THE DAYS OF HOMESPUN.
Carleton's memories of school-days have little perhaps that is
uncommon. He remembers the typical struggle between the teacher and
the big boy who, despite resistance, was soundly thrashed. Those were
the days of physical rather than moral argument, of punishment before
judicial inquiry. Once young Carleton had marked his face with a
pencil, making the scholars laugh. Called up by the man behind the
desk, and asked whether he had done it purposely, the frightened boy,
not knowing what to say, answered first yes, and then no. "Don't tell
a lie, sir," roared the master, and down came the blows upon the boy's
hands, while up came the sense of injustice and the longing for
revenge. The boy took his seat with tingling palms and a heart hot
with the sense of wrong, but no tears fell.
It was his father's rule that if the children were punished at school,
they should have the punishment repeated at home. This was the
sentiment of the time and the method of discipline believed to be best
for moulding boys and girls into law-abiding citizens. In the evening,
tender-hearted and with pain in his soul, but fearing to relax and let
down the bars to admit a herd of evils, the father doomed his son to
stay at home, ordering as a punishment the reading of the narrative of
Ananias and Sapphira.
From that hour throughout his life Carleton hated this particular
scripture. He had told no lie, he did not know what he had said, yet
he was old enough to feel the injustice of the punishment. It rankled
in memory for years. Temporarily he hated the teacher and the Bible,
and the episode diminished for awhile his respect for law and order.
The next ten years of Carleton's life may be told in his own words, as
follows:
"The year of 1830 may be taken as a general date for a new order of
social life. The years prior to that date were the days of homespun. I
remember the loom in the garret, the great and small spinning-wheels,
the warping bars, quill wheel, reels, swifts, and other rude
mechanisms for spinning and weaving. My eldest sister learned to spin
and weave. My second sister Mary and sister Elvira both could spin on
the large wheel, but did not learn to weave. I myself learned to twist
yarn on the large wheel, and was set to winding it into balls.
"The linen and the tow cloths were bleached on the grass in the
orchard, and it was my business to keep it sprinkled during the hot
days, to take it in at night and on rainy days, to prevent mildew. In
those days a girl began to prepare for marriage as soon as she could
use a needle, stitching bits of calico together for quilts. She must
spin and weave her own sheets and pillow-cases and blankets.
"All of my clothes, up to the age of fourteen, were homespun. My first
'boughten' jacket was an olive green broadcloth,--a remnant which was
bought cheap because it was a remnant. I wore it at an evening party
given by my schoolmate. We were twenty or more boys and girls, and I
was regarded by my mates with jealousy. I was an aristocrat, all
because I wore broadcloth.
"It was the period of open fireplaces. Stoves were just being
introduced. We could play blind man's buff in the old kitchen with
great zest without running over stoves.
"It was the period of brown bread, apple and milk, boiled dinners,
pumpkin pies. We had very little cake. Pork and beans and Indian
pudding were standard dishes, only the pudding was eaten first. My
father had always been accustomed to that order. His second marriage
was in 1835, and my stepmother, or rather my sister Mary, who was
teaching school in Concord and had learned the new way, brought about
the change in the order of serving the food.
"Prior to 1830 there was no stove in the meeting-house, and the
introduction of the first stove brought about a deal of trouble. One
man objected, the air stifled him. It was therefore voted that on one
Sunday in each month there should be no fire.
"It was a bitter experience,--riding two and one-half miles to
meeting, sitting through the long service with the mercury at zero.
Only we did not know how cold it was, not having a thermometer. My
father purchased one about 1838. I think there was one earlier in the
town.
"The Sunday noons were spent around the fireplaces. The old men smoked
their pipes.
"In 1835, religious meetings were held in all the school districts,
usually in the kitchens of the farmhouses. There was a deep religious
interest. Protracted meetings, held three days in succession, were
frequently attended by all the ministers of surrounding towns. I
became impressed with a sense of my condition as a sinner, and
resolved to become a Christian. I united with the church the first
Sunday in May, 1835, in my twelfth year. I knew very little about the
spiritual life, but I have no doubt that I have been saved from many
temptations by the course then pursued. The thought that I was a
member of the church was ever a restraint in temptation."
The anti-slavery agitation reached Boscawen in 1835, and Carleton's
father became an ardent friend of the slaves. In the Webster
meeting-house the boy attended a gathering at which a theological
student gave an address, using an illustration in the peroration which
made a lasting impression upon the youthful mind. At a country
barn-raising, the frame was partly up, but the strength of the raisers
was gone. "It won't go, it won't go," was the cry. An old man who was
making pins threw down his axe, and shouted, "It will go," and put his
shoulder to a post, and it did go. So would it be with anti-slavery.
The boy Carleton became an ardent abolitionist from this time forth.
He read the _Liberator_, _Herald of Freedom_, _Emancipator_, and all
the anti-slavery tracts and pamphlets which he could get hold of. In
his bedroom, he had hanging on the wall the picture of a negro in
chains. The last thing he saw at night, and the first that met his
eyes in the morning, was this picture, with the words, "Am I not a man
and a brother?"
With their usual conservatism, the churches generally were hostile to
the movement and methods of the anti-slavery agitation. There was an
intense prejudice against the blacks. The only negro in town was a
servant girl, who used to sit solitary and alone in the colored
people's pew in the gallery. When three families of black folks moved
into a deserted house in Boscawen, near Beaver Dam Brook, and their
children made their appearance in Corser Hill school, a great
commotion at once ensued in the town. After the Sunday evening
prayer-meeting, which was for "the conversion of the world," it was
agreed by the legal voters that "if the niggers persisted in attending
school," it should be discontinued. Accordingly the children left the
Corser Hill school, and went into what was, "religiously speaking," a
heathen district, where, however, the prejudice against black people
was not so strong, and there were received into the school.
Thereupon, out of pure devotion to principle, Carleton's father
protested against the action of the Corser Hill people, and, to show
his sympathy, gave employment to the negroes even when he did not need
their services. Society was against the Africans, and they needed
help. They were not particularly nice in their ways, nor were they
likely to improve while all the world was against them. Mr. Coffin's
idea was to improve them.
About this time Whittier's poems, especially those depicting slave
life, had a great influence upon young Carleton. Learning the poems,
he declaimed them in schools and lyceums. The first week in June,
which was not only election time, but also anniversary week in
Concord, with no end of meetings, was mightily enjoyed by the future
war correspondent. He attended them, and listened to Garrison,
Thompson, Weld, Stanton, Abby K. Foster, and other agitators. The
disruption of the anti-slavery societies, and the violence of the
churches, were matters of great grief to Carleton's father, who began
early to vote for James G. Birney. He would not vote for Henry Clay.
When Carleton's uncle, B. T. Kimball, and his three sons undertook to
sustain the anti-slavery agitator, and also interrupter of church
services, in the meeting-house on Corser Hill, on Sunday afternoon,
the obnoxious orator was removed by force at the order of the justice
of the peace. In the disciplinary measures inaugurated by the church,
Mr. Kimball and his three sons and daughters were excommunicated. This
proved an unhappy affair, resulting in great bitterness and
dissension.
Carleton thus tells his own story of amateur soldiering:
"Those were the days of military trainings. In September, 1836, came
the mustering of the 21st Regiment, New Hampshire militia. My brother
Frederic was captain of the light infantry. I played first the
triangle and then the drum in his company. I knew all the evolutions
laid down in the book. The boys of Boscawen formed a company and
elected me captain. I was thirteen years old, full of military ardor.
I drilled them in a few evolutions till they could execute them as
well as the best soldiers of the adult companies. We wore white frocks
trimmed with red braid and three-cornered pasteboard caps with a
bronzed eagle on the front. Muster was on Corser Hill. One of the boys
could squeak out a tune on the fife. One boy played the bass drum, and
another the small drum.
"We had a great surprise. The Bellows Falls Band, from Walpole, New
Hampshire, was travelling to play at musters, and as none of the adult
companies hired them, they offered their services to us free.
"My company paraded in rear of the meeting-house. My brother, with the
light infantry, was the first company at drill. He had two fifes and
drums. Nearly all the companies were parading, but the regimental line
had not been formed when we made our appearance. What a commotion! It
was a splendid band of about fifteen members,--two trombones, cornets,
bugles, clarionets, fife. No other company had more than fifes or
clarionets. It was a grand crash which the band gave. The next moment
the people were astonished to see a company of boys marching proudly
upon the green,--up and down,--changing front, marching by files, in
echelon, by platoons.
"We took our place in line on the field, were inspected, reviewed, and
complimented by Maj.-Gen. Anthony Colby, afterwards governor of the
State.
"When I gave the salute, the crowd applauded. It was the great day of
all others in my boyhood. Several of the farmers gave us a grand
dinner. In the afternoon we took part in the sham fight with our
little cannon, and covered ourselves with glory--against the big
artillery.
"I think that I manifested good common sense when, at the close of
the day, I complimented the soldiers on their behavior, and resigned
my commission. I knew that we could never attain equal glory again,
and that it was better to resign when at the zenith of fame than to go
out as a fading star."