CHAPTER XXXII.

The Death of Peter Parley 313

ILLUSTRATIONS.

AUNT DELIGHT (_Frontispiece_)

MAKING MAPLE SUGAR 37

DEACON OLMSTEAD 82

FIRST ADVENTURE ON THE SEA 119

THE COLD FRIDAY 124

WHITTLING 167

PETER PARLEY'S OWN STORY.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE--THE OLD HOUSE--RIDGEFIELD--THE

MEETING-HOUSE--PARSON MEAD--KEELER'S TAVERN--THE

CANNON-BALL--LIEUTENANT SMITH.

In the western part of the State of Connecticut is a small town named

Ridgefield. This title is descriptive, and indicates the general

form and position of the place. It is, in fact, a collection of

hills, rolled into one general and commanding elevation. On the west

is a ridge of mountains, forming the boundary between the States

of Connecticut and New York; to the south the land spreads out in

wooded undulations to Long Island Sound; east and north, a succession

of hills, some rising up against the sky and others fading away in

the distance, bound the horizon. In this town, in an antiquated and

rather dilapidated house of shingles and clapboards, I was born on

the 19th of August, 1793.

My father, Samuel Goodrich, was minister of the Congregational

Church of that place, and there was no other religious society and

no other clergyman in the town. He was the son of Elizur Goodrich, a

distinguished minister of the same persuasion at Durham, Connecticut.

Two of his brothers were men of eminence--the late Chauncey Goodrich

of Hartford, and Elizur Goodrich of New Haven. My mother was a

daughter of John Ely, a physician of Saybrook, whose name figures,

not unworthily, in the annals of the revolutionary war.

I was the sixth child of a family of ten children, two of whom died

in infancy, and eight of whom lived to be married and settled in

life. My father's annual salary for the first twenty-five years, and

during his ministry at Ridgefield, averaged four hundred dollars

a-year: the last twenty-five years, during which he was settled at

Berlin, near Hartford, his stipend was about five hundred dollars

a-year. He was wholly without patrimony, and owing to peculiar

circumstances, which will be hereafter explained, my mother had not

even the ordinary outfit when they began their married life. Yet they

so brought up their family of eight children, that they all attained

respectable positions in life, and at my father's death he left an

estate of four thousand dollars. These facts throw light upon the

simple annals of a country clergyman in Connecticut, half-a-century

ago; they also bear testimony to the thrifty energy and wise

frugality of my parents, and especially of my mother, who was the

guardian deity of the household.

Ridgefield belongs to the county of Fairfield, and is now a handsome

town, as well on account of its artificial as its natural advantages;

with some two thousand inhabitants. It is fourteen miles from Long

Island Sound, of which its many swelling hills afford charming views.

The main street is a mile in length, and is now embellished with

several handsome houses. About the middle of it there is, or was,

some forty years ago, a white, wooden Meeting-house, which belonged

to my father's congregation. It stood in a small grassy square,

the favorite pasture of numerous flocks of geese, and the frequent

playground of school-boys, especially on Sunday afternoons. Close by

the front door ran the public road, and the pulpit, facing it, looked

out upon it on fair summer Sundays, as I well remember by a somewhat

amusing incident.

In the contiguous town of Lower Salem dwelt an aged minister, by

the name of Mead. He was all his life marked with eccentricity, and

about those days of which I speak, his mind was rendered yet more

erratic by a touch of paralysis. He was, however, still able to

preach, and on a certain Sunday, having exchanged with my father,

he was in the pulpit and engaged in making his opening prayer. He

had already begun his invocation, when David P----, who was the Jehu

of that generation, dashed by the front door upon a horse, a clever

animal, of which he was but too proud--in a full, round trot. The

echo of the clattering hoofs filled the church, which, being of wood,

was sonorous as a drum, and arrested the attention, as well of the

minister as the congregation, even before the rider had reached it.

The minister was fond of horses, almost to frailty; and, from the

first, his practised ear perceived that the sounds came from a beast

of bottom. When the animal shot by the door, he could not restrain

his admiration; which was accordingly thrust into the very marrow

of his prayer "We pray Thee, O Lord, in a particular and peculiar

manner--_that's a real smart critter_--to forgive us our manifold

trespasses, in a particular and peculiar manner," &c.

I have somewhere heard of a traveller on horseback, who, just at

eventide, being uncertain of his road, inquired of a person he

chanced to meet, the way to Barkhamstead.

"You are in Barkhamstead now," was the reply.

"Yes, but where is the centre of the place?"

"It hasn't got any centre."

"Well, but direct me to the tavern."

"There ain't any tavern."

"Yes, but the meeting-house?"

"Why didn't you ask that afore? There it is, over the hill!"

So, in those days, in Connecticut, as doubtless in other parts of

New England, the meeting-house was the great geographical monument,

the acknowledged meridian of every town and village. Even a place

without a centre, or a tavern, had its house of worship; and this was

its point of reckoning. It was, indeed, something more. It was the

town-hall, where all public meetings were held for civil purposes; it

was the temple of religion, the pillar of society, religious, social,

and moral, to the people around. It will not be considered strange,

then, if I look back to the meeting-house of Ridgefield, as not only

a most revered edifice, but as in some sense the starting-point

of my existence. Here, at least, linger many of my most cherished

remembrances.

A few rods to the south of this there was, and still is, a tavern,

kept in my day by Squire Keeler. This institution ranked second only

to the meeting-house; for the tavern of those days was generally

the centre of news, and the gathering-place for balls, musical

entertainments, public shows, &c.; and this particular tavern had

special claims to notice. It was, in the first place, on the great

thoroughfare of the day, between Boston and New York; and had become

a general and favorite stopping-place for travellers. It was,

moreover, kept by a hearty old gentleman, who united in his single

person the varied functions of publican, postmaster, representative,

justice of the peace, and I know not what else. He, besides, had

a thrifty wife, whose praise was in all the land. She loved her

customers, especially members of Congress, governors, and others in

authority who wore powder and white top-boots, and who migrated to

and fro in the lofty leisure of their own coaches. She was, indeed, a

woman of mark; and her life has its moral. She scoured and scrubbed,

and kept things going, until she was seventy years old; at which

time, during an epidemic, she was threatened with an attack. She,

however, declared that she had not time to be sick, and kept on

working; so that the disease passed her by, though it made sad havoc

all around her, especially with more dainty dames who had leisure to

follow the fashion.

Besides all this, there was an historical interest attached

to Keeler's tavern; for, deeply imbedded in the north-eastern

corner-post, there was a cannon-ball, planted there during the famous

fight with the British in 1777. It was one of the chief historical

monuments of the town, and was visited by all curious travellers who

came that way. Little can the present generation imagine with what

glowing interest, what ecstatic wonder, what big, round eyes, the

rising generation of Ridgefield, half a century ago, listened to the

account of the fight, as given by Lieutenant Smith, himself a witness

of the event and a participator in the conflict, sword in hand.

This personage, whom I shall have occasion again to introduce to my

readers, was, in my time, a justice of the peace, town librarian, and

general oracle in such loose matters as geography, history, and law;

then about as uncertain and unsettled in Ridgefield, as is now the

longitude of Lilliput. He had a long, lean face; long, lank, silvery

hair; and an unctuous, whining voice. With these advantages, he spoke

with the authority of a seer, and especially in all things relating

to the revolutionary war.

The agitating scenes of that event, so really great in itself,

so unspeakably important to the country, had transpired some

five-and-twenty years before. The existing generation of middle age

had all witnessed it; nearly all had shared in its vicissitudes. On

every hand there were corporals, serjeants, lieutenants, captains,

and colonels, no strutting fops in militia buckram, raw blue and

buff, all fuss and feathers, but soldiers, men who had seen service

and won laurels in the tented field. Every old man, every old woman,

had stories to tell, radiant with the vivid realities of personal

observation or experience. Some had seen Washington, and some Old

Put; one was at the capture of Ticonderoga under Ethan Allen; another

was at Bennington, and actually heard old Stark say, "Victory this

day, or my wife Molly is a widow!" Some were at the taking of Stony

Point, and others in the sanguinary struggle of Monmouth. One had

witnessed the execution of André, and another had been present at the

capture of Burgoyne. The time which had elapsed since these events

had served only to magnify and glorify these scenes, as well as the

actors, especially in the imagination of the rising generation. If

perchance we could now dig up and galvanize into life a contemporary

of Julius Cæsar, who was present and saw him cross the Rubicon, and

could tell us how he looked and what he said, we should listen with

somewhat of the greedy wonder with which the boys of Ridgefield

listened to Lieutenant Smith, when of a Saturday afternoon, seated

on the stoop of Keeler's tavern, he discoursed upon the discovery

of America by Columbus, Braddock's defeat, and the old French war;

the latter a real epic, embellished with romantic episodes of Indian

massacres and captivities. When he came to the Revolution, and spoke

of the fight at Ridgefield, and punctuated his discourse with a

present cannon-ball, sunk six inches deep in a corner-post of the

very house in which we sat, you may well believe it was something

more than words--it was, indeed, "action, action, glorious action!"

How little can people now-a-days comprehend or appreciate these

things!

CHAPTER II.

THE NEW HOUSE--HIGH RIDGE--NATHAN KELLOGG'S SPY-GLASS--THE

SHOVEL--THE BLACK PATCH IN THE ROAD--DISTRUST OF BRITISH

INFLUENCE--OLD CHICH-ES-TER--AUNT DELIGHT--RETURN AFTER TWENTY

YEARS.

My memory goes distinctly back to the year 1797, when I was four

years old. At that time a great event happened--great in the narrow

horizon of childhood: we removed from the Old House to the New House!

This latter, situated on a road tending westward and branching from

the main street, my father had just built; and it then appeared

to me quite a stately mansion and very beautiful, inasmuch as it

was painted red behind and white in front: most of the dwellings

thereabouts being of the dun complexion which pine-boards and

chestnut-shingles assume, from exposure to the weather. Long after,

having been absent twenty years, I revisited this my early home, and

found it shrunk into a very small and ordinary two-story dwelling,

wholly divested of its paint, and scarcely thirty feet square.

This building, apart from all other dwellings, was situated on what

is called High Ridge, a long hill, looking down upon the village,

and commanding an extensive view of the surrounding country. From

our upper windows, this was at once beautiful and diversified. On

the south, as I have said, the hills sloped in a sea of undulations

down to Long Island Sound, a distance of some fourteen miles. This

beautiful sheet of water, like a strip of pale sky, with the island

itself, more deeply tinted, beyond, was visible in fair weather, for

a stretch of sixty miles, to the naked eye. The vessels, even the

smaller ones, sloops, schooners, and fishing-craft, could be seen,

creeping like insects over the surface. With a spy-glass--and my

father had one bequeathed to him by Nathan Kellogg, a sailor, who

made rather a rough voyage of life, but anchored at last in the bosom

of the Church, as this bequest intimates--we could see the masts,

sails, and rigging. It was a poor, dim affair, compared with modern

instruments of the kind; but to me, its revelations of an element

which then seemed as beautiful, as remote, and as mystical as the

heavens, surpassed the wonders of the firmament.

To the west, at a distance of three miles, lay the undulating ridge

of hills, cliffs, and precipices already mentioned, and which bear

the name of West Mountain. They are some five hundred feet in height,

and from our point of view had an imposing appearance. Beyond them,

in the far distance, glimmered the peaks of the highlands along the

Hudson. These two prominent features of the spreading landscape--the

sea and the mountain, ever present, yet ever remote--impressed

themselves on my young imagination with all the enchantment which

distance lends to the view. I have never lost my first love. Never,

even now, do I catch a glimpse of either of these two rivals of

nature, such as I first learned them by heart, but I feel a gush of

emotion as if I had suddenly met with the cherished companions of my

childhood. In after days, even the purple velvet of the Apennines

and the poetic azure of the Mediterranean, have derived additional

beauty to my imagination from mingling with these vivid associations

of my childhood.

It was to the New House, then, thus situated, that we removed, as

I have stated, when I was four years old. On that great occasion,

everything available for draught or burden was put in requisition;

and I was permitted, or required, I forget which, to carry the

_peel_, as it was then called, but which would now bear the title of

"shovel." Birmingham had not then been heard of in those parts, or at

least was a great way off; so this particular utensil had been forged

expressly for my father by David Olmstead, the blacksmith, as was the

custom in those days. I recollect it well, and can state that it was

a sturdy piece of iron, the handle being four feet long, with a knob

at the end. As I carried it along, I doubtless felt a touch of that

consciousness of power which must have filled the breast of Samson

as he bore off the gates of Gaza. I recollect perfectly well to have

perspired under the operation, for the distance of our migration was

half-a-mile, and the season was summer.

One thing more I remember: I was barefoot; and as we went up the

lane which diverged from the main road to the house, we passed over

a patch of earth blackened by cinders, where my feet were hurt by

pieces of melted glass and metal. I inquired what this meant, and was

told that here a house was burned down by the British troops already

mentioned, and then in full retreat, as a signal to the ships that

awaited them in the Sound, where they had landed, and where they

intended to embark.

This detail may seem trifling; but it is not without significance.

It was the custom in those days for boys to go barefoot in the mild

season. I recollect few things in life more delightful than, in the

spring, to cast away my shoes and stockings, and have a glorious

scamper over the fields. Many a time, contrary to the express

injunctions of my mother, have I stolen this bliss; and many a time

have I been punished by a severe cold for my disobedience. Yet the

bliss then seemed a compensation for the retribution. In these

exercises I felt as if stepping on air; as if leaping aloft on wings.

I was so impressed with the exultant emotions thus experienced, that

I repeated them a thousand times in happy dreams; especially in my

younger days. Even now these visions sometimes come to me in sleep,

though with a lurking consciousness that they are but a mockery of

the past; sad monitors of the change which time has wrought upon me.

As to the black patch in the lane, that, too, had its meaning.

The story of a house burned down by a foreign army seized upon my

imagination. Every time I passed the place I ruminated upon it,

and put a hundred questions as to how and when it happened. I was

soon master of the whole story, and of other similar events which

had occurred all over the country. I was thus initiated into the

spirit of that day, and which has never wholly subsided in our

country; inasmuch as the war of the Revolution was alike unjust in

its origin, and cruel as to the manner in which it was waged. It

was, moreover, fought on our own soil; thus making the whole people

share, personally, in its miseries. There was scarcely a family in

Connecticut whom it did not visit, either immediately or remotely,

with the shadows of mourning and desolation. The British nation,

to whom this conflict was a foreign war, are slow to comprehend

the popular dislike of England, here in America. Could they know

the familiar annals of our towns and villages--burn, plundered,

sacked--with all the attendant horrors, for the avowed purpose of

punishing a nation of rebels, and those rebels of their own kith and

kin: could they be made acquainted with the deeds of those twenty

thousand Hessians, sent hither by King George, and who have left

their name in our language as a word signifying brigands, who sell

their blood and commit murder for hire: could they thus read the

history of minds and hearts, influenced at the fountains of life for

several generations, they would perhaps comprehend, if they could not

approve, the habitual distrust of British influence, which lingers

among our people.

About three-fourths of a mile from my father's house, on the winding

road to Lower Salem, which I have already mentioned, and which bore

the name of West Lane, was the school-house where I took my first

lessons, and received the foundations of my very slender education.

I have since been sometimes asked where I graduated: my reply has

always been, "At West Lane." Generally speaking, this has ended

the inquiry; whether, because my questioners have confounded this

venerable institution with "Lane Seminary," or have not thought it

worth while to risk an exposure of their ignorance as to the college

in which I was educated, I am unable to say.

The site of the school-house was a triangular piece of land,

measuring perhaps a rood in extent, and lying, according to the

custom of those days, at the meeting of four roads. The ground

hereabouts--as everywhere else in Ridgefield--was exceedingly stony;

and, in making the pathway, the stones had been thrown out right and

left, and there remained in heaps on either side, from generation

to generation. All around was bleak and desolate. Loose, squat stone

walls, with innumerable breaches, inclosed the adjacent fields. A few

tufts of elder, with here and there a patch of briers and pokeweed,

flourished in the gravelly soil. Not a tree, however, remained; save

an aged chestnut, at the western angel of the space. This, certainly,

had not been spared for shade or ornament, but probably because it

would have cost too much labor to cut it down; for it was of ample

girth. At all events, it was the oasis in our desert during summer;

and in autumn, as the burrs disclosed its fruit, it resembled a

besieged city; the boys, like so many catapults, hurled at it stones

and sticks, until every nut had capitulated.

Two houses only were at hand: one, surrounded by an ample barn, a

teeming orchard, and an enormous wood-pile, belonging to Granther

Baldwin; the other was the property of "Old Chich-es-ter;" an

uncouth, unsocial being, whom everybody, for some reason or other,

seemed to despise and shun. His house was of stone, and of one story.

He had a cow, which every year had a calf. He had a wife--dirty and

uncombed, and vaguely reported to have been brought from the old

country. This is about the whole history of the man, so far as it

is written in the authentic traditions of the parish. His premises,

an acre in extent, consisted of a tongue of land between two of the

converging roads. No boy, that I ever heard of, ventured to cast a

stone, or to make an incursion into this territory, though it lay

close to the school-house. I have often, in passing, peeped timidly

over the walls, and caught glimpses of a stout man with a drab coat,

drab breeches, and drab gaiters, prowling about the house; but never

did I discover him outside of his own dominion. I know it was darkly

intimated he had been tarred and feathered in the revolutionary war;

but as to the rest, he was a perfect myth.

The school-house itself consisted of rough, unpainted clapboards,

upon a wooden frame. It was plastered within, and contained two

apartments, a little entry, taken out of a corner for a wardrobe, and

the school-room proper. The chimney was of stone, and pointed with

mortar, which, by the way, had been dug into a honeycomb by uneasy

and enterprising penknives. The fireplace was six feet wide and four

feet deep. The flue was so ample and so perpendicular, that the rain,

sleet, and snow fell directly to the hearth. In winter, the battle

for life with green fizzling fuel, which was brought in lengths and

cut up by the scholars, was a stern one. Not unfrequently the wood,

gushing with sap as it was, chanced to go out, and as there was no

living without fire, the thermometer being ten or twenty degrees

below zero, the school was dismissed, whereat all the scholars

rejoiced aloud, not having the fear of the schoolmaster before their

eyes.

It was the custom at this place to have a woman's school in the

summer months, and this was attended only by young children. It was,

in fact, what we now call a primary or infant school. In winter,

a man was employed as teacher, and then the girls and boys of the

neighborhood, up to the age of eighteen, or even twenty, were among

the pupils. It was not uncommon, at this season, to have forty

scholars crowded into this little building.

I was about six years old when I first went to school. My teacher was

Aunt Delight, that is Delight Benedict, a maiden lady of fifty, short

and bent, of sallow complexion and solemn aspect. I remember the

first day with perfect distinctness. I went alone--for I was familiar

with the road, it being that which passed by our old house. I carried

a little basket, with bread and butter within, for my dinner, and

this was covered over with a white cloth. When I had proceeded about

half way, I lifted the cover, and debated whether I would not eat my

dinner then. I believe it was a sense of duty only that prevented

my doing so, for in those happy days I always had a keen appetite.

Bread and butter were then infinitely superior to _pâté de foie gras_

now; but still, thanks to my training, I had also a conscience. As my

mother had given me the food for dinner, I did not think it right to

convert it into lunch, even though I was strongly tempted.

I think we had seventeen scholars--boys and girls--mostly of my own

age. Among them were some of my after-companions. I have since met

several of them--one at Savannah and two at Mobile--respectably

established, and with families around them. Some remain, and are

now among the grey old men of the town: the names of others I have

seen inscribed on the tombstones of their native village. And the

rest--where are they?

The school being assembled, we were all seated upon benches, made

of what were called _slabs_--that is, boards having the exterior or

rounded part of the log on one side: as they were useless for other

purposes, these were converted into school-benches, the rounded part

down. They had each four supports, consisting of straddling wooden

legs set into augur-holes. Our own legs swayed in the air, for they

were too short to touch the floor. Oh, what an awe fell over me,

when we were all seated and silence reigned around!

The children were called up one by one to Aunt Delight, who sat

on a low chair, and required each, as a preliminary, "to make his

manners," which consisted of a small, sudden nod. She then placed

the spelling-book--which was Dilworth's--before the pupil, and with

a buck-handled penknife pointed, one by one, to the letters of the

alphabet, saying, "What's that?" If the child knew his letters, the

"what's that?" very soon ran on thus:--

"What's that?"

"A."

"'Stha-a-t?"

"B."

"Sna-a-a-t?"

"C."

"Sna-a-a-t?"

"D." &c.

I looked upon these operations with intense curiosity and no small

respect, until my own turn came. I went up to the schoolmistress with

some emotion, and when she said, rather spitefully, as I thought,

"Make your obeisance!" my little intellects all fled away, and I did

nothing. Having waited a second, gazing at me with indignation, she

laid her hand on the top of my head, and gave it a jerk which made my

teeth clash. I believe I bit my tongue a little; at all events, my

sense of dignity was offended, and when she pointed to A, and asked

what it was, it swam before me dim and hazy, and as big as a full

moon. She repeated the question, but I was doggedly silent. Again, a

third time, she said, "What's that?" I replied: "Why don't you tell

me what it is? I didn't come here to learn you your letters." I

have not the slightest remembrance of this, for my brains were all a

wool-gathering; but as Aunt Delight affirmed it to be a fact, and it

passed into a tradition in my family, I put it in.

What immediately followed I do not clearly remember, but one result

is distinctly traced in my memory. In the evening of this eventful

day the schoolmistress paid my parents a visit, and recounted to

their astonished ears this my awful contempt of authority. My father,

after hearing the story, got up and went away; but my mother, who

was a careful disciplinarian, told me not to do so again! I always

had a suspicion that both of them smiled on one side of their faces,

even while they seemed to sympathize with the old lady on the other;

still, I do not affirm it, for I am bound to say of both my parents,

that I never knew them, even in trifles, say one thing while they

meant another.

I believe I achieved the alphabet that summer, but my after progress,

for a long time, I do not remember. Two years later I went to the

winter school at the same place, kept by Lewis Olmstead--a man who

made a business of ploughing, mowing, carting manure, &c., in the

summer, and of teaching school in the winter; with a talent for music

at all seasons, wherefore he became chorister upon occasion, when,

peradventure, Deacon Hawley could not officiate. He was a celebrity

in ciphering, and Squire Seymour declared that he was the greatest

"arithmeticker" in Fairfield county. All I remember of his person

is his hand, which seemed to me as big as Goliath's, judging by the

claps of thunder it made in my ears on one or two occasions.

The next step of my progress which is marked in my memory, is the

spelling of words of two syllables. I did not go very regularly

to school, but by the time I was ten years old I had learned to

write, and had made a little progress in arithmetic. There was not

a grammar, a geography, or a history of any kind in the school.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic were the only things taught, and

these very indifferently--not wholly from the stupidity of the

teacher, but because he had forty scholars, and the custom of the

age required no more than he performed. I did as well as the other

scholars, certainly no better. I had excellent health and joyous

spirits; in leaping, running, and wrestling I had but one superior of

my age, and that was Stephen Olmstead, a snug-built fellow, smaller

than myself, and who, despite our rivalry, was my chosen friend and

companion. I seemed to live for play: alas! how the world has changed

since then!

After I had left my native town for some twenty years, I returned and

paid it a visit. Among the monuments that stood high in my memory

was the West Lane school-house. Unconsciously carrying with me the

measures of childhood, I had supposed it to be thirty feet square;

how had it dwindled when I came to estimate it by the new standards

I had formed! It was in all things the same, yet wholly changed

to me. What I had deemed a respectable edifice, as it now stood

before me was only a weather-beaten little shed, which, upon being

measured, I found to be less than twenty feet square. It happened

to be a warm summer day, and I ventured to enter the place. I found

a girl, some eighteen years old, keeping a ma'am school for about

twenty scholars, some of whom were studying Parley's Geography. The

mistress was the daughter of one of my schoolmates, and some of the

boys and girls were grandchildren of the little brood which gathered

under the wing of Aunt Delight, when I was an abecedarian. None of

them, not even the schoolmistress, had ever heard of me. The name of

my father, as having ministered to the people of Ridgefield in some

bygone age, was faintly traced in their recollection. As to Peter

Parley, whose geography they were learning, they supposed him to be

a decrepit old gentleman hobbling about on a crutch, a long way off,

for whom, nevertheless, they had a certain affection, inasmuch as

he had made geography into a story-book. The frontispiece picture

of the old fellow, with his gouty foot in a chair, threatening the

boys that if they touched his tender toe he would tell them no more

stories, secured their respect, and placed him among the saints in

the calendar of their young hearts. "Well," thought I, "if this goes

on, I may yet rival Mother Goose!"

I hope the reader will not imagine that I am thinking too little of

his amusement and too much of my own, if I stop a few moments to note

the lively recollections I entertain of the joyousness of my early

life, and not of mine only, but that of my playmates and companions.

In looking back to those early days, the whole circle of the seasons

seems to me almost like one unbroken morning of pleasure.

I was of course subjected to the usual crosses incident to my age,

those painful and mysterious visitations sent upon children--the

measles, mumps, whooping-cough, and the like; usually regarded as

retributions for the false step of our mother Eve in the Garden; but

they have almost passed from my memory, as if overflowed and borne

away by the general drift of happiness which filled my bosom. Among

these calamities, one monument alone remains--the small-pox. It was

in the year 1798, as I well remember, that my father's house was

converted into a hospital, or, as it was then called, a "pest-house,"

where, with some dozen other children, I was inoculated for this

disease, then the scourge and terror of the world.

The lane in which our house was situated was fenced up, north and

south, so as to cut off all intercourse with the world around. A flag

was raised, and upon it were inscribed the ominous words, "[Hand

symbol pointing right] SMALL-POX." My uncle and aunt, from New

Haven, arrived with their three children. Half-a-dozen others of the

neighborhood were gathered together, making, with our own children,

somewhat over a dozen subjects for the experiment. When all was

ready, like Noah and his family, we were shut in. Provisions were

deposited in a basket at a point agreed upon, down the lane. Thus

we were cut off from the world, excepting only that Dr. Perry, the

physician, ventured to visit us.

As to myself, the disease passed lightly over, leaving, however, its

indisputable autographs on various parts of my body. Were it not for

these testimonials, I should almost suspect that I had escaped the

disease, for I only remember, among my symptoms and my sufferings,

a little headache, and the privation of salt and butter upon my

hasty-pudding. My restoration to these privileges I distinctly

recollect: doubtless these gave me more pleasure than the clean

bill of health which they implied. Several of the patients suffered

severely, and among them my brother and one of my cousins.

But although there is evidence that I was subject to the usual

drawbacks upon the happiness of childhood, these were so few that

they have passed from my mind; and those early years, as I look

back to them, seem to have flowed on in one bright current of

uninterrupted enjoyment.

CHAPTER III.

RIDGEFIELD SOCIETY--TRADES AND PROFESSIONS--CHIMNEY-CORNER

COURTSHIPS--DOMESTIC ECONOMY--DRAM-DRINKING--FAMILY

PRODUCTS--MOLLY GREGORY AND CHURCH MUSIC--TRAVELLING

ARTISANS--FESTIVAL OF THE QUILTS--CLERICAL PATRONAGE--RAISING

A CHURCH--THE RETIRED TAILOR AND HIS FARM.

Let me now give you a sketch of Ridgefield and of the people, how

they lived, thought, and felt, at the beginning of the present

century. It will give you a good idea of the rustic life of New

England fifty years ago.

From what I have already said, you will easily imagine the prominent

physical characteristics and aspect of my native town: a general mass

of hills, rising up in a crescent of low mountains, and commanding

a wide view on every side. The soil was naturally hard, and thickly

sown with stones of every size. The fields were divided by rude stone

walls, and the surface of most of them was dotted with gathered

heaps of stones and rocks, thus clearing spaces for cultivation, yet

leaving a large portion of the land still encumbered. The climate was

severe, on account of the elevation of the site, yet this was perhaps

fully compensated by its salubrity.

Yet, despite the somewhat forbidding nature of the soil and climate

of Ridgefield, it may be regarded as presenting a favorable example

of New England country life and society at the time I speak of.

The town was originally settled by a sturdy race of men, mostly

the immediate descendants of English emigrants, some from Milford.

Their migration over an intervening space of savage hills, rocks and

ravines, into a territory so uninviting, and their speedy conversion

of this into a thriving and smiling village, bear witness to their

courage and energy.

At the time referred to, the date of my earliest recollection, the

society of Ridgefield was exclusively English. I remember but one

Irishman, one negro, and one Indian in the town. The first had begged

and blarneyed his way from Long Island, where he had been wrecked;

the second was a liberated slave; and the last was the vestige of

a tribe which dwelt of yore in a swampy tract, the name of which I

have forgotten. We had a professional beggar, called Jagger, who had

served in the armies of more than one of the Georges, and insisted

upon crying, "God save the king!" even on the 4th of July, and when

openly threatened by the boys with a gratuitous ride on a rail. We

had one settled pauper, Mrs. Yabacomb, who, for the first dozen years

of my life, was my standard type for the witch of Endor.

Nearly all the inhabitants of Ridgefield were farmers, with the few

mechanics that were necessary to carry on society in a somewhat

primeval state. Even the persons not professionally devoted to

agriculture had each his farm, or at least his garden and home lot,

with his pigs, poultry, and cattle. The population might have been

1200, comprising two hundred families. All could read and write, but

in point of fact, beyond the Almanac and Watts' Psalms and Hymns,

their literary acquirements had little scope. There were, I think,

four newspapers, all weekly, published in the State: one at Hartford,

one at New London, one at New Haven, and one at Litchfield. There

were, however, not more than three subscribers to all these in

our village. We had, however, a public library of some two hundred

volumes, and, what was of equal consequence, the town was on the

road which was then the great thoroughfare, connecting Boston with

New York; and hence we had means of intelligence from travellers

constantly passing through the place, which kept us acquainted with

the march of events.

If Ridgefield was thus rather above the average of Connecticut

villages in civilization, I suppose the circumstances and modes of

life in my father's family were somewhat above those of most people

around us. We had a farm of forty acres, with four cows, two horses,

and some dozen sheep, to which may be added a stock of poultry,

including a flock of geese. My father carried on the farm, besides

preaching two sermons a-week, and visiting the sick, attending

funerals, solemnizing marriages, &c. He laid out the beds and planted

the garden; pruned the fruit-trees, and worked with the men in the

meadow in hay-time. He generally cut the corn-stalks himself, and

always shelled the ears; the latter being done by drawing them

across the handle of the frying-pan, fastened over a wash-tub. I

was sometimes permitted, as an indulgence, to share this favorite

employment with my father. With these and a few other exceptions, our

agricultural operations were carried on by hired help.

It was the custom in New England, at the time I speak of, for

country lawyers, physicians, clergymen, even doctors of divinity, to

partake of these homespun labors. In the library of the Athenæum,

at Hartford, is a collection of almanacs, formerly belonging to

John Cotton Smith--one of the most elegant and accomplished men of

his time--a distinguished Member of Congress, Judge of the Superior

Court, and several years Governor of the State; in looking it over,

I observed such notes as the following, made with his own hand: "Cut

my barley," "began rye harvest," "planted field of potatoes," &c.:

thus showing his personal attention to, if not his participation in,

the affairs of the farm. Nearly all the judges of the Superior Court

occasionally worked in the field, in these hearty old federal times.

But I returned to Ridgefield. The household, as well as political,

economy of those days lay in this,--that every family lived as

much as possible within itself. Money was scarce, wages being

about fifty cents a-day, though these were generally paid in meat,

vegetables, and other articles of use--seldom in money. There was

not a factory of any kind in the place.[1] There was a butcher, but

he only went from house to house to slaughter the cattle and swine

of his neighbors. There was a tanner, but he only dressed other

people's skins. There was a clothier, but he generally fulled and

dressed other people's cloth. All this is typical of the mechanical

operations of the place. Even dyeing blue a portion of the wool, so

as to make linsey-woolsey for short gowns, aprons, and blue-mixed

stockings--vital necessities in those days--was a domestic operation.

During the autumn, a dye-tub in the chimney corner--thus placed so as

to be cherished by the genial heat--was as familiar in all thrifty

houses as the Bible or the back-log. It was covered with a board,

and formed a cosy seat in the wide-mouthed fireplace, especially

of a chill evening. When the night had waned, and the family had

retired, it frequently became the anxious seat of the lover, who was

permitted to carry on his courtship, the object of his addresses

sitting demurely in the opposite corner. Some of the first families

in Connecticut, I suspect, could their full annals be written, would

find their foundations to have been laid in these chimney-corner

courtships.

Being thus exposed, the dye-tub was the frequent subject of

distressing and exciting accidents. Among the early, indelible

incidents in my memory, one of the most prominent is turning this

over. Nothing so roused the indignation of thrifty housewives,

for, besides the stain left upon the floor by the blue, a most

disagreeable odor was diffused by it.

To this general system of domestic economy our family was not an

exception. Every autumn, it was a matter of course that we had a fat

ox or a fat cow ready for slaughter. One full barrel was salted down;

the hams were cut out, slightly salted, and hung up in the chimney

for a few days, and thus became "dried" or "hung beef," then as

essential as bread. Pork was managed in a similar way, though even on

a larger scale, for two barrels were indispensable. A few pieces, as

the spare-ribs, &c., were distributed to the neighbors, who paid in

kind when they killed their swine.

Mutton and poultry came in their turn, all from our own stock, except

when on Thanksgiving-day some of the magnates gave the parson a

turkey. This, let me observe, in those good old times, was a bird

of mark; no timid, crouching biped, with downcast head and pallid

countenance, but stalking like a lord, and having wattles red as a

"banner bathed in slaughter." His beard was long, shining, and wiry.

There was, in fact, something of the native bird still in him, for

though the race was nearly extinct, a few wild flocks lingered in the

remote woods. Occasionally, in the depth of winter, and towards the

early spring, these stole to the barnyard, and held communion with

their civilized cousins. Severe battles ensued among the leaders for

the favors of the fair, and as the wild cocks always conquered, the

vigor of the race was kept up.

Our bread was made of rye, mixed with Indian meal. Wheat bread

was reserved for the sacrament and company; a proof not of its

superiority, but of its scarcity and consequent estimation. All the

vegetables came from our garden and farm. The fuel was supplied by

our own woods--sweet-scented hickory, snapping chestnut, odoriferous

oak, and reeking, fizzling ash--the hot juice of the latter, by the

way, being a sovereign antidote for the earache. These were laid in

huge piles, all alive with sap, on the tall, gaunt andirons. The

building of a fire, a real architectural achievement, was always

begun by daybreak. There was first a back-log, from fifteen to

four-and-twenty inches in diameter, and five feet long, imbedded in

the ashes; then came a top log, then a fore stick, then a middle

stick, and then a heap of kindlings, reaching from the bowels down to

the bottom. Above all was a pyramid of smaller fragments, artfully

adjusted, with spaces for the blaze. Friction matches had not then

been invented. So, if there were no coals left from the last night's

fire, and none to be borrowed from the neighbors, resort was had to

flint, steel, and tinder-box. Often, when the flint was dull, and

the steel soft, and the tinder damp, the striking of fire was a task

requiring both energy and patience. If the pile on the andirons was

skilfully constructed, the spark being applied, there was soon a

furious stinging smoke; but the forked flame soon began to lick the

sweating sticks above, and by the time the family had arisen, and

assembled in the "keeping-room," there was a roaring blaze, defying

the bitter blasts of winter, which found abundant admittance through

the crannies of the doors and windows. To feed the family fire in

those days, during the severe season, was fully one man's work.

But to go on with our household history. Sugar was partially supplied

by our maple-trees. These were tapped in March, the sap being

collected, and boiled down in the woods. This was wholly a domestic

operation, and one in which all the children rejoiced, each taking

his privilege of tasting, at every stage of the manufacture. The

chief supply of sugar, however, was from the West Indies.

[Illustration: MAKING MAPLE-SUGAR.]

Rum was largely consumed, but our distilleries had scarcely begun.

A half-pint of it was given as a matter of course to every day

laborer, more particularly in the summer season. In all families,

rich or poor, it was offered to male visitors as an essential point

of hospitality, or even good manners. Women--I beg pardon--ladies,

took their schnapps, then named "Hopkins' Elixir," which was the

most delicious and seductive means of getting tipsy that has been

invented. Crying babies were silenced with hot toddy. Every man

imbibed his morning dram, and this was esteemed temperance. There

is a story of a preacher, about those days, who thus lectured his

parish: "I say nothing, my beloved brethren, against taking a

little bitters before breakfast, and after breakfast; especially if

you are used to it. What I contend against is, this dramming,

dramming, dramming, at all hours of the day. There are some men

who take a glass at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and at four in

the afternoon. I do not purpose to contend against old-established

customs, my brethren, rendered respectable by time and authority; but

this dramming, dramming, is a crying sin in the land."

As to brandy, I scarcely heard of it, so far as I can recollect,

till I was sixteen years old, and, as an apprentice in a country

store, was called upon to sell it. Cider was the universal table

beverage. Brandy and whisky soon after came into use. I remember, in

my boyhood, to have seen a strange zigzag tin tube, denominated a

"still," belonging to one of our neighbors, converting, drop by drop,

certain innocent liquids into "fire-water." But, in the days I speak

of, French brandy was confined to the houses of the rich, and to the

drug-shop.

Wine, in our country towns, was then almost exclusively used for the

sacrament.

There was, of course, no baker in Ridgefield; each family not only

made its own bread, cakes, and pies, but its own soap, candles,

butter, cheese, and the like. The manufacture of linen and woollen

cloth was no less a domestic operation. Cotton--that is, raw

cotton--was then wholly unknown among us at the North, except as a

mere curiosity, produced somewhere in the tropics; but whether it

grew on a plant, or an animal, was not clearly settled in the public

mind.

We raised our own flax, rotted it, hackled it, dressed it, and spun

it. The little wheel, turned by the foot, had its place, and was as

familiar as if it had been a member of the family. How often have

I seen my mother, and my grandmother, too, sit down to it--though

this, as I remember, was for the purpose of spinning some finer kind

of thread--the burden of the spinning being done by a neighbor of

ours, Sally St. John. By the way, she was a good-hearted, cheerful

old maid, who petted me beyond my deserts. I grieve to say, that I

repaid her partiality by many mischievous pranks; for which I should

have been roundly punished, had not the good creature forgiven and

concealed my offences. I did, indeed, get fillipped for catching her

foot one day in a steel-trap; but I declare that I was innocent of

malice prepense, inasmuch as I had set the trap for a rat, instead

of the said Sally. Nevertheless, the verdict was against me; not

wholly on account of my misdemeanor in this particular instance, but

because, if I did not deserve punishment for that, I had deserved

it, and should deserve it for something else; and so it was safe to

administer it.

The wool was also spun in the family; partly by my sisters, and

partly by Molly Gregory, daughter of our neighbor, the town

carpenter. I remember her well as she sang and spun aloft in the

attic. In those days, church-singing was the only one of the fine

arts which flourished in Ridgefield, except the music of the drum and

fife. The choir was divided into four parts, ranged on three sides of

the meeting-house gallery. The tenor, led by Deacon Hawley, was in

front of the pulpit, the bass to the left, and the treble and counter

to the right; the whole being set in motion by a pitch-pipe, made by

the deacon himself, who was a cabinet-maker. Molly took upon herself

the entire counter, for she had excellent lungs. The fuguing tunes,

which had then run a little mad, were her delight. In her solitary

operations aloft I have often heard her send forth, from the attic

windows, the droning hum of her wheel, with fitful snatches of a

hymn, in which the bass began, the tenor followed, then the treble,

and, finally, the counter--winding up with irresistible pathos. Molly

singing to herself, and all unconscious of eavesdroppers, carried on

all the parts thus:--

_Bass._ "Long for a cooling--

_Tenor._ "Long for a cooling--

_Treble._ "Long for a cooling--

_Counter._ "Long for a cooling stream at hand,

And they must drink or die!"

The knitting of stockings was performed by the women of the family

in the evening, and especially at tea-parties. This was considered a

moral, as well as an economical, employment; for people held, with

Dr. Watts, that

"Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do."

Satan, however, dodged the question: for if the hands were occupied

the tongue was loose; and it was said that, in some families, he

kept them well occupied with idle gossip. At all events, pianos,

chess-boards, graces, battledoors and shuttlecocks, with other

safety-valves of the kind, were only known by the hearing of the ear,

as belonging to some such Vanity Fair as New York or Boston.

The weaving of cloth--linen as well as woollen--was performed by an

itinerant workman, who came to the house, put up his loom, and threw

his shuttle, till the season's work was done. The linen was bleached

and made up by the family; the woollen cloth was sent to the fuller

to be dyed and dressed. Twice a-year, that is, in the spring and

autumn, the tailor came to the house and made a stock of clothes for

the male members; this was called "whipping the cat."

Mantuamakers and milliners came, in their turn, to fit out the

female members of the family. There was a similar process as to

boots and shoes. We sent the hides of the cattle--cows and calves we

had killed--to the tanner, and these came back in assorted leather.

Occasionally a little morocco, then wholly a foreign manufacture, was

bought at the store, and made up for the ladies' best shoes. Amby

Benedict, the travelling shoemaker, came with his bench, lapstone,

and awls, and converted some little room into a shop, till the

household was duly shod. He was a merry fellow, and threw in lots of

singing gratis. He played all the popular airs upon his lapstone--as

hurdygurdies and hand-organs do now.

Carpets were then only known in a few families, and were confined

to the keeping-room and parlor. They were all home-made: the warp

consisting of woollen yarn, and the woof of lists and old woollen

cloth, cut into strips, and sewed together at the ends. Coverlids

generally consisted of quilts, made of pieces of waste calico, sewed

together in octagons, and quilted in rectangles, giving the whole a

gay and rich appearance. This process of quilting generally brought

together the women of the neighborhood, married and single; and a

great time they had of it, what with tea, talk, and stitching. In

the evening the men were admitted; so that a quilting was a real

festival, not unfrequently leading to love-making and marriage among

the young people.

This reminds me of a sort of communism or socialism, which prevailed

in our rural districts long before Owen or Fourier was born. At

Ridgefield we used to have "stone bees," when all the men of a

village or hamlet came together with their draught cattle, and

united to clear some patch of earth of stones and rocks. All this

labor was gratuitously rendered, save only that the proprietor of the

land furnished the grog. Such a meeting was always, of course, a very

social and sociable affair.

When the work was done, gymnastic exercises--such as hopping,

wrestling, and foot-racing--took place among the athletic young men.

My father generally attended these celebrations as a looker-on. It

was, indeed, the custom for the clergy of the olden time to mingle

with the people, even in their labors and their pastimes. For

some reason or other, it seemed that things went better when the

parson gave them his countenance. I followed my father's example,

and attended these cheerful and beneficial gatherings. Most of the

boys of the town did the same. I may add that, if I may trust the

traditions of Ridgefield, the cellar of our new house was dug by a

"bee" in a single day, and that was Christmas.

House-raising and barn-raising, the framework being always of wood,

were done in the same way by a neighborly gathering of the people.

I remember an anecdote of a church-raising, which I may as well

relate here. In the eastern part of the State, I think at Lyme, or

Pautipaug, a meeting-house was destroyed by lightning. After a year

or two the society mustered its energies, and raised the frame of

another on the site of the old one. It stood about six months, and

was then blown over. In due time another frame was prepared, and the

neighborhood gathered together to raise it. It was now proposed by

Deacon Hart that they should commence the performances by a prayer

and hymn, it having been suggested that perhaps the want of these

pious preliminaries on former occasions had something to do with

the calamitous results which attended them. When all was ready,

therefore, a prayer was made, and the chorister of the place gave out

two lines of the hymn, thus:--

"If God to build the house deny,

The builders work in vain."

This being sung, the chorister completed the verse thus, adapting the

lines to the occasion:--

"Unless the Lord doth shingle it,

It will blow down agin!"

I must not fail to give you a portrait of one of our village homes,

of the middle class, at this era. I take as an example that of our

neighbor, J. B., who had been a tailor, but having thriven in his

affairs, and being now some fifty years old, had become a farmer.

It was situated on the road leading to Salem, there being a wide

space in front occupied by the wood-pile, which in these days was

not only a matter of great importance, but of formidable bulk. The

size of the wood-pile was, indeed, in some sort an index to the rank

and condition of the proprietor. The house itself was a low edifice,

forty feet long, and of two stories in front; the rear being what

was called a _breakback_--that is, sloping down to a height of ten

feet; this low part furnishing a shelter for garden tools and various

household instruments. The whole was constructed of wood, the outside

being of the dun complexion assumed by unpainted wood, exposed to

the weather for twenty or thirty years, save only that the roof was

tinged of a reddish brown by a fine moss that found sustenance in the

chestnut shingles.

To the left was the garden, which in the productive season was a

wilderness of onions, squashes, cucumbers, beets, parsnips, and

currants, with the never-failing tansy for bitters, horseradish for

seasoning, and fennel for keeping old women awake in church time.

The interior of the house presented a parlor with plain, whitewashed

walls, a home-made carpet upon the floor, calico curtains at the

window, and a mirror three feet by two against the side, with a

mahogany frame: to these must be added eight chairs and a cherry

table, of the manufacture of Deacon Hawley. The "keeping" or

sitting-room had also a carpet, a dozen rush-bottom chairs, a table,

&c. The kitchen was large--fully twenty feet square, with a fireplace

six feet wide and four feet deep. On one side it looked out upon the

garden, the squashes and cucumbers climbing up and forming festoons

over the door; on the other it commanded a view of the orchard,

embracing first a circle of peaches, pears, and plums; and beyond,

a wide-spread clover-field, embowered with apple-trees. Just by was

the well, with its tall sweep, the old oaken bucket dangling from

the pole. The kitchen was, in fact, the most comfortable room in the

house; cool in summer, and perfumed with the breath of the garden and

the orchard: in winter, with its roaring blaze of hickory, it was a

cosy resort, defying the bitterest blasts of the season. Here the

whole family assembled at meals, except when the presence of company

made it proper to serve tea in the parlor.

The bed-rooms were all without carpets, and the furniture was

generally of a simple character. The beds, however, were of ample

size, and well filled with geese feathers, these being deemed

essential for comfortable people. I must say, by the way, that every

decent family had its flock of geese, of course, which was picked

thrice a-year, despite the noisy remonstrances of both goose and

gander. The sheets of the bed, though of home-made linen, were

as white as the driven snow. Indeed, the beds of this era showed

that sleep was a luxury, well understood and duly cherished by all

classes. The cellar, extending under the whole house, was by no means

the least important part of the establishment. In the autumn, it

was supplied with three barrels of beef and as many of pork, twenty

barrels of cider, with numerous bins of potatoes, turnips, beets,

carrots, and cabbages. The garret, which was of huge dimensions, at

the same time displayed a labyrinth of dried pumpkins, peaches, and

apples, hung in festoons upon the rafters, amid bunches of summer

savory, boneset, fennel, and other herbs, the floor being occupied by

heaps of wool, flax, tow, and the like.

The barn corresponded to the house. It was a low brown structure,

having abundance of sheds built on to it, without the least regard

to symmetry. It was well stocked with hay, oats, rye, and buckwheat.

Six cows, one or two horses, three dozen sheep, and an ample supply

of poultry, including two or three broods of turkeys, constituted its

living tenants.

The farm I need not describe in detail, but the orchard must not

be overlooked. This consisted of three acres, covered, as I have

said, with apple-trees, yielding abundantly--as well for the

cider-mill as for the table, including the indispensable winter

apple-sauce--according to their kinds. I think an apple orchard

in the spring is one of the most beautiful objects in the world.

How often have I ventured into Uncle Josey's ample orchard at this

joyous season, and stood entranced among the robins, blackbirds,

woodpeckers, bluebirds, jays, and orioles,--all seeming to me like

playmates, racing, chasing, singing, rollicking, in the exuberance of

their joy, or perchance slily pursuing their courtships, or even more

slily building their nests and rearing their young.

The inmates of the house I need not describe, further than to

say that Uncle Josey himself was a little deaf, and of moderate

abilities; yet he lived to good account, for he reared a large

family, and was gathered to his fathers at a good old age, leaving

behind him a handsome estate, a fair name, and a good example.

His wife, who spent her early life at service in a kitchen, was a

handsome, lively, efficient woman, and a universal favorite in the

neighborhood.

This is the homely picture of a Ridgefield farmer's home half a

century ago. There were other establishments more extensive and more

sumptuous in the town, as there were others also of an inferior

grade; but this was a fair sample of the houses, barns, and farms of

the middle class.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] I recollect, as an after-thought, one exception. There was a

hatter who supplied the town; but he generally made hats to order,

and usually in exchange for the skins of foxes, rabbits, muskrats,

and other chance peltry. I frequently purchased my powder and shot

from the proceeds of skins which I sold him.

CHAPTER IV.

HABITS OF THE PEOPLE--THEIR COSTUME--AMUSEMENTS--FESTIVALS--

MARRIAGES--FUNERALS--DANCING--WINTER SPORTS--MY TWO

GRANDMOTHERS--MECHANICAL GENIUS--IMPORTANCE OF

WHITTLING--PIGEONS--SPORTING ADVENTURES.

You will now have some ideas of the household industry and

occupations of the country people in Connecticut, at the beginning

of the present century. Their manners, in other respects, had a

corresponding stamp of homeliness and simplicity.

In most families, the first exercise of the morning was reading the

Bible, followed by a prayer, at which all were assembled, including

the servants and helpers of the kitchen and the farm. Then came the

breakfast, which was a substantial meal, always including hot viands,

with vegetables, apple-sauce, pickles, mustard, horseradish, and

various other condiments. Cider was the common drink for laboring

people: even children drank it at will. Tea was common, but not

so general as now. Coffee was almost unknown. Dinner was a still

more hearty and varied repast--characterised by abundance of garden

vegetables; tea was a light supper.

The day began early: the breakfast hour was six in summer and seven

in winter; dinner was at noon--the work-people in the fields being

called to their meals by a conchshell winded by some kitchen Triton.

Tea was usually taken about sundown. In families where all were

laborers, all sat at table, servants as well as masters--the food

being served before sitting down. In families where the masters

and mistresses did not share the labors of the household or the

farm, the meals of the domestics were taken separately. There was,

however, in those days a perfectly good understanding and good

feeling between the masters and servants. The latter were not Irish:

they had not as yet imbibed the plebeian envy of those above them,

which has since so generally embittered and embarrassed American

domestic life. The terms "democrat" and "aristocrat" had not got

into use: these distinctions, and the feelings now implied by them,

had indeed no existence in the hearts of the people. Our servants,

during all my early life, were generally the daughters of respectable

farmers and mechanics in the neighborhood, and, respecting others,

were themselves respected and cherished. They were devoted to the

interests of the family, and were always relied upon and treated as

friends. In health they had the same food, in sickness the same care,

as the masters and mistresses or their children.

At the period of my earliest recollections, men of all classes

were dressed in long, broad-tailed coats, with huge pockets; long

waistcoats, breeches, and hats with low crowns and broad brims: some

so wide as to be supported at the sides with cords. The stockings of

the parson, and a few others, were of silk in summer and worsted in

winter; those of the people were generally of wool. Women dressed in

wide bonnets, sometimes of straw and sometimes of silk; and gowns of

silk, muslin, gingham, &c., generally close and short-waisted, the

breast and shoulders being covered by a full muslin kerchief. Girls

ornamented themselves with a large white vandike. On the whole, the

dress of both men and women has greatly changed; for at Ridgefield,

as at less remote places, the people follow, though at a distance,

the fashions of Paris.

The amusements were then much the same as at present, though some

striking differences may be noted. Books and newspapers were then

scarce, and were read respectfully, and as if they were grave

matters, demanding thought and attention. They were not toys and

pastimes, taken up every day, and by everybody, in the short

intervals of labor, and then hastily dismissed, like waste paper. The

aged sat down when they read, and drew forth their spectacles, and

put them deliberately and reverently upon the nose. Even the young

approached a book with reverence, and a newspaper with awe. How the

world has changed!

The two great festivals were Thanksgiving and "Training-day;" the

latter deriving, from the still lingering spirit of the revolutionary

war, a decidedly martial character. The marching of the troops, and

the discharge of gunpowder, which invariably closed the exercises,

were glorious and inspiring mementoes of heroic achievements upon

many a bloody field. The music of the drum and fife resounded on

every side. A match between two rival drummers always drew an

admiring crowd, and was in fact one of the chief excitements of the

great day.

Tavern-haunting, especially in winter, when there was little to do,

for manufactures had not then sprung up to give profitable occupation

during this inclement season, was common even with respectable

farmers. Marriages were celebrated in the evening, at the house of

the bride, with a general gathering of the neighborhood, and were

usually finished off by dancing. Everybody went, as to a public

exhibition, without invitation. Funerals generally drew large

processions, which proceeded to the grave. Here the minister always

made an address suited to the occasion. If there were anything

remarkable in the history of the deceased, it was turned to religious

account in the next Sunday's sermon. Singing-meetings, to practise

church music, were a great resource for the young in winter. Dances

at private houses were common, and drew no reproaches from the sober

people present. Balls at the taverns were frequented by the young;

the children of deacons and ministers attended, though the parents

did not. The winter brought sleighing, skating, and the usual round

of indoor sports. In general, the intercourse of all classes was

kindly and considerate, no one arrogating superiority, and yet no one

refusing to acknowledge it where it existed. You would hardly have

noticed that there was a higher and a lower class. Such there were,

certainly; for there must always and everywhere be the strong and

the weak, the wise and the foolish. But in our society these existed

without being felt as a privilege to one, which must give offence to

another.

It may serve in some degree to throw light upon the manners

and customs of this period, if I give you a sketch of my two

grandmothers. Both were widows, and were well stricken in years

when they came to visit us at Ridgefield, about the year 1803-4. My

grandmother Ely was a lady of the old school, and sustaining the

character in her upright carriage, her long, tapering waist, and her

high-heeled shoes. The customs of Louis XV.'s time had prevailed in

New York and Boston, and even at this period they still lingered

there in isolated cases. It is curious enough, that at this time

the female attire of a century ago is revived; and every black-eyed,

stately old lady, dressed in black silk, and showing her steel-grey

hair beneath her cap, reminds me of my maternal grandmother.

My other grandmother was in all things the opposite; short, fat,

blue-eyed, and practical; a good example of a hearty country dame. I

scarcely knew which of the two I liked the best. The first sang me

plaintive songs, told me stories of the Revolution--her husband, Col.

Ely, having had a large and painful share in its vicissitudes--she

described Gen. Washington, whom she had seen; and the French

officers, Lafayette, Rochambeau, and others, who had been inmates of

her house. She told me tales of even more ancient date, and recited

poetry, generally ballads, which were suited to my taste. And all

this lore was commended to me by a voice of inimitable tenderness,

and a manner at once lofty and condescending. My other grandmother

was not less kind, but she promoted my happiness and prosperity in

another way. Instead of stories, she gave me bread and butter: in

place of poetry, she fed me with apple-sauce and pie. Never was there

a more hearty old lady: she had a firm conviction that children must

be fed, and what she believed she practised.

I can recollect with great vividness the interest I took in the

domestic events I have described. The operations of the farm had no

great attractions for me. Ploughing, hoeing, digging, seemed to me

mere drudgery, imparting no instruction, and affording no scope for

ingenuity or invention.

Mechanical operations, especially those of the weaver and carpenter,

on the contrary, stimulated my curiosity, and excited my emulation.

Thus I soon became familiar with the carpenter's tools, and made such

windmills, kites, and perpetual motions, as to win the admiration

of my playmates, and excite the respect of my parents; so that they

seriously meditated putting me apprentice to a carpenter. Up to the

age of fourteen, I think this was regarded as my manifest destiny. It

was a day of great endeavors among all inventive geniuses. Fulton was

struggling to develop steam navigation; and other discoverers were

seeking to unfold the wonders of art as well as of nature. It was,

in fact, the very threshold of the era of steam-boats, railroads,

electric telegraphs, and a thousand other useful discoveries, which

have since changed the face of the world. In this age of excitement,

perpetual motion was the great hobby of aspiring mechanics. I

pondered and whittled intensely on this subject before I was ten

years old. Despairing of reaching my object by mechanical means, I

attempted to arrive at it by magnetism, my father having bought me

a pair of horse-shoe magnets in one of his journeys to New Haven. I

should have succeeded, had it not been a principle in the nature of

this curious element, that no substance will intercept the stream of

attraction. I tried to change the poles, and turn the north against

the south; but there, too, nature had headed me, and of course I

failed.

A word, by the way, on the matter of whittling. This is generally

represented as a sort of idle, fidgety, frivolous use of the

penknife, and is set down, by foreigners and sketchers of American

manners, as a peculiar characteristic of our people. No portrait of

an American is deemed complete, unless with penknife and shingle in

hand. I feel not the slightest disposition to resent even this, among

the thousand caricatures that pass for traits of American life. For

my own part, I can testify that, during my youthful days, I found

the penknife a source of great amusement, and even of instruction.

Many a long winter evening, many a dull, drizzly day, in spring, and

summer, and autumn--sometimes at the kitchen fireside, sometimes

in the attic, sometimes in a cosy nook of the barn, sometimes in

the shelter of a neighboring stone wall, thatched over with wild

grape-vines--have I spent in great ecstasy, making candle-rods, or

some other simple article of household goods, for my mother; or

in perfecting toys for myself and my young friends; or perhaps in

attempts at more ambitious achievements. This was not mere waste

of time; mere idleness and dissipation. I was amused: that was

something. Some of the pleasantest remembrances of my childhood carry

me back to the scenes I have just indicated; when, in happy solitude,

absorbed in my mechanical devices, I listened to the rain pattering

upon the roof, or the wind roaring down the chimney: thus enjoying a

double bliss, a pleasing occupation, with a conscious delight in my

sense of security from the rage of the elements without.

Nay more; these occupations were instructive: my mind was stimulated

to inquire into the mechanical powers, and my hand was educated to

mechanical dexterity. If you ask me why it is that this important

institution of whittling is indigenous among us, I reply that, in

the first place, our country is full of a great variety of woods,

suited to carpentry, many of them easily wrought, and thus inviting

boyhood to try its hands upon them. In the next place, labor is dear;

and therefore even children are led to supply themselves with toys,

or perchance to furnish some of the simpler articles of use to the

household. This dearness of labor, moreover, furnishes a powerful

stimulant to the production of labor-saving machines; and hence it

is--through all these causes co-operating one with another--that

steam-navigation, the electric telegraph, the steam-reaper, &c.,

&c., are American inventions: hence it is that, whether it be at

the World's Fair at London or Paris, we gain a greater proportion

of prizes for useful inventions than any other people. That is what

comes of whittling!

I must add, that in these early days I was a Nimrod, a mighty hunter;

first with a bow and arrow, and afterwards with the old hereditary

firelock, which snapped six times and went off once. The smaller

kinds of game were abundant. The thickets teemed with quails;[2]

partridges drummed in every wood; the gray squirrel--the most

picturesque animal of our forests--enlivened every hickory copse with

his mocking laugh, his lively gambols, and his long, bushy tail. The

pigeons, in spring and autumn, migrated in countless flocks; and many

lingered in our woods for the season.

Everybody was then a hunter; not, of course, a sportsman: for the

chase was followed more for profit than for pastime. Game was, in

point of fact, a substantial portion of the supply of food at certain

seasons of the year. All were then good shots, and my father was no

exception: he was even beyond his generation in netting pigeons. This

was not deemed a reproach at that time in a clergyman; nor was he the

only parson that indulged in these occupations. One day, as I was

with him on West Mountain, baiting pigeons, we had seduced a flock

of three or four dozen down into the bed where they were feeding;

my father and myself lying concealed in our bush-hut, close by.

Suddenly, whang went a gun into the middle of the flock! Out we ran

in great indignation; for at least a dozen of the birds were bleeding

and fluttering before us. Scarcely had we reached the spot, when we

met Parson M----, of Lower Salem, who had thus unwittingly poached

upon us. The two clergymen had first a squabble, and then a good

laugh; after which they divided the plunder and then parted.

The stories told by Wilson and Audubon as to the amazing quantity

of pigeons in the West, were realized by us in Connecticut

half-a-century ago. I have seen, in the county of Fairfield, a

stream of these noble birds pouring at brief intervals through the

skies, from the rising to the setting sun. Of all the pigeon tribe,

this of our country--the passenger pigeon--is the swiftest and most

beautiful. At the same time, it is unquestionably superior to any

other for the table. All the other species of the eastern, as well as

the western continent, which I have tasted, are soft and flavorless

in comparison.

I can recollect no sports of my youth which equalled in excitement

our pigeon hunts, which generally took place in September and

October. We usually started on horseback before daylight, and made

a rapid progress to some stubble-field on West Mountain. The ride

in the keen, fresh air, especially as the dawn began to break, was

delightful. The gradual encroachment of day upon the night filled my

mind with sublime images: the waking up of a world from sleep, the

joyousness of birds and beasts in the return of morning, and my own

sympathy in this cheerful and grateful homage of the heart to God,

the Giver of good--all contributed to render these adventures most

impressive upon my young heart. My memory is still full of the sights

and sounds of those glorious mornings: the silvery whistle of the

wings of migrating flocks of plover, invisible in the gray mists of

dawn; the faint murmur of the distant mountain torrents; the sonorous

gong of the long-trailing flocks of wild geese, seeming to come from

the unseen depths of the skies--these were among the suggestive

sounds that stole through the dim twilight. As morning advanced,

the scene was inconceivably beautiful: the mountain sides, clothed

in autumnal green, and purple, and gold, rendered more glowing by

the sunrise--with the valleys covered with mists, and spreading

out like lakes of silver; while on every side the ear was saluted

by the mocking screams of the red-headed woodpecker, the cawing of

congresses of crows; and, finally, the rushing sound of the pigeons,

pouring like a tide over the tops of the trees.

By this time of course our nets were ready, and our flyers and

stool-birds on the alert. What moments of ecstasy were these, and

especially when the head of the flock--some red-breasted old father

or grandfather--caught the sight of our pigeons, and turning at the

call, drew the whole train down into our net-bed! I have often seen

a hundred, or two hundred of these splendid birds, come upon us,

with a noise absolutely deafening. Sometimes our bush-hut, where we

lay concealed, was covered all over with pigeons, and we dared not

move a finger, as their red, piercing eyes were upon us. When at

last, with a sudden pull of the rope, the net was sprung, and we went

out to secure our booty--often fifty, and sometimes even a hundred

birds--I felt a fulness of triumph which words are wholly inadequate

to express!

Up to the age of eight years I was never trusted with a gun. Whenever

I went forth as a sportsman on my own account, it was only with a

bow and arrow. My performances as a hunter were very moderate. In

truth, I had a rickety old gun, that had belonged to my grandfather,

and though it perhaps had done good service in the Revolution, or

further back in the times of bears and wolves, it was now very

decrepit, and all around the lock seemed to have the shaking palsy.

Occasionally I met with adventures, half serious and half ludicrous.

Once, in running my hand into a hole in a hollow tree, some twenty

feet from the ground, being in search of a woodpecker, I hauled out

a blacksnake. At another time, in a similar way, I had my fingers

pretty sharply nipped by a screech-owl. My memory supplies me with

numerous instances of this kind.

As to fishing, I never had a passion for it: I was too impatient. I

had no enthusiasm for nibbles, and there were too many of these in

proportion to the bites. I perhaps resembled a man by the name of

Bennett, who joined the Shakers of New Canaan about these days, but

soon left them, declaring that the Spirit was too long in coming--"he

could not wait." Nevertheless, I dreamed away some pleasant hours in

angling in the brooks and ponds of my native town. I well remember,

that on my eighth birthday I went four miles to Burt's mills,

carrying on the old mare two bushels of rye. While my grist was being

ground I angled in the pond, and carried home enough for a generous

meal.

Now all these things may seem trifles, yet in a review of my life

I deem them of some significance. This homely familiarity with the

more mechanical arts was a material part of my education: this

communion with nature gave me instructive and important lessons from

nature's open book of knowledge. My technical education, as will

be seen hereafter, was extremely narrow and irregular. This defect

was at least partially supplied by the commonplace incidents I have

mentioned. The teachings, or rather the training of the senses,

in the country--ear and eye, foot and hand, by running, leaping,

climbing over hill and mountain, by occasional labor in the garden

and on the farm, and by the use of tools, and all this in youth--is

sowing seed which is repaid largely and readily to the hand of

after-cultivation, however unskilful it may be. This is not so much

because of the amount of knowledge available in after-life, which

is thus obtained--though this is not to be despised--as it is that

healthful, vigorous, manly habits and associations, physical, moral,

and intellectual, are thus established and developed.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The American quail is a species of partridge, in size between the

European quail and partridge. The _partridge_ of New England is the

_pheasant_ of the South, and the _ruffed grouse_ of the naturalists.

CHAPTER V.

DEATH OF WASHINGTON--JEROME BONAPARTE AND MISS PATTERSON--SUNDAY

TRAVELLING--OLIVER WOLCOTT--TIMOTHY PICKERING--AMERICAN

POLITENESS QUITE NATURAL--LOCOMOTION--PUBLIC CONVEYANCES--MY

FATHER'S CHAISE.

The incidents I have just related occurred about the year 1800--some

a little earlier and some a little later. Among the events of

general interest that happened near this time I remember the death

of Washington, which took place in 1799, and was commemorated all

through the country by the tolling of bells, funeral ceremonies,

orations, sermons, hymns, and dirges, attended by a mournful sense

of his loss, which seemed to cast a pall over the entire heavens.

In Ridgefield the meeting-house was dressed in black, and we had

a discourse pronounced by a Mr. Edmonds, of Newtown. The subject,

indeed, engrossed all minds. Lieutenant Smith came every day to our

house to talk over the event, and to bring us the proceedings in

different parts of the country. Among other papers he brought us a

copy of the _Connecticut Courant_, which gave us the particulars

of the rites and ceremonies which took place in Hartford in

commemoration of the great man's decease. The celebrated hymn,

written for the occasion by Theodore Dwight, sank into my mother's

heart--for she had a constitutional love of things mournful and

poetical--and she often repeated it, so that it became a part of the

cherished lore of my childhood.

I give you these scenes and feelings in some detail, to impress you

with the depth and sincerity of this mourning of the American nation,

in cities and towns, in villages and hamlets, for the death of

Washington.

I have already said that Ridgefield was on the great thoroughfare

between Boston and New York, for the day of steamers and railroads

had not dawned. Even the mania for turnpikes, which ere long

overspread New England, had not yet arrived. The stage-coaches took

four days to make the trip of two hundred miles between the two

great cities. In winter, during the furious snow-storms, the journey

was often protracted to seven, eight, or ten days. With such public

conveyances, great people--for even then the world was divided into

the great and little, as it is now--travelled in their own carriages.

About this time--it must have been in the summer of 1804--I remember

Jerome Bonaparte coming up to Keeler's tavern with a coach and four,

attended by his young wife, Miss Patterson of Baltimore. It was a

gay establishment, and the honeymoon sat happily on the tall, sallow

stripling and his young bride. You must remember that Napoleon was

then filling the world with his fame: at this moment his feet were on

the threshold of the empire. The arrival of his brother in the United

States of course made a sensation. His marriage, his movements, all

were gossipped over from Maine to Georgia, the extreme points of the

Union. His entrance into Ridgefield produced a flutter of excitement

even there. A crowd gathered around Keeler's tavern to catch a sight

of the strangers, and I was among the rest. I had a good look at

Jerome, who was the chief object of interest, and the image never

faded from my recollection.

Half a century later, I was one evening at the Tuileries, amid the

flush and the fair of Louis Napoleon's new court. Among them I saw

an old man, taller than the mass around--his nose and chin almost

meeting in contact, while his toothless gums were "munching the airy

meal of dotage and decrepitude." I was irresistibly chained to this

object, as if a spectre had risen up through the floor and stood

among the garish throng. My memory travelled back--back among the

winding labyrinths of years. Suddenly I found the clue: the stranger

was Jerome Bonaparte!

Ah, what a history lay between the past and present--a lapse of

nearly fifty years. What a difference between him then and now! Then

he was a gay and gallant bridegroom; now, though he had the title

of king, he was throneless and sceptreless--an Invalid Governor of

Invalids--the puppet and pageant of an adventurer, whose power lay in

the mere magic of a name.

About this time, as I well remember, Oliver Wolcott passed through

our village. He arrived at the tavern late on Saturday evening, but

he called at our house in the morning, his family being connected

with ours. He was a great man then; for not only are the Wolcotts

traditionally and historically a distinguished race in Connecticut,

but he had recently been a member of Washington's cabinet. I mention

him now only for the purpose of noting his deference to public

opinion, characteristic of the eminent men of that day. In the

morning he went to church, but immediately after the sermon he had

his horses brought up, and proceeded on his way. He, however, had

requested my father to state to his people, at the opening of the

afternoon service, that he was travelling on public business, and

though he regretted it, he was obliged to continue his journey on the

Sabbath. This my father did, but Deacon Olmstead, the Jeremiah of the

parish, shook his white locks, and lifted up his voice against such

a desecration of the Lord's day. Some years after, as I remember,

Lieutenant-Governor Treadwell arrived at Keeler's tavern on Saturday

evening, and prepared to prosecute his journey the next morning, his

daughter, who was with him, being ill. This same Deacon Olmstead

called upon him, and said, "Sir, if you thus set the example of

violation of the Sabbath, you must expect to get one vote less at the

next election!" The Governor was so much struck by the appearance of

the deacon, who was the very image of a patriarch or a prophet, that

he deferred his departure till Monday.

Although great people rode in their own carriages, the principal

method of travelling was on horseback. Many of the members of

Congress came to Washington in this way. I have a dim recollection of

seeing one day, when I was trudging along to school, a tall, pale,

gaunt man, approaching on horseback, with his plump saddlebags behind

him. I looked at him keenly, and made my obeisance, as in duty bound.

He lifted his hat, and bowed in return. By a quick instinct, I sat

him down as a man of mark. In the evening, Lieutenant Smith came to

our house and told us that Timothy Pickering had passed through the

town! He had seen him, and talked with him, and was vastly distended

with the portentous news thereby acquired, including the rise and

fall of empires for ages to come, and all of which he duly unfolded

to our family circle.

Before I proceed, let me note, in passing, a point of manners then

universal, but which has now nearly faded away. When travellers met

on the highway, they saluted each other with a certain dignified and

formal courtesy. All children were regularly taught at school to

"make their manners" to strangers; the boys to bow, and the girls to

courtesy. It was something different from the frank, familiar, "How

are you, stranger?" of the Far West; something different from the

"_Bon jour, serviteur_," of the Alps. Our salute was more measured

and formal; respect to age and authority being evidently an element

of this homage, which was sedulously taught to the young.

For children to salute travellers was, in my early days, as well

a duty as a decency. A child who did not "make his manners" to a

stranger on the high-road was deemed a low fellow; a stranger who

refused to acknowledge this civility was esteemed a _sans culotte_,

perhaps a favorer of Jacobinism.

But I must return to locomotion. In Ridgefield, in the year 1800,

there was but a single chaise, and that belonged to Colonel Bradley,

one of the principal citizens of the place. It was without a top,

and had a pair of wide-spreading, asinine ears. That multitudinous

generation of travelling vehicles, so universal and so convenient

now--such as top-wagons, four-wheeled chaises, tilburies, dearborns,

&c., was totally unknown. Even if these things had been invented,

the roads would scarcely have permitted the use of them. Physicians

who had occasion to go from town to town went on horseback; all

clergymen, except perhaps Bishop Seabury, who rode in a coach,

travelled in the same way. My father's people, who lived at a

distance, came to church on horseback; their wives and daughters

being seated on pillions behind them. In a few cases--as in

spring-time, when the mud was bottomless--the farm wagon was used for

transporting the family.

In winter it was otherwise, for we had three or four months of

sleighing. Then the whole country was a railroad, and gay times we

had. Oh! those beautiful winters, which would drive me shivering to

the fireside now: what vivid delight have I had in their slidings and

skatings, their sleddings and sleighings! One thing strikes me now

with wonder, and that is, the general indifference in those days to

the intensity of winter. No doubt, as I have said before, the climate

was then more severe; but, be that as it may, people seemed to suffer

less from it than at the present day. Nobody thought of staying at

home from church because of the extremity of the weather. We had no

thermometers, it is true, to frighten us with the revelation that it

was twenty-five degrees below zero. The habits of the people were

simple and hardy, and there were few defences against the assaults of

the seasons. The houses were not tight; we had no stoves, no Lehigh

or Lackawanna coal; yet we lived, and comfortably, too: nay, we even

changed burly winter into a season of enjoyment.

I have said that, in the year 1800, there was but a single chaise in

Ridgefield; and this was brought, I believe, from New Haven. There

was not, I imagine, a coach, or any kind of pleasure-vehicle--that

crazy old chaise excepted--in the county of Fairfield, out of the

two half-shire towns. Such things, indeed, were known at New York,

Boston, and Philadelphia; for already the government had laid a tax

upon pleasure conveyances: but they were comparatively few in number,

and were mostly imported. In 1798 there was but one public hack in

New Haven, and but one coach; the latter, belonging to Pierpoint

Edwards, was a large, four-wheeled vehicle, for two persons, called a

chariot. In the smaller towns there were no pleasure vehicles in use

throughout New England.

About that time there came to our village a man by the name of Jesse

Skellinger, an Englishman, and chaisemaker by trade. My father

engaged him to build him a chaise. A bench was set up in our barn,

and certain trees of oak and ash were cut in our neighboring woods.

These were sawed and seasoned, and shaped into wheels and shafts.

Thomas Hawley, half blacksmith, and half wheelwright, was duly

initiated, and he cunningly wrought the iron necessary for the work.

In five months the chaise was finished, with a standing top; greatly

to the admiration of our family. What a gaze was there, as this

vehicle went through Ridgefield street upon its first expedition!

This was the beginning of the chaise-manufactory in Ridgefield, which

has since been a source of large revenue to the town. Skellinger

was engaged by Elijah Hawley, who had formerly done something as a

wagon-builder; and thus in due time an establishment was founded,

which for many years was noted for the beauty and excellence of its

pleasure vehicles.

CHAPTER VI.

THE UPPER AND LOWER CLASSES OF RIDGEFIELD--MASTER STEBBINS

AND HIS SCHOOL--WHAT IS A NOUN?--DEACON BENEDICT AND HIS

MAN ABIJAH--MY LATIN ACQUIREMENTS--FAMILY WORSHIP--WIDOW

BENNETT--THE TEMPLE OF DAGON.

Ridgefield, as well as most other places, had its Up-town and

Down-town; terms which have not unfrequently been the occasion of

serious divisions in the affairs of Church and State. In London this

distinction takes the name of West End and the City. The French

philosophers say that every great capital has similar divisions; West

End being always the residence of the aristocracy, and East End of

the _canaille_.

Ridgefield, being a village, had a right to follow its own whim; and

therefore West Lane, instead of being the aristocratic end of the

place, was really rather the low end. It constituted, in fact, what

was called _Down-town_, in distinction from the more eastern and

northern section, called _Up-town_. In this latter portion, and about

the middle of the main street, was the Up-town school, the leading

seminary of the village; for at this period it had not arrived at the

honors of an academy. At the age of ten years I was sent here, the

institution being then, and for many years after, under the charge

of Master Stebbins. He was a man with a conciliating stoop in the

shoulders, a long body, short legs, and a swaying walk. He was at

this period some fifty years old, his hair being thin and silvery,

and always falling in well-combed rolls over his coat-collar. His

eyes were blue, and his dress invariably of the same color. Breeches

and knee-buckles, blue-mixed stockings, and shoes with bright

buckles, seemed as much a part of the man as his head and shoulders.

On the whole, his appearance was that of the middle-class gentleman

of the olden time; and he was, in fact, what he seemed.

This seminary of learning for the rising aristocracy of Ridgefield

was a wooden edifice, thirty by twenty feet, covered with brown

clapboards, and, except an entry, consisted of a single room. Around,

and against the walls, ran a continuous line of seats, fronted by

a continuous writing-desk. Beneath were depositories for books and

writing materials. The centre was occupied by slab seats, similar

to those of West Lane. The larger scholars were ranged on the outer

sides, at the desks; the smaller fry of abecedarians were seated in

the centre. The master was enshrined on the east side of the room,

and, regular as the sun, he was in his seat at nine o'clock, and the

performances of the school began.

According to the Catechism, which we learned and recited on Saturday,

the chief end of man was to glorify God and keep His commandments;

according to the routine of this school, one would have thought it to

be reading, writing, and arithmetic, to which we may add spelling.

From morning to night, in all weathers, through every season of the

year, these exercises were carried on with the energy, patience, and

perseverance of a manufactory.

Master Stebbins respected his calling: his heart was in his work;

and so, what he pretended to teach, he taught well. When I entered

the school, I found that a huge stride had been achieved in the march

of mind since I left West Lane. Webster's Spelling-book had taken

the place of Dilworth, which was a great improvement. The drill

in spelling was very thorough, and applied every day to the whole

school. I imagine that the exercises might have been amusing to a

stranger, especially as one scholar would sometimes go off in a voice

as grum as that of a bull-frog, while another would follow in tones

as fine and piping as those of a peet-weet. The blunders, too, were

often very ludicrous; even we children would sometimes have tittered,

had not such an enormity been certain to have brought out the birch.

As to rewards and punishments, the system was this: whoever missed,

went down; so that perfection mounted to the top. Here was the

beginning of the up and down of life.

Reading was performed in classes, which generally plodded on without

a hint from the master. Nevertheless, when Zeek Sanford--who was

said to have "a streak of lightning in him"--in his haste to be

smart, read the 37th verse of the 2nd chapter of the Acts,--"Now when

they heard this, they were _pickled_ in their heart,"--the birch

stick on Master Stebbins's table seemed to quiver and peel at the

little end, as if to give warning of the wrath to come. When Orry

Keeler--Orry was a girl, you know, and not a boy--drawled out in

spelling, "k--o--n, _kon_, s--h--u--n--t--s, _shunts_, konshunts,"

the bristles in the master's eyebrows fidgeted like Aunt Delight's

knitting-needles. Occasionally, when the reading was insupportably

bad, he took a book, and himself read as an example.

Master Stebbins was a great man with a slate and pencil, and I have

an idea that we were a generation after his own heart. We certainly

achieved wonders in arithmetic, according to our own conceptions,

some of us going even beyond the Rule of Three, and making forays

into the mysterious regions of Vulgar Fractions.

But, after all, penmanship was Master Stebbins's great

accomplishment. He had no pompous lessons upon single lines and

bifid lines, and the like. The revelations of inspired copy-book

makers had not then been vouchsafed to man. He could not cut an

American eagle with a single flourish of a goose-quill. He was guided

by good taste and native instinct, and wrote a smooth round hand,

like copper-plate. His lessons from A to &, all written by himself,

consisted of pithy proverbs and useful moral lessons. On every page

of our writing-books he wrote the first line himself. The effect was

what might have been expected--with such models, patiently enforced,

nearly all became good writers.

Beyond these simple elements, the Up-town school made few

pretensions. When I was there, two Webster's Grammars and one or two

Dwight's Geographies were in use. The latter was without maps or

illustrations, and was, in fact, little more than an expanded table

of contents, taken from Morse's Universal Geography--the mammoth

monument of American learning and genius of that age and generation.

The grammar was a clever book, but I have an idea that neither Master

Stebbins nor his pupils ever fathomed its depths. They floundered

about in it, as if in a quagmire, and after some time came out pretty

nearly where they went in, though perhaps a little confused by the

din and dusky atmosphere of these labyrinths.

Let me here repeat an anecdote, which I have indeed told before, but

which I had from the lips of its hero, a clergyman, of some note

thirty years ago, and which well illustrates this part of my story.

At a village school, not many miles from Ridgefield, he was put into

Webster's Grammar. Here he read, "_A noun is the name of a thing--as

horse, hair, justice_." Now, in his innocence, he read it thus: "_A

noun is the name of a thing--as horse-hair justice_."

"What, then," said he, ruminating deeply, "is a noun? But first I

must find out what a horse-hair justice is."

Upon this he meditated for some days, but still he was as far as ever

from the solution. Now, his father was a man of authority in those

parts, and, moreover, he was a justice of the peace. Withal, he was

of respectable ancestry, and so there had descended to him a stately

high-backed settee, covered with horse-hair. One day, as the youth

came from school, pondering upon the great grammatical problem, he

entered the front door of the house, and there he saw before him

his father, officiating in his legal capacity, and seated upon the

old horse-hair settee. "I have found it!" said the boy to himself,

greatly delighted--"my father is a horse-hair justice, and therefore

a noun!"

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the world got on remarkably

well in spite of this narrowness of the country schools. The elements

of an English education were pretty well taught throughout the

village seminaries of Connecticut, and, I may add, of New England.

The teachers were heartily devoted to their profession: they

respected their calling, and were respected and encouraged by the

community. They had this merit, that while they attempted little,

that, at least, was thoroughly performed.

I went steadily to the Up-town school for three winters; being

occupied during the summers upon the farm, and in various minor

duties. I was a great deal on horseback, often carrying messages to

the neighboring towns of Reading, Wilton, Weston, and Lower Salem,

for then the post routes were few, and the mails, which were weekly,

crept like snails over hill and valley. I became a bold rider at an

early age: before I was eight years old I frequently ventured to put

a horse to his speed, and that, too, without a saddle. A person who

has never tried it, can hardly conceive the wild delight of riding

a swift horse, when he lays down his ears, tosses his tail in air,

and stretches himself out in a full race. The intense energy of

the beast's movements, the rush of the air, the swimming backward

of lands, houses, and trees, with the clattering thunder of the

hoofs--all convey to the rider a fierce ecstasy, which, perhaps,

nothing else can give. About this period, however, I received a

lesson, which lasted me a lifetime.

You must know that Deacon Benedict, one of our neighbors, had a

fellow living with him named Abijah. He was an adventurous youth,

and more than once led me into tribulation. I remember that on one

occasion I went with him to shoot a dog that was said to worry the

deacon's sheep. It was night, and dark as Egypt, but Bige said he

could see the creature close to the cow-house, behind the barn. He

banged away, and then jumped over the fence, to pick up the game.

After a time he came back, but said not a word. Next morning it was

found that he had shot the brindled cow; mistaking a white spot in

her forehead for the dog, he had taken a deadly aim, and put the

whole charge into her pate. Fortunately her skull was thick and the

shot small, so the honest creature was only a little cracked. Bige,

however, was terribly scolded by the deacon, who was a justice of the

peace, and had a deep sense of the importance of his duties. I came

in for a share of blame, though I was only a looker-on. Bige said the

deacon called me a "parsnip scrimmage," but more probably it was a

_particeps criminis_.