I have but to close my eyes to see the house in which I lived in my
youth. It stood in the city of Penn, back from the low bluff of Dock
Creek, near to Walnut street. The garden stretched down to the
water, and before the door were still left on either side two great
hemlock-spruces, which must have been part of the noble woods under
which the first settlers found shelter. Behind the house was a separate
building, long and low, in which all the cooking was done, and upstairs
were the rooms where the slaves dwelt apart.
The great garden stretched westward as far as Third street, and was full
of fine fruit-trees, and in the autumn of melons, first brought hither
in one of my father’s ships. Herbs and simples were not wanting, nor
berries, for all good housewives in those days were expected to be
able to treat colds and the lesser maladies with simples, as they were
called, and to provide abundantly jams and conserves of divers kinds.
There were many flowers too, and my mother loved to make a home here for
the wildings she found in the governor’s woods. I have heard her regret
that the most delicious of all the growths of spring, the ground-sweet,
which I think they now call arbutus, would not prosper out of its forest
shelter.
The house was of black and red brick, and double; that is, with two
windows on each side of a white Doric doorway, having something portly
about it. I use the word as Dr. Johnson defines it: a house of port,
with a look of sufficiency, and, too, of ready hospitality, which was
due, I think, to the upper half of the door being open a good part
of the year. I recall also the bull’s-eye of thick glass in the upper
half-door, and below it a great brass knocker. In the white shutters
were cut crescentic openings, which looked at night like half-shut eyes
when there were lights within the rooms. In the hall were hung on pegs
leathern buckets. They were painted green, and bore, in yellow letters,
“Fire” and “J.W.”
The day I went to school for the first time is very clear in my memory.
I can see myself, a stout little fellow about eight years old, clad in
gray homespun, with breeches, low shoes, and a low, flat beaver hat.
I can hear my mother say, “Here are two big apples for thy master,” it
being the custom so to propitiate pedagogues. Often afterward I took
eggs in a little basket, or flowers, and others did the like.
“Now run! run!” she cried, “and be a good boy; run, or thou wilt be
late.” And she clapped her hands as I sped away, now and then looking
back over my shoulder.
I remember as well my return home to this solid house, this first day of
my going to school. One is apt to associate events with persons, and my
mother stood leaning on the half-door as I came running back. She was
some little reassured to see me smiling, for, to tell the truth, I had
been mightily scared at my new venture.
This sweet and most tender-hearted lady wore, as you may like to know, a
gray gown, and a blue chintz apron fastened over the shoulders with wide
bands. On her head was a very broad-brimmed white beaver hat, low in the
crown, and tied by silk cords under her chin. She had a great quantity
of brown hair, among which was one wide strand of gray. This she had
from youth, I have been told. It was all very silken, and so curly that
it was ever in rebellion against the custom of Friends, which would have
had it flat on the temples. Indeed, I never saw it so, for, whether at
the back or at the front, it was wont to escape in large curls. Nor do
I think she disliked this worldly wilfulness, for which nature had
provided an unanswerable excuse. She had serious blue eyes, very large
and wide open, so that the clear white was seen all around the blue, and
with a constant look as if of gentle surprise. In middle life she
was still pliant and well rounded, with a certain compliment of fresh
prettiness in whatever gesture she addressed to friend or guest. Some
said it was a French way, and indeed she made more use of her hands in
speech than was common among people of British race.
Her goodness seems to me to have been instinctive, and to have needed
neither thought nor effort. Her faults, as I think of her, were mostly
such as arise from excess of loving and of noble moods. She would be
lavish where she had better have been merely generous, or rash where
some would have lacked even the commoner qualities of courage. Indeed,
as to this, she feared no one--neither my grave father nor the grimmest
of inquisitive committees of Friends.
As I came she set those large, childlike eyes on me, and opening the
lower half-door, cried out:
“I could scarce wait for thee! I wish I could have gone with thee, Hugh;
and was it dreadful? Come, let us see thy little book. And did they
praise thy reading? Didst thou tell them I taught thee? There are girls,
I hear,” and so on--a way she had of asking many questions without
waiting for a reply.
As we chatted we passed through the hall, where tall mahogany chairs
stood dark against the whitewashed walls, such as were in all the rooms.
Joyous at escape from school, and its confinement of three long, weary
hours, from eight to eleven, I dropped my mother’s hand, and, running a
little, slid down the long entry over the thinly sanded floor, and then
slipping, came down with a rueful countenance, as nature, foreseeing
results, meant that a boy should descend when his legs fail him. My
mother sat down on a settle, and spread out both palms toward me,
laughing, and crying out:
“So near are joy and grief, my friends, in this world of sorrow.”
This was said so exactly with the voice and manner of a famous preacher
of our Meeting that even I, a lad then of only eight years, recognised
the imitation. Indeed, she was wonderful at this trick of mimicry, a
thing most odious to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I was aware of
my father in the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall, strong, with
much iron-gray hair. Within I saw several Friends, large rosy men in
drab, with horn buttons and straight collars, their stout legs clad in
dark silk hose, without the paste or silver buckles then in use. All
wore broad-brimmed, low beavers, and their gold-headed canes rested
between their knees.
My father said to me, in his sharp way, “Take thy noise out into the
orchard. The child disturbs us, wife. Thou shouldst know better. A
committee of overseers is with me.” He disliked the name Marie, and was
never heard to use it, nor even its English equivalent.
Upon this the dear lady murmured, “Let us fly, Hugh,” and she ran on
tiptoe along the hall with me, while my father closed the door. “Come,”
she added, “and see the floor. I am proud of it. We have friends to eat
dinner with us at two.”
The great room where we took our meals is still clear in my mind. The
floor was two inches deep in white sand, in which were carefully
traced zigzag lines, with odd patterns in the corners. A bare table of
well-rubbed mahogany stood in the middle, with a thin board or two
laid on the sand, that the table might be set without disturbing the
patterns, In the corners were glass-covered buffets, full of silver and
Delft ware; and a punch-bowl of Chelsea was on the broad window-ledge,
with a silver-mounted cocoanut ladle.
“The floor is pretty,” she said, regarding it with pride, “and I
would make flowers too, but that thy father thinks it vain, and Friend
Pemberton would set his bridge spectacles on his nose, and look at me,
until I said naughty words, oh, very! Come out; I will find thee some
ripe damsons, and save thee cake for thy supper, if Friend Warder does
not eat it all. He is a little man, and eats much. A solicitous man,”
and she became of a sudden the person she had in mind, looking somehow
feeble and cautious and uneasy, with arms at length, and the palms
turned forward, so that I knew it for Joseph Warder, a frequent caller,
of whom more hereafter.
“What is so--solicitous?” I said.
“Oh, too fearful concerning what may be thought of him. Vanity, vanity!
Come, let us run down the garden. Canst thou catch me, Hugh!” And with
this she fled away, under the back stoop and through the trees, light
and active, her curls tumbling out, while I hurried after her, mindful
of damsons, and wondering how much cake Friend Warder would leave for my
comfort at evening.
Dear, ever dear lady, seen through the mist of years! None was like you,
and none as dear, save one who had as brave a soul, but far other ways
and charms.
And thus began my life at school, to which I went twice a day, my father
not approving of the plan of three sessions a day, which was common,
nor, for some reason, I know not what, of schools kept by Friends. So
it was that I set out before eight, and went again from two to four. My
master, David Dove, kept his school in Vidall’s Alley, nigh to Chestnut,
above Second. There were many boys and girls, and of the former John
Warder, and Graydon, who wrote certain memoirs long after. His mother, a
widow, kept boarders in the great Slate-roof House near by; for in those
days this was a common resource of decayed gentlewomen, and by no means
affected their social position. Here came many officers to stay, and
their red coats used to please my eyes as I went by the porch, where at
evening I saw them smoking long pipes, and saying not very nice things
of the local gentry, or of the women as they passed by, and calling
_“Mohair!”_ after the gentlemen, a manner of army word of contempt for
citizens. I liked well enough the freedom I now enjoyed, and found it
to my fancy to wander a little on my way to school, although usually I
followed the creek, and, where Second street crossed it, lingered on
the bridge to watch the barges or galleys come up at full of tide to the
back of the warehouses on the northeast bank.
I have observed that teachers are often eccentric, and surely David Dove
was no exception, nor do I now know why so odd a person was chosen by
many for the care of youth. I fancy my mother had to do with the choice
in my case, and was influenced by the fact that Dove rarely used the
birch, but had a queer fancy for setting culprits on a stool, with the
birch switch stuck in the back of the jacket, so as to stand up behind
the head. I hated this, and would rather have been birched _secundum
artem_ than to have seen the girls giggling at me. I changed my opinion
later.
Thus my uneventful life ran on, while I learned to write, and acquired,
with other simple knowledge, enough of Latin and Greek to fit me for
entrance at the academy, which Dr. Franklin had founded in 1750, in the
hall on Fourth street, built for Whitefield’s preaching.
At this time I fell much into the company of John Warder, a lad of my
own age, and a son of that Joseph who liked cake, and was, as my mother
said, solicitous. Most of the games of boys were not esteemed fitting
by Friends, and hence we were somewhat limited in our resources; but
to fish in the creek we were free; also to haunt the ships and hear sea
yarns, and to skate in winter, were not forbidden. Jack Warder I took
to because he was full of stories, and would imagine what things might
chance to my father’s ships in the West Indies; but why, in those early
days, he liked me, I do not know.
Our school life with Dove ended after four years in an odd fashion. I
was then about twelve, and had become a vigorous, daring boy, with,
as it now seems to me, something of the fortunate gaiety of my mother.
Other lads thought it singular that in peril I became strangely
vivacious; but underneath I had a share of the relentless firmness of my
father, and of his vast dislike of failure, and of his love of truth. I
have often thought that the father in me saved me from the consequences
of so much of my mother’s gentler nature as might have done me harm in
the rude conflicts of life.
David Dove, among other odd ways, devised a plan for punishing the
unpunctual which had considerable success. One day, when I had far
overstayed the hour of eight, by reason of having climbed into Friend
Pemberton’s gardens, where I was tempted by many green apples, I was
met by four older boys. One had a lantern, which, with much laughter,
he tied about my neck, and one, marching before, rang a bell. I had seen
this queer punishment fall on others, and certainly the amusement
shown by people in the streets would not have hurt me compared with
the advantage of pockets full of apples, had I not of a sudden seen
my father, who usually breakfasted at six, and was at his warehouse by
seven. He looked at me composedly, but went past us saying nothing.
On my return about eleven, he unluckily met me in the garden, for I
had gone the back way in order to hide my apples. I had an unpleasant
half-hour, despite my mother’s tears, and was sent at once to confess to
Friend James Pemberton. The good man said I was a naughty boy, but
must come later when the apples were red ripe, and I should take all
I wanted, and I might fetch with me another boy, or even two. I never
forgot this, and did him some good turns in after-years, and right
gladly too.
In my own mind I associated David Dove with this painful interview with
my father. I disliked him the more because, when the procession entered
the school, a little girl for whom Warder and I had a boy friendship, in
place of laughing, as did the rest, for some reason began to cry. This
angered the master, who had the lack of self-control often seen in
eccentric people. He asked why she cried, and on her sobbing out that it
was because she was sorry for me, he bade her take off her stays. These
being stiff, and worn outside the gown, would have made the punishment
of the birch on the shoulders of trifling moment.
As it was usual to whip girls at school, the little maid said nothing,
but did as she was bid, taking a sharp birching without a cry. Meanwhile
I sat with my head in my hands, and my fingers in my ears lest I should
hear her weeping. After school that evening, when all but Warder and I
had wandered home, I wrote on the outside wall of the school-house with
chalk, “David Dove Is A Cruel Beast,” and went away somewhat better
contented.
Now, with all his seeming dislike to use the rod, David had turns of
severity, and then he was far more brutal than any man I have ever
known. Therefore it did not surprise us next morning that the earlier
scholars were looking with wonder and alarm at the sentence on the wall,
when Dove, appearing behind us, ordered us to enter at once.
Going to his desk, he put on his spectacles, which then were worn
astride of the nose. In a minute he set on below them a second pair, and
this we knew to be a signal of coming violence. Then he stood up, and
asked who had written the opprobrious epithet on the wall. As no
one replied, he asked several in turn, but luckily chose the girls,
thinking, perhaps, that they would weakly betray the sinner. Soon he
lost patience, and cried out he would give a king’s pound to know.
When he had said this over and over, I began to reflect that, if he had
any real idea of doing as he promised, a pound was a great sum, and to
consider what might be done with it in the way of marbles of Amsterdam,
tops, and of certain much-desired books, for now this latter temptation
was upon me, as it has been ever since. As I sat, and Dove thundered, I
remembered how, when one Stacy, with an oath, assured my father that his
word was as good as his bond, my parent said dryly that this equality
left him free to choose, and he would prefer his bond. I saw no way to
what was for me the mysterious security of a bond, but I did conceive
of some need to stiffen the promise Dove had made before I faced the
penalty.
Upon this I held up a hand, and the master cried, “What is it?”
I said, “Master, if a boy should tell thee wouldst thou surely give a
pound?”
At this a lad called “Shame!” thinking I was a telltale.
When Dove called silence and renewed his pledge, I, overbold, said,
“Master, I did it, and now wilt thou please to give me a pound--a king’s
pound?”
“I will give thee a pounding!” he roared; and upon this came down from
his raised form, and gave me a beating so terrible and cruel that at
last the girls cried aloud, and he let me drop on the floor, sore and
angry. I lay still awhile, and then went to my seat. As I bent over my
desk, it was rather the sense that I had been wronged, than the pain of
the blows, which troubled me.
After school, refusing speech to any, I walked home, and ministered to
my poor little bruised body as I best could. Now this being a Saturday,
and therefore a half-holiday, I ate at two with my father and mother.
Presently my father, detecting my uneasy movements, said, “Hast thou
been birched to-day, and for what badness?”
Upon this my mother said softly, “What is it, my son? Have no fear.” And
this gentleness being too much for me, I fell to tears, and blurted out
all my little tragedy.
As I ended, my father rose, very angry, and cried out, “Come this way!”
But my mother caught me, saying, “No! no! Look, John! see his poor neck
and his wrist! What a brute! I tell thee, thou shalt not! it were a sin.
Leave him to me,” and she thrust me behind her as if for safety.
To my surprise, he said, “As thou wilt,” and my mother hurried me away.
We had a grave, sweet talk, and there it ended for a time. I learned
that, after all, the woman’s was the stronger will. I was put to bed and
declared to have a fever, and given sulphur and treacle, and kept out of
the paternal paths for a mournful day of enforced rest.
On the Monday following I went to school as usual, but not without fear
of Dove. When we were all busy, about ten o’clock, I was amazed to hear
my father’s voice. He stood before the desk, and addressed Master Dove
in a loud voice, meaning, I suppose, to be heard by all of us.
“David Dove,” he said, “my son hath been guilty of disrespect to thee,
and to thy office. I do not say he has lied, for it is my belief
that thou art truly an unjust and cruel beast. As for his sin, he has
suffered enough [I felt glad of this final opinion]; but a bargain was
made. He, on his part, for a consideration of one pound sterling, was to
tell thee who wrote certain words. He has paid thee and thou hast taken
interest out of his skin. Indeed, Friend Shylock, I think he weighs less
by a pound. Thou wilt give him his pound, Master David.”
Upon this a little maid near by smiled at me, and Warder punched me in
the ribs. Master Dove was silent a moment, and then answered that there
was no law to make him pay, and that he had spoken lightly, as one might
say, “I would give this or that to know.” But my father replied at once:
“The boy trusted thee, and was as good as his word. I advise thee to
pay. As thou art Master to punish boys, so will I, David, use thy birch
on thee at need, and trust to the great Master to reckon with me if I am
wrong.”
All this he said so fiercely that I trembled with joy, and hoped that
Dove would deny him; but, in place of this, he muttered something about
Meeting and Friends, and meanwhile searched his pockets and brought out
a guinea. This my father dropped into his breeches pocket, saying, “The
shilling will be for interest” (a guinea being a shilling over a king’s
pound). After this, turning to me, he said, “Come with me, Hugh,” and
went out of the school-house, I following after, very well pleased, and
thinking of my guinea. I dared not ask for it, and I think he forgot
it. He went along homeward, with his head bent and his hands behind his
back. In common, he walked with his head up and his chin set forward, as
though he did a little look down on the world of other men; and this in
truth he did, being at least sis feet three inches in his stocking-feet,
and with no lack of proportion in waist or chest.
Next day I asked my mother of my guinea, but she laughed gaily, and
threw up her hands, and cried, “A bad debt! a bad debt, Hugh! Dost thou
want more interest? My father used to say they had a proverb in the
Midi, ‘If the devil owe thee money it were best to lose it.’ _Le
diable!_ Oh, what am I saying? _Mon fils_, forget thy debt. What did thy
father say?” And I told it again to her amusement; but she said at last,
very seriously:
“It has disturbed thy father as never before did anything since he would
not join with Friend Bradford against the Stamp Act. I would I had seen
him then, or this time. I like sometimes to see a strong man in just
anger. Oh, _mon Dieu!_ what did I say! I am but half a Quaker, I fear.”
My mother never would turn away from the creed of her people, but she
did not altogether fancy the ways of Friends.
“Eh, _mon fils_, sometimes I say naughty words. Give me a sweet little
pat on the cheek for my badness, and always come to me with all thy
troubles.” Then I kissed her, and we went out to play hide-and-find in
the orchard.
My father’s grim, sarcastic humour left him as years went on, and he
became as entirely serious as I ever knew a man to be. I think on this
occasion his after-annoyance, which endured for days, was more because
of having threatened Dove than for any other cause. He no doubt regarded
me as the maker of the mischief which had tempted him for a moment to
forget himself, and for many a day his unjust severity proved that he
did not readily forgive. But so it was always. My mother never failed to
understand me, which my father seemed rarely able to do. If I did ill he
used the strap with little mercy, but neither in these early years,
nor in those which followed, did he ever give me a word of praise. Many
years afterward I found a guinea in a folded paper, laid away in my
father’s desk. On the outer cover he had written, “This belongs to Hugh.
He were better without it.”
My mother scarce ever let slip her little French expletives or phrases
in my father’s hearing. He hated all French things, and declared the
language did not ring true--that it was a slippery tongue, in which
it was easy to lie. A proud, strong man he was in those days, of fixed
beliefs, and of unchanging loyalty to the king. In his own house he was
feared by his son, his clerks, and his servants; but not by my mother,
who charmed him, as she did all other men, and had in most things her
desire.
Outside of his own walls few men cared to oppose him. He was rich, and
coldly despotic; a man exact and just in business, but well able, and
as willing, to help with a free hand whatever cause was of interest to
Friends. My Aunt Gainor, a little his senior, was one of the few over
whom he had no manner of control. She went her own way, and it was by no
means his way, as I shall make more clear by and by.
Two days later I was taken to the academy, or the college, as some
called it, which is now the university. My father wrote my name, as you
may see it in the catalogue, and his own signature, with the date of 6th
month 4th, 1765. Beneath it is the entry of John Warder and his father,
Joseph; for Jack had also been removed from Dove’s dominion because of
what my father said to Joseph, a man always pliable, and advised to do
what larger men thought good. Thus it came about that my friend Jack and
I were by good fortune kept in constant relation. Our schoolmate, the
small maid so slight of limb, so dark and tearful, was soon sent away to
live with an aunt in Bristol, on the Delaware, having become an orphan
by the death of her mother. Darthea Peniston passed out of my life for
many years, having been, through the accident of her tenderness, the
means for me of a complete and fortunate change.