A COUNTRY EXILE—DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN—CHANGE OF HOME—A FIRESIDE
TRAGEDY—“COGITO, ERGO SUM.”
I, the third child born to my parents, was but a few months old when my
little brother was taken by my father to Roxbury and left there with
his grandmother.
This singular and painful episode in our family history illustrates
more clearly than could any mere description, the mode of thought and
action prevalent at that date respecting the training and education of
children.
Our parents lived in an obscure country village, a mere hamlet,
destitute of school and social privileges. The few families who, with
them, made up the population of the hamlet were their inferiors in
breeding and education; their children were a lawless, ill-mannered
set, and the only school near them was what was known as “an old field
school” upon the outskirts of a plantation three miles away. Little
Edwin, a bright, intelligent laddie, was taught to read and write by
his mother before he was five. He loved books; but he was restless
for the lack of playfellows of his own age. His father was bent upon
giving him all the learning that could be crammed into one small
head, and cast about for opportunities of carrying out the design.
The grandmother begged to have one of the children for a long visit;
schooling of an advanced type was to be had within a stone’s-throw
of her door, and the boy, if intrusted to her, would have a mother’s
care. My father urged the measure upon his weaker-willed wife. She
opposed it less and less strenuously until the boy came in from the
street one day with an oath in his mouth he had learned from one of the
Dennisville boys.
“That night, upon my knees, and with a breaking heart, I consented to
let him go North,” the mother told me, falteringly, when I was a woman
grown.
The father hurried him off within the week—I imagine lest she might
change her mind—and remained in Roxbury three weeks with him to
accustom him to his new abode. His letters written during this absence
are cheerful—I am disposed to say, “obstinately optimistic.” I detect,
too, a touch of diplomacy in the remarks dropped here and there, as to
his mortification at finding Edwin so “backward in his education by
comparison with other children of his age,” and the bright prospects
opening for his future in the “excellent school of which everybody
speaks highly.”
The day before his father left him, Edwin accompanied him to Boston,
and books were bought for his sister, with a pretty gift for his
mother. He had grown quite fond of his grandmother, so the father
reported when he arrived at home, and the kind-hearted “Deacon was as
good as another boy.”
Letters came with gratifying regularity—fortnightly—from Roxbury.
The boy was going to school and making amends for his “backwardness”
by diligence and proficiency. I have laid away in our family Bible
quaintly worded “Rewards of Merit”—printed forms upon paper which
crackles under the fingers that unfold it—testifying to perfect
recitations and good behavior. The boy’s name and the testimonials
are filled in by his woman teacher in legible, ladylike script. The
fortnightly epistles told of the child’s health and “nice” behavior. I
fancy that more stress was laid upon the last item by his grandmother
than upon the first. My father expressed himself as satisfied with the
result of the experiment. The mother mourned secretly for the merry
voice and bonny face of her darling. At the end of three months the
longing leaped the bounds of wifely submission, and she won from her
husband the admission that home was not home without his boy. They
would go in company to Roxbury next summer and bring him back with
them. If he were to be sent from home to school, they would commit him
to the Olney or Richmond kinspeople. Roxbury was a cruel distance from
central Virginia.
A month later two letters were brought to my father’s counting-room
with the Richmond mail. One told of Edwin’s dangerous illness, the
second of his death and burial. His malady—brain-fever—was set down
by the grandmother to “the visitation of God.” In view of his rapid
progress in learning, and the strict discipline of the household in
which he studied the lessons to be recited on the morrow, and without a
blunder, we may hold a different opinion, and one that exonerates the
Deity of direct interference in the work.
Be this as it may, the precious five-year-old had died so far from his
mother’s arms that, had she set out immediately upon receipt of the
news of his illness, a month would have elapsed between the departure
of the letter from Roxbury and her arrival there, if she had travelled
day and night. His earthly education was finished.
The stricken father, staring at the brace of fatal letters—couched, you
may be sure, in duly pietistic phrase and interlarded with Scripture
texts—had the terrible task of breaking the news to the mother whose
happy dream and talk were all of “when we go North for our boy.”
He carried the letters home. His wife was not in “the chamber,” where
a colored nurse—another family servant—was in charge of the two little
girls. Hearing her footsteps approaching presently, the strong man’s
heart failed him suddenly. He retreated behind the open door, actually
afraid to face the gentle woman to whom his will was law.
Suspecting a practical joke, my light-hearted mother pulled back the
door, the knob of which he had clutched in his desperate misery, saw
his face and the letters in his hand, and fell in a dead faint at his
feet.
In the summer of 1863 I visited the little grave with my husband. Civil
War raged like a sea of blood between North and South. The parents had
not seen Edwin’s last resting-place in several years. I knew the way
to the secluded corner of the old Dorchester Cemetery where, beside
the kind old step-grandfather who loved the boy while living, lies the
first-born of our Virginia home. The stone is inscribed with his name
and the names of his parents, the dates of his birth and death, and
below these:
“Our trust is in the Lord.”
None of our friends in Roxbury and Dorchester knew so much as the
child’s name. The headstone leaned one way, the footstone another,
and a desolate hollow, telling of total neglect, lay between. Yet
right above the heart of the forgotten boy was a tumbler of white
flowers, still fresh. By whom left we never knew, although we made many
inquiries. Dr. Terhune had the grave remounded and turfed, the stones
cleaned and set upright, and at the second visit that assured us this
was done, we covered the grave with flowers.
In my next “flag-of-truce” letter, I wrote to let his mother know what
we had seen and done, and of the bunch of white flowers left by the
nameless friend.
Our grandmother treasured and sent home to his mother, after a while,
the child’s clothing and every toy and book that had been his, even a
hard cracker bearing the imprint of the tiny teeth he was too weak to
set firmly in the biscuit.
The preservation of the odd relic was the only touch of poetry I ever
discerned in the granite nature of my father’s mother.
With him the sorrow for his boy lasted with his life. Thirty years
afterward I heard Edwin’s name from his lips for the first time.
“No other child has ever been to me what he was!” he said. “And the
pain is as keen now as it was then.”
Then he arose and began pacing the room, as was his habit when strongly
moved, hands behind his back, head depressed, and lips closely folded.
He loved the child so passing well that he could sacrifice his own joy
in his companionship to what he believed to be the child’s better good.
After this bereavement the Dennisville life became insupportably sad. I
think it was more in consequence of this than for pecuniary profit that
my father, the next year, removed his family to Lunenburg.
My mother could never speak of her residence in Amelia County without
a pale shudder. Yet that it was not wasted time, I have evidences from
other sources.
Part of a letter written to her at Olney in the early spring succeeding
the removal to Dennisville shows with what cheerful courage my father
set about church and neighborhood work. Next to his home and the loved
ones gathered there, the church of which he was a loyal son had his
best energies and warmest thought.
“You cannot imagine how solitary I am. I could not have
thought that the absence of my dear wife and child would
create so great a vacuum in my life. I do not wish to hasten
your return from your friends, but you may rest assured
that I shall be heartily glad when you come home. I got
home on Sunday morning, and found Mr. White here in quiet
possession of the house. His wife did not come with him on
account of the bad roads.
“He gave us for a text John xv: 25:—‘They hated me without a
cause.’
“The congregation was nearly, if not quite, as large as when
he preached the first time, and very attentive. Many express
a wish to hear him again. He gave notice that he would on
the third Sunday in March preach, and also mentioned that
an effort would be made to establish a Sabbath-school and
Bible-class. It is really encouraging to see how readily
many of the people fall into the measure, without going from
home, too. Fathers have given their names to me, wishing to
send their children, and several others I have heard of who
appear anxious to embrace the opportunity. Doctor Shore and
Mr. White dined with me yesterday, and quite unexpectedly
I had the pleasure of Doctor Shore, Mr. Bland, and Mr.
Lancaster at dinner with me to-day. So you see that I now
get the society of all the good folks while you are away.
But do not be jealous, for Doctor S. had not heard of your
absence, and apologized for Mrs. Shore and Mrs. Hardy not
calling on you, saying that he considered it as his and
their duty so to do, and they would not be so remiss for the
future. You cannot imagine what a rain we have had for the
last twelve hours, accompanied with thunder and lightning.
All the creeks about us are impassable, so that we live, I
may say, in a corner with but one way to get out without
swimming, and that is to go to Prince Edward. We can get
there when we can go nowhere else. I have got a hen-house
_full_ of eggs, and have been working right hard to-day to
make the hens and an old Muscovy set on them, but they are
obstinate things, and will have their own way, so I have
given it up as a bad job. Don’t forget to ask Mr. Carus for
some of the _big_ pumpkin seed. By-the-by, Mrs. Branch had
found out before I returned who I was, where I lived, what
I did, and, in fact, knew almost as much about me as I did
myself. These wagoners are great telltales! To-morrow I pen
a pig for you. The calves and cows are in good order. I will
try to have some fresh butter for you. _Bose is in excellent
health_, and the rats are as plentiful as ever. You must
kiss our little one for me, and take thousands for yourself.
I again repeat that time hangs heavy on my hands when you
are away, but I would not be so selfish as to debar you the
pleasure of a few days’ society with those who are dear to
us both.”
The “Mr. White” mentioned in this letter became an eminent clergyman
as Rev. William Spotswood White, D.D. The services described here
were held in a private house in Dennisville, for the nearest place of
regular worship was some miles away in Nottoway County. In this church
my father was ordained an elder. He was, also, superintendent of the
Sunday-school established through his personal influence. The pupils
and teachers were collected from the surrounding plantations, and the
new-comer to the sleepy neighborhood made life-long friends with the
“best people” of the region.
Quite unconsciously, he gives us, in this résumé of every-day
happenings, glimpses into a life at once primitive and refined. The
roads are all afloat, but three men draw rein at his door on one day,
and dine with him while his wife is away—“an unexpected pleasure.” He
busies himself with chickens, eggs, and pigs, cows and calves, reports
the health of the house-dog, the promise of Sabbath-school and church,
and runs the only store in that part of the county successfully. And
this was the first experience of country life for the city-bred man and
merchant!
The Lunenburg home was not even a “ville.” A house that had been a
rural inn, and, across the road, a hundred yards down its irregular
length, “the store,” formed, with the usual outbuildings, the small
settlement three days distant from Richmond. My father and mother
boarded for a few months with Captain and Mrs. Bragg, who lived in the
whilom “House of Entertainment” on the roadside.
I was but two years old when there occurred a calamity, the
particulars of which I have heard so often that I seem to recollect
them for myself:
One cold winter day my mother left her little daughters with their toys
at the end of the large bedroom most remote from a roaring wood-fire;
told them not to go nearer to it, and took her work down to Mrs.
Bragg’s chamber. The gentle hostess had a baby but a week old, and her
boarder’s call was one of neighborly kindness. On the stairs she met
Lucy Bragg, a child about my sister’s age—five—a pretty, merry baby,
and our only playfellow. My mother’s discipline was never harsh. It was
ever effectual, for we seldom disobeyed her. She stopped Lucy on the
stairs to warn her not to play near the fire.
We played happily together for an hour or two, before Lucy complained
of being cold and went up to the fireplace; stood there for a moment,
her back to the fire and hands behind her, prattling with the children
at the other end of the room. Suddenly she screamed and darted past us,
her clothing on fire.
My mother heard the shrieks from the distant “chamber” on the ground
floor, and, without arousing the sleeping patient, slipped noiselessly
from the room and ran with all her might toward the stairs. Half-way up
she met a child wrapped in flames, which she was beating with her poor
little hands while she shrieked for help. My mother flashed by her,
escaping harm on the narrow stairway as by a miracle. One glance into
her own room showed her that her girls were safe; she tore a blanket
from the bed and was back so quickly that she overtook the burning
figure on the lowermost stair, and wrapped her in the blanket. Captain
Bragg appeared below at the same instant, wound the cover about the
frantic, struggling creature, and extinguished the fire.
Little Lucy died that night. Her mother and the baby followed her to
the grave in a week.
The tragedy broke up the Bragg household, and we found a temporary home
in the family of Mr. Andrew McQuie (pronounced “McWay”), two miles from
the store. The McQuies were prosperous planters, and the intimacy begun
that winter continued as long as the older members of the clan lived.
We girls learned to call her “Grandma,” and never remitted the title
and the affection that prompted it.
Our apartments were in the “Office,” a detached brick building
in the corner of the house-yard—a common appendage to most
plantation-homesteads. At some period of the family history a father or
son of the house had practised law or medicine, and used the “office”
in that capacity. It never lost the name.
And here, on a windy wintry evening, I awoke to the consciousness of my
Individuality.
I do not know how better to express the earliest memory I have of
being—and thinking. It was a living demonstration of the great truth
shallow thinkers never comprehend—“_Cogito, ergo sum_.”
I had fallen asleep, tired with play, and lulled into drowsiness by the
falling rain outside. I lay among the pillows of the trundle-bed at
the back of the room, and, awakening with a cry of fright at finding
myself, as I thought, alone, was answered by my mother’s voice.
She sat by the fire in a low rocking-chair, and, guided by her
reassuring tone, I tumbled out of bed and ran toward her. In the area
lighted by the burning logs, I saw her, as in another sphere. To this
hour I recall the impression that she was thinking of something besides
myself. Baby as I was, I felt vaguely that she was not “all there,”
even when she took me upon her lap. When she said, kindly and in her
own sweet way, “Did my little girl think her mother had left her alone
in the dark?” she did not withdraw her eyes from the ruddy fire.
Something warned me not to speak again. I leaned my head against her
shoulder, and we studied the fire together. Did the intensity of her
musing stir my dormant soul into life? I cannot say. Only that I date
my conscious personal existence from that mystic hour. The picture is
before me to-night, as I hear my daughter singing her boy to sleep in
the next room, and the lake-wind rattles the vines about my window. The
sough of the heated air over the brands and embers; the slow motion of
the rocker as we swayed to and fro; my mother’s thoughtful silence,
and my small self, awed into speechlessness by the new thing that had
come to me; my pulpy brain interfused with the knowledge that I was a
thinking entity, and unable to grapple with the revelation—all this is
as distinct as things of yesternight.
I have heard but one experience that resembled this supreme moment of
my infancy. My best-beloved tutor related to me when I was twelve years
old that he “recollected when he began to think.” The sensation, he
said, was as if he were talking to himself and could not stop. I had
that day heard the epigrammatic “_Cogito, ergo sum_,” and I told of my
awakening from a mere animal to spiritual and intellectual life.
I do not comprehend the mystery better now than on that
never-to-be-forgotten evening. I but know that the miracle _was_!