The home of the Allans was never quite the same to Edgar Poe after that
night. A wall had been raised between him and his foster-father that
would never be scaled. He was still indulged in a generous amount of
pocket money which he invariably proceeded to get rid of as fast as he
could--lavishing it upon the enjoyment of his friends as freely as it
had been lavished upon him. He had plenty of pets and toys, went to
dancing school, in which his natural love of dancing made him delight,
and was given stiff but merry little parties, at which old Cy, the black
fiddler played and called the figures, and the little host and his
friends conformed to the strict, ceremonious etiquette observed by the
children as well as the grown people of the day.
For these indulgences Frances Allan was chiefly responsible. The one
weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself
was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be
his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling.
He felt a solemn responsibility toward the boy, and he did his duty by
him, as he saw it, faithfully. It was not in the least his fault that he
did _not_ see that under the broad white brow and sunny ringlets was a
brain in which, like the sky in a dew-drop, a whole world was reflected,
with ever changing pageantry, and that the abstracted expression in the
boy's eyes that he thought could only mean that he was "hatching
mischief," really indicated that the creative faculty in budding genius
was awake and at work.
For a child Edgar's age to be making trials at writing poetry Mr. Allan
regarded as sheer idleness, to be promptly suppressed. Indeed, when he
discovered that the boy had been guilty of such foolishness, he
emphatically ordered him not to repeat it. To counteract the effects of
his wife's spoiling of her adopted son, he felt it his duty to place all
manner of restrictions upon his liberty, which the freedom-loving boy,
with the connivance of his mother and the negro servants who adored him,
disregarded whenever it was possible. Though bathing in the river was
(except upon rare occasions) prohibited, Edgar became before summer was
over, the most expert swimmer and diver of his years in town, and many
an afternoon when Mr. Allan supposed that he was in his room, to which
he had been ordered for the purpose of disciplining his will and
character, or for punishment, he was far beyond the city's limits
roaming the woods, the fields, or the river-banks--joyously, and without
a prick of conscience (for all his disobedience) feeding his growing
soul upon the beauties of tree, and sky, and cliff, and water-fall.
And so, in spite of the melancholy moods in which he was occasionally
plunged by the bitterness which had found lodgment in his breast, the
summer was upon the whole a happy one to the boy. He was so young and
the world was so beautiful! He could not remember always to be unhappy.
Edgar Goodfellow, as well as Edgar the Dreamer, revelled in the world of
Out-of-Door. To the one all manner of muscular sport and exercise was
as the breath of his nostrils; to the other, whose favorite stories were
ancient myths and fairy-tales, all natural phenomena possessed vivid
personality. He loved to trace pictures in the clouds. In the rustling
of corn or the stirring of leaves in the trees, or in the sound of
running waters he heard voices which spoke to him of delightsome things,
bringing to his full, grey eyes, as he hearkened, a soft, romantic look,
and touching his lips and his cheeks with a radiant spirituality.
The cottage, on Clay Street, to which the Allans had removed soon after
their return from England, was in a quiet part of the town. The window
of Edgar's own, quaint little room in the dormer roof, with its shelving
walls, gave him a fair view of the sky, and brought him sweet airs
wafted across the garden of old-fashioned flowers below. Here, such
hours as he spent from choice or by command were not lonely, for,
sitting by the little window, many a story or poem was thought out; or
buried in some favorite book his thoughts would be borne away as if on
wings to a world where imagination was king.
* * * * *
In the fall he was entered at Mr. Clarke's school. The school-room, with
its white-washed walls and the sun pouring in, unrestricted, through the
commonplace, big, bare windows, was very different from the great,
gloomy Gothic room at old Stoke-Newington--so full of mystery and
suggestion--but Edgar found it a pleasant place in which to be upon that
cool fresh morning in late September, when he made its acquaintance. He
felt full of mental activity and ready to go to work with a will upon
his Latin, his French and his mathematics. Since his return from
England, in June, he had become acquainted with most of the boys who
were to be his school-fellows, and he took at once to the school-master,
Professor Clarke, of Trinity College, Dublin--a middle-aged bachelor of
Irish birth, an accomplished gentleman and a very human creature, with a
big heart, a high ideal of what boys might be and abundant tolerance of
what they generally were. If he had a quick temper, he had also a quick
wit, and a quick appreciation of talent and sympathy with timorous
aspirations.
It had been Master Clarke's suggestion that his new pupil, who was known
as Edgar Allan, should put his own name upon the school register. Edgar,
looking questioningly up into Mr. Allan's face, was glad to read
approval there, and with a thrill of pride he wrote upon the book, in
the small, clear hand that had become characteristic of him:
"Edgar Allan Poe."
He was proud of his name and proud of his father, of whom he remembered
nothing, but in whose veins, he knew, had run patriot blood, and who had
had the independence to risk all for love of the beautiful mother of
worshipped memory. It was with straightened shoulders and a high head
that he took the seat assigned him at the clumsy desk, in the bare, ugly
room of the school in which he was to be known for the first time as
_Edgar Poe_. He felt that in coming into his own name he had come into a
proud heritage.
Mr. Clarke's Irish heart warmed toward him. He divined in the
big-browed, big-eyed boy a unique and gifted personality and proceeded
with the uttermost tact to do his best toward the cultivation of his
talents. The result was that Edgar not only acquitted himself
brilliantly in his studies, but progressed well in his verse-making,
which though, since Mr. Allan's prohibition, it had been kept secret in
his home, was freely acknowledged to teacher and school-fellows.
By his class-mates he was deemed a wonder. He was so easily first among
them in everything--in the simple athletics with which they were
familiar, as well as in studies--and his talent for rhyming and drawing
seemed to set him upon a sort of pedestal.
In the first blush of triumph these little successes gave him, young
Edgar's head was in a fair way to be turned. He saw himself (in fancy)
the leader, the popular favorite of the whole school. Indeed, he
flattered himself he had leaped at a single bound to this position at
the moment, almost, of his entrance. But he soon began to see that he
was mistaken. While he was conscious of the unconcealed admiration of
most, and the ill-concealed envy of a few of the boys, of his mental and
physical abilities, he began, as time went on, to suspect--then to be
sure--that for some reason that baffled all his ingenuity to fathom, he
was not accorded the position in the school that was the natural reward
for superiority of endowment and performance. This place was filled
instead by Nat Howard, a boy who, he told himself, he was without the
slightest vanity bound to see was distinctly second to him in every way.
He noticed that whatever Nat proposed was invariably done, so that he
was forced either to follow where he should have led, or be left out of
everything. Often when he joined the boys listening with interest to
Nat's heavy jokes and talk, a silence would fall upon the company, which
in a short while would break up--the boys going off in twos and threes,
leaving him to his own society or that of a small minority composed of
two or three boys for the most part younger than himself, who in spite
of the popular taste for Nat, preferred him and were captivated by his
clever accomplishments.
That there was some reason why he was thus shut out from personal
intimacy by school-mates who acknowledged and admired his powers he felt
sure, and he was determined to ferrit it out. In the meantime his heart,
always peculiarly responsive to affection, answered with warmth to the
devotion of the small coterie who were independent enough to swear
fealty to him. He helped them with their lessons, initiated them into
the mysteries of boxing and other manly exercises, went swimming and
gunning with them, and occasionally delighted them by showing them his
poems and the little sketches with which he sometimes illustrated his
manuscript, in the making.
It must be confessed that there was little in these compositions to set
the world afire. They would only be counted remarkable as the work of a
school-boy in his early teens, and were practice work--nothing more.
They served their purpose, then sank into the oblivion which was their
meet destiny. But to Jack Preston, Dick Ambler, Rob Stanard and Rob
Sully, and one or two others, they were master-pieces.
These boys, as well as Edgar, were giving serious attention to their
linen, the care of their hands, and the precise parting of their hair,
just then; and a close observer might often have detected them in the
act of furtively feeling their upper lips with anxious forefinger in the
vain hope of discovering the appearance--if ever so slight--of a downy
growth thereupon. For they, as well as he, were making sheep's eyes at
those wonderful visions in golden locks and jetty locks, with brown eyes
and blue eyes, with fluttering ribbons and snowy pinafores, known as
"Miss Jane Mackenzie's girls," who were the inspiration of most of their
poet-chum's invocations of the muse. The little hymns in praise of the
charms of these girls were generally adorned with pen or pencil sketches
of the fair charmers themselves.
Poor Miss Jane had a sad time of it. As the accomplished principal of a
choice Young Ladies Boarding and Day School, she enjoyed an enviable
position in the politest society in town. Parents of young ladies under
her care congratulated themselves alike upon her strict rule and her
learning, her refinement of manners and conversation and her
distinguished appearance. She was tall and stately and in her decorous
garb of black silk that could have "stood alone," and an elegant cap of
"real" lace with lavender ribbons softening the precise waves of her
iron-grey hair, she made a most impressive figure--one that would have
inspired with profound respect any male creature living saving that
incorrigible non-respecter of persons and personages, especially of lady
principals--the Boy. For the "forming" of young ladies, Miss Jane had a
positive forte, but the genus boy was an unknown quantity to her, and
worse--he was a positive terror. For one of them to invade the sacred
precincts of her school, or its grounds, seemed to her maiden soul rank
sacrilege; to scale her garden wall after dark for the purpose of
attaching a letter to a string let down from a window to receive it, was
nothing short of criminal. For one of her girls to receive offerings of
candy and original poetry--_love poetry_--from one of these terrible
creatures; such an offence was unspeakably shocking.
Yet discovery of such offences happened often enough to give her
repeated shocks, and to confirm her in her belief in the total
depravity, the hopeless wickedness of all boys--especially of John
Allan's adopted son.
In spite of her vigilance, Edgar Poe found the means to outwit her, and
to transmit his effusions, without difficulty, to her fair charges, who
with tresses primly parted and braided and meek eyes bent in evident
absorption upon their books, were the very pictures of docile obedience,
and bore in their outward looks no hint of the guilty consciences that
should, by rights, have been destroying their peace.
Miss Jane was the sister of Mr. Mackenzie who had adopted little Rosalie
Poe. Rosalie was, at Miss Jane's invitation, a pupil in the school, but
(ungrateful girl that she was) she became, at the suggestion of her
handsome and charming brother Edgar, whom she adored, the willing
messenger of Dan Cupid, and furthered much secret and sentimental
correspondence between the innocent-seeming girls and the young scamps
who admired them.
In these fascinating flights into the realms of flirtation, as in other
things, Edgar's friends acknowledged his superiority--his romantic
personal beauty and his gift for rhyming giving him a decided advantage
over them all; but they acknowledged it without jealousy, for there was
much of hero worship in their attitude toward him, and they were not
only perfectly contented for him to be first in every way but it would
have disappointed them for him not to be. The captivating charm of his
presence, in his gay moods, made it unalloyed happiness for them to be
with him. They were always ready to follow him as far as he led in
daring adventure--ready to fetch and carry for him and glowing with
pride at the least notice from him.
Some boys would have taken advantage of this state of things, but not so
Edgar Goodfellow. He, for his part, was always ready to contribute to
their pleasure, and fairly sunned himself in the unstinting love and
praise of these boys who admired, while but half divining his gifts.
Their games had twice the zest when Eddie played with them--he threw
himself into the sport with such heartfelt zeal that they were inspired
to do their best. Many a ramble in the woods and fields around Richmond
he took with them, telling them the most wonderful stories as he went
along; but sometimes, quite suddenly, during these outings, Edgar
Goodfellow would give place to Edgar the Dreamer and they would
wonderingly realize that his thoughts were off to a world where none of
them could follow--none of them unless it were Rob Sully, who was
himself something of a dreamer, and could draw as well as Edgar.
The transformation would be respected. His companions would look at him
with something akin to awe in their eyes and tell each other in low
tones not to disturb Eddie, he was "making poetry," and confine their
chatter to themselves, holding rather aloof from the young poet, who
wandered on with the abstracted gaze of one walking in sleep--with them,
but not of them.
There were other, less frequent, times when his mood was as much
respected, when added to the awe there was somewhat of distress in their
attitude toward him. At these times he was not only abstracted, but a
deep gloom would seem to have settled upon his spirit. Without apparent
reason, melancholy claimed him, and though he was still gentle and
courteous, they had a nameless sort of fear of him--he was so unlike
other boys and it seemed such a strange thing to be unhappy about
nothing. It was positively uncanny.
At these times they did not even try to be with him. They knew that he
could wrestle with what he called his "blue devils" more successfully
alone. A restlessness generally accompanied the mood, and he would
wander off by himself to the churchyard, the river, or the woods; or
spend whole long, golden afternoons shut up in his room, poring over
some quaint old tale, or writing furiously upon a composition of his
own. When he looked at the boys, he did not seem to see them, but would
gaze beyond them--the pupils of his full, soft, grey eyes darkening and
dilating as if they were held by some weird vision invisible to all eyes
save his own; and indeed the belief was general among his friends that
he was endowed with the power of seeing visions. This impression had
been made even upon his old "Mammy," when he was a mite of a lad. Many a
time, when he turned that abstracted gaze upon her, she had said to him,
"What dat you lookin' at now, Honey? You is bawn to see evil sho'!"
* * * * *
And now a glimpse of Edgar Goodfellow--the normal Edgar, whom his chums
saw oftenest and loved best, because they knew him best and understood
him best.
It was a late Autumn Saturday--one of the Saturdays sent from Heaven for
the delight of school-children--bracing, but not cold; and brilliant.
Little Robert Sully looked pensively out of the window thinking what a
fine day it would be for a country tramp, if only he were like other
boys and could take them. But Rob was of frail build and constitution
and could never stand much exertion. In his eyes was the expression of
settled wistfulness that frequent disappointment will bring to the eyes
of a delicate child; in the droop of his mouth there was a touch of
bitterness, for he was thinking that not only did his weak body make it
impossible for him to keep up with the boys, but that it was no doubt, a
relief to the boys to leave him behind--that when he could be with them
he was perhaps a drag on their pleasure. No doubt they would make a
long day of it, this bright, bracing Saturday, for the persimmons and
the fox-grapes were ripe and the chinquapin and chestnut burrs were
opening. Tears of self-pity sprang to his eyes, but they were quickly
dashed away as he heard his name called and saw his beloved Eddie,
flushed and glowing with anticipated pleasure, at the gate.
"Come along, Rob," he was calling. "We are going to the Hermitage woods
for chinquapins, and you must come too. Uncle Billy is going for a load
of pine-tags, and we can ride in his wagon, so it won't tire you."
The other boys were waiting at the corner, all at the highest pitch of
mirth, for they saw that their idol, Eddie, was in one of his happiest
moods, which would mean a morning of unbounded fun to them. And the ride
with old Uncle Billy who, with black and shiny face, beaming upon them
in an excess of kindliness, hair like a full-blown cotton-boll, and
quaint talk, was an unfailing source of delight to them!
The Saturday freedom was in their blood. Off and away they went in the
jolly, rumbling wagon, past houses and gardens, and fields and into the
enchanting, autumn-colored woods, where "Bob Whites" were calling to
each other and nuts were dropping in the rustling leaves or waiting to
be shaken from their open burrs.
As they jolted along, the steady stream of conversation between Edgar
and Uncle Billy was as good as a play to the rest of the boys--Edgar,
with grave, courteous manner, discoursing of "cunjurs" and "ha'nts" with
as real an air of belief as that of the old man himself.