“A CHILD WENT FORTH”
Environment--what part does it play? Its stamp is upon us, but other
forces and influences also determine our reactions and mould our
characters. Is the objective environment alone the sea in which we
swim? More significant still are the emotions which a given environment
induces in each individual. To determine these it is needful to resort
to our earliest memories. What were the things that so impressed us
that we carry them on down through the years, an inseparable part of
our inmost selves? What part have they played in shaping our characters?
I have said that it was a commonplace little village where I was born,
and to another it may seem a commonplace outward life that I have to
record. But who among us will own to a commonplace inner, subjective
life?
Our village, named after him who sang of the “deep and dark blue
ocean,” is a prosaic port on the Erie Canal along whose banks mules
slowly draw the heavy-laden boats. The canal divides the village
into north and south, as Owasco creek divides it into east and
west. Rising from the level landscape here and there, the long, low
lenticular drumlins form a conspicuous feature through that section
of the state. Commonplace, did I say? But less than three miles away
are the marshes of the Montezumas. What strange wild feelings the
lighted skies at night evoked! “The marshes are burning!” was such an
inadequate explanation of that lurid western sky. A few miles to the
south is Goldsmith’s “loveliest village of the plain”; about the same
distance west, one reaches Tyre; as far again, and Palmyra is found;
while a little to the east sits Syracuse in all her glory--surely an
illustrious environment, this Drumlin Land, if names could make it so.
In the upper and hilly part of the town, called “Nauvoo,” the house
still stands where Brigham Young lived before he became famous--or,
shall we say, infamous? He was a carpenter and painter, and several
buildings are there pointed out as houses that “Brigham” built. They
tell that the Mormon went to Utah owing a certain couple in our village
for his board, and that years after, on learning that they were to
celebrate their golden wedding, he sent them the amount he owed, with
interest for all the years.
In the decrepit old hotel on the village green Isaac Singer once
lived and dreamed of the sewing-machine which later made his name a
household word. There, too, in our little hamlet faithful Henry Wells,
sometimes a-foot, sometimes on horseback, went hither and yon amid the
drumlins carrying in his shabby carpet-bags messages and parcels to the
scattered homes. Trusty and dependable, there in our little village he
laid the humble foundations of the Wells-Fargo Express of to-day.
Six churches, two hotels, several dry goods and grocery stores, a
drug store, a meat market, the Post Office, sometimes a bank, a
boot-and-shoe store, cigar shops and saloons, a pie factory, a shirt
factory, the Masonic Hall--these, most of which were grouped around the
Village fountain, constituted the town life I knew.
It was amid these scenes that I as a child went forth; the objects I
looked upon became a part of me, interwoven with my very being: the
familiar drumlins on the horizon, flowers and the wayside weeds, the
pets I cherished, the family life, our neighbours, my teachers and
playmates, the games we played, the songs we sang, the books I read,
the sunset clouds, the friendly trees, and the winding creek; and
mingled with these commonplace scenes, the sorrows, joys, affections,
hopes, and fears--all these became a part of that child that went forth.
In thinking of my earliest memories, why does my mind revert to that
little old tannery down by the dam which we passed on our way to
Grandma’s? It was painted red. There was a multitude of little square,
mahogany-brown pieces of wood that covered the yard like a carpet.
There was a buzz of machinery which always frightened me (and machinery
frightens me still), and a peculiar smell always emanated from the
place. And though later a grist mill, still later a paper mill, and
then a planing mill stood there, and now for many years dwelling houses
have occupied the spot, yet as I think back to my childhood I recall
most vividly the earliest scene, and the peculiar elastic feel of those
pieces of tan-bark under my feet.
Quiet and shy, I was, as I have said, dominated by my sister till
perhaps a year or two before I went away from home. More of a leader,
more practical, in those days more executive, my sister had withal
more common sense and far more initiative than I. She mothered me as
a child, and “bossed” me as a little girl, and for a long time I was
content to have it so. In truth, so established was that order of
things that she has never, I think, quite accepted my emancipation.
I was more shy in Father’s presence than elsewhere, even in my late
’teens. I don’t know why, but involuntarily I became more reserved.
I myself could see a difference in voice and manner. I was not afraid
of him (though that was the way Sister put it), for I had no reason
to be, he was kindness itself, and more gentle with me than with
Kate, she being so full of pranks he often had to rebuke her. I don’t
know just what the shyness was, but I was two different beings when
with and away from my father. As nearly as I can explain it now, it
was my exaggerated love of approbation making me so anxious for his
approval that I over-exerted myself when near him, the result being a
shy awkwardness. Yet he always seemed to understand me, and to make
it easy for me. I never would ask him for favours; Kate always had to
do such things for both herself and me. “You do it,” I would plead,
and she would “sputter” and say I ought to do it for myself, but would
give in. Sometimes she made me go with her, occasionally taking revenge
by saying, “Genie wants to ask you for a penny.” Then I felt like
running away. He seldom refused us; I don’t see why I was so bashful
with him. It irritated Sister. Straightforward herself, she thought me
two-sided. I don’t know when this shyness came, or when it wore away,
but before it developed I have one memory that is significant--one of
my earliest recollections. Years later I marvelled that I ever dared do
it: I remember sitting on Father’s lap (he in a little black rocker)
and “teasing” him to tell me where I came from. It must have been when
I first began to wonder about such things. I recall how I kept pulling
his face around by putting my hands in his long brown beard; how he
would laugh and turn away, trying to avoid me; and I can remember just
how he looked at Mother as they exchanged glances. I can’t recall how
they answered me, but think they told me I would know when I was older.
(I never remember being told about storks bringing babies, though I
do remember someone saying the Doctor brought them, and that God sent
them.) But that scene is very vivid to me; and afterward, when I began
to know, though imperfectly, the answer to my question, I thought of
how I had sat and coaxed Father to tell me. I would like to know just
how old I was when this question first seemed so important to me. I
recall when still very small, though later than this, being in the yard
and digging in the ground when Brother and some older boys, going by,
asked what we were doing. “Digging for babies,” we said, and it seems
as though I can remember the smile that passed between Brother and the
boys as they ran off shouting derisively, “Digging for babies!” That
must have been in the days when we used earnestly to try to dig down to
China.
Although asking my father this question is one of my earliest
recollections, I think the very earliest is that of my first day in
school. I can remember just how I trotted along by my brother’s side;
how my starched skirts stood out proudly, and how my heart swelled with
excitement when, at the sound of the “first bell,” I started off to
school. Arthur was very nice to me, and granted permission (!) to two
of the bigger girls to let me sit between them. I recall the delicious
feeling of being the object of interest in the little flock, and how
they petted and entertained me. But the most wonderful thing was a
little wire frame which the teacher let me take to amuse myself with--a
frame with coloured balls big as cranberries, which could be moved
back and forth on the wires. Not long after I began going to school
regularly, and that little frame (years later I learned it was called
an _abacus_) was given out as a reward of merit. I can see now the
look of blushing pride mantling the cheeks of the favoured pupils as
they marched from the teacher’s desk back to their seats bearing the
coveted trophy.
One evening shortly after my first day in school, we were startled by
the alarm of fire, and saw the flames coming from the direction of the
Academy. “Goody, Goody!” shouted some boys in the street, “We won’t
have to go to school any more!” But I cried as though my heart would
break, until a neighbour came down the hill and told us it was some
unimportant building farther away.
A few years ago the Academy did burn, and the news came to me with a
far keener pang than that felt in childhood at the false alarm. The
present was momentarily blotted out. My thoughts flew back to the old
building where the most tender and beautiful memories centred. Of that
place so rich in associations only ashes remained; only in memory could
I see again the old brick walls--the walls my grandfather had helped
to build--only in memory hear the school bell ring! Curious, but more
than all the furnishings--the books, the globes, the maps and charts,
the chemical apparatus--more than all the things really of value in
the building, my thoughts kept going back perversely to that dear
little wire frame with coloured balls which I had so cherished since
my first day at school!--_that_ was gone past recall!--that and the
old bell! At those earlier home-comings after graduation, one of my
keenest pleasures had been to be awakened in the morning by the sound
of the school bell; it brought back so much: I was a girl again; the
past was bridged over; it stirred a host of chaotic feelings of mingled
sweetness and sadness--longing for my lost girlhood, and exultation at
the successes and achievements of to-day--the Spell of the Past was in
that bell.
A fine high-school building, well equipped, now stands where the old
Academy stood. To the younger generation it will doubtless mean all
that the old school meant to us, but how like an interloper it is! Only
the ground and the old trees are left--the old linden trees under which
we played, where we used to gather the tiny round nuts and eat the
sweet brown kernels that ripen in September!
Once when Sister was a little thing, perhaps four or five years old,
and an aunt, in telling her Bible stories, started to make some
explanation about God, Kate interrupted her in a superior way with,
“Oh, yes, I know God--he lives over there,” pointing to a meadow
opposite our house. Astonished, Aunt Kate inquired further, when the
child added:
“He’s got white hair and wears a long coat; he walks around there when
it’s getting dark.” She meant an old man with a white beard and flowing
locks who, like Old Grimes, wore a “long gray coat all buttoned down
before.” His unusual appearance as he came and went in the hay-meadows
had appealed to the child’s imagination, and she had settled to her own
satisfaction that he was God!
An experience of my own, some years later however, illustrates the
marked difference in our minds and temperaments--the one given to
definite, concrete ways of thinking, and to settled convictions which
satisfy her, however inadequate they may seem to others; the other,
at that time, to vague, even mystical interpretations. And a similar
tendency exists to-day in our attitudes where temperament and personal
bent are concerned: One spring, going to a sheltered strip in our yard
where we had previously transplanted wild flowers from the woods, I
found a pale blue hepatica in bloom. I remember the directness with
which the flower spoke to me. Something in its gem-like beauty and
its completeness touched me peculiarly; my eyes filled with tears.
I hesitate to write it, but it seemed almost as though the flower
whispered to me, “God.” It was an exquisite moment. The beauty and
purity of that flower spoke to my soul, and for a brief while I had a
conception of Divinity that made the day and hour memorable.
To my mother I am primarily indebted for my love of nature. She used to
take us to the cowslip woods every spring, and later to the Wintergreen
woods. We would begin coaxing to go weeks beforehand. Something sweet
and tender stirs at the thought of our excursions to those distant
moist woods in the early spring days. With what eagerness we started
off, Mother as eager as any of us! How we ran across lots, climbed rail
fences and a stone wall, peeped into deserted barns, traversed meadow
after meadow, till we came to the swampy woods where the gay flowers
grew! It was dark and wet and mysterious in those woods; we knew them
only as the cowslip woods; other woods we frequented at other times of
the year, these only in the cowslip days. I liked the crackle as we
gathered the plant for “greens.” We even ate the bitter buds raw. Often
we would slip from the mossy, decaying logs into the brown pools; we
always returned home with squeaking shoes, wet feet, full baskets, and
happy hearts.
Mother used to go wading with us, too. Taking our luncheon, we would
follow the winding creek along the willows a mile or more till we
came to a little grove, a sort of natural park, with an island and a
dam, and a big swimming hole on one side of the island. Brother, who
had been to Niagara Falls, called this Goat Island; the water that
went over the dam was Niagara; and the grove was Prospect Park. Many
a time he has lain in his little bedroom, his door and ours open,
and recounted to Sister and me his visit to Niagara, always getting
excited and waxing eloquent, and seeming to see it all over again, as
he talked to his willing listeners till sleep overtook them.
“Down to the dam”--there some of our sweetest childhood hours were
spent, Mother, one with us, wading the stream, teaching us the names
of the flowers, and telling us what was “good to eat.” When she was
in doubt about a certain thing, and so would caution us, I was pretty
sure to taste it, thus finding out for myself that many a thing is good
to eat at which others looked askance. Some Eves begin early to taste
forbidden fruit.
Up the Ditch Bank was another favourite place for our picnics--a high
grassy bank running along a feeder, and farther up a big round pond on
one side of the bank, and a long stretch of marshy creek below on the
other. From the bank, across a precarious bridge we got into “Groom’s
Woods,” where the wake robins grew, and the large white trilliums,
Dutchman’s breeches, squirrel corn, crinkle root, spring beauties,
anemones, hepaticas, blood roots, and mandrakes. Mother taught us these
names, and the names of what few birds we knew--robins, goldfinches,
humming birds, and orioles, chiefly. Each year in cherry-blossom time,
Mother would say, “The orioles are here again.”
I had a goldfinch in a cage for a time, I called it a wild canary, and
grew much attached to it, but it soon died, and after that I never
cared to have another bird. I had one cat that I loved, too; his name
was Nimrod. He got so old a neighbour took him away. They told me what
was going to happen, but when I heard the gun-shot, far away, though I
had braced for it, I was nearly frantic. I could never bear to have it
mentioned after that, and loathed the man who did it. Children’s griefs
are about little things, but they are not little griefs. I feel sorry
for the child who suffered some of the things I remember. Mother used
to say,
“Poor Nimrod’s dead, he’s run his race,
No other cat can fill his place.”
And no other cat ever did. I have never cared for cats since. Cats came
and went, there was always one at home; they multiplied as cats have
a way of doing, but after Nimrod’s death I was indifferent to them. I
had one dog, too--one cat, one bird, one dog, and ever after eschewed
all pets. A little yellow dog came to our house once--from heaven, I
guess. We called him Ponto--such a big name for such a roly-poly dog!
Æolus would have suited him better, for we knew not whence he came, nor
whither he went, months later, after having endeared himself to us all.
He came the night I was brought home with a broken arm, and was such a
dear companion during my six weeks in splints that I grew inordinately
fond of him. Rheumatism attacking the arm caused me more suffering than
did the fracture itself. Ponto would cry when I cried, putting up his
paws so imploringly that, just to hear him take on, I’d stop crying in
earnest, only to cry louder in make-believe. How piteously he wailed! I
would get ashamed of myself for enlisting his ever-ready sympathy. He
left so mysteriously that we found no trace of him. One of the desires
of my heart for a year or two was to have Ponto back. I believe I used
to pray for his return. “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,” and my
soul surely longed for Ponto.
Another love of mine, a less responsive one, was my big willow tree. It
was only one of many trees along the creek, but oh, the difference to
me! Cows grazed in the pasture near by; spearmint grew in patches along
the path; the water flowed quietly. It was about ten minutes’ walk
from home, but I was in another world when there. Seated in the heart
of the old tree, I looked out upon a scene commonplace enough to the
eye--level fields and houses and distant drumlins, but ah, what inner
visions! What happy hours I have spent ensconced in that old willow!
Just a little climb (for I never could really climb a tree--I was too
afraid of getting up high), and there I sat, a queen on her throne.
Safe in the tree I was not afraid of the cows. There I read and sang,
recited poetry, and dreamed dreams.
“I am monarch of all I survey,” I usually began with--the place really
belonged to me. The old farmer who came after his cows every night
thought he owned the land, but I knew and the old tree knew who was
the real owner. For years, as a child and a girl, I kept tryst with
this tree; and for years only the cows and I knew just where it was
that I went when I stole away “to the willows,” for I guarded the
exact spot jealously. Often in going past it with others, I have
feigned indifference, lest someone note its natural seat. I wanted it
all to myself. I used to feel uneasy when I had to climb down, about
supper-time; for the cows, eager for their own supper, came near the
bars and insisted on coming close to me. Although my heart beat wildly
at their approach, I would try to brave it out and look them down as
I had heard one should do. On they always came, bland and peaceable.
Facing them as long as I could, ashamed to show fright, even to cows,
I finally had to cut and run, and then how chagrined I felt! Once in
running from them, in my hurry to get under the fence, I flung my
book ahead of me, and it went into the creek--my beloved Cathcart’s
Literary Reader! To this day its stained leaves and warped cover remind
me of the fright I got from the harmless, curious cows.
“Oh, aren’t they cute, they must be twins,” was a remark Sister and I
often heard, long before we knew what twins really meant. Mother would
follow such remarks with, “No, there’s eighteen months’ difference
between them.”
We thought “twins” must be something pretty nice, and learned to feel
the disappointment that we saw on the faces of strangers when Mother
set them right. Once at camp-meeting we were playing together, when
some ladies stopped us asking, “Little girls, are you twins?” Mother
was not near. Kate and I looked at each other and knew that our time
had come to be twins. With one accord we nodded yes, and had some few
minutes of unalloyed pleasure. Days later, while playing in our tent
door, the same lady and another passed. Pausing and noting us as we sat
with our big wax dolls (they, too, dressed just alike) the one lady
told the other that we were twins.
“Oh, no, there’s eighteen months’ difference between them,” said
Mother, sitting near.
“But they told me they were twins,” insisted the lady. We were covered
with confusion; tears, chidings, shame, and repentance followed. Though
I am not sure whether at that time we knew what twins really meant,
still we knew very well that we were not twins.
When we were perhaps ten and eleven years of age, one of our
schoolmates, a child in a destitute Irish family living in the west
part of the village, died of scarlet fever. They lived in the “haunted
house” on the hill--a house near which we never ventured, though Mother
had repeatedly assured us there was no such thing as a haunted house.
Now, however, because of the fever, one would have thought we would
have still kept our distance. But hearing of the child’s death, Sister
was bound to go there. The dead always had a strange fascination for
her; she wanted to feel the corpse--the last thing I wanted to do. At
noon Kate made me go with her to that house. Other children accompanied
us. Awe-struck, we crept up the hill; we glanced furtively at the
broken shutters of the windows from which a ghostly arm was said often
to beckon. Such poverty and squalor we had never before come in contact
with. We filed past the body of our little schoolmate (Kate touched the
marble forehead), awed by the presence of Death, and uneasy at what we
knew was wrong. If the ghosts of the Board of Health of to-day could
have antedated themselves and walked there, what consternation would
they have felt at the presence of those children in the fever-stricken
precinct!
The bereaved mother howled hysterically. An elder sister told us they
had no underclothes to put on the dead child. Kate marched me home,
enjoining strict secrecy. Moved by the poverty and grief we had seen,
with one accord we stole upstairs and purloined a suit of our best
underclothes, secreting them till after dinner, when we ran with them
to the house of mourning, intending then to hurry back to school. I can
see now the trimming on that little white petticoat that we stole from
ourselves; we hesitated, it was such a pretty petticoat; but the need
was urgent, and, somehow, we thought it must be the very best that we
give to the dead child.
The family welcomed us effusively, blessing us, or asking Holy Mary to,
as they immediately put our offerings to use; and still we lingered
on. Presently they asked Kate to go with them to the burial, bribing
her with a nice long drive; before I knew it, it was all settled. Kate
ordered me to stop my opposition, _she was going to that funeral_. She
also persuaded, or commanded, me to give her my hat, having lent hers
to the sister. Then she made me promise to go back to school and say
nothing; she would soon be home. The “last bell” had long since rung
when, bareheaded, frightened, and alone, Miss Docility ran to school,
tardily repentant over the whole strange proceedings. A wretched
afternoon! As soon as school was out, I rushed up to the Post Office
and in tears and penitence told it all to Father. I can see now his
growing anxiety on learning of our visit to that fever-stricken house;
and then of Kate’s having gone to the burial. He upbraided me for not
coming to him at once, but knew that, as usual, Kate had dominated me.
“Run home and tell your mother not to worry,” he said; “we will soon
get track of her and see that she gets home safe.”
Mother’s distress was pitiful. Tormenting herself and me, she
rehearsed tales of Catholic funerals where they raced horses and
got drunk--perhaps they would have a runaway--Kate might be thrown
out--hurt, maybe killed--and perhaps we would all get the scarlet fever!
When Father came home to supper, no trace had yet been found of the
funeral train, though a man had driven to the cemetery--the mourners
were either driving home by some other road, or had gone on to a
near-by city.
How the hours dragged! But the joy when Father came in bringing Kate,
safe and sound, her elation over the experience only a little dampened
by the fear of punishment! But she escaped it that time; and we all
escaped the fever!
Although I had had to drop the study of music in early girlhood,
music continued to be an important part of our home life. Other boys
and girls in our street used to gather round our organ in the winter
evenings, or sit on the veranda in summer, and sing till we had to
stop for hoarseness, the neighbours often calling to us for this and
that favourite. “Gathering up the Sea Shells,” “Pass under the Rod,”
“Jamie’s on the Stormy Sea,” “O, Fair Dove,” “We’d Better Bide a
Wee,” “I’ll Be All Smiles To-night, Love,” “Then You’ll Remember Me,”
“Juanita”--a heterogeneous repertoire, the list seems interminable.
There were certain favourites we would get Father to sing--“Bonnie
Doon,” “The Sword of Bunker Hill,” and “My Susanna”--songs inseparably
linked with home and those happy days.
I used to sing Father to sleep Sunday afternoons. No matter how many
other songs I introduced, I always had to sing Longfellow’s “Bridge,”
and “The Day Is Done.” I was annoyed if he asked for the latter before
the day _was_ done. I liked best to sing it as the afternoon light
began to fade and barely come in at the west window, just enough for me
to trace the notes.
Sometimes of a Sunday evening an aunt and uncle would ask for more
lively songs than those I chose, for there was a long period when I
steadfastly refused to sing secular songs on the Sabbath. At their
request, I would evade and substitute; but if their insistence became
too pronounced to be set aside, I would refuse point blank. In my
unregenerate days there had been a time when I had sung “The Yellow
Rose of Texas,” “Nancy Lee,” “Putting on the Style,” “Father, Come
Down with the Stamps,” and such worldly things, but later the little
Puritan was shocked to be asked to desecrate the Sabbath with such
levity. They learned to cater to my strait-laced notions. I am afraid
I was a not very pleasant person to deal with when a question of what
I considered the fitness of things was involved. (Perhaps I am not
even now.) I strongly suspect I was a self-righteous little prig for
several years. At a later period one of the schoolboys described me
to a newcomer in the town as “a nice girl, only _such_ a prim little
Methodist.” Not many weeks later, that girl and I were laughing in
great glee over the description which, though it had once been true,
was then hardly applicable; but I was still living on the reputation of
a past phase of religious emotion.
We had a song called “Fire Bells Are Ringing,” a dramatic account of
a fire on a wild winter night, the chorus ringing out with repeated
cries of “Fire!” One windy night in February as Sister and I were at
the organ singing this with all the dramatic power we could summon,
the wild night putting us in the mood, Father, who had been in the
kitchen popping corn, came running in shouting “Fire!” even louder
than we were. Smiling, we sang on with redoubled energy, pleased that
we had put him in the spirit of acting, too. He rushed around the room
frantically shouting, “Fire! I tell you! Girls! _do you hear?_” Louder
and more dramatic grew our efforts, and louder grew his cries until, a
still more desperate tone in his voice, and the words, “Girls! Get me
my coat, quick!” finally made us understand he was in earnest. Mother,
too, had thought him fooling and there he was, excited as he always got
at the alarm of fire, almost in despair of making any of us take him
seriously!
It was a house on the street above. A fierce conflagration was under
way. With the high wind, the adjoining house of a neighbour was
endangered, and we had an exciting time helping our friends gather
together valuables and other belongings, though luckily the fire did
not spread. Ah! the cruel, relentless sight of that burning home!
What if it was “the meanest man in town” whose house was burning
down--everyone pitied him that wild night when they saw the pitiless
flames.
We never associated with the neighbours on our right, except
to be civil to them (and I to borrow their novels by Mary Jane
Holmes--whenever I could without the knowledge of my parents). The man
was coarse and illiterate, his wife a silly, slovenly, red-haired woman
who would sit on her husband’s lap on the doorstep in full view of
passers-by. But our left-hand neighbours, though shiftless and lawless,
were interesting and likeable. Great borrowers, always borrowing,
they would keep our belongings till we had to go after them. I would
feel chagrined to have to ask for our own flatirons, or tack-hammer,
or chopping-knife, when we needed them, but Jean, the witty daughter,
would relieve my embarrassment by her ready assurance: “Certainly,
Miss Genie, you are welcome to the irons; keep them as long as you
like--we’ll come after them when we need them again.”
Formerly there had been a picket fence between our yard and theirs,
along which the “myrtle” grew, and a board fence farther back, between
the gardens; but, little by little, first the board fence disappeared,
later the picket fence--whenever they got out of kindling wood they
would take a board here, a picket there (usually early in the morning,
or late at night). In time both fences were down, and only the “myrtle”
in front and the pie-plant bed and berry bushes in the rear marked the
division between our yards.
Mother would try shaming them out of it by wondering (to them) who
could be carrying off our fence boards, and the wily Jean would reply,
“It’s a shame, Mrs. Arnold, such people ought to have something done
to them,” when perhaps that very morning Mother had seen her slip out,
knock off a picket or two, and hustle with it into the woodshed. But
the whole family had a way with them that was irresistible, and they
were kindness itself when any one was sick or in trouble.
A slack housekeeper, the mother of the family, proud as Lucifer, was a
remarkable character. She reared a large family, all “smart as whips,”
but inclined to waywardness of one kind and another--the boys handsome
and debonair, but profane and given to drink, yet more gentlemanly when
drunk than many are when sober. Although we lived near them all their
lives, the young men never spoke to Sister and me after we reached
our ’teens without prefixing our names with “Miss,” and lifting their
hats. If they stood at the wood-pile (perhaps sawing some of our
fence-boards!) when we went to the well, they would bid us a courteous
good morning, always cutting short their profanity, if indulging in it
at the time.
I admired their chivalrous manners, their good looks, and their witty
talk, even though knowing less admirable things about them.
The father, a crafty man, with no visible means of support, lived
mostly by his wits. He was handsome, and humorous in a droll way.
Never lifting his hand to help his over-worked wife, he would yet say
ingratiatingly, “Mother, I don’t like to see you work so hard--we are
not worthy of it.” And she, knowing how lazy he was, how it was all
talk, would beam on him, proud of his good looks--the handsome father
of her handsome sons--pleased with the affectionate protestations that
he shouted in her deaf ears. She never criticized him or her sons to
others; but sometimes her lips would shut in an emphatic way and her
eyes say unutterable things if she thought herself unobserved; but the
face she turned to others was innocent of all this. How her eyes would
shine as she watched her sons start out of the house, well dressed,
with manly carriage, and that air of distinction that never wholly
left them! and when they came home intoxicated, how fertile she was in
resources to get them quietly out of sight; how apt in concealing the
loquacity induced by a lesser degree of intoxication!
An incident in her earlier days put her on a pedestal in my regard.
Jean, her daughter, a fiery girl with coal-black eyes and hair
was witty and irresponsible, as I have said, but energetic and
warm-hearted. The neighbours knew her to be capable of escapades of
which her doting mother was innocent! More than once she had been seen
creeping down the slanting veranda-roof and down the porch pillars,
from which she dropped softly to the ground. But no one dared acquaint
her mother with the fact. In the course of time Jean was missing. Her
brother traced her to a neighbouring town, and going to the hotel where
she and her lover were staying, so arranged it that when they came into
the dining-room, there he sat confronting them!
Equal to the occasion, Jean, I’ll wager, showed no embarrassment, and
though her brother was bursting with rage and shame, he, too, was
mindful not to make a scene. But what a dinner it must have been! Yet
I can imagine that Jean kept the conversation going in her inimitable
way. Dinner over, she asked her brother when he was going home. “Just
as soon as you can get your things packed,” Dick said significantly.
Knowing the Norton blood was up, she made the best of it and returned
with him. After that she stayed closely at home. People in general
did not know of her elopement, nor of the fact that she was to become
a mother. Both she and her mother kept secluded for months. I wish I
knew just how old her mother’s youngest child was when Jean’s child
was born. My impression is that he was at least three or four years
old. Nevertheless, it is stated as a fact, and was generally believed
in the village, that at the birth of Jean’s baby, Mrs. Norton, its
grandmother, put the baby to her own breast, and, by sheer force of
will causing the milk to flow, brought up the child at her breast!
He always called her “Mamma,” and his own mother by her given name;
and although after a time, the fact of his parentage was learned, the
family pride was saved to a great degree. People tacitly accepted the
child as Jean’s youngest brother, and he himself thought he was until
quite a lad.
Not having learned of all this till years after it occurred, the
impression it made upon me was far less pronounced than when I learned
about a certain girl, nearer my own age, who “went wrong.” But I did
not learn of this little tragedy till a year or two afterward, although
when I did, I was so sorry for the girl that there was no room for
blame, and I was glad to know that Mother, knowing it all along, had
befriended her; I loved my mother the more for it. But how incredible
that such a thing had happened to one I actually knew! I used to wonder
how she could go on living and acting like other folk; how she could
meet that young man on the street; how she could fulfil her daily
tasks. Divining what she must secretly have suffered, I felt sure her
keenest grief must come from knowing that she was not as good as people
thought her. I used to wish that she knew I knew of it, and that
Mother had known it all the time, and yet that we felt the same toward
her. I was sure that would have been a comfort to her.
A boy in our neighbourhood, a gay, boastful, light-hearted boy, who was
always whistling on the street, got into difficulties, became entangled
with low companions, and a grave charge was made against him from
which he was only partly exonerated. The first year I was away from
home, in writing to me about it, Mother had said, “Howard has lost his
whistle.” How significant that was! The merry-hearted boy was never the
same after that. These and other revelations concerning townspeople I
knew made a profound impression upon me. They were the beginnings of
my plucking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and
I found it bitter. Every taste saddened me. The dispersion of every
illusion was accompanied by a distinct pain. I think it must always
be so for those who believe that persons and things are what they
seem. The surface so smooth, so fair--incredible that beneath lie many
diverse strata seldom or never seen. Outcroppings come as a revelation,
and with the shattering of an ideal--inevitable sadness and pain!
One of my vivid childhood experiences comes to me here--that of being
taken through the State Prison at Auburn, and to chapel services there,
and how my throat ached as those hundreds and hundreds of men in
convict garb filed in and took their places! The striped gray-and-black
cloth for their suits was made at a woolen mill just outside our
village. We sat in the gallery and looked down on the men. I have never
forgotten the pain I felt, child that I was, at seeing such a mass of
men branded with shame and crime, many imprisoned for life. I wonder
if my sympathy and tolerance for wrong-doing were not generated by
that early experience, when I pitied them so that there was no room to
condemn.
Notes of piercing sweetness sounded through that vast auditorium as a
convict played on a cornet the prelude to “Watchman, tell us of the
night.” When they began singing I thought my heart would break. A part
of the men sang the questions, then another body of them the answers,
all joining in the refrain. Mother and all of us were in tears. Always
after that, at home, when we would sing that piece, that moving scene
would be vividly reproduced.
Chaplain Searle preached that day, and I remember (or think I remember)
his beautiful, beneficent spirit as he talked to the men. (He used
later to lecture in our village, and those impressions of him became
blended with the earlier. One of his lectures was “The Sunny Side of
Life in Libby Prison.”)
We saw the men march to dinner; saw their coarse fare, and peered into
their bare cells; and a great pity rose within me for their blighted
lives. To this day the sight of “Copper John”--the statue we see on the
top of the prison, on driving in to Auburn--awakens the recollection of
the painful emotions born that day when I first learned how hard the
way of the transgressor really is.
About the only plays I ever saw, until I went away from home, were
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” played in our home
town, and “East Lynne” in Syracuse. These were my only preparation for
the appreciation and understanding of Booth’s “Hamlet,” which I saw my
first year in Boston.
A mere child when “Uncle Tom” came to town, and too moved to do
anything but cry openly, I was unmercifully tormented the next day
at school by the older girls who, having witnessed my humiliation of
the night before, jeered at and mimicked me. Curiously enough, many
years later, while visiting in Worcester, Massachusetts, I encountered
the star of this performance at close quarters: I was taken ill while
there, and the landlady of my hostess was the “Topsy” of my early
remembrance. When she learned that I had seen her as “Topsy,” she
doubled her offices in my behalf: there was a distinct improvement in
my toast and gruel, although her housekeeping was almost as “shifless”
as “Aunt Ophelia” had complained of years before.
My first experience with remorse came when I was quite a little girl,
on learning of the death of a schoolmate: One of the older girls, on
seeing me weeping bitterly, looking at me coldly said, “Humph! _you_
needn’t cry--you used to quarrel with her--you know you did.” As though
I didn’t know it only too well! For years that girl’s twitting me of
those irrevocable quarrels seemed the most unfeeling thing imaginable.
It was perhaps when I was sixteen that another schoolmate, going into
a rapid decline, died of “consumption.” During that summer I went
almost daily to brush her hair; she said I did not tangle it as others
did. It was painful to see her wasting daily: that ominous cough, that
sickly odour, and her pathetic hopefulness as her condition became more
hopeless! But I had a strong sense of duty then. It was about the time,
I suppose, that youthful altruism developed. Sometimes I would be so
tired from work at home that I could hardly drag myself up the hill,
and I dreaded the depressing environment. When she died they sent for
me to dress her hair. She had requested it. That seemed more than I
could do. (I have never been able to conquer my repugnance to touching
a dead body.) But there was no way out of it. After the task was done,
with which there was no one to help me except her brother, who was no
help at all, I stayed and got supper for the invalid parents, and did
other little things round the house, waiting for someone to come in who
would stay the night. But no one came. I could not leave those helpless
parents alone, so sent word home that I was going to stay, at the same
time sending for a schoolmate to come and bear me company.
We had Louisa M. Alcott’s “Old-Fashioned Girl” to read, and proceeded
to pass the night sitting up in the room next to the one where our
dead schoolmate lay. The girl’s brother (the same who years before
had bitten off the nose of my leatherhead doll), kept coming into the
room and lamenting his sister’s death; then, going into the parlour,
he would weep over the body, groaning and reproaching himself noisily
for his past unkindness. The wildness of his grief, which came in
paroxysms, was terrible. I pitied him, but it was a relief when he
calmed down and went to bed.
Late in the evening the undertaker came and was alone in the parlour
a long time. On coming out he asked who was going to stay over night.
Lizzie and I told him we were. “But what grown person, I mean.” On
learning that there was no one else, he scrutinized us a moment, then
said to me, “If you will step in here, I will show you what I wish you
to do.” Wondering, I followed him and learned that at midnight I was to
remove the cloth from the face, moisten it in a solution, replace it,
“taking care to press it well down on the eyes and around the nose and
lips.” I have forgotten what else we had to do, but remember that I had
to remove the folded hands from across the chest. (I did it by taking
hold of the nightgown sleeves at the wrist. How startled I was at the
spring the arms gave as I let go the sleeves!) He added that if I did
it at midnight, and again at three or four o’clock in the morning, it
would answer.
I have done much harder things since, but never remember undertaking
anything that seemed more of an ordeal than that was then--our dead
schoolmate, my shrinking at the feel of a corpse, the mere staying up
in this remote house that night, no neighbours within call, we two
girls, with the sick parents and the remorse-stricken brother--no one
to give us moral support--small wonder that I quailed! But it had to be
done.
My companion, less self-contained, and terrified on learning what was
required, began to be hysterical. It was not easy to get her interested
in the book, but we read on and on, taking turns through the long
hours, our feverish excitement increasing as the dread hour approached.
How loud the clock ticked! how every little sound about the house smote
our ears! how furtively we kept glancing at the time, pretending not to
be thinking of it! how our voices trembled! We both started in affright
as the clock began to strike twelve! Lizzie held the lamp while I did
as I had been instructed. Poor girls! They seem like someone else,
not I and another. She trembled and nearly dropped the lamp; and when
it was done, we almost ran from the room. It was no vulgar fear of
the corpse; it was the general gruesomeness, our loneliness, and all
that--the uncanny, tiny little mother, a mere skeleton; the Quilp-like
father--everything added to our shuddering dread.
No sooner had we closed the creaking folding-doors and were back
in the sitting-room than my companion, heaving a sigh of relief,
said, “Now let’s go and have something to eat.” I could have
screamed outright--“Eat _now!_ after that experience!” My hands felt
contaminated, even after repeated washings. I begged her to wait
awhile. So Miss Alcott still diverted us till I felt I could go and
eat. After that we grew cheerful, even hilarious, and then felt guilty
for laughing in that house of mourning.
Long hours passed in talking and reading till we had to go in that
dread room again. Finally morning came, and with it a neighbour who
relieved us. Going home in the early dawn, the queer look of the quiet
streets, the physical weariness, combined with the night’s experiences,
made me feel years older. Stealing up the steps at home and creeping
into the hammock on the veranda, I slept until the opening of doors and
windows in the house announced the family astir.
Perhaps a year after the death of this girl, another schoolmate died
of the same disease--a brilliant, beautiful girl with smouldering dark
eyes, a girl of great promise, who had made a brave fight for life.
Her mother, who was given to doing things in a theatrical way, asked
four of us girls to be honorary pall-bearers--to dress in white and
follow the casket in and out of the church.
At the house the general gloom and our own grief had been a strain on
us, but as we got into the carriage we calmed down from our weeping and
were trying to get in condition to face the ordeal at the church when,
just as we were driving through the main street, without any warning,
one of us _broke into laughter_! Two others followed in sympathy,
the fourth girl looking so disgusted that it made us laugh the more.
Finally she gave way, too, and we were all in a state of uncontrolled,
unreasoning mirth!
Although the carriage was closed, we feared the driver would hear
us, or people in the street catch a glimpse of us. Our efforts at
self-control were painful in the extreme. What would Ruth think if
she could know of our conduct? But everything we tried to say only
made matters worse. When the carriage drove into the churchyard, we
were still in a pitiable plight, and how we ever mastered ourselves
enough to step out and walk past the by-standers and on into the church
behind the casket is something I marvel at even yet. But we had had our
escape-valve, and now everything was done “decently and in order.” Long
after that, we thought with remorse of our conduct, not understanding
how blameless we were--how wrong it was to subject a group of
impressionable girls to such an emotional strain.
I recall some by-word meetings which I think had some share in my
development at a plastic period. They were conducted by the wife of
the Presbyterian minister, their object being to help us refrain from
the use of slang. That minister’s wife seems to me, even yet, the most
beautiful woman I ever saw--tall, slender, with a queenly carriage, the
smoothest, creamiest skin, bewitching dimples, jet black hair and eyes,
and slender white hands.
On the street she wore a heavy veil, and when she lifted it as she came
into the meetings, it was like the unveiling of a beautiful statue. She
had a silvery voice, so different from any voice I had heard. In fact,
she seemed a little too bright and good for everyday life. We children
idolized her. Some of our playmates would not go to her meetings,
and spitefully told us she was “proud”; wore a veil to preserve her
complexion; never ate butter; and nearly starved herself to keep
slender; but, resenting these rude charges against our divinity, we
continued her willing devotees.
How good she used to talk to us! She began her prayers with “Dear
Father,” praying easily as she stood before us, as though talking to
a loved parent. She listened to our confessions of what by-words we
had been betrayed into saying during the week, smiling brilliantly at
times, looking grieved at other disclosures, and sometimes shocked,
but always encouraging us to try harder the next week. The by-words
permitted were, “Oh!” “Oh, my!” “Oh, dear!” and “Oh, dear me!”--these
with varying intensity were the legitimate outlets for the various
experiences and emotions of our lives! All others we must strive to
keep from saying, “with the aid of our Heavenly Father.” I think
“Grief!” was the word with which I kicked over the traces the oftenest;
but her reproving smile was not a hard punishment; and it was such a
delight to see her approval when we could make a good confession. It
was an excellent influence she shed, not the least of which was due to
her beauty. My aversion to slang (except when “right off the bat”) is
probably due to those early by-word meetings.
Although the hands of this woman strongly appealed to me by their
beauty and delicacy, my mother’s appealed more powerfully--the whole
woman in her seems typified in her hands. Not small, nor especially
white, they are well-formed, and, in spite of a life filled with work,
are soft, yet firm, strong, capable, and tender. Even as a child I
seemed aware of her emotion, as well as her strength, in them. I used
to like to clasp them--such a warm, sustaining grasp! And I liked to
open them and look at the palms. She has a hollow palm (something
like my own), and all the mounds are full and elastic--a warm, soft,
brooding handclasp peculiarly her own. In my emotional nature I am
more like Mother, in mental make-up more like Father. Sister’s hands
are more like Father’s, yet her physical type in general, and her
mental, is more like Mother’s. From Mother she and Brother get their
fairer skin, while mine is the brunette shade, like Father’s. How
mysterious it all is! How complex!--“Mate and make beget such different
issues!”