortunately were many, used often to come and ask our father to act as
interpreter between them. Monsieur N---- himself was a kind man, and a
very good teacher.
There is a tale told of a christening feast which he gave in honor of
Candide, his eldest child. Julia and Flossy were invited, and also the
governess of the time, whoever she was. The company went in two hacks to
the priest’s house, where the ceremony was to be performed; on the way
the rival hackmen fell out, and jeered at each other, and, whipping up
their lean horses, made frantic efforts each to obtain the front rank in
the small cortége. Whereupon Monsieur N----, very angry at this
infringement of the dignity of the occasion, thrust his head out of the
window and shrieked to his hackman:--
“Firts or sekind, vich you bleece!” which delighted the children more
than any other part of the entertainment.
There was poor Miss R----, whom I recall with mingled dislike and
compassion. She must have been very young, and she had about as much
idea of managing children (we required a great deal of managing) as a
tree might have. Her one idea of discipline was to give us
“misdemeanors,” which in ordinary speech were “black marks.” What is it
I hear her say in the monotonous sing-song voice which always
exasperated us?--“Doctor, Laura has had fourteen misdemeanors!” Then
Laura was put to bed, no doubt very properly; but she has always felt
that she need not have had the “misdemeanors” if the teaching had been a
little different. Miss R---- it was who took away the glass eye-cup;
therefore I am aware that I cannot think of her with clear and
unprejudiced mind. But she must have had bitter times with us, poor
thing! I can distinctly remember Flossy urging Harry, with fiery zeal,
not to recite his geography lesson,--I cannot imagine why.
Miss R---- often rocked in the junk with us. That reminds me that I
promised to describe the junk. But how shall I picture that perennial
fount of joy? It was crescent-shaped, or rather it was like a
longitudinal slice cut out of a watermelon. Magnify the slice a
hundred-fold; put seats up and down the sides, with iron bars in front
to hold on by; set it on two grooved rails and paint it red,--there you
have the junk! Nay! you have it not entire; for it should be filled with
rosy, shouting children, standing or sitting, holding on by the bars and
rocking with might and main,--
“Yo-ho! Here we go!
Up and down! Heigh-ho!”
Why are there no junks nowadays? Surely it would be better for us, body
and mind, if there were; for, as for the one, the rocking exercised
every muscle in the whole bodily frame, and as for the other, black Care
could not enter the junk (at least he did not), nor weariness, nor
“shadow of annoyance.” There ought to be a junk on Boston Common, free
to all, and half a dozen in Central Park; and I hope every young person
who reads these words will suggest this device to his parents or
guardians.
But teaching is not entirely confined to the archery practice of the
young idea; and any account of our teachers would be incomplete without
mention of our dancing-master,--of _the_ dancing-master, for there was
but one. You remember that the dandy in “Punch,” being asked of whom he
buys his hats, replies: “Scott. Is there another fellah?” Even so it
would be difficult for the Boston generation of middle or elder life to
acknowledge that there could have been “another fellah” to teach dancing
besides Lorenzo Papanti. Who does not remember--nay! who could ever
forget--that tall, graceful figure; that marvellous elastic glide, like
a wave flowing over glass? Who could ever forget the shrewd, kindly
smile when he was pleased, the keen lightning of his glance when
angered? What if he did rap our toes sometimes till the timorous wept,
and those of stouter heart flushed scarlet, and clenched their small
hands and inly vowed revenge? No doubt we richly deserved it, and it did
us good.
If I were to hear a certain strain played in the desert of Sahara or on
the plains of Idaho, I should instantly “forward and back and cross
over,”--and so, I warrant, would most of my generation of Boston people.
There is one grave and courteous gentleman of my acquaintance, whom to
see dance the shawl-dance with his fairy sister was a dream of poetry.
As for the gavotte--O beautiful Amy! O lovely Alice! I see you now, with
your short, silken skirts flowing out to extreme limit of crinoline;
with your fair locks confined by the discreet net, sometimes of brown or
scarlet chenille, sometimes of finest silk; with snowy stockings, and
slippers fastened by elastic bands crossed over the foot and behind the
ankle; with arms and neck bare. If your daughters to-day chance upon a
photograph of you taken in those days, they laugh and ask mamma how she
could wear such queer things, and make such a fright of herself! But I
remember how lovely you were, and how perfectly you always dressed, and
with what exquisite grace you danced the gavotte.
[Illustration: LAURA E. RICHARDS.]
So, I think, all we who jumped and changed our feet, who pirouetted and
chasséed under Mr. Papanti, owe him a debt of gratitude. His hall was a
paradise, the stiff little dressing-room, with its rows of shoe-boxes,
the antechamber of delight,--and thereby hangs a tale. The child Laura
grew up, and married one who had jumped and changed his feet beside her
at Papanti’s, and they two went to Europe and saw many strange lands and
things; and it fell upon a time that they were storm-bound in a little
wretch of a grimy steamer in the Gulf of Corinth. With them was a
travelling companion who also had had the luck to be born in Boston, and
to go to dancing-school; the other passengers were a Greek, an Italian,
and--I think the third was a German, but as he was seasick it made no
difference. Three days were we shut up there while the storm raged and
bellowed, and right thankful we were for the snug little harbor which
stretched its protecting arms between us and the white churning waste of
billows outside the bar.
We played games to make the time pass; we talked endlessly,--and in the
course of talk it naturally came to pass that we told of our adventures,
and where we came from, and, in short, who we were. The Greek gentleman
turned out to be an old acquaintance of our father, and was greatly
overjoyed to see me, and told me many interesting things about the old
fighting-days of the revolution. The Italian spoke little during this
conversation, but when he heard the word “Boston” he pricked up his
ears; and when a pause came, he asked if we came from Boston. “Yes,” we
all answered, with the inward satisfaction which every Bostonian feels
at being able to make the reply. And had we ever heard, in Boston, he
went on to inquire, of “un certo Papanti, maestro di ballo?” “Heard of
him!” cried the three dancing-school children,--“we never heard of any
one else!” Thereupon ensued much delighted questioning and
counter-questioning. This gentleman came from Leghorn, Mr. Papanti’s
native city. He knew his family; they were excellent people. Lorenzo
himself he had never seen, as he left Italy so many years ago; but
reports had reached Leghorn that he was very successful,--that he taught
the best people (O Beacon street! O purple windows and brown-stone
fronts, I should think so!); that he had invented “un piano sopra
molle,” a floor on springs. Was this true? Whereupon we took up our
parable, and unfolded to the Livornese mind the glory of Papanti, till
he fairly glowed with pride in his famous fellow-townsman.
And, finally, was not this a pleasant little episode in a storm-bound
steamer in the Gulf of Corinth?