impresses one with a sense of perfect satisfaction. I have seen
memorials that are barn-like in their emptiness, so difficult has it
been to secure a sufficient number of relics to furnish the rooms;
others impress me like shops for the sale of souvenirs; others have the
cold, touch-me-not aspect of a museum; and some are overloaded with
busts, pictures, and inscriptions intended to convey an impression of
the greatness of the former occupant. The Nutter house, on the contrary,
looks as though Tom and his grandfather had gone off to the village an
hour before, and Aunt Abigail and Kitty Collins, after "tidying" the
rooms to perfection, had slipped away to gossip with the neighbors. The
visitor has a feeling that real people are living there and is surprised
to learn that at a certain hour each day the attendants go away and lock
it up for the night.
Mrs. Aldrich told us that when her husband took her there for the first
time, as his bride, the old house made such a strong impression upon her
mind that when she came to restore the place, many years afterward, she
remembered distinctly where every piece of furniture used to stand. The
perfection of her work is seen in the hundreds of little touches--the
shawl thrown carelessly over the back of a chair, the fan lying on the
sofa, the books on the center table, the music on the old-fashioned
square piano, grandfather's Bible and spectacles on his bedroom table,
the embroidered coverlet in the "blue-chintz room," the netting over
Aunt Abigail's bed, the clothing in the closets, and even the
night-clothes carefully laid out on each corpulent feather bed. I fancy
the most loving touches of all were given to the little hall bedroom
where Tom Bailey slept. There is the little window out of which Tom
swung himself, with the aid of Kitty Collins's clothes-line, at the
awful hour of eleven o'clock, and tumbled into a big rosebush, on the
night before "the Fourth." The "pretty chintz curtain" may not be the
one Tom knew, but it is very like it; and there is a very good
imitation of the original wall-paper, on which Tom counted two hundred
and sixty-eight birds, each individual one of which he admired, although
no such bird ever existed. He knew the exact number because he once
counted them when laid up with a black eye and dreamed that the whole
flock flew out of the window. The little bed has "a patch quilt of more
colors than were in Joseph's coat," and across it lies a clean white
waistcoat waiting for Tom to put it on, as though to-morrow would be
Sunday. Above the head of the bed are the two oak shelves, holding the
very books that Tom loved. In front of the window is the "high-backed
chair studded with brass nails like a coffin," and on the right "a chest
of carved mahogany drawers" and "a looking-glass in a filigreed frame."
A little swallow-tailed coat, once worn by Tom, hangs over the back of a
chair, ready to be worn again. Surely Tom Bailey is expected home
to-night!
Even the garret is ready in case to-morrow should be stormy. "Here meet
together, as if by some preconcerted arrangement, all the broken-down
chairs of the household, all the spavined tables, all the seedy hats,
all the intoxicated-looking boots, all the split walking-sticks that
have retired from business, weary with the march of life." One slight
liberty has been taken, in placing "The Rivermouth Theater" in one
corner of the attic, next to Kitty Collins's room, but this may be
forgiven in view of the fact that the barn, where the "Theater" really
was, has disappeared.
In our anxiety to see Tom's room and the attic, we have rushed upstairs
somewhat too rapidly. Let us now go down and inspect the other rooms
with more leisure.
In the front of the house, on the second floor, and at the left of the
tiny bedroom which Tom occupied, is Grandfather Nutter's room. It was
too near for Tom's convenience, and that is why the young gentleman
lowered himself from the window by a rope--at least, that was the reason
he doubtless argued to himself in favor of the more romantic mode of
exit, although as a matter of fact grandfather was a sound sleeper and
Tom might have walked boldly downstairs without awakening him. Still he
would have had to pass the door of Aunt Abigail's room at the head of
the stairs, and if the old lady had suddenly appeared, Tom could
scarcely have escaped a dose of "hot drops," which his aunt considered a
certain cure for any known ailment, from a black eye to a broken arm.
Aunt Abigail, it will be remembered, was the maiden sister of Captain
Nutter, who "swooped down on him," at the funeral of the captain's wife,
"with a bandbox in one hand and a faded blue cotton umbrella in the
other." Though apparently intending to stay only a few days, she
decided that her presence was indispensable to the captain, and whether
he wished it or not she kept on staying for seventeen years, and might
have stayed longer had not death released her from the self-imposed
duty.
On the right of Tom's room is "the blue-chintz room, into which a ray of
sun was never allowed to penetrate." But it was "thrown open and dusted,
and its mouldy air made sweet with a bouquet of pot-roses" on the
occasion of Nelly Glentworth's visit, and a very delightful room Nelly
must have found it, if it looked as well then as it does now, under the
skillful direction of Mrs. Aldrich.
Across the hall from Aunt Abigail's room is the guest chamber. An
old-fashioned rocking-chair by the window, with a Bible and candle
conveniently placed on a stand close by, offer the visitor every
opportunity to get himself into a proper frame of mind before taking a
plunge into the depths of the snow-white mountain of feathers,
hospitably piled up to an enormous height for his comfort.
[Illustration: "AUNT ABIGAIL'S" ROOM]
Descending now to the main floor (for we are inspecting this house
exactly contrary to the usual order), we step into the large corner room
at our left. Here visions arise of Tom sitting disconsolately on the
haircloth sofa, in the evening, driven to distraction by the monotonous
click-click of Aunt Abigail's knitting-needles, but sometimes happily
diverted by the spectacle of grandfather going to sleep over his
newspaper and setting fire to it with the small block-tin lamp which he
held in his hand.
Across the hall is the parlor, which was seldom open except on Sundays,
and was "pervaded by a strong smell of center table." Here again we
fancy Tom sitting in one corner, "crushed." All his favorite books are
banished to the sitting-room closet until Monday morning. There is
nothing to do and nothing to read except Baxter's "Saint's Rest."
"Genial converse, harmless books, smiles, lightsome hearts, all are
banished." It was no fault of the room, however, that Tom felt doleful,
for there is a fine, wide, open fireplace with big brass andirons from
which a wonderful amount of cheer might have been extracted, while a
piano in one corner and some shelves of books in another were capable of
providing boundless entertainment, had the room been accessible on any
other day than Sunday.
Passing down through the hall we enter a door on the left, into the
dining-room. Do you remember how Captain Nutter tormented poor Tom at
the breakfast table, on the morning of the Fourth of July, by reading
from the Rivermouth "Barnacle" an account of the burning of the
stage-coach the night before? "Miscreants unknown," read the
grandfather, while Tom's hair stood on end. "Five dollars reward
offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators. Sho! I hope Wingate
will catch them," continued the old gentleman, while Tom nearly ceased
to breathe. And the sly old fox knew all about it and had already
settled Tom's share of the damages!
We now cross the hall into the kitchen, which we ought to have visited
first, as everybody else does. A more delightful New England kitchen
could scarcely be imagined. This was the only place where Sailor Ben
felt at home--and no wonder, for how could any room have a more inviting
fireplace? Here Tom sought refuge when oppressed by the atmosphere of
the sitting-room and found relief in Kitty Collins's funny Irish
stories. And here Sailor Ben gathered the whole family around the table
while he spun his yarn "all about a man as has made a fool of hisself."
This is the delightful fact about the Nutter house of to-day--every room
brings back memories of Tom Bailey, Grandfather Nutter, Aunt Abigail,
Kitty Collins, and Sailor Ben. The furnishings are so perfect that we
should not have been surprised if any one of these old friends had
suddenly confronted us. Our minds were concentrated upon their
personalities and upon "The Story of a Bad Boy." The illusion is so
complete that we scarcely gave a thought to the author of the tale until
we entered the Memorial building at the rear. Suddenly Tom Bailey
vanished and with him all the other ghosts of the old house. We stood in
the presence of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the poet, the writer of a
multitude of delightful tales, and the man of genial personality. Here,
in a single large room, are brought together the priceless autographs,
manuscripts, first editions, and pictures which Aldrich had found
pleasure in collecting. Here is the little table on which he wrote "The
Story of a Bad Boy," and there are cases containing countless presents,
trophies, and expressions of regard from his friends. The walls are hung
with manuscripts, framed in connection with portraits of their
distinguished writers, as Aldrich loved to have them. At the end of the
room is a handsome oil painting of Aldrich himself. Everything tends to
suggest the exquisite taste of the man, his genial nature, his varied
attainments, and the extent of his wide circle of distinguished friends.
Above all, the room speaks in eloquent terms of the affectionate loyalty
to his memory that has led his family to bring together the material for
a memorial unsurpassed in variety of interest and tasteful arrangement
of details.
Even the garden in the rear of the house is made to sing its song in
memory of Aldrich, for here are growing all the flowers mentioned in his
poetry, blending their perfumes and uniting harmoniously their richness
of color in one graceful tribute to the beauty and delicacy of his
verse.
[Illustration: AN OLD WHARF]
After living over again the scenes of "The Story of a Bad Boy," in so
far as they were suggested by the Nutter house, it was only natural that
we should wish to stroll about the "Old Town by the Sea" in the hope of
identifying some of the out-of-door scenes of "young Bailey's" exploits.
The first house on the right, as we walked toward the river, is the
William Pitt Tavern. In the early days of the Revolution it was an
aristocratic hotel, much frequented by the Tories, and kept by a certain
astute landlord named John Stavers. He had formerly kept a tavern on
State Street, known as the "Earl of Halifax," and when it became
necessary to move to the newer house in Court Street, he carried sign
and all with him. But the patriots, whose resort was the old Bell
Tavern, kept a jealous eye on the Earl of Halifax, and in 1777 attacked
it, seriously damaging the building. Master Stavers, being at heart
neither Tory nor patriot, but primarily an innkeeper, promptly changed
both his politics and his sign. The latter became "William Pitt," in
honor of the colonists' English friend and supporter, and the thrifty
landlord began to entertain the leaders of the Revolution at his house.
John Hancock, Elbridge Gerry, and Edward Rutledge decorated with their
autographs the pages of his register as well as the Declaration of
Independence. General Knox was a frequent visitor and Lafayette came
there in 1882. Moreover, the old tavern has had the honor of
entertaining the last of the French kings, Louis Philippe, who came
there with his two brothers during the French Revolution, and the first
American President, who was a guest in 1789.
All this glory had long since departed in Aldrich's day, and his chief
interest in the old tavern lay in the fact that he could climb up the
dingy stairs to the top floor and listen for hours to the stories of the
olden times, as told by Dame Jocelyn, with whom, as she asserted,
Washington had flirted just a little, though in a "stately and highly
finished manner"!
Continuing down the street, we found the empty old warehouses and
rotting wharves among which Aldrich spent so many hours of his boyhood,
and we took a picture of one old crumbling dock, which we felt sure must
have been very like the one upon which the boys of the Rivermouth
Centipedes fired a broadside from "Bailey's Battery." The old abandoned
guns, twelve in all, were cleaned out, loaded, provided with fuses, and
set off mysteriously at midnight, much to the astonishment of the
Rivermouthians, who thought the town was being bombarded or that the end
of the world had come. The old wharf possessed a singular fascination
for me because I still recall how vividly the incident impressed me in
my boyhood and how fervently I envied Tom Bailey his unusual
opportunities. Nor did it mar my enjoyment in the least to learn that
the wharf I was looking at was not the right place, the real one, where
the guns were stored, having been removed some time ago. It was near the
Point of Graves, the spot where the boys went in bathing and where Binny
Wallace's body was washed ashore after the ill-fated cruise of the
Dolphin. The real Binny, by the way, was not drowned at all. The author,
here, deviated from the facts to make his story more dramatic.
Point of Graves takes its name from the old burying-ground, occupying a
triangular space near the river's edge. It has quaint old tombstones
dating back as far as 1682, with curious epitaphs, skulls, and cherubs
carved upon them. Here is the place where Tom Bailey, disappointed in
love and determined to become "a blighted being," used to lie in the
long grass, speculating on "the advantages and disadvantages of being a
cherub"--the disadvantages being that the cherub, having only a head and
wings, could not sit down when he was tired and could not possess
trousers pockets!
A stroll through this part of the town, which in olden times was the
center of its trade and commerce, is like walking through some of the
old English villages. Every house, nearly, has its history, and I fancy
the streets have not greatly changed their appearance since the days of
Aldrich's boyhood.
On the corner of Fleet and State Streets we came to an old house, which
has an interesting connection with our story. A part of it was occupied
as a candy store for nearly sixty years. On the Fourth of July, after
Tom had treated the boys to root-beer, a single glass of which "insured
an uninterrupted pain for twenty-four hours," they came here for
ice-cream. It is said that one of the ringleaders subsequently
celebrated every third of July, until his death, by eating ice-cream in
the same room. The story was based upon an incident that really happened
in 1847, in which, of course, Aldrich could have had no part, as he was
not then living in Portsmouth. I am inclined to doubt whether the real
event was half so delightful as the tale which Aldrich tells, of the
twelve sixpenny ice-creams, "strawberry and verneller mixed," and how
poor Tom was left to pay for the whole crowd, who slipped out of the
window while he was in another room ordering more cream!
No doubt we might have coupled many other places in Portsmouth with "The
Story of a Bad Boy"--for it is a very real story, though not to be taken
literally in every detail. It is interesting to think of the town, also,
as the scene of "Prudence Palfrey." The old Bell Tavern, where Mr.
Dillingham boarded, ceased to exist as a public house in 1852 and was
destroyed by fire fifteen years later. It is pleasant also to follow
Aldrich in a walk through the streets, with a copy of "An Old Town by
the Sea" for a guide, and note all the fine old houses he so charmingly
describes.
But we must not devote our entire time to Aldrich, for an older poet has
a slight claim to our attention. The opening scene of Longfellow's "Lady
Wentworth," in the "Tales of a Wayside Inn," is laid in State Street.
"One hundred years ago and something more,
In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door,"--
is the way the poem opens. Queen Street was the old name for State
Street, and the tavern was the old Earl of Halifax before Master Stavers
carried the sign over to the new house in Court Street. It has long
since disappeared. It was before this house that the barefooted and
ragged little beauty, Martha Hilton, was rebuked by Dame Stavers for
appearing on the street half-dressed and looking so shabby, to which she
quickly replied:--
"No matter how I look: I yet shall ride
In my own chariot, ma'am."
The house to which she did drive in her own chariot, many a time in
later days, as the wife of Governor Wentworth, is one of the most
pleasantly situated of all the houses in Portsmouth. It is at Little
Harbor, on one of the many peninsulas that jut out into the Piscataqua,
below the town, and commands a fine view of the beautiful river and its
many islands. The house is a large wooden building containing forty-five
rooms, though originally it had fifty-two. Architecturally it is
unattractive, external beauty of design having been sacrificed to
utility.
"Within, unwonted splendors met the eye,
Panels and floors of oak, and tapestry;
Carved chimney pieces, where on brazen dogs
Reveled and roared the Christmas fires of logs."
The historic building, with its great Chamber where the Governor and his
Council met for their deliberations, still remains in almost its
original state.
One could spend many days in Portsmouth investigating its connection
with the history of the country, from the early explorations in 1603 of
Martin Pring and the visit in 1614 of Captain John Smith, down through
the settlements of David Thomson and Captain John Mason, the Indian wars
and massacres, the incidents of the Revolution, and the rise and fall of
the town's commerce, and find plenty of old landmarks to give zest to
the pursuit. But our search, at present, is for literary landmarks. We,
therefore, take passage on the little steamer that plies to and from the
Isles of Shoals for a pilgrimage to the Island Garden of Celia Thaxter.
IV
THE ISLES OF SHOALS
It is a pleasant sail down the Piscataqua, past the old "slumberous"
wharves, where "the sunshine seems to lie a foot deep in the planks";
past the long bridges; the numerous clusters of islands; the white sails
of the yacht club, hovering like gulls about the huge battleships,
moored to the docks of the navy yard; the ruins of Fort Constitution,
formerly Fort William and Mary, famed in history, but more interesting
to us as the place where Prudence Palfrey came near surrendering her
heart to the infamous Dillingham; the ancient town of Newcastle with its
old-fashioned dwellings mingling with pretty new summer cottages, the
whole dominated by the white walls of a huge hotel; Kittery Point,
birthplace of Sir William Pepperell, the famous Governor and Indian
fighter: and at last, the broad Atlantic, stretching to the eastward
with nothing to obstruct the view save a few tiny specks, dimly visible
in the distance. These are the Isles of Shoals, looking so small that
they seem to be only rocks jutting a few feet above the sea, upon which
it would be impossible to land.
As we approach Appledore, the islands still seem to be only a cluster of
barren rocks, with a few scattered buildings. The charm which they
undoubtedly exert upon those who come year after year does not
immediately manifest itself to the stranger. He must spend a night
there, breathing the pure sea air, watching in the early evening the
glistening lights on the far-off shore, and finally falling asleep to
dream that he is in mid-ocean, on one of the steadiest of steamers,
enjoying the luxury of absolute rest, for which there is no better
prescription than an ocean voyage. In the morning, he must walk around
the island--it can be done in an hour or two--threading the narrow paths
through the huckleberry bushes and picking his way over the high rocks
that present their front to the full force of the waves, on the side of
Appledore that faces the sea. Here he will see artists spreading their
easels and canvases for a day's work and less busy people settling down
in various shady nooks, to read, to chat, to knit, to dream.
To get the real spirit of the islands it is advisable to find one of
these quiet nooks and read Celia Thaxter's "Among the Isles of Shoals,"
a book of sketches for which the author needlessly apologizes, but of
which Mrs. Annie Fields says, "She portrays, in a prose which for beauty
and wealth of diction has few rivals, the unfolding of sky and sea and
solitude and untrammeled freedom, such as have been almost unknown to
civilized humanity in any age of the world." Celia Thaxter is herself
the Spirit of the Isles of Shoals, and if we are to know and love them,
we must take her as our guide. She will be found an efficient one and
there is no other.
[Illustration: CELIA THAXTER'S COTTAGE]
With this purpose in mind, we began our tour of the islands, book in
hand, stopping first at the cottage of Mrs. Thaxter. One room is
maintained somewhat as she left it, with every square foot of wall space
covered by her pictures. But the flower-garden is sadly neglected. Only
the vines that still clamber over the porch, and a few hollyhocks that
stubbornly refuse to die, remain to suggest the dooryard where the
garden flowers used to "fairly run mad with color." The salt air and
some peculiar richness of the soil seem to impart unusual brilliancy to
the blossoms and strength to the roots of all kinds of flowers, whether
wild or cultivated. Celia Thaxter was one of those people for whom
flowers will grow. They responded with blushing enthusiasm to the
constant manifestations of her love and tender care. Flowers have a
great deal of humanity about them after all. They refuse to display
their real luxuriance for cold, careless, or indifferent people, just as
babies and dogs know how to distinguish between those who love them and
those who love only themselves.
"More dear to me than words can tell
Was every cup and spray and leaf;
Too perfect for a life so brief
Seemed every star and bud and bell."
Celia Thaxter loved her flowers with a devotion born of the hours of
solitude when they were her sole companions. "The little spot of earth
on which they grow is like a mass of jewels. Who shall describe the
pansies, richly streaked with burning gold; the dark velvet coreopsis
and the nasturtiums; the larkspurs, blue and brilliant as lapis-lazuli;
the 'ardent marigolds' that flame like mimic suns? The sweet peas are of
a deep, bright rose-color, and their odor is like rich wine, too sweet
almost to be borne, except when the pure fragrance of mignonette is
added,--such mignonette as never grows on shore. Why should the poppies
blaze in such imperial scarlet? What quality is hidden in this thin
soil, which so transfigures all the familiar flowers with fresh beauty?"
Unfortunately, the mysterious quality hidden in the soil, assisted by
the warm sunshine and the salt air, with all their powers could not
maintain the island garden after the loving hands of its owner were
withdrawn, and the little inclosure is now a mass of weeds.