I
_At the threshold of the past_
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I wonder if you are anything like as anxious to get into our old attic
as we were. That is not likely. To us it meant romance, even a kind of
sorcery--a bodily transmigration into the magic past.
Now and then during those August days we would open the door below and
look up, perhaps even climb the stair and peer around a little,
possessed by the spell of it, deterred only by our immediate affairs and
the heat.
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Then at last came a day, a cool Sunday when it was raining softly, and
the tribe were having a "perfectly _lovelly_" time in the barn,
Elizabeth and I climbed the rickety stairway to the Land of the Long
Ago. There could be no better time for it--the quiet rain overhead, no
workmen, no likelihood of visitors.
At the top of the stair we hesitated and looked about with something of
the feeling that I suppose the Egyptian explorer had when he looked into
the furnished tomb of Queen Thi. We were at the threshold of the past.
A small window at each end gave light in plenty. There was a good deal
of dust, and there were some cobwebs in the corners, but these did not
disturb us. Only, we were a little bewildered by the extent of our
possessions. We hardly knew where to begin.
At first we picked our way about rather aimlessly, pointing to this
thing and that, our voices subdued. There were all the high-backed
chairs--fourteen, we counted, with those already carried down. Most of
them would need new rush bottoms and black paint, but otherwise they had
withstood the generations. They were probably a part of the old house's
original furnishing--these and at least one of the spinning-wheels, of
which there were four, the large kind, used for spinning wool; also the
reel for winding yarn. Then we noticed a low wooden cradle, darkened
with age, its sides polished by the hands that had rocked it--that had
come next, no doubt. We remarked that one of the spinning-wheels was
considerably smaller than the others--a child's wheel. We thought it
might have come later, when one of the early occupants of the cradle had
been taught to do her stint. It made a small, plaintive noise when I
turned it, and I could see a little old-fashioned girl in linsey-woolsey
dress and home-made shoes and stockings, in front of the big fireplace
down-stairs, turning and turning to that droning cadence, through long
winter afternoons. Those other wheels had come for other daughters, or
daughters-in-law, and if there ever was a time when all four were going
at once, the low, long room must have been a busy place.
From a nail in a rafter hung a rusty tin lantern, through the patterned
holes of which a single candle had once sprinkled with light the
progress of the farmer's evening chores. That, too, had belonged to the
early time, and from a dim corner I drew another important piece of
furniture of that day. At first this appeared to be a nest of wooden
chopping-bowls, oblong as to shape and evidently fashioned by hand. Then
remembering something that Westbury had told me, I recognized these
bowls as trenchers, the kind used in New England when pioneer homes were
rather short in the matter of tableware. The trencher stood in the
middle of the table and contained the dinner--oftenest a boiled dinner,
I suppose--and members of the family helped themselves from it--I
hesitate to say with their fingers, but evidence as to table cutlery in
the pioneer home of that period is very scanty. And, after all, if they
had no plates, what need of cutlery? Their good, active fingers and
stout teeth were made before knives and forks, and they did not enjoy
their dinner the less for having it in that intimate way. I confess a
sneaking weakness myself for an informal chicken bone or spare-rib--for
most anything of the sort, in fact, that I can get a fairly firm hold
of. It is better, of course, to have a handle to one's gravy, and
sometimes, when the family is looking the other way, I can manage a
swipe with a slice of bread, and so get a brief golden sample of the
joys of my ancestors. The two smaller trenchers must have been used when
company came--one for the bread, possibly; the other for pudding. I hope
it was good, firm pudding, so that it could be managed without waste.
We found the kettle that they made the boiled dinner in, an enormous
three-legged witch-pot, also a number of big iron crane hangers, for
swinging vessels above the open fire. And there were three gridirons of
different patterns, for grilling meat over the coals--one of them round
with a revolving top, another square, sloping, with a little trough at
the bottom to catch the juice of a broiling steak. Elizabeth agreed that
we might use those sometimes and I set them over by the stair. We were
not delving deeply, not by any means--just picking off the nuggets, as
it were. It would be weeks before we would know the full extent of our
collection.
Pushed back under the eaves there were what appeared to be several
"cord" bedsteads, not the high-posted kind--that would have been too
much to expect--but the low, home-made maple bedsteads such as one often
sees to-day in New England, shortened up into garden seats. There were,
in fact, seven of them, as we discovered later. They would be of the
early period, too, and probably had not been used for a good hundred
years.
But it was the item we discovered next that would take rank, I think, in
the matter of age. At the moment we did not understand it at all. It was
a section of a hickory-tree, about fifteen inches through and two feet
high, hollowed out at the top to a depth of nearly a foot. It was smooth
inside and looked as if something had been pounded in it, as in a
mortar. Presently we came upon a long, heavy hickory mallet, tapering at
one end, smoothly rounded at the other. It had a short handle, and we
thought it might have been a sort of pestle for the big mortar. But what
had those old people ground in it?
Westbury told us later; it had been their mill. By a slow, patient
process they had macerated their corn in it until it was fine enough for
bread.
The old hand-mill would undoubtedly take priority in the matter of
antiquity. Those early settlers could do without beds and chairs and
trenchers and cradles, even without spinning-wheels for a time, but they
must very quickly have bread--corn, and a place to grind it. I think the
old mill was older than the house. I think it came almost with the
earliest camp-fire.
The articles thus far mentioned were all in one end of the attic. We
were by no means through when we turned to the other end, the space
beyond the great chimney. Here under the eaves were piles of yellow
periodicals--religious papers, the New York _Tribune_, and those weekly
story-papers whose thrilling "romances of real life," like "Parted at
the Altar" and "The Lost Heir of Earlecliffe," were so popular with
those young ladies of slender waists and sloping shoulders who became
our grandmothers. I think none of the numbers dated farther back than
the early forties of the last century, and they were not very inviting,
for they were dusty and discolored and the mice had gnawed holes in the
career of Lord Reginald and the sorrows of Lady Maude.
But there were better things than these--jugs, jars, and bottles of
marvelous patterns, and a stone churn, and some pewter and luster
teapots, damaged somewhat, it is true, but good for mantel decoration
over our fireplaces, and there were some queer old bandboxes, ornamented
with flowers and landscapes, and finally two small wooden chests and a
fascinating box of odds and ends, metal things, for the most part.
We looked into the bandboxes. Some of them were empty, but in others
were odds and ends of finery and quaint examples of millinery, the
turban and poke and calash of vanished generations, some of them clearly
copied after the model worn by Lady Maude at the very moment when at the
church door she turned haughtily from Lord Crewston forever. We drew the
chests to the light and took out garments of several sorts and of a
variety of fashions. There were dresses of calico and delaine of the
Civil War days, a curious cape which we thought had been called a
"circular," a pretty silk apron with a bib, once precious to some young
girl. Some of the waists were very slim, closely following the outlines
of Lady Maude. Others were different--oh, very much so. I think these
were of an earlier period, for among other things there were a number of
garments made of stout, hand-woven linen, embroidered with initials
which had not belonged to the house for nearly a century. I hope they
were not a part of a bridal outfit, for no bride, no really popular
bride, ought to be as ample as must have been the owner of those
ch--garments, I mean. One of them, opened out, would be quite wide
enough for a sheet, Elizabeth said, though somewhat lacking in length.
She thought they would do for single beds, turned the other way. There
were sturdy women in those days.
In the bottom of the chest there was a pair of red and very pointed
dancing-slippers. I don't think they belonged to the same person.
Neither did they belong to the period of Lady Maude, being much older.
They were very small and slim, and daintily made. Where had such pretty
feet found floors on which to dance?
We laid them back with the other things where they had been put such a
long time ago, and turned to the box of odds and ends. There were knobs
and latches and keys--all of the old pattern--a hand-made padlock, some
flat wrought hinges and some hand-wrought nails, left, perhaps, after
the house was built. We sat flat on the floor to paw over these curious
things, and the dull light, and the rain just overhead, certainly
detracted nothing from our illusions. Every little piece in that box
seemed to us a treasure. The old hinges would go on our new closet
doors, held by the hand-made nails. The padlock was for the outside
cellar door. The knobs would replace certain reproductions on some of
our antique furniture. We knew what such things cost at the shops and
how hard they were to find. And just then Elizabeth came upon a
plated-silver buckle, and then upon another--a pair of them--old shoe or
garter buckles, we could not be sure which. Why, our attic was a regular
treasure island!
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We picked out a number of things that seemed of special interest,
including an iron crane we had found, and carried them down-stairs. The
crane fitted the fireplace in the smaller room, which was to become our
kitchen. We hung it and kindled a fire--our first real fire, for it was
our first cool day. There was litter on the floor, but we did not mind
it. We looked into the cheerful blaze, handled over the trifles we had
found, and in quiet voices spoke of the past. During our two hours or so
in the old attic we had been in step with the generations. We had
broken bread at the camp-fire of the pioneer; we had seen him build his
house and provide it with the simple, durable furnishings of his day; we
had shared the easy comfort of his hearty board; we had drawn near to
his good wife as she rocked the cradle or sat spinning in the firelight;
we had watched their descendants attain prosperity and a taste for
finery; we had seen how they had acquired fashion and in time had
patterned their gowns, their bonnets, perhaps even their romances upon
models of Lady Maude. They were all gone now, leaving us to carry on the
story. We also would go our way; others would follow us, and they, too,
would pass. It was a moment to look into the fire and think long, long
thoughts.