A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
Racial prejudice was cherished as a virtue in the Old Colonie and the
real, solid Dutch families found it anything but creditable that Van
Der Zee children—we had the honor of being regarded as Van Der Zees in
Beaver street—should be sent to an English school in far off Boston
town. Massachusetts was, to them, an English colony, and the people
there were English, that is to say, foreigners, strangers, and not to
be trusted. However, when it was learned that we were actually going,
and mother set about making the elaborate preparations considered
necessary for so formidable an undertaking, kind friends came in
bringing gifts deemed suitable for the occasion, knitted mittens and
mufflers, pies and cakes, apples and cider, and choice stores of the
cellar and pantry enough to provision a ship for a long cruise. My
nearest boy friend, Gratz Van Rensselaer, gave me his knife. How close
were our relations may be understood from the fact that we had a
private signal, a peculiar whistle of our own which we used to call
each other, as boys are wont to do when on terms of exclusive intimacy.
To quote Mr. Peggotty, “A man can’t say fairer nor that, now, can he?”
When Gratz went down into his pockets and handed me that knife in
solemn silence, I fully realized that he was making a sacrifice on the
altar of friendship. Any critic of this writing will be justified in
objecting that I did not probably formulate the idea in just these
terms, but this is about the size of it, all the same.
Whether my schoolmate ever afterward used our call, I do not know, as
our parting was a finality, but for my part, I took it with me to Brook
Farm where my new mates adopted it forthwith. Later, the elders took it
up, and eventually it became widely known over the face of the earth as
“the Brook Farm call.” It went to California with a young married
couple in the early fifties; to China with one of our boys who became
the Captain of a Pacific steamer; to Spain and to Russia with another
in the United States diplomatic service; to Italy with two girls whose
father was an artist; to the Philippines with students returning to
their home in Manila, and to all quarters where Brook Farmers found
their way, as they seem always to have remembered it.
A peculiarity which may have helped keep it in mind was that it
consisted of two parts, the summons, and the response; the first part
differing slightly from the second, to distinguish friend answering
friend from the stranger merely imitating sounds accidentally or
incidentally heard. Just what the difference was may be learned from
the notation here given.
Another peculiarity of the call was that it had the quality of taking
character from the person uttering it. For example, Annie Page was the
girl I most devotedly admired, and when “she gaed me her answer true”
in response to my signal, her musical little trill sounded to me like
the voice of the thrush that sang down in the pine woods. Per contra,
there was Frank Barlow, whom we used to call “Crazy Barlow” because of
his headlong rush at whatever object he had in view, and he could make
the call shrill and thrill like a fife.
[Illustration: The Brook Farm Call]
I met Frank one morning in the later days of the Civil War when he was
striding along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington at his usual breakneck
pace. He was Major General Barlow, then, one of the great generals of
the Union Army, but he was, first, last and always, a Brook Farmer, so
I signaled to him with the same old call. He came to an abrupt halt,
answered my greeting and dashed across the Avenue with both hands
extended. Neither of us had more than a short allowance of time, but we
could do no less than adjourn to a convenient resort for a good hearty
talk about the old days in West Roxbury.
Other experiences with the call have come to me since then but none
that I remember with more pleasure. To-day there are few or none to
answer, no matter how earnestly I might sound the old appeal. As may be
seen above, the little succession of notes is very simple, but they
convey a world meaning to my old ear.
If two little Dutch boys in the Old Colonie composed this memorable
opus they surely did better than they knew, but my notion is they must
have heard something like it and repeated the sounds without being
aware that they were merely memories, not original inventions. The
boatmen on the Erie Canal announced their entry into the Albany basin
by blowing a horn, commonly a tin horn, harsh and discordant. The
passenger packets, however, having to “come into port grandly” sounded
a bugle flourish, sometimes really melodious. It may have been these
bugle notes, impressing their sweet succession on sub-conscious young
minds, that afforded the first suggestion of the Brook Farm call.
As my readers may note with more or less patience, it takes time for
New Netherland folk to get started on a long journey. Ours was a long
journey, in truth, as it required two days and a night to accomplish
it. The express schedule on the Boston and Albany Railroad is four
hours between the two cities; but there was no express travel in the
forties except by passenger packets on the Erie Canal, above referred
to. These fast flyers raced along at the top speed of four miles an
hour making stops only at the locks or bridges or to change horses or
to take someone on board or to let someone step ashore. If my mother’s
visits to her relatives extended as far as Schenectady, she made the
journey in one of these Swiftsure liners, perhaps the _Swallow_, or the
_Gleam_ or the _Alida_, usually accompanied by one or two of us
children; and a very pleasant journey it was to be sure in fair
weather. To glide smoothly along through the country on the deck of a
canal boat is a method of locomotion affording opportunities to view
the landscape o’er with much comfort and constant though not too rapid
changes of entertainment. Necessarily running as near the shore as
possible, a slight shift of the tiller by an obliging helmsman would
enable a small boy to effect a landing and take a quick look into the
canal blacksmith shop, or to walk a stretch with the youth driving the
horses, and then re-embark without attracting too much attention. In
this leisurely progress through towns and villages and farming
neighborhoods, something like a real acquaintance could be made with
persons and with places not otherwise to be formed except perhaps on a
tour afoot. Lasting friendships and even romances have resulted, before
now, from the exchange of greetings and gossip between
packet-passengers and people on the canal bank waiting for papers,
packages, or messages, or merely interested in seeing the Swiftsure
boat go by.
The last of the Swiftsure boats went by, long, long ago, and the later
generations of New Netherlander know not the joys of journeying on the
canal. Fortunately in the old Netherlands the water-highways are still
ways for travel as well as for traffic. The easygoing people of the Low
Countries, never in a hurry, are content to move at a moderate pace,
without fretting about speed, taking their comfort as they go. The
American, in their country, can find a diversion well worth considering
by setting aside a few days from the usual routine, and entering the
life of these good folk, far enough to take a trip or two in a
treckschuyt on the canals that form such an important factor of their
transportation system. Landing at Antwerp, for example, one could not
do better than to take a treckschuyt excursion at once, before the
bloom of anticipation has been rubbed off by the friction of much
sight-seeing. Antwerp is in Belgium, to be sure, but it is one of the
best of fair ports for arrival at the end of a Transatlantic voyage,
and from its crowded port a passage can be taken to almost any point in
the Netherlands, or, for that matter, in the four quarters of the
globe. From here, take a treckschuyt ride to Bruges, and another to
Ghent and anywhere else, as fancy dictates. Or suppose a stop is made
at The Hague—everyone goes to The Hague—short trips can be made to
Delft, Rotterdam and Dordricht, right in the middle of Holland, or, in
the other direction, to Leyden and on up to Amsterdam. However, it is
needless to write out an itinerary, as there are guide books enough
already. All places are interesting and all are accessible. The one
thing to be thought of is the going from one place to another by
treckschuyt. To have a good time, the traveler must be capable of
adjusting himself to his environment. He must put up with the ways of
the people as he finds them and not expect them to adjust themselves to
his ways, after the manner of the Englishman at the Pyramids, who
insisted that his Arabs should give him beef-sandwiches and Bass for
lunch. The Dutch are courteous and hospitable, but they have their own
notions, and by these they abide as against anything and everything
foreign and strange. If the American traveler can make a treckschuyt
voyage in the right spirit, he can have a pleasurable and valuable
experience, and he will be thankful for the suggestion here given.
It was a cold day, literally, and, for me, a cold day, figuratively,
when we finally set forth on our journey to Boston town. We made the
passage of the Hudson by Van Alstyne’s Ferry, landing at Bath, and
finding our way, somehow or other, to Greenbush, the terminus of the
railroad. The friends gathered to see us off, watched on the bank with
anxiety until we reached Bath in safety as there was ice running in the
river. The ice was about as thick as paper, but it was enough to awaken
new fears in the maternal heart as to the perils of the dreaded
journey.
Van Alstyne’s Ferry consisted of a scow, propelled by horsepower, and
equipped with a hinged platform at each end which, when let down to
touch the shelving shore, afforded the means of ingress and egress. It
was a good big scow, big enough, indeed, to carry two teams at once if
due care was taken in getting on and off over the swinging platform. It
was steered by a great oar in the competent hands of Myndert Van
Alstyne who navigated the craft, while his brother Wynant collected the
fares and kept the machinery in motion with the aid of a hickory gad.
We arrived at Springfield toward evening and took rooms for the night
at the Massasoit House. It was here we found the first evidences of
being strangers in a strange land, which my Dutch relatives predicted
would of necessity prove annoying. We were hungry, and the hotel supper
was anything but satisfying. As everyone knows, the New Netherlanders
are hearty good trencher-folk. At our house, we always had a full
table, and at Grandpa Van Der Zee’s there had to be more on the board
than could possibly be consumed or there was not enough to please the
Baas. At the Massasoit, there was a fair show in the dining-room, but
on trial the things provided were not acceptable. The milk was thin,
and the butter and eggs not at all like those at home, fresh from the
farm. This, however, could be understood and allowed for. The cows and
the hens were English and, therefore, naturally inferior to ours, so
that couldn’t be helped. What could not be condoned and what I
indignantly resented was the barefaced fraud practiced on unwary
travelers in the matter of the “piece de resistance,” the main feature
of the meal as it appeared to me. This was a good sized cake or
possibly plum pudding, piled up in round slices on a large salver in
the middle of the table. Counting on this delectable looking, rich
brown confection to make up for the shortcomings of the supper, I
secured a generous section, and eagerly took a boy’s big bite.
Consternation and dismay were at once realized for all the words could
mean! The cake-pudding did not turn to ashes in my mouth—it was already
ashes—ashes, sawdust and molasses. Althea, seeing my disappointment and
disgust, declined partaking of the delicacy, but father managed to eat
some of it, explaining that it was Boston brown bread.