A GOOD ENDING
Saturday’s dinner dispelled all fears of starvation from Brook Farm’s
meager fare, the table being abundantly supplied with boiled beef,
vegetables, Graham bread and good, sweet butter like home, and, best of
all, baked Indian pudding, a real luxury. Mr. Hosmer did not appear,
being confined to his room in the cottage. Learning that Dr. Ripley
intended calling there, I asked leave to go with him, and was told to
be in the library, which was also the President’s office, at four
o’clock.
Not being accustomed to Brook Farm’s quick changes, my little talk with
Dr. Ripley made me a few minutes late at the Knoll, where I found
two-score or so of children and half as many grown-ups engaged in a
snowball scrimmage. Inquiring for Angus, I turned over the toboggan to
him for the first ride. He asked if the slide was all right, if I had
made the jump over the brook, and if Mr. Hosmer was badly hurt. As he
was a little backward about coming forward, so to speak, I took the
initiative, inviting any girl to join me who had courage enough to face
the music. Urged by my sister Althea, Annie Page took the offered seat,
and down the slide we plunged like a shot, all the company watching our
venture with intense interest and not a little anxiety. The flight took
the breath away, but we sailed over the brook and out to the thin snow
on the meadow in one grand swoop, without a bump or a break on the way.
Annie was delighted and thanked me, over and over for giving her such a
surprising pleasure.
Under the circumstances I thought Althea might be the next girl to make
the trip, and, on the way up the hill, I gave the Old Colonie call,
which she recognized and answered. Annie noticed the whistle and the
reply, and asked what it meant, and when I explained the signal, she
said, “I would like to learn that.” I immediately repeated it until she
caught the notes, and presently the strain was echoed all over the
Knoll, and from that moment it became the call of the school. From that
moment, too, Annie Page became the one girl of the place for me. She
held that position in my regard until three years later, when she and
her sister went to live with their parents in Italy. She was a year and
a month and a day younger than myself, but was far my senior in the
school. That was an advantage to me, as it had the effect of driving me
ahead in my studies in order to reach her classes. We were together a
good deal out of school hours, taking the same work to do, when that
was practicable, as feeding the rabbits in the warren back of the
Eyrie, and cultivating the herb-garden where we raised mint, anise and
cummin, sage, marjoram and saffron for the Boston market.
One other incident occurred on the Knoll perhaps worth recording, as it
gave me a name. Annie insisted on helping me pull the toboggan up the
slide, and, on the way, she remarked, “I did not know boys liked
perfumery.”
“That,” said I, “is from the cedar chest our clothes are packed in.”
Just as we reached the group at the top of the hill she answered, “Oh,
cedar! So it is.”
As she spoke, a little toddlekins, three or four years old, came
running to me, exclaiming, “Cedar, can’t I ride on the ’bog-gan?”
That settled it! My Brook Farm name was thenceforth Cedar, and would be
Cedar, still, were there any of my companions left to remember it. I
never had any other nickname, save that of late years some dear and
intimate friends have made syllables of my initials and called me Jay
Vee.
At four o’clock my sister and I trudged up to pay our call at the
Eyrie. This was a square house of the surburban villa type,
two-and-a-half stories high, and the handsomest building on the place,
though plain, enough, as compared with villas in the neighborhood
to-day. Doctor and Mrs. Ripley received us very kindly and gave us a
most cordial welcome to Brook Farm. Mrs. Ripley, born Sophia Dana, was
a slender, graceful lady, belonging to what Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes
calls the Brahmin class of Boston; charming in manner, animated and
blithe, but profoundly serious in her religious devotion to what she
regarded as the true Christian life. She had, informally, the general
charge of the girls in the school, and she at once made Althea feel at
home under her motherly care.
Dr. Ripley gained my confidence by claiming old acquaintance, recalling
a former meeting that I had quite forgotten. Several years previous,
when I was a very small boy indeed, my father had taken me with him on
a flying trip from New York to Boston, deciding to do so, I suppose
rather than to leave mother in a strange city with two children on her
hands. During that brief visit Dr. Ripley had taken father to call on
an illustrious artist, and he now recalled the circumstances to my
mind. With his prompting I could remember riding in a carriage; seeing
a tall silvery old gentleman wearing a black velvet robe lined with
red, and tasting white grapes for the first time; but I could not think
of the silvery gentleman’s name.
“Well,” said my mentor, “perhaps you will be glad sometime to know that
the gentleman you saw was Washington Alston.”
Leaving Althea with Mrs. Ripley, we presently went over to the cottage,
a small house near the Eyrie, occupied by Miss Russell and her two
nieces; Mr. Dana, Mr. Hosmer and Mr. Hecker, finding the latter in Mr.
Hosmer’s room.
Isaac Thomas Hecker was a religious enthusiast who came to Brook Farm
for the same reason that Emerson left the Unitarian Church, namely, for
his soul’s peace. He belonged to a well-to-do family in New York,
engaged in the manufacture of flour specialties, but the restraints and
the questionable practices of business were irksome to him, and he
eagerly sought a home among the congenial spirits who were trying to
live a higher life on their sterile little property in West Roxbury.
Being one of the thoroughgoing kind, he had learned all the uses of
flour from beginning to end, and this knowledge he gladly made
available as baker-general for the Brook Farm community. He was a
faithful and competent baker for several months; usually happy and
cheerfully interested in all that was going on, but occasionally taking
a day off for fasting and prayer. Early in the spring, Annie Page and I
were hunting arbutus, or Mayflower as we called it, on the far side of
the pine woods, when we came upon Mr. Hecker walking rapidly up and
down in the secluded little dell that served him as a retreat. He was
wringing his hands and sobbing so violently that we two scared children
stole away, awed and mystified. Intruders on a scene that should not
have been witnessed, we said nothing about it at the time, and I have
never mentioned it until now.
Not long after this strange happening, Henry D. Thoreau came to the
Farm, and Mr. Hecker found in him a sympathetic companion. Presently
the two went away together, for the purpose, I think, of determining by
experiment the minimum amount of nourishment actually required to
sustain life. They never came back. Thoreau took to the solitude of
Walden, I suppose, and our baker found himself attracted to the
Catholic Church, eventually going abroad to study for the priesthood.
On taking orders he returned to New York, and during the rest of his
life was an earnest and influential, though somewhat independent toiler
in the vineyard of Rome; gaining, unsought, fame as Father Hecker. His
monumental work was the founding of the Paulist Fathers, a strong
organization, influential in the religious life of New York, though the
church and the home of the fraternity are located across the Hudson
river, in New Jersey.
On seeing Dr. Ripley and Mr. Hecker and Mr. Hosmer together, it seemed
to me they must be the dearest friends in the world. And they were very
near friends indeed, having many vital interests in common. Dr. Ripley
was a true minister of the Gospel; Mr. Hosmer had studied for the
ministry, and Mr. Hecker, as indicated, was a predestined priest. But,
as I learned later, sincere and even affectionate cordiality was the
distinguishing characteristic of the Brook Farmers in their relations
with each other. Their communications were yea, yea, and nay, nay, but
they were really glad to meet, glad to exchange greetings, glad to give
and to take the good word which was always forthcoming, and glad to
frankly manifest pleasure in their walk and conversation together. This
was the outward showing of the inward spirit of Brook Farm. It was
lovingkindness exemplified; and to appreciative visitors the
recognition of this Christian Spirit in the encounters of everyday life
was exhilarating as a draught of new wine, wine from the press of Edom
and Bozrah.
After a little chat, Dr. Ripley and Mr. Hecker went away together,
leaving me alone with Mr. Hosmer, with whom I stayed until supper-time.
He questioned me as to all the details of the toboggan slide venture,
which I was quite proud to report as eminently successful and, after I
had told him everything, even to my gaining a new name, he said, “Well,
you have arrived all right. You have been initiated. These young uns
don’t take anyone up and give them a name like that unless things go
suitably.”
I did not know what being initiated meant, so he explained that while
there was no such thing as hazing at Brook Farm, it was sometimes a
little hard for new pupils to take their right places until the older
ones found out what they were like.
Hazing had to be explained, too, so he told me that when he first went
to boarding school, the elder boys teased and tormented him, “putting
him through a course of sprouts,” as they termed it. They made him
spend what money he had in buying goodies which he was not permitted to
taste. They threw him into the canal, to see if he could swim, and then
dragged him around in the sand to dry his clothes. These and similar
delicate attentions they bestowed upon him to try his metal.
I ventured to hope that he being, of course, furiously angry, had
vented his rage upon them afterwards, as chance offered, but he said,
no, that would not do at all. The ordeal was to test a boy’s temper and
to find whether he could stand fire without getting mad or at least
without showing it. “You have passed your examination,” he added, “and
have been given your place among your companions, and I’m very glad of
it.”
Mr. Hosmer had general oversight of the boys as Mrs. Ripley had of the
girls. He informed me that I was to be quartered in Pilgrim Hall under
the guardianship of Miss Marian Ripley, and my mate was to be Bonico,
otherwise Isaac Colburne. Why Bonico? Well, just because he was Bonico.
A good friend he was, too, and Miss Ripley was a kind, judicious and
conscientious guardian; though we called her the grenadier, because she
was tall, very straight and rather stern looking.
On the way down from the Eyrie with the Page girls and John Cheever,
Annie informed me that my sister was to be called Dheelish. Mr. Cheever
was from Ireland, she said, and he had told the girl that Dheelish was
the Irish word for dear, and they had adopted it in place of Althea,
which, though a very nice name, very nice indeed, was, as they thought,
too old and too formal; and besides, added my companion, she is a dear,
you know.
I did know, and knew, too, there was another girl, not far away who was
also a dear. Sentimental? Well, yes. All boys are more or less
sentimental, only they are, mostly, too shy to admit it or even perhaps
to be aware of it.
On reaching the Hive we found Gerrish arriving bringing father and the
Rev. William H. Channing. At supper I bravely disposed of my bowl of
brown bread and milk, taking it as a matter of course, but secretly
hoping father would notice my improved appetite.
Sunday proved to be a blessed day in my calendar. Dr. Channing held
service in the dining-room and every person on the place was present,
with many more from the neighborhood and from Boston. The subject of
his sermon was the New Commandment:
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples if ye have love to one another.”
Father always remembered that sermon, and referred to it many times in
later years. What I remember about it is that it awoke a new sense in
my dull mind of what practical Christianity really is. I realized that
I had been a selfish, stupid cub; trying my worst to make the worst of
everything, while every one else was trying their best to make the best
of everything. That was a good ending of what had been a threatening
phase of my first experience at Brook Farm.