father (my mother had already expressed herself on the subject), on his
return from town and hearing what had taken place. The hired men were
lined up and arraigned for “cruel carelessness.” They had “the
consideration to keep the cattle away,” he said, “but allowed that
little girl to stand in full view.” Of course, each protested he had not
seen me. I was altogether too friendly with the farm hands to hear them
blamed, especially on my account, and came promptly to their side,
assuring my father that they had not seen me, and that it was “no
matter,” I was “all well now.” But, singularly, I lost all desire for
meat, if I had ever had it—and all through life to the present, have
only eaten it when I must for the sake of appearance, or as
circumstances seemed to make it the more proper thing to do. The
bountiful ground has always yielded enough for all my needs and wants.
I had been eleven years old the Christmas before. Great changes had
taken place during the two or three preceding years. My energetic
brothers had outgrown farming, sold their two farms on the hill, and
come down and bought of my father all his water power on the French
River, as well as all obtainable timber land in the vicinity. The
staunch old up-and-down saw still stood in its majesty for the handling
of the forest giants too massive for a lesser power, but it was
surrounded by a cordon of belted “circulars,” whirling with a speed that
quite obscured their motion, screaming, screeching and throwing out the
product of their work in all directions; shingles, laths, thin boards,
bolters and slitters. New dams had been thrown across the shifty,
flighty stream, to be swept away in the torrents of the spring freshets
and floating ice, but replaced at once with an obstinate manliness and
enterprise that scarcely admitted of an interruption in the work.
In a new building along the side of the dam, the great burr-stones of
that date ground out the wholesome grain of all the surrounding country,
and where I had first seen it under the control of the one lone sawyer,
now fifty of the strongest working men that could be procured, and great
four-horse teams covered the once quiet mill-yard. The entire line of
factories above had caught the inspiration, and the French River
villages of North Oxford were models of growth and activity.
One sister had married and settled in her home near by, and a wife had
come into my eldest brother’s home. Mrs. Larned, the widow to whose
assistance my father had gone in her early desolation, had found her
children now so well grown as to make it advisable to remove to one of
the factory villages, where she became a popular boarding house keeper,
and her children operatives in the mill.
Thus, I was again left to myself. The schools were not the best, but all
that could be done for me, in or out of them, was done. I had been
especially well taught to sew and liked it, but knitting was beyond me.
I could not be held to it, and it was given up.
Through the confirmed invalidism of my elder sister, Dorothea, I lost
her beautiful guidance, but the watchful care of my younger sister, now
Mrs. Vassall, was truly pathetic. She never lost sight of my welfare,
and her fine literary taste was a constant inspiration.
While thus in the midst of my various pursuits and vocations, an
accidental turn in my wheel of fortune changed my entire course (for a
time at least) and how much bearing, if any, it may have had on the
future, I have never been able to determine. I have spoken of the
younger of my two brothers, of the firm of S. & D. Barton, as a fine
horseman. He was more than that. In these days he would have been an
athlete. The two men were but two years apart in age, of fine
disposition and excellent physical strength, integrity and courage; of
fine disposition and equable temper; yet neither of them men with whom
an opponent would carelessly or tauntingly covet an encounter. The
younger, David, from his physical activity and daring, was always
selected for any feat of danger to be performed.
These were days when even buildings were “raised by hand.” All the
neighborhood was expected to participate in a “raising.” Upon one
occasion, an uncommonly large barn, with what was then still more
uncommon, a cellar beneath, was to be raised. The rafters must be
affixed to the ridgepole, and David Barton was assigned to this duty.
While in its performance, a timber on which he was standing, having been
weakened by an unobserved knot, suddenly gave way, and he fell directly
to the first floor, striking on his feet on another timber near the
bottom of the cellar. Without falling he leaped to the ground, and after
a few breathless minutes declared himself unhurt, but was not permitted
to return aloft. It was spoken of as a “remarkable adventure,” “a
wonderful escape,” etc., and for a few days all went well, with the
exception of a slight and quite unaccustomed headache, which continued
to increase as the July weather progressed. At length he showed symptoms
of fever; the family physician was called, and here commenced a system
of medical treatment quite unknown to our physicians of the present day,
other than as results of historical research and milestones of
scientific advancement.
He was pronounced in a “settled fever,” which must not be “broken up,”
and could only be held in check by reducing the strength of the patient.
He had “too much blood,” was “too vigorous,” “just the patient for a
fever to ‘go hard with,’” it was said. Accordingly, the blood was taken
from time to time, as long as it seemed safe to do so. The terrible pain
in the head continued and blisters were applied to all possible places,
in the hope of withdrawing the pain. Sleepless, restless, in agony both
physical and mental, his case grew desperate. He had been my ideal from
earliest memory. I was distressed beyond measure at his condition. I had
been his little protégée, his companion, and in his nervous wretchedness
he clung to me. Thus, from the first days and nights of illness, I
remained near his side. The fever ran on and over all the traditional
turning points, seven, fourteen, twenty-one days. I could not be taken
away from him except by compulsion, and he was unhappy until my return.
I learned to take all directions for his medicines from his physician
(who had eminent counsel) and to administer them like a genuine nurse.
My little hands became schooled to the handling of the great, loathsome,
crawling leeches which were at first so many snakes to me, and no
fingers could so painlessly dress the angry blisters; and thus it came
about, that I was the accepted and acknowledged nurse of a man almost
too ill to recover.
Finally, as the summer passed, the fever gave way, and for a wonder the
patient did not. No physician will doubt that I had given him poison
enough to have killed him many times over, if suitably administered with
that view. He will also understand the condition in which the patient
was left. They had certainly succeeded in reducing his strength.
Late in the autumn he stood on his feet for the first time since July.
Still sleepless, nervous, cold, dyspeptic—a mere wreck of his former
self. None were so disturbed over his condition as his kind-hearted, and
for those days, skillful physicians, who had exhausted their knowledge
and poured out their sympathy and care like water, on the patient who,
for his manliness and bravery, they had come to respect, and for his
suffering learned to love with a parent’s tenderness.
It now became a matter of time. Councils of physicians for twenty miles
around sat in judgment on the case. They could only recommend; and more
blisters, setons and various methods of external irritation for the
withdrawal of internal pain followed, from month to month and season to
season. All these were my preferred care.
I realize now how carefully and apprehensively the whole family watched
the little nurse, but I had no idea of it then. I thought my position
the most natural thing in the world; I almost forgot that there was an
outside to the house.
This state of things continued with little change—a trifling gain of
strength in my patient at times—for two years, when, entirely
unexpected, the most tabooed and little known of all medical treatments,
restored him to health. It is to be remembered at that date there was no
homeopathy, no hydropathy, no sanitariums, no Christian Science, nothing
but the regular school of allopathic medicine. Medical practitioners,
baffled by lack of science, surrounded by ignorance on all such subjects
and more or less of superstition, struggled manfully on toward the
blessed light of the scientific knowledge of to-day, which they have so
richly attained.
It was not to be wondered at that the slightest departure from the
beaten track, under these conditions, was held as unpardonable and
punishable quackery; and that the first “ism” that broke through the
defense fought the fight of a forlorn hope. There are young physicians
of good historical knowledge to-day, who have never learned that
“Thompsonianism” was that “ism”; that Dr. Samuel Thompson fought that
fight, and that they are pursuing many excellent methods which are the
result of his thought; that it was he who first advanced the theory (in
this country at least,) that fever was not the foe, but the friend of
the patient; that it was simply unequal animal warmth and vigor—that
people did not have too much blood any more than they had too much bone,
and could as ill afford to lose it; that if the blood were too thick, or
too thin, or of a bad quality, taking away a portion of it would not
rectify or purify the remainder. That a blister was not likely to soothe
a nervous patient to sleep, or to extract a pain, save by creating a
greater. But that a better way to treat disturbances was to open the
pores generally, by a vapor bath—designated “Thompson’s Steam Box,” and
greatly to be feared. He and his few followers were known as “Steam
Doctors”—and the public warned against them.
It happened that one of his disciples, a “Steam Doctor,” residing in a
neighboring town (I will write his name in grateful remembrance—Dr. Asa
McCullum), had watched this remarkable case with interest and pity,
convinced that the right remedies had not reached it.
He ventured at length to approach my father on the subject; then my
brother, who was willing to attempt anything short of suicide. The
result was the removal of the patient to the home asylum of the doctor
for treatment. In three weeks he was so far restored as to return home
and take his place in his business, like one come back from the dead. I
remember the greetings—the tears of gladness on the blessed face of our
family physician when he came to welcome him home: “And so, David,
something good has come out of Nazareth.”
I was again free; my occupation gone. Life seemed very strange and idle
to me. I wondered that my father took me to ride so much, and that my
mother hoped she could make me some new clothes now, for in the two
years I had not grown an inch, had been to school one-half day, and had
gained one pound in weight.
This singular mode of life, at so young an age, could not have been
without its characteristic effects. In some respects it had served to
heighten serious defects. The seclusion had increased the troublesome
bashfulness. I had grown even more timid, shrinking and sensitive in the
presence of others; absurdly careful and methodical for a child; afraid
of giving trouble by letting my wants be known, thereby giving the very
pain I sought to avoid, and instead of feeling that my freedom gave me
time for recreation or play, it seemed to me like time wasted, and I
looked anxiously about for some useful occupation.
As usual, my blessed sister, Mrs. Vassall, came to the rescue. Taking
advantage of an all-absorbing love of poetry (which I always had) she
made a weapon of it by providing me with the poetical works of Walter
Scott, which I had not read, and proposed that we read them together. We
naturally commenced with “The Lady of the Lake.” I was immediately
transported to the Highlands and the Bonny Braes, plucking the heather
and broom and guiding the skiff across Loch Katrine, listening to the
sweet warning song of poor crazed Blanche of Devon, thrilling with,
“Saxon, I am Roderick Dhu,” and trudging along with the old minstrel and
Ellen to Sterling tower and the Court of Fitz-James. “Marmion” followed,
and then all the train of English poetry that a child could take in.
My second individual ownership was “Billy.” His personality (which I
never questioned), was represented by a high stepping brown Morgan
horse, with glossy coat, slim legs, pointed ears, long curly black mane
and tail, and weighing nearly nine hundred pounds.
Although a good driver, his forte was the saddle. His gait (or rather, I
should say, gaits) was first a delightful single-foot; but which he had
the faculty of changing to a rack, or pace or trot, as occasion or haste
seemed to call for; and as a last resort, he could cover them all by
something one does not like to name; but we only used that gait on
extraordinary occasions. My father had purchased and given Billy to me
when about ten years old. The same figures will do for us both.
I had three or four neighboring girl associates who also had their own
or family horses, and our riding parties were the events of the season.
Anticipating the deep, forbidding snows of the winter in New England, we
had the custom of celebrating Thanksgiving day by a final party for the
season. Even this was cold and had often some traces of snow.
On the present occasion there were but three of us, Martha, Eveline and
myself. Martha had a fine sorrel trotter, Eveline a spirited
single-footer. The day was cold and threatening. Our ride was to
Worcester, some ten miles. When about three miles from home, on our
return, a blinding snowstorm set in, literally a gale. This either
frightened or excited Eveline’s horse, which, mastering the situation by
a quick toss of the head, and catch of the bit (a trick he evidently
understood), dropped his single-foot as something adapted to ladies and
little girls, and fell to using all the feet he had, the best he knew.
Awed by her peril, but powerless to aid, we could only follow our
fleeing comrade to be ready to help when she should fall, as we were
sure she must. The gale mercilessly increased; so did our speed. We kept
nearly alongside, every horse upon the “dead run.”
We must have presented a striking miniature picture of the veritable
“Three Furies” on a rampage. A country road and no one passing. Martha
and myself each rushing directly past our own homes unobserved in the
storm, till at length we rounded the curve that brought the flying horse
in sight of his own stable. They had sighted the coming cavalcade. The
gates were thrown wide open, and a man stationed on either side to catch
both horse and rider when they should enter.
Seeing the worn-out girl once safely in her father’s arms, we turned
away, with an entirely new chapter added to our very limited stock of
equestrian knowledge. We were all alive and unharmed, and I alone am
here now to tell the little stories of childhood’s terrifying dangers
and miraculous escapes.
We were midway between the two district schools, a long mile and a half
from either, and it frequently chanced that a season or two of
indifferent schools followed each other in train. The experiment of
sending me away to school was not to be repeated, and accordingly I was
undertaken at home. My mathematical brother, Stephen, took charge of
that department, and Mrs. Vassall the other needful studies, while my
former patient, brother David, the equestrian of early days, now grown
strong and well, kept to his rule of practical teaching. I recall
vividly the half impatient frown on his fine face when he would see me
do an awkward thing, however trivial. He detested false motions; wanted
the thing done rightly the first time. If I started to go somewhere, go,
and not turn back; if to do something, do it. I must throw a ball or a
stone with an under swing like a boy and not a girl, and must make it go
where I sent it, and not fall at my feet and foolishly laugh at it. If I
would drive a nail, strike it fairly on the head every time, and not
split the board. If I would draw a screw, turn it right the first time.
I must tie a square knot that would hold, and not tie my horse with a
slip noose and leave him to choke himself. These were little things,
still a part of the instructions not to be undervalued. In the rather
practical life which has sometimes fallen to me, I have wondered if they
were not among the most useful, and if that handsome frown were not one
of my best lessons.
At length there came a school that could be utilized, and my family
instructors were relieved. The school to the north of us was undertaken
by Mr. Lucian Burleigh, a younger member of the noted Burleigh family,
and brother of William H. Burleigh, the poet. It seemed very strange to
me to be in school again. I had been so long accustomed to govern
myself, in a manner, that I wondered how any one should need others to
govern them. If scholars came there to learn, why should they try, or
want, to do anything else? There is no doubt that I seemed equally
unaccountable and prudish to them.
[Illustration:
MR. JONATHAN DANA,
MY OXFORD TEACHER.
]
The quick perceptions of the teacher at once comprehended the
conditions, and he treated me with the greatest consideration and
kindness; advising such changes and additions as seemed suitable, and
most in accord with the studies I had taken with me; even, as I could
later see, forming some new classes in branches outside of the customary
routine of the public school; as elementary astronomy, ancient history,
and the “Science of Language”; his own literary and scholarly tastes
pointing significantly to the latter. If Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and
Pollok’s “Course of Time” were ever dissected, transposed, analyzed and
“parsed” by any class of vigilant youths, it was then and there.
The winter passed all too soon. A mile and a half through the snow had
been only a pleasure. Our faithful, brotherly teacher left us, never to
return; but the still brotherly friendship between teacher and pupil
remained unbroken until his summons came.
After a busy summer a similarly good fortune awaited me in the next
winter term of school. Mr. Jonathan Dana, one of Oxford’s most scholarly
men and a teacher of note, commenced the winter school to the south of
us. I have no words to describe the value of his instruction, nor the
pains he took with his eager pupil. I had been far too thoroughly
drilled to require time for the customary classes of the public school,
but did require instruction in branches forbidden in their lawful
curriculum.
In spite of the labor of a school of sixty pupils of all ages, with no
assistant, I was permitted to take philosophy, chemistry and elementary
Latin—all to be taught outside of school hours. With no laboratory at
hand, I have often marveled at the amount of experimental instruction he
found it possible to give me. So generally appreciated was the
excellence of the school that the term was continued beyond the
customary three months. My grateful homage for my inestimable teacher
and his interest in his early pupil, became memories of a lifetime, and
the social acquaintance was never interrupted until the late summons
came to him, white haired and venerable, to go up higher.
My family were all gratified by my progress and my deportment as a
student, but I was still diffident, timid, non-committal, afraid of
giving trouble and difficult to understand. My physical growth had not
met their expectations nor their hopes. I grew slowly and was still a
“little girl” in appearance. This went to show how positive the early
check had been, and how slowly the repairs were made, for it was said
that I gained an inch in height between the ages of twenty and
twenty-one.
The firm of my brothers, S. & D. Barton, had added to their ever
increasing business the manufacture of cloth. A factory had been erected
and a partnership entered into with Messrs. Paul and Samuel Parsons, two
elegant gentlemen among the earlier manufacturers of satinet in this
country, and the new factory was known as “The Satinet Mill of North
Oxford.” A very superior article of cloth was made, the operatives
almost entirely American, and very largely from families of the
neighborhood or surrounding country. Occupations for women were few in
those days, and often the school and music teacher, weary of the
monotonous life, sought change in the more remunerative loom of the
factory. I name this as a matter of history, as the North Oxford Mills
were the third, if not the second after Slater, who produced the first
spindle and power looms in America, at the risk of his life.
I had been taken through the new factory by my brother; had seen these
young persons at work; watched the shuttles fly under the deft fingers
of the weavers, and felt that there was something I could do. There was
no school, I was idle. After a little quiet reflection I astonished the
family by announcing my desire to go into the mill. I wanted to weave
cloth. At first they tried laughing at me. I was too sensitive to be
dealt with in that way. Then reasoning. I was “too small”; it was not a
proper thing for me to do. But I was not easily dissuaded. One day in
the midst of a family council, my brother Stephen chanced to call. He
listened attentively, saw that I was anxious and troubled, and was
giving trouble to others as well. At length he spoke. Addressing my
mother, he said: “I do not see anything so very much out of the way in
the request. I wonder if we are not drawing the lines too tightly on our
little sister? A few years ago she wanted to learn to dance; this was
denied as frivolous and improper; now she asks to work. She took up a
work by herself and did it two years, a work that no child would be
expected to do, and did it well. She is certainly a properly behaved
little girl, and I cannot understand why we should trouble ourselves or
her so much concerning the proprieties of her life. For my part, I am
very willing to arrange a pair of looms for her and let her try.” A hush
fell on the group. My anxious mother seemed relieved. The big brother
had spoken. I crept shyly up under his stalwart arm and kissed his
bearded cheek.
The next day a low platform was run along in front of a pair of new,
glossy looms, just by the desk of the overseer of the room. A good
weaver was given charge to instruct me, and when I stepped upon that
platform and looked down upon the evenly drawn warp and the swiftly
flying shuttles, and felt that they were mine, I imagine the sensation
was akin to that of a young queen whose foot first presses the throne. I
was too carefully watched to permit a mistake, and too interested to be
tired. Before the end of the week I was able to discharge my
instructress, or it is more probable she discharged herself in view of
my self-sufficiency. I could scarcely wait in the morning for the bell
to call me, early as it would be, and I walked up that long, outside
flight of black, greasy stairs and entered that whirring, clashing room
with as much pride and satisfaction as I would have entered the finest
and most highly embellished schoolroom. I observed that the help all
looked at me as I went in, and McDonald, the overseer, always raised his
Scotch cap a bit by the tassel, or touched his finger to the rim,
fitting so closely to his high forehead. I thought I ought to make some
acknowledgement of this, and always did so, but could not understand it.
I told my mother about it and asked her what he did it for? She said
that it was probably because I was “so little.” That perhaps if I were
as large as the other girls he might not do it. I thought this a
reasonable solution and was satisfied.