FARMINGTON
Our house stood a short distance beyond the town, and on the other side
of the creek that ran my father’s mill. This little stream came down out
of the hills from somewhere a long way off, and emptied into the river
that wound through the long valley beside the road, flowing from no man
knew where. I must have been nine or ten years old before I was allowed
to go to the mouth of the stream and watch it join the river and run off
between the high hills beyond the town into the great unknown world.
Many years before, I had heard that there was such a place, but I was
not allowed to go; it was so far away, and the dangers were supposed to
be so very great,—though why, I cannot say, any more than I can give a
reason for other things that we boys believed, or, for that matter, that
we grown-up folk believe.
But I used to go quite early across the creek to the little town; at
first holding my father or mother tightly by the hand, or, rather,
having my hand held close by theirs. There were many wonders on the way:
first, the old wooden bridge that used often to be carried off in the
spring, when heavy rains and melting snow and ice came down the stream.
But this bridge was nothing compared with the long covered one below the
town, that I found some years later, when I had grown large enough to
fish and was ashamed to hold my father and my mother by the hand.
Just across the stream was the blacksmith-shop into which I used to look
with wondering eyes. I can see now the white-hot iron as the old
bare-armed smith pulled it from the coals and threw the sparks in all
directions, frightening me almost beyond my wits; still, I would always
go back to the open door to be scared again. Especially in the early
dusk, this old blacksmith-shop, with its great bellows and anvil and
hammers, and its flying sparks and roaring fire lighting up the room and
throwing dark shadows in the corners and around the edges, was a
constant source of wonder and delight; and I used to beg my good father
to throw away my stupid books and apprentice me to learn the blacksmith
trade. But he steadfastly refused my prayers and tears, and told me that
I would live to thank him for denying this first ambition of my life.
Well, I did not learn the trade, and in a halting way I have followed
the path into which the kind old miller guided my young reluctant feet.
Still, I am not yet sure that he was right; for all my life, when I am
honest with myself, I cannot help the thought that I have been a good
deal of a blacksmith, after all.
Just beyond was the wagon-shop, where they made such nice long shavings,
and where we used to go and play “I spy,” or “High spy,” as we boys
called the game. The benches, wagons, and piles of lumber, and the
garret overhead, furnished the best possible places for us to hide.
Then came the shoe-shop, where my father took us to get our winter
boots, which he paid for by trading flour saved up from his tolls. This
shop was a large affair, with three or four men and boys working
steadily in the busy season of the year. Two or three checkerboards,
too, were constantly in use, especially in the long winter evenings, and
every man in the room would tell the player where he ought to move, or
rather where he should have moved in order to win the game.
The old shoe-shop was a great place to discuss the questions of the day;
it was even more popular than the store. Politics and religion were the
favorite topics then, as they are to-day,—as they have ever been since
the world began, and will ever be while the world shall last; for one of
them has to do with the brief transitory life of man upon the earth, and
the other with his everlasting hopes and doubts, desires and fears for
another life when this is done. Besides politics and religion, men and
women were discussed,—all the men and women for miles around who were
not there; these critics debated about the skill of the blacksmith and
the carriage-maker, the thrift of the merchant and the farmer, and the
learning of the preachers and the doctors. This last topic was a
never-ending subject for debate, as there were two of each. I do not
remember what they said about the preachers, but I know that when any
doctor was discussed his disciples stoutly claimed that he was the best
in the whole country round, while his enemies agreed that they would not
let him “doctor a sick cat.” As I recall those little groups, their
opinions on men and women almost always seemed unfavorable and hard,
like most of the personal discussions that I have ever heard. After much
reflection I have reached the conclusion that all people are envious to
a greater or a less degree, and of course each one’s goodness and
importance increase in proportion as those of others are made to grow
less.
The last time I went back along the road, I found that the wagon-shop
and the shoe-shop had long since closed their doors. Cincinnati buggies
and Studebaker wagons had driven away the last board of the old
lumber-piles around which we children used to play; and New England
shoe-factories had utterly destroyed the old forum where were discussed
the mysteries of life and death. Even the customs of the simple country
folks had changed, for I observed that the boys wore shoes instead of
boots; but in those days all the girls wore shoes, and now they were
wearing boots. The blacksmith-shop still stood beside the road, but the
old smith had gone away, and his son was now hammering stoutly at the
same piece of white-hot iron that his father pulled out of the red coals
so long ago; but the little boy who once looked in with wondering eyes
at the open door,—it seemed as if he too were dead and buried forever
behind a great mass of shifting clouds heaped so thick and high as to
make nothing but a dream of those far-off childhood years.
I had almost forgotten to tell the name of my boyhood town. It was
Farmington; and I feel that I ought to write it down in this book, so
that the world may know exactly where it is, for I am sure it was never
in a book before, excepting a county atlas that once printed pictures
and biographies of all the leading citizens of the place. I remember
that the agent came to see my father, and told him what a beautiful
picture the mill would make, and how anxious he was to have his portrait
and history in the book. I really believe my father would have given his
consent but for the reason that the season had been dry and he did not
dare to sign a note. Poor man! I almost wish he had consented, for even
if the book had never been seen by any but the simple country folk who
paid for their glory, as we all must do in some way, still my father
could have read his own biography, and looked at the picture of himself
and his famous mill. And really this is about the only reason that any
of us write books, if the truth were known.
Beyond the shop the road ran into a great common which we called a
square. This really was a wonderful affair,—about the size of Rhode
Island, as it seemed to us. Here we boys often gathered on Saturday
afternoons, and, when I grew older, on the few nights that my father was
away from home, or on some special occasion when I prevailed on him to
let me go there and play.
On one side of the square was the country store,—a mammoth
establishment, kept by a very rich man, who had everything that was ever
heard of on his shelves. I used to marvel how he could possibly think to
buy all the things that he had to sell. Across the road from the store
was the country tavern, and alongside it was a long low barn with a big
shed at the end. A fierce dog was kept chained inside the barn. We
hardly dared to look into the tavern door, for we had all heard that it
was a very wicked place. It was said that down in the cellar, in some
secret corner, was a barrel of whiskey; and the tavern-keeper had once
been sent for three months to the county jail, when some good people had
gone in, one winter night, and told him that they were very cold, and
asked him to sell them some whiskey to keep them warm. At any rate, our
people would never let us go near the door. I used to wonder what kind
of things they had to eat in the tavern. It was the only place I ever
heard of where they charged anything for dinner or supper, and I thought
the meals must be wonderful indeed, and I always hoped that some day I
might have a chance to go there and eat.
On another side of the common was Squire Allen’s place. This was a great
white house, altogether the grandest in the town,—or in the world, for
that matter, so we children believed. It was set back from the road, in
the midst of a grove of trees, and there was a big gate where carriages
could drive into the front yard along the curving roadway and up to the
large front door. Beneath the overhanging porch were four or five great
square white pillars, and the door had a large brass knocker, and there
were big square stone steps that came down to the road. Back of the
house were a barn and a carriage-house, the latter the only building of
the kind in Farmington.
Squire Allen was a tall man with white hair and a clean-shaven face. He
carried a gold-headed cane, and when you met him on the street he never
looked to the right or left. Everyone knew he was the greatest man in
the place,—in fact, the greatest man in all the world. He had a large
carriage, with two seats and big wheels and a top, and two horses; and
he was nearly always riding in the carriage. I do not remember much
about his family; I know that he had a little boy, but I was not
acquainted with him, although I knew all the rest of the little boys in
town. I would often see the Squire and his whole family out driving in
their great carriage. I remember standing on the little bridge and
looking down at the fishes in the brook; and I hear the rumble of wheels
coming down the hill. I glance up, and there comes Squire Allen; his
little boy is sitting on the front seat with him, and on the back seat
are some ladies that I do not know. They drive down the hill, the old
Squire looking neither to the right nor left. I am afraid of being run
over, and I go as near the edge of the bridge as I dare, to escape the
great rolling wheels. The little boy peers out at me as the carriage
passes by, as if he wondered who could dare stand in the road when his
father drove that way; but neither the Squire nor the ladies ever knew
that I was there.
A few months ago, this same little boy called on me at my office in the
city. He, like myself, had wandered far and wide since he passed me on
the bridge. He came to ask me to help him get a job. Somehow, as I saw
him then, and recalled the arrogance and pride that old Squire Allen and
his family always had, I am afraid I almost felt glad that he had been
obliged to come, I am almost sure I felt that at last fortune was making
things right and even. I cannot find in my philosophy any good reason
why the scheme is any more just if he was rich and I was poor when we
were young, and I am rich and he is poor when we are growing old,—but
still I believe I felt this way.
Old Squire Allen has been dead for a quarter of a century and more. Last
summer, when I visited the old Pennsylvania town, I went to the little
burying-ground, and inside the yard I found an iron picket fence, and in
this enclosure a monument taller than any other in the yard, and on this
stone I read Squire Allen’s name. Poor old man! It is many years since
the worms ate up the last morsel of the old man that even a worm could
find fit to eat, but still even after death and decay he lies there
solitary and exclusive, the most commanding and imposing of all the
names that seek immortality in the carved letters of the granite stones.
Well, I am not sure but sometime I shall go back to Farmington and put
up a monument higher than Allen’s, and have “Smith” carved on the base;
and then I suppose it will be easier to go down under it to rest.
But it is only when I am especially envious that I have such thoughts as
these. I was yet a little boy in Farmington when they placed the old
Squire inside the burying-ground. What a day was that! The store was
closed; the tavern door was shut; the old water-wheel stood still; all
Farmington turned out in sad procession to follow the great man to his
grave. The hawks and crows flying high above the town must have looked
down and thought we mourned a king. At least no such royal funeral was
ever seen in all those parts before or since. The burial of old Squire
Allen was as like to that of Julius Cæsar as Farmington was like to
Rome. So, after all, it would be very mean for me to buy a monument
higher than his, just because I can; so I will leave him the undisputed
monarch of the place, and will get for myself one of the small black
oval-cornered slabs that we boys passed by with such contempt when we
rambled through the yard to pick out the finest stones.