pleasure as he saw the wonder and delight in the faces of the others,
“an iron genie to drive out the cold and frighten away the frosts. You
can cook on it, or hang the kettle over the coals. It will keep the
coals alive all night and not eat up as much fuel as your draughty
fireplace did. This is my winter gift to my dear Friend Arnolds.”
“Oh, how wonderful! How can we thank you for it? We, who were so poor,
are the richest family in all Philadelphia now. Now I shall be able to
work!” the children’s mother said.
Beth and William put out their hands to catch the friendly warmth of the
fire in this, the first stove, in the City of Friends. It warmed them
through and through. Then William examined its rough mechanism so that
he would be able to tend it, and Beth bustled about the room, filling
the shining brass teakettle and putting a spoonful of tea in the pot to
draw a cup for their mother and Mr. Franklin. At last she turned to him,
her blue eyes looking deep in his.
“You are so good to us,” Beth said. “Why did you work so hard to invent
and make this iron stove for us?”
The kindest Friend that old Philadelphia ever had stopped a second to
think. He never knew the reason for his good deeds. They were as natural
as the flowering of the broom corn in his garden. At last he spoke:
“Because of your warm hearts, little Friend,” he said. “Not that they
needed any more heat, but that you may see their glow reflected in the
fires you kindle in my stove.”
And so may we feel the kindly warmth of Benjamin Franklin’s heart in our
stoves, which are so much better, but all modelled after the one he made
for his neighbors in the Quaker City of long ago.
A BOSTON TEA PARTY
“Is it, think you, because her father is the President of the
Continental Congress that Susan Boudinot behaves so?” Abigail whispered
the question across the aisle of the Dame’s school in old Boston to one
of the other little old-time lassies.
“Perhaps that is it. Look at her now. She minds it not in the least that
she must sit in the dunce’s corner. She is smiling with those red lips
and big blue eyes of hers as though she were not in disgrace,” the other
little girl whispered back.
From other corners of the schoolroom came whispered comments about the
wilful little Susan.
“What did Susan do that she was put in the dunce’s corner?”
“Indeed she did a great deal to try the good Dame’s patience. She tied
the braids of Mercy Wentworth and Prudence Talbot together so tightly
that when the Dame called upon Mercy to bring her copy book to her to
show its pothooks, Prudence was well nigh dragged too. As if this were
not enough, Susan put sand in the ink and made it so thick as to spoil
the good Dame’s copperplate writing.”
The school was hushed, though, as the Dame who taught it entered and
took her seat behind the desk, a quaint figure in her black gown, white
apron, great spectacles and smoothly-parted back hair. All the children
of these old Colony days, seated in front of her on the hard benches,
bent their heads low again over their spellers or slates. Their hair was
smoothly cropped or tightly braided. Only the wayward little girl,
perched high upon the dunce’s stool, wore her hair in a mass of tangled
curls. They gleamed like gold in the sunshine that filtered in through
the window. Susan’s hair was like her own wilful little self, impatient
of bounds and training.
As the Dame had returned to the room Susan’s lips had drooped a little
and lost their smile. She cast her eyes toward the toes of her buckled
shoes just above which ruffled the dainty white frills of her
pantalettes. She crossed her hands demurely in the lap of her
short-waisted, rose-sprigged gown. Presently, though, Susan looked up
and glanced out of the school window. There was the green Boston Common,
and the white meeting-house, and the brick mansions with their wide
white doorways and brass knockers. Susan could see in fancy as far as
the sea front, where she knew there were British ships at anchor with
the fishing smacks and the merchant vessels of the Colonies.
[Illustration: “THE WAYWARD LITTLE GIRL, PERCHED HIGH UPON THE DUNCE’S
STOOL”]
These were troubled times, as Susan well knew, for the settlers in the
new land. She heard her father speak of the growing discontent of the
Colonies against the stern rule of the English King, and their
disinclination to pay taxes on goods when they were allowed no
representation in Parliament.
Only that morning, as Susan had pouted and frowned when her mother tried
to comb out her twisting, tangling curls, there had been the sound of
loud voices in the next room where her father received his business
callers. Susan’s sweet-faced mother had sighed.
“Ah, Susan dear, why do you add to our troubles by being such a wilful
little lass. Hear you not the voices in the other room? It is the King’s
collector, and your father is trying to explain to him that the Congress
feels it especially unjust to be obliged to pay a tax on tea—that
pleasant beverage that is so much drunk at the Boston parties. I know
not how it will all come out, and my heart is aching for the trouble
that I feel will come. Be good, dear child. This will help us as you can
in no other way.”
Susan had thrown her arms about her mother’s neck in a burst of love.
“I will be good, dear mother. I will be good,” she had exclaimed, for at
heart there was no kinder child in all Boston than little Mistress Susan
Boudinot. The scene came back to her now and she turned toward her
teacher, the Dame, reaching out her slim little arms imploringly. What
right had she, a little girl, to be naughty when her country was in such
dire peril, she thought?
“I will be good,” she said in a burst of penitent tears as the Dame
motioned kindly to her to leave the dunce’s corner. “I do not know why I
was moved to tie Mercy and Prudence together by their hair except it was
what the elder speaks of in meeting as the old Adam coming out of one.
And I am sorry indeed about the ink.”
“That will do,” the Dame said, trying not to smile. “Take your seat,
Susan, and write at least ten times, ‘Be ye kind to one another,’ in
your copy book, and remember to keep it treasured in your mind as well
as on the white pages.”
Susan slipped gladly into her place beside Abigail and was soon
scratching away with her quill pen as industriously as any of the
others.
School was not out until late in the afternoon, and Susan, surrounded by
Abigail and Mercy and Prudence and many of the other little Colonial
maidens, took their merry way through the narrow, brick-paved streets of
old Boston. In their flowered poke bonnets, round silk capes, and full
skirts they looked like a host of blossoms of as many different
colors—lavender, green, pink, and blue. At the gate of one of the old
mansions not far from the Common, Susan, her curls flying and her cheeks
rosy from the warm sea air, waved her hand in good-bye.
“I would invite you all to come in for a game of battledore and
shuttlecock in the garden, but my mother was not feeling well when I
left her this morning and I see her beckoning to me from her window.”
She darted through the door and up the wide staircase. She found her
mother almost in tears.
“There is to be a party at the Royal Governor’s house,” Madam Boudinot
exclaimed, “this very afternoon, and there will be no one to represent
your father’s family, for I feel far too ill to put on my best dress and
go. Many prominent people will be there representing the Colonists and
the King. Oh, what shall I do!”
Susan considered a moment, at the same time capably fetching the
lavender salts for her mother, and putting cloths wet with toilet water
on her aching head. Then she had an idea, for there was much wisdom
packed away in the curl-crowned head of nine-year-old Mistress Susan.
“Do you set your mind and heart at rest, dearest mother,” she said. “I
will do my hair up so.” Standing in front of an oval, gilt-framed
mirror, Susan caught a few of her curls at the back. She pulled them up
to the top of her head, and fastened them there with a band of velvet,
while the rest hung in a golden shower over her shell pink ears.
“There,” Susan exclaimed. “I look as old as a miss of fourteen and I can
be quite as dignified. I will put on my best silk dress, and my silk
hose, and my Sunday shoes with the silver buckles.” As she spoke, Susan
pulled out boxes and opened a chest and drawers. Then she stood in front
of her mother, her arms loaded with finery. She made a quaint little
curtsey.
“The family of the President of the Continental Congress will be
represented at the Royal Governor’s party,” she said. “Mistress Susan
Boudinot will take the place of Madam Boudinot.”
A space of a half-hour later a dignified little lady stepped out of the
door of the Boudinot mansion and into a waiting chaise. Susan held her
head very high. Was not her hair done up for the first time, and its
mass of ringlets pinned with one of her mother’s tortoise-shell combs?
Her buff brocade dress was made with a lace underbody. A polonaise and
deep frills of lace edged the elbow-length, close-fitting sleeves and
fell as far as the small white hands. A blue locket on a strip of narrow
black velvet ribbon was hung about the little girl’s throat, and over it
all was thrown a ruffled cape of her mother’s lined with fur. As the
chaise rattled away toward the Governor’s mansion her mother’s parting
words to her repeated themselves over and over again in Susan’s mind.
“Be a good child, Susan, and do not forget for a moment that you are
representing your father and, through him, the Congress.”
[Illustration: COLONIAL FURNITURE]
It was a gay scene in which little Mistress Susan soon found herself.
The Governor’s parlor was very beautiful with its high-backed mahogany
chairs and great bowls of roses. A huge sideboard was loaded with cakes
and sweets, and the great round table covered with a lace cloth was set
with priceless blue and white china. There was a crowd of people, Whig
and Tory. Lovely young ladies of the Colonies in powdered hair and stiff
silks, and young men, their hair worn in powdered queues, mingled gaily.
After paying her respects to the wife of the Governor, Susan found a
corner where she could sit quietly and watch the party. She was not
unseen, though. Many eyes had noted the dainty charm of the little maid
and the sweetness of her tone as she had said, gracefully, to her
hostess:
“My mother, Madame Boudinot, sends her respects to the Governor’s wife
and regrets that she can not bring them in person. I am the daughter of
Madame Boudinot and my father is the President of the Continental
Congress.”
“And a polite little girl, indeed,” the hostess had replied, smiling, as
she turned and presented the little girl to her husband, the Royal
Governor, and representative of the King.
Many eyes, both Whig and Tory, had been cast at the corner where little
Mistress Susan sat demurely.
“The new land has winsome daughters,” said an Englishman.
“And plucky ones,” retorted an American.
But Susan’s eyes were fixed on the goodies that were being brought in
now by the servants; great silver trays loaded with confections of all
kinds. The blue plates were passed to the guests. Soft glowing candles
sent their glimmering light over the tall crystal goblets and bowls of
fruits. Then Susan saw a silver urn brought in and set upon the table in
front of the Governor’s wife, who poured the fragrant tea into the blue
cups.
“Here is your cup of tea, little Mistress Susan,” she said.
Susan took the blue cup in her hand; but, suddenly, its very touch
changed her from the prim little maid she had been before to a small
creature of rebellion. The amber, steaming tea in the blue cup was, to
Susan, one of the marks of her country’s lack of independence. Must the
Colonies pay a tax on tea to the King across the ocean, and still be
allowed no representation in Parliament? How, Susan wondered, could
those other girls of the Colonies, years older than she, sit there so
placidly sipping their tea and seeming to enjoy it so much? Suddenly she
recalled her mother’s words:
“Do not forget for a moment that you are representing your father, and
through him, the Congress.”
Susan had made up her mind what she would do. Her girlish spirit of
rebellion that sometimes led her to play such pranks as she had that day
in school suddenly turned to the will power that made the Colonists win
their fight for freedom in the American Revolution. Susan rose, cup in
hand, and took her way across the room, the rustling of her silk skirts
calling the attention of the tea drinkers to her. At an open window she
stopped and deliberately tipped her cup, throwing the tea, untasted, on
the grass outside. Then she set the empty cup down upon the table.
At first there was a hush. Then the gentlemen laughed to see the little
girl, flushed now with confusion, seated on the edge of a high chair and
tapping upon the floor with one high-heeled slipper.
[Illustration: “SUSAN DELIBERATELY TIPPED HER CUP, THROWING THE TEA,
UNTASTED, ON THE GRASS”]
“The spirit of the Colonies,” said the Royal Governor smiling. “I
foresee that we shall have to tame it.”
But in spite of his mocking words Susan saw that more than one of the
guests who claimed the cause of the Colonies their own set down their
tea and drank no more of it. The first laughter died away. There was a
thoughtful quiet during the remainder of the party.
Years and years ago it was, but the brave rebellion of little Mistress
Susan has come down to the children of to-day in story as one of the
helps in the winning for America of her independence.
THE DEACON’S GRASSHOPPER
On their way to and from school, the boys and girls of old Boston cast
curious glances toward the shop of Deacon Shem Drowne.
It was over one hundred and fifty years ago, and they were Colonial
children. The boys wore short coats and long trousers, and the little
girls long, plain skirts almost touching the tops of their shoes. When
it rained, as it often did in the long chilly days of late winter, they
wrapped themselves in heavy capes and ran between the drops, for they
had no umbrellas.
But rain, or no rain, Samuel, and Abigail and the others could not pass
the deacon’s tiny window. Through it they knew they might have a peep at
his strange craft. Even the sound of his hammer thrilled them.
He was a coppersmith of old Boston, and his shop of one room was down
near the wharves where British ships lay at anchor and the fishermen
plied their trade all day. On Sundays Deacon Drowne went to the white
meeting-house on the Common and passed the contribution basket, and
rapped the head of any child who went to sleep during the sermon.
[Illustration: “HE PERCHED HIMSELF UPON A STOOL BESIDE HIS WORK BENCH”]
When Monday came, though, the Deacon was a very different person. He put
on a little round cap and a short leather apron. He perched himself upon
a stool beside his work bench and chuckled like some little, wizened
gnome of the mountain as he looked at his sheets of copper and brass,
his scissors, dies, and the many hammers, large and small, that he used
for shaping metals.
The trade of a coppersmith was not one to interest children greatly in
those days. The Deacon had to patch some housewife’s preserving kettle,
or make copper toes for the shoes of a little Colonial lad who had worn
out the leather too soon to suit his father’s sense of economy.
Sometimes he had a clock to mend, or a teakettle that needed a new
handle.
None of these were unusual enough tasks so to attract the boys and girls
of Boston. They were familiar with teakettles, having to fill them so
often, and copper toes on their shoes hurt their feet. It was something
quite different that drew them to the window and door of the
coppersmith.
“What do you suppose Deacon Drowne will have hidden under his work bench
to-day?” Samuel would ask.
“Oh, I do not know. I am curious to see. Is he not a person of great
skill and many surprises?” Abigail would reply.
It was quite true. The old coppersmith saw possibilities in his craft
that would have amazed his patrons who thought that the Deacon’s mind
was bent all day long on patches and wires. When his day’s work was over
the old coppersmith closed his shutter and lighted a candle. He lighted,
too, a small stove in which he could heat his metals and weld them into
queer and curious shapes. It seemed to him that the sheets of copper and
brass in which he worked were too beautiful for the commonplace uses to
which he had to put them.
His mind went back to the days of his boyhood in England when he lived
on a farm near the sea and could watch the ships beyond the fields where
the sea lay, blue and clear. As these thoughts came to him, he welded
his metals to make the figures that his memory painted for him. No
wonder the children were excited at what the coppersmith would show them
that he had made over night!
He would beckon to them to cross his threshold. Then, with his eyes
twinkling like stars through his spectacles, he would hold up in triumph
something that he had made. Once it was a little brass rooster, shining
and beautiful from his comb to the last tail feather. Once the Deacon
showed the children a curious little admiral made of copper and holding
a telescope as he looked far off at an imaginary sea. Then, to please
them, he made a small Indian of copper; the figure was complete even to
the feathers in his headdress.
How the children did laugh, though, when Deacon Drowne showed them a
copper grasshopper that he had welded! It was so much larger than a real
grasshopper that it looked like some strange dragon. It quite filled the
tiny shop, its long slender legs stretching in every direction.
“Why did you make it?” the children asked.
The old coppersmith chuckled as he replied.
“To show what can be done with my shining metal,” he said proudly. “It
took skill to bend those legs and make the veins in a grasshopper’s
wings.”
“What will you do with it, Deacon Drowne?” asked the children.
The old man shook his head.
“Perhaps it has no use,” he said, looking sadly at the copper
grasshopper sprawled out before him.
That was what the sober people of Boston thought, too, all except Mr.
Peter Faneuil.
No one could quite understand Mr. Peter Faneuil. He had inherited quite
a fortune, but he lived in a simple way and was fonder of children and
the sea than of wearing fine broadcloth and having a coach. He joined
the children one day when they went to Deacon Drowne’s shop and he saw
the grasshopper. They had thought that Mr. Peter Faneuil would laugh at
it. He did not even smile. He looked at the shining copper wings and the
delicate workmanship of the slim legs. Then he grasped the coppersmith’s
toil-hardened hand.
“It is a wonderful piece of work,” he said. “It ought to be placed where
every one in Boston could see it.”
The Deacon smiled with happiness as Mr. Faneuil and the children left
him. He touched the grasshopper’s perfectly shaped head.
“How could that be?” he said wonderingly.
The years went on, and at last no one heard Deacon Drowne’s hammering,
for he was too old to work any longer at his trade. The children grew
up, and Samuel graduated from Harvard College. He was called Samuel
Adams now, and was quite an influential young man in Boston. He was one
of those called to attend a meeting in Boston at which an important
decision was to be made.
Should, or should not Boston accept a gift that Mr. Peter Faneuil wished
to make the city from his boundless wealth? He wished to build for
Boston a public hall. But this was the unusual part of his wish. The
hall was to have a market on the ground floor where the incoming ships
could display their fruits and tea and cloth, and the housewives of
Boston might come and buy. On the top of the hall there was to be a high
tower, and on top of the tower a weathervane that the sailors could see
at quite a distance from shore.
“Where shall we transact our important business in this hall?” the
meeting asked Dr. Peter Faneuil.
“Over the market,” was his quick reply.
[Illustration: FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON]
Then they argued the question and wrangled about it. A market in a
public building did not seem fitting to them, even though there was no
public market in Boston at that time. Neither did a weathervane on top
of the tower seem suitable. Some were for it, and more were against it.
It did not matter that the hall was to be a free-will gift to Boston.
They wished no new ideas to break in upon the old ones that belonged to
England and the King.
Samuel Adams and his friends were opposed to the idea, but suddenly Mr.
Peter Faneuil sent a message to Samuel that made him smile and change
his mind. The meeting closed, and the day was carried for Mr. Peter
Faneuil. He was to build his hall just as he wished, and give it to
Boston.
Every one watched it with great excitement. It looks a low, humble
enough building now, but it seemed quite huge to old Boston. The people
who had been opposed to it grew to like it when they realized how much
they had needed a market. The magistrates and other officers of the town
found that they could hold their meetings quite as well over the market
as downstairs. They could come down and help their good wives carry home
the day’s dinner when they had finished with more weighty matters.
Every one liked the weathervane. It could be seen for a long distance on
land or sea, and its arrow never failed to fly north, south, east, or
west. At first all Boston was puzzled by the figure on the top of the
weathervane. It was different from any that they had ever seen. Persons
came from a distance by stage-coach to see it. It shone and glittered in
the sunlight.
“Who wrought it?” the people of Boston asked, and when they found out,
the maker was acclaimed as almost a hero.
Patient old Deacon Drowne! He lived long enough to look up through his
spectacles and see his great copper grasshopper perched on top of the
weathervane of Faneuil Hall.
The grasshopper is there to-day. It has been on Faneuil Hall since 1742.
It saw the Boston Tea Party, and heard the shots of the Lexington
farmers. It heard the hoof beats of Paul Revere’s horse, and the splash
of the oars of the British troops, rowing into Boston Harbor. It watched
battle and ruin, and then saw the coming of peace and plenty again.
Thousands of storms have beaten against its copper wings and legs, but
the good workmanship of the old smith has helped the grasshopper to
stand them all. It has been replated and strengthened in places, but the
main part of the figure remains just as Deacon Drowne made it, an emblem
of the humble, but preserved for almost two centuries in beautiful
workmanship.
PATIENCE ARNOLD’S SAMPLER
“Count your threads, Patience, child. You will do well to give better
heed to your sewing than to the window. Methinks your eyes have been
following the garden path over often the last half hour, and your work
has suffered the while.
“Why, when I was a lass in Devon I had stitched six samplers before I
was your age; and one of them had the entire Lord’s prayer upon it
embroidered in letters of red so small that your grandame had to don her
spectacles in order to spell it out.
“Ah, well, the girls of to-day are catching the spirit of the
times—revolt against the old order and small patience with the new. I
must be off, Patience, and across the orchard to Mistress Edwards’ with
a bowl of curds. She has a mind that they cure her gout. Do you attend
your work while I am gone. The sampler is almost finished. I can read
the text at the top in spite of its crooked letters, dear child:
“‘A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath.’
“Here are all the letters of the alphabet, too, and now it remains only
for you to embroider your name in the cross-stitch. Measure your
stitches with great care, for you will likely begin it so near the
border that you will have small space left for _Arnold_.
“I shall be back by tea time.” Mistress Arnold stooped to touch with one
thin, white hand, stripped of all its jewels, the bowed, brown head of
the little girl who sat by the window sewing.
“If you finish the sampler by five o’clock, you may go out in the garden
and play. Oh—”
Mistress Arnold turned in the doorway, and pulled from the green silk
reticule which hung at her side, a long iron key.
“I will leave the key to the barn in your charge, Patience, and on no
account give it to any one until I return. Your father tells me that his
store of powder and shot is increasing daily, and we are likely to need
these before long.”