The Story of Mr. Greeley's Parents continued--He accompanies his Mother
to New Hampshire--Her Sisters--Three Thanksgivings in One Year--Pickie
as a Baby--His Childhood--Mrs. Greeley's Careful Training--His
Playthings--His Death--A Letter from Margaret Fuller.
_August 31_.
"Mammi," said I, waking from a deep reverie as I sat beside our bright
wood-fire (for we have had two days of dashing rain, and fires have not
been at all disagreeable), "did grandpapa ever return to New Hampshire
after he left it in 1821?"
"No, my dear," was the reply; "he never returned, nor did he manifest
any desire to see his former home and his old friends again. I suppose
that all of his pleasant recollections of New Hampshire were superseded
by the thought that it was the scene of his bankruptcy, and his proud
spirit shrunk from meeting those who might remember that he had left
Amherst a fugitive. He was deeply attached to his forest home, and I
do not think he ever had an hour of discomfort after he came there.
Father always expressed the wish that he might be buried upon his farm.
His old age was very serene and happy; he lived to see his 'hole in the
forest' become an extensive farm, and the vast wilderness that had
surrounded him disappear, while the little tavern and cluster of
log-houses across the State line from us grew to be the village of
Clymer.
"Father died in 1867, at the age of eighty-seven.
"As for mother, she had the happiness before her death of seeing her
fondly loved relatives once more. In the autumn of 1843, mother and I
went to New Hampshire to visit the old home and friends. Father was
urged to accompany us, but he chose to cling to his Western home. For
the third time I now travelled in a canal-boat, but this time it was a
packet, and not one of the slow 'line-boats' that I described to you in
speaking of our journey from Vermont to Pennsylvania.
"Brother Horace accompanied us from New York to New Hampshire, where we
spent several weeks visiting mother's old friends and relatives. The
meeting between mother and her sister, Aunt Margaret Dickey, was
especially tender, for they had been separated many years, and did not
expect to meet again.
"Aunt Margaret is still living, although now in her ninetieth year. I
remember hearing that she read your uncle's 'Recollections,' as they
appeared in the _Ledger_, with the liveliest interest. She was at that
time eighty-four years old.
"In her youth Aunt Margaret was a decided beauty, with luxuriant hair
of the real golden shade, neither flaxen, ash-color, nor red. She was
naturally refined and amiable.
"From New Hampshire we went to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where mother's
half-sister, Sally, resided. Aunt Sally was doubly my aunt, having
married father's brother, Dustin Greeley. She was a slender, handsome
woman, with blue eyes and light hair, and possessed mother's happy
temperament, which all the trials of her hard life had not been able to
change.
"That year I celebrated three Thanksgivings within as many weeks."
"Pray how did that happen, auntie?" inquired Gabrielle, who had just
entered the room.
"Thanksgiving Day was not then restricted to the last Thursday in the
month," was the reply, "but was appointed by the Governor of each State
at any time that he saw fit between harvest and the holidays;
therefore, being in three different States within a month, I had three
Thanksgiving dinners.
"When we returned to New York, we stopped for a short visit at Turtle
Bay. Pickie was then eight months old, and as sweet and poetic-looking
as one of Correggio's cherubs. Your mamma was then in the first flush
of her maternal enthusiasm. She and your papa were desirous that
mother should remain in New York and spend the winter with them; but
fondly as she loved your papa, and dear as her daughter-in-law and her
little grandson were to her, she felt that her duty and her strongest
love recalled her to her husband and her home in the woods. She
returned to Pennsylvania, and took up again her life of daily care, but
she brought back little joy with her, although no word of discontent
escaped her. Her favorite seat was by the window looking east, and
there we often surprised her gazing with an intent look down the road.
When we would ask her if she was expecting any one, or for whom she was
looking, she would say with a startled expression, 'Oh, no one;' but we
always fancied that she was thinking of her early home that she had now
left forever.
"A year or two later, slowly, silently, and peacefully she passed away."
"I thought, auntie," said Gabrielle, "that you lived with mamma when
Pickie was a baby. I am sure I have heard her say that you helped her
to take care of him."
"That is true, dear," replied mamma, "but I did not remain in New York
at the time of which we are now speaking. I accompanied mother home to
Pennsylvania, and the following spring, when Pickie was a year old,
your mamma wrote to ask me to come back, and assist her in the care of
her beautiful boy. I remained with her until my marriage, consequently
Pickie became very near to me, and his death was almost as great a
shock to me as it was to his parents."
"Do tell us, mamma," said Marguerite, "about Pickie's childhood. I
have always heard that he was brought up in a very remarkable way, but
beyond the fact of Aunt Mary's great devotion to him, I know very
little concerning him."
"Your Aunt Mary," mamma replied, "looked upon Pickie's birth as much in
the light of a miracle as if no other child had ever before been born.
He was Heaven-sent to her, and she sacrificed herself completely for
the better development of Pickie's individuality, or, to use the
language of the reformers of those days, in 'illustrating the
independence of the child's self-hood.' Nothing could have been more
boundless than her enthusiasm for her baby; and it was night and day
her study to guard his health, and to watch and cherish his opening
intellect. No child prince could have been more tenderly and daintily
nurtured than he was; as his father often said, 'Pickie is a dear boy
in every sense of the word;' for nothing was too rare or too costly for
him.
"You have heard of the brilliancy of his complexion: this was owing in
part to his mother's watchful care of his diet, and to his bathing. An
hour was allowed for his daily bath, and for brushing out his
luxuriant, silken hair. This was one of my duties, and no doubt it was
that scrupulous care that gave it so rare a shade.
"As for his food, it was quite peculiar. He never ate baker's bread,
nor indeed any bread prepared by other hands than his mother's or mine,
and he was not given meat or cake--with the exception of oatmeal
cake--while candies, or indeed sugar in any form, butter, and salt were
rigidly excluded from his diet; but white grapes, and every choice
fruit that this or foreign markets afforded, he was allowed to eat in
abundance, and the result of this system was a sturdy constitution, and
a complexion unparalleled for beauty.
"I said that he never ate butter; but cream and milk were given him
instead."
"What sort of toys did he have, mamma?" I inquired. "I can never
imagine him playing with dolls like an ordinary child."
"He never did," replied mamma; "his toys, like his meals, were
peculiar. One of the largest rooms in the house was chosen for his
nursery, and as his mother would not have a carpet upon the floor, it
was scrubbed daily. Here his playthings were kept--a singular
assortment one would think them, but your aunt seldom gave him what
would simply amuse him for the moment, but sought rather to surround
him by objects that would suggest ideas to his mind--on a plan somewhat
like that of the _Kindergarten_ system, but more poetic, and entirely
original with herself. He had lovely pictures, and a real violin,
while the shops were constantly searched for whatever was curious,
instructive, or beautiful.
"Pickie's mind and conversation were very unlike those of the children
even of our best families, for he never had children for playfellows,
and those friends whom his mother permitted to be near him were of the
most cultivated and noble character. His language consequently was as
choice as that of the minds who surrounded him, and very quaint it
sounded from a child's lips. At this time Margaret Fuller was with us,
and Pickie lived in most intimate relations to this pure, high-minded
woman.
"In her care to prevent Pickie from knowing of the existence of
wickedness and cruelty in this world, your Aunt Mary would rarely
permit him to converse long with any save the chosen few that I have
mentioned, lest the innocence of his child-mind should be shocked by
hearing of war, or murder, or cruelty to animals, while she was ever
guarding him lest his eyes might rest upon some painful or disagreeable
object."
"Don't you think, mamma," said Marguerite, "that that letter of
Margaret Fuller's upon Pickie's death shows remarkable feeling for a
child unrelated to her?"
"Which letter?" inquired Ida.
"The one that is copied in the 'Recollections,'" was the reply.
"I think," returned Ida, "that the one she wrote to papa which has
never been published is much finer."
"Oh, do read it to us," said Marguerite. So, unlocking a little box,
Ida took out a sheet quite yellow and worn, and read it to us:
"RIETI, _August 25, 1848_.
"MY BELOVED FRIEND:--Bitterest tears alone can answer those
words--_Pickie is dead_. My heart has all these years presaged them.
I have suffered not a few sleepless hours thinking of our darling,
haunted with fears never again to see his sweet, joyous face which on
me, also, always looked with love and trust. But I always thought of
small-pox. Now how strangely snatched from you, oh poor mother; how
vain all your feverish care night and day to ward off the least
possible ill from that fair frame. Oh, how pathetic it seems to think
of all that was done for dear, dear Pickie to build up strong that
temple from which the soul departed so easily.
"You say I left him too soon to know him well, but it was not so. I
had spiritual sight of the child, and knew his capacities. I hoped to
be of use to him if he lived, for sweet was our communion beside the
murmuring river, and when he imitated the low voices of the little
brook, or telling him stories in my room, which even then he well
understood. A thousand times I have thought of the time when he first
said the word _Open_ to get into my room, and my heart always was open
to him. He was my consolation in hours sadder than you ever
guessed--my spring-flower, my cheerful lark. None but his parents
could love him so well; no child, except little Waldo Emerson, had I
ever so loved. In both I saw the promise of a great future: its
realization is deferred to some other sphere; ere long may we follow
and aid it there.
"Ever sacred, my friend, be this bond between us--the love and
knowledge of the child. I was his aunty; and no sister can so feel
what you lose. My friend, I have never wept so for grief of my own, as
now for yours. It seems to me _too_ cruel; you are resigned; you make
holy profit of it; the spear has entered and forced out the heart's
blood, the pure ichor follows. I know not yet how to feel so; I have
not yet grieved away the bitter pang.
"My mother wrote me he said sometimes he would get a boat and carry
yellow flowers to his Aunty Margaret. I suppose he had not yet quite
forgotten that I used to get such for him. I often thought what I
should carry him from Europe--what I should tell him--what teach? He
had a heart of natural poetry; he would have prized all that was best.
"Oh, it is all over; and indeed this life is over for me. The
conditions of this planet are not propitious to the lovely, the just,
the pure; it is these that go away; it is the unjust that triumph. Let
us, as you say, purify ourselves; let us labor in the good spirit here,
but leave all thought of results to Eternity.
"I say this, and yet my heart is bound to earth as never before; for I,
too, have a dearer self--a little son. He is now about the age sweet
Pickie was when I was with him most; and I have thought much of the one
in the dawning graces of the other. But I accept the lesson, and will
strive to prepare myself to resign him. Indeed, I had the warning
before; for, during the siege of Rome, when I could not see him, my
mind, agonized by the danger of his father, as well as all the
overpowering and infamous injuries heaped upon the noble, sought refuge
in the thought of him safe, in his green nook, and, as I thought, in
care of worthy persons. When at last we left, our dearest friends laid
low, our fortunes finally ruined, and every hope for which we
struggled, blighted, I hoped to find comfort in his smiles. I found
him wasted to a skeleton; and it is only by a month of daily and hourly
most anxious care (in which I was often assisted by memories of what
Mrs. Greeley did for Pickie) that I have been able to restore him. But
I hold him by a frail tenure; he has the tendency to cough by which I
was brought so low.
"Adieu. You say, pray for you; oh, let us all pray together. I hope
we shall yet find dear Pickie where he is; that earthly blemishes will
be washed out, and he be able to love us all. Till then, God help and
guide us, dear friend. Amen.
"M. F. O.
"You may address me in future as Marchioness Ossoli."