MY HOME
My earliest recollections that I can feel quite sure are real are about
my family and home. My father was a miller, and had a little grist-mill
by the side of the creek, just in the shade of some large oak-trees. His
mill must have been very small, for I always knew that he was poor.
Still, it seemed to me that the mill was a wonderful affair, almost as
large as the big white church that stood upon the hill. It was run by
water when the creek was not too low, which I am sure was very often, as
I think it over now. Above the mill was a great dam, which made an
enormous pond, larger than the Atlantic Ocean, and much more dangerous
to any of us boys venturesome enough to go out upon it in a boat, or
even on skates in the winter time. But the most marvellous part of all
was the wonderful water-wheel hidden almost underneath the mill. It
seemed as if there were a great hollow in the ground, to make room for
the wheel; and if I had any opinion on the subject, I must have thought
that the wheel grew there, for surely no one could make a monster like
that. Often I used to go with my father up to the head of the mill-race,
when he lifted the big wooden gate and let the waters come down out of
the dam through the race and the wooden flume over the great groaning
wheel. I well remember how I used to stand in awe and wonder while my
father opened the gate, and then run down the path ahead of the rushing
tide and peep through a hole to see the old wheel start. Then I would
scamper over the mill, from the cellar with its cogs and pulleys, up to
the garret with its white dusty chutes and its incomprehensible
machines. Then I played around the great sacks and enormous bins of
wheat and corn, and watched the grain as it streamed into the hopper
ready to be ground to pieces by the slowly turning stones.
How real, and still how unreal, all this seems to-day! Is it all a
dream? and am I writing a fairy-story like “Little Red Riding Hood” or
“The Three Black Bears”? Surely all these events are as clear and vivid
as the theatre party of last week. But while I so plainly see the
little, idle, prattling child, looking with wondering eyes at the great
turning wheel, and asking his simple questions of the grave, kind old
man in the great white coat, somehow there is no relation between that
simple child and the man whom the world has buffeted and tossed for so
many years, and with such a rough unfriendly hand, that he cannot help
the feeling that this far-off child was really someone else.
My father was a just and upright man,—I can see him now dipping his bent
wooden measure into the hopper of grain and taking out his toll, never a
single kernel more than was his due. No doubt the suspicious farmers who
brought their sacks of wheat and corn often thought that he dipped out
more grain than he had a right to take; and even many of those who knew
that he did not, still thought he was a fool because he failed to make
the most of the opportunities he had. As I grew up, I learned that there
are all sorts of people in the world, and that selfishness and greed and
envy are, to say the least, very common in the human heart; but I never
could be thankful enough that my father was honest and simple, and that
his love of truth and justice had grown into his being as naturally as
the oaks were rooted to the earth along the little stream.
The old wheel ceased turning long ago. The last stick of timber in its
wondrous mechanism has rotted and decayed; the old mill itself has
vanished from the earth. The drying stream and the great mills of the
new Northwest long since conspired to destroy my father’s simple trade.
Even the dam has been washed away, and a tiny thread of water now
trickles down over the hill where the rushing flood fell full upon the
great turning wheel. Last summer I went back to linger, like a ghost,
around the old familiar spot; and I found that even the great unexplored
pond had dried up, and a field of corn was growing peacefully upon the
soil that once upheld this treacherous sea. And the old miller too, with
his kindly, simple, honest face,—the old miller with his great white
coat,—he too is gone, gone as completely as his father and all the other
fathers and grandfathers who have come and gone; the dear, kind old
miller, who listened to my childish questions, and taught me, or rather
tried to teach me, what was right and wrong, has grown weary and lain
down to rest, and will soon be quite forgotten by the world,—unless this
story shall bring his son so much fame that some of the glory shall be
reflected back to him.
Somehow the mill seems to have made a stronger impression than the house
on my young mind. Perhaps it was because it was the only mill that I had
ever seen or known; perhaps because the associations that naturally
attached to the mill and its surroundings were such as appeal most to
the mind of a little child. Of course, from the very nature of things
the home and family must have been among my earliest recollections; yet
I cannot help feeling that much of the literature about childhood’s home
has been written for effect,—or not to describe home as it really is to
the child, but from someone’s ideal of what home ought to be.
I know that my mother was a very energetic, hard-working, and in every
way strong woman, although I did not know it or think about it then. I
know it now, for as I look back to my childhood and see the large family
that she cared for, almost without help, I cannot understand how she did
it all, especially as she managed to keep well informed on the topics of
the day, and found more time for reading and study than any of her
neighbors did.
In the main, I think our family was like the other families of the
neighborhood, with about the same dispositions, the same ideas and
ideals,—if children can be said to have ideals,—that other people had.
There were seven of us children, and we must have crowded the little
home, to say nothing of the little income with which my father and
mother raised us all. Our family life was not the ideal home-life of
which we read in books; the fact is, I have never seen that sort of life
amongst children,—or amongst grown people either, for that matter. If we
loved each other very dearly, we were all too proud and well-trained to
say a word about it, or to make any sign to show that it was true. When
a number of us children were together playing the familiar games, we
generally quarrelled and fought each other much more than was our habit
when playing with our neighbors and our friends. In this too we were
like all the rest of the families that I knew. It seems to me now that a
very small matter was always enough to bring on a fight, and that we
quarrelled simply because we liked to hurt each other; at least I can
see no other reason why we did.
We children were supposed to help with the chores around the house; but
as near as I can remember, each one was always afraid that he would do
more than his share. I recall a story in one of our school readers,
which I read when very young; it was about two brothers, a large one and
a small one, and they were carrying a pail on a pole, and the larger
brother deliberately shoved the pail nearer to his end, so that the
heavier load would fall on him; but I am sure that this incident never
happened in our family, or in any other that I ever knew.
Most home-life necessarily clusters around the mother; and so, of
course, it must have been in our family. But my mother died when I was
in my earlier teens, and her figure has not that clearness and
distinctness that I wish it had. She seems now to have been a remarkable
combination of energy and industry, of great kindness, and still of
strong and controlling will; a woman who, under other conditions of
life, and unhampered by so many children and such pressing needs, might
have left her mark upon the world. But this was not to be; for she could
not overlook the duties that lay nearest her for a broader or more
ambitious life.
Both my father and mother must have been kind and gentle and tender to
the large family that so sorely taxed their time and strength; and yet,
as I look back, I do not have the feeling of closeness that should unite
the parent and the child. They were New England people, raised in the
Puritan school of life, and I fancy that they would have felt that
demonstrations of affection were signs of weakness rather than of love.
I have no feeling of a time when either my father or my mother took me,
or any other member of our family, in their arms; and the control of the
household seemed to be by such fixed rules as are ordinarily followed in
family life, with now and then a resort to rather mild corporal
punishment when they thought the occasion grave enough. Both parents
were beyond their neighbors in education, intelligence, and strength of
character; and with their breadth of view, I cannot understand how they
did not see that even the mild force they used tended to cause
bitterness and resentment, and thus defeat the object sought. I well
remember that we were all glad if our parents, or either of them, were
absent for a day; not that they were unkind, but that with them we felt
restraint, and never that spirit of love and trust which ought always to
be present between the parent and the child.
While I cannot recall that my mother ever gave me a kiss or a caress,
and while I am sure that I should have been embarrassed if she had,
still I well remember that when I had a fever, and lay on my bed for
what seemed endless weeks, she let no one else come near me by day or
night. And although she must have attended to all her household duties,
she seemed ever beside me with the tenderest and gentlest touch. I can
still less remember any great affection that I had for her, or any
effort on my part to make her life easier than it was; yet I know that I
must have loved her, for I can never forget the bitterness of my despair
and grief when they told me she must die. And even now, as I look back
after all these weary years, when I think of her lying cold and dead in
the still front room I feel almost the same shudder and horror that
filled my heart as a little child. And with this shudder comes the
endless regret that I did not tell her that I loved her, and did not do
more to lighten the burdens of her life.
This family feeling, or lack of it, I think must have come from the
Puritanic school in which my father and mother were born and raised. It
must be that any intelligent parent who really understands life would be
able to make his children feel a companionship greater than any other
they could know.
With my brothers and sisters my life was much the same. We never said
anything about our love for each other, and our nearness seemed to bring
out our antagonism more than our love. Still, I am sure that I really
cared for them, for I recall that once when a brother was very ill I was
wretched with fear and grief. I remember how I went over every
circumstance of our relations with each other, and how I vowed that I
would always be kind and loving to him if his life were saved.
Fortunately, he got well; but I cannot recall that I treated him any
better after this sickness than before.
I remember how happy all of us used to be when cousins or friends came
to stay a few days in our house, and how much more we liked to be with
them than with our own family. I remember, too, that I had the same
feeling when I visited other houses; and I have found it so to this day.
True it is, that in great trouble or in a crisis of life we seem to
cling to our kindred, and stand by them, and expect them to stand by us;
and yet, in the little things, day by day, we look for our comradeship
and affection somewhere else.
So I think that in all of this neither I nor the rest of my people were
different from the other families about us, and that the stories of the
ideal life of brothers and sisters, of parents and children, are largely
myths.