CHILDHOOD SURROUNDINGS
The life of the child is not the life of the man, and the town of the
child is not the town of the man.
I can never see Farmington except through my boyhood’s eyes, and no
doubt the town and its people were not at all the same to the men and
the women that they were to me. Every object meant one thing to them and
quite a different thing to our childish minds. As I grew to boyhood, the
mill-pond was only a place where I could fish and skate and swim, and
the great turning wheel served only to divert my wondering eyes and ears
as it kept up its noisy rounds. The old mill furnished us boys a place
to hide and run and play our games. The whole scheme of things was ours,
and was utilized by a boy’s varying needs to help fill up his life.
To the kind old miller the condition of the water in the pond was
doubtless quite another thing, and every revolution of the groaning
wheel must have meant bread to him,—not only bread for the customers
whose grain he ground, but sorely needed bread for the hungry mouths of
those who had no thought or care whence or how it came, but only
unbounded faith that it would always be ready to satisfy their needs.
It is only by imagination, through the hard experience life has brought,
that I know these familiar things had a different meaning to the old
miller and to me. Yet even now I am not sure that they had for him a
deeper or more vital sense. Perhaps the water for my swimming-hole was
as important as the water for his bread. For after all both were needed,
in their several ways, to make more tolerable the ever illusive game of
life.
But I must describe Farmington and its people as they seemed to me,—as
in fact they were to me, according to their utility in the small schemes
of a little child.
The world seems to take for granted that every parent is a hero to his
children, and that they look to the father and mother as to almost
superhuman beings whose power they cannot understand but can rely upon
with implicit faith. Even the street-car signs tell this old tale, and
advertise “pies like mother used to make.” No doubt the infant looks
with perfect confidence into the eyes of the mother who gave it birth,
and in its tender years the child has the utmost trust in the wisdom and
protection of the parent to whom it has always looked to satisfy its
needs. But I cannot remember that in my youth either I, or any of my
companions, had the feeling and regard for our parents that is commonly
assumed. In fact, we believed that, as to wisdom and general ability to
cope with the affairs of life, we were superior to them; and we early
came to see their shortcomings rather than their strength. I cannot say
that I looked upon my mother even as a cook exactly in the light of the
street-car advertisements, but I distinctly recall that often when I
visited the woodsheds of neighboring children and was kindly given a
piece of pie or cake, I went back home and told my mother how much
better this pie tasted than the kind she baked, and asked her why she
did not make pies and cakes the way the neighbors did; but to all these
suggestions I ever got the same reply,—if I did not like her cooking I
could go elsewhere to board. Of course this put a stop to all
discussion. I am quite certain that it is only after long years of
absence, when we look back upon our childhood homes, the bread and pies
are mixed with a tender sentiment that makes us imagine they were better
than in fact they really were. I rather fancy that if our mother’s
cooking were set before us once again, we should need the strong
primitive appetite of our youth to make it taste as our imagination
tells us that it did.
As to my father, I am sure I never thought he was a man of extraordinary
power. In fact, from the time I was a little child I often urged him to
do things in a different way,—especially as to his rules about my
studies and my schooling. I never believed that he ran the mill in the
best way; and I used to think that other men were stronger or richer, or
kinder to their children, than my father was to us. It was only after
years had passed, and I looked back through the hazy mist that hung
about his ambitions and his life, that I could realize how great he
really was. As a child, I had no doubt that any man could create
conditions for himself; the copy-books had told me so, and the teachers
had assured us in the most positive way that our success was with
ourselves. It took years of care and toil to show me that life is
stronger than man, that conditions control individuals. It is with this
knowledge that I look back at the old miller, with his fatal love of
books; that I see him as he surveys every position the world offers to
her favored sons. He knows them all and understands them all, and he
knows the conditions on which they have ever been bestowed; yet he could
bury these ambitions one by one, and cover them so deep as almost to
forget they had once been a portion of his life, and in full sight of
the glories of the promised land could day by day live in the dust and
hum of his ever-turning mill, and take from the farmer’s grist the toll
that filled the mouths of his little brood. To appreciate and understand
the greatness of the simple life, one must know life; and this the child
of whatever age can never understand.
After my father and mother,—whom I did not appreciate, and who, I am
bound to think, but half understood me,—no other men or women came very
near my life. My relations were with the boys and girls,—especially the
boys. The men and women were there only to board and clothe the
children, and furnish them with a place to sleep at night. To be sure,
we knew something of all the men and women in the town, but we saw them
only through childish eyes. There was the blacksmith, who was very
strong, and whom we liked and called “clever” because he sometimes
helped us with our games. There was one old farmer in particular, who
had a large orchard and a fierce dog, and who would let his apples rot
on the ground rather than give us one to eat. We hated him, and called
him stingy and a miser. Perhaps he was not that sort of man at all, and
the dog may not have been so very fierce. No doubt someone had given
them bad names, and the people preferred to believe evil of them instead
of good. Then there was the town drunkard, whom all of us knew. We liked
him when he was sober, although we were told that he was very bad; but
he always laughed and joked with us, and watched our games in a friendly
way, but when we heard that he was drunk we were all afraid of him and
ran away. Then there was another man who kept a little store, and we
knew he was very rich; we had no idea how much he was really worth, but
anyhow we knew that he was rich. And so on, through all the
neighborhood, we knew something of the men, and classified them by some
one trait or supposed fact,—just as the grown-up world always persists
it has a right to do. The women, too, we knew even better than the men,
for it was the mothers who controlled the boys, and in almost every case
it depended on them alone whether or not the boys might go and play.
Still, we children only knew and cared about the grown-up people in a
remote secondary way. Every home was full of boys, and by common
affinity these boys were always together,—at least, as many of them as
could get away from home. As a rule, the goodness and desirability of a
parent were in exact proportion to the ease with which the children
could get away from home. I am afraid that in this child’s-world my good
parents stood very low upon the list,—much lower than I wished them to
stand.
We children had our regular seasons’ round of games and sports. There
was no part of the year in which we could not play, and each season had
its special charm. There might not have been much foundation for the
custom, but somehow certain games always came at certain times. When the
season was over the games were dropped unceremoniously and left for
another year.
Of course the little creek and the great mill-pond and the river were
sources of never-failing delight. I cannot remember when I learned to
swim, but I learned it very young and very well; and it was lucky I did,
for I have been in deep water many times since then. The boys seemed to
prefer water to land,—that is, water like a pond or a stream. We did not
care for the kitchen tub and the wash-basin. It was the constant aim of
our parents and teachers to keep us out of the water for at least a
portion of the time, and they laid down strict rules as to when and how
often we should go swimming. But when boys are away from home they are
apt to forget what teachers and parents say; and we always contrived to
get more swimming than the rules prescribed. This would have been easier
except for the fact that it generally took us so long to dry our hair,
and our teachers and parents could often detect our swimming by simply
feeling of our heads. I shall always remember that a boy was never
supposed to be a complete swimmer until he could swim the “big bend.”
There was a bend in the river, which was very broad and deep, and a
favorite swimming-place for the larger boys. I well remember the first
time I swam across, and I have accomplished few feats that compared with
this. All my life I had supposed that the big bend was very broad and
deep, until I made a special examination of the place on my last visit,
a little time ago, and really it was so changed that I could almost wade
across. Still, at that very time there were little boys in the stream
just getting ready to perform the same feat that I had accomplished long
ago.
The same water that served us in summer-time delighted us equally in the
winter months. We learned to skate as early as we learned to swim. Our
skates were not the fancy kind that are used to-day, but were made of
steel and wood, and were fastened to our boots with straps. Few boys
could skate long without the straps coming loose; but then, a few
difficulties more or less have little terror for a boy. It would be hard
to make a town better fitted for boys than Farmington; even the high
hills were made for coasting in the winter-time. In fact, nothing was
lacking to us except that our parents and teachers were not so kind and
considerate as they should have been.
In the summer-time we often climbed to the top of the hills and looked
down the valley to see the river winding off on its everlasting course.
Then we would fancy that we were mountaineers and explorers, and would
pick our way along the hills with the beautiful valley far beneath. I do
not know why we climbed the hills in the summer-time. It could not have
been for the scenery, which was really very fine; for boys care little
for this sort of thing. The love of Nature comes with maturing years and
is one of the few compensations for growing old. More and more as the
years go by we love the sun and the green earth, the silent mountains
and the ever-moving sea. It seems as if slowly and all unawares our
Mother Nature prepares and ripens us to be taken back into her
all-embracing breast.
But boys like hills and animals and trees, not so much because they are
a part of Nature as for the life and activity they bring. So we climbed
the hills and the trees, and went far down the winding stream for no
purpose except to go, and when we reached the point for which we started
out we turned around and came back home. Still, since I have grown to
man’s estate I do the self-same thing. I make my plans to go to a
foreign port, and with great trouble and expense travel half-way round
the earth, and then, not content with the new places I have found, and
longing for the old ones once again, I turn back and journey home.
Since the days when we children followed the crests of the hills along
the valley, this lovely scene has fallen under the notice of a business
man. He has built a hotel on the top of the highest hill, overlooking
the valley and the little town, and in the summer-time its wide verandas
are filled day after day with women, young and old, who sit and swing in
hammocks, and read Richard Harding Davis and Winston Churchill, and
watch for the mail and wait for the dinner-bell to ring.
With what never-ending schemes our youth was filled, and in what quick
succession each followed on the others’ heels! Our most cherished plans
fell far short of what we hoped and dreamed. Somehow everything in the
world conspired to defeat our ends,—and most of all, our own childish
nature, which jumped from fad to fancy in such quick succession that we
could never do more than just begin. Even when we carried our plans
almost to completion, their result was always very far short of the
thought our minds conceived.
With what infinite pains and unbounded hopes we prepared to go nutting
in the woods! How many bags and sacks we took, and how surely these came
back almost empty with the boys who started out with such high hopes as
the sun rose up! How often did we prepare the night before to go
blackberrying in the choicest spots, but after a long day of bruises and
wasp-bites and scratches, come back with almost empty pails! Still, our
failures in no way dampened the ardor of any new scheme we formed.
We could run and jump and throw stones with the greatest ease; but when
we put any of our efforts to the test, we never ran so fast or jumped so
high or threw a stone so far as we thought and said we could,—and yet
our failures had no effect in teaching us moderation in any other
scheme. I well remember one ambitious lad who started out to make a
cart. He planned and worked faithfully, until the wonderful structure
took on the semblance of a cart. Then his interest began to flag, and
the work went on more slowly than before. For days and weeks we used to
come to his shop and ask, “Will, when are you going to finish your
cart?” We asked this so often that finally it became a standing joke,
and the cart was given up in ignominy and chagrin.
When the snow was soft and damp, we often planned to make a giant
snow-man or an enormous fort. We laid out our work on a grand scale, and
started in with great industry and energy to accomplish it. But long
before it was finished, the rain came down or the sun shone so hot that
our work and schemes melted away before our eyes.
So, too, the grown-up children build and build, and never complete what
they begin. When the last day comes, it finds us all busy with
unfinished schemes,—that is, all who ever try to build. But this is
doubtless better than not to try at all.
The difference between the child and the man lies chiefly in the
unlimited confidence and buoyancy of youth. The past failure is wholly
forgotten in the new idea. As we grow older, more and more do we
remember how our plans fell short; more and more do we realize that no
hope reaches full fruition and no dream is ever quite fulfilled. Age and
life make us doubtful about new schemes, until at last we no longer even
try.
Well, our youth brought its mistakes and its failures, its errors of
judgment and its dreams so hopeless to achieve. But still it carried
with it ambition and life, a boundless hope, and an energy which only
time and years could quench. So, after all, perhaps childhood is the
reality, and in maturity we simply doze and dream.