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[Illustration: STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S ALLIGATOR.]
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Volume I.—No. 23. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1858. Price 2 Cents.
Early Boyhood and its Merry Pastimes.
I remember the woman’s school at four years old, and the merited
chastisement of the school marm; my desperate descent on the sugar bowl;
the military company of which I was commander; my annual cries in the
trundle bed at 12 o’clock and one second, A. M.: “I wish you merry
Christmas, Ma,—I wish you happy New Year, Pa,—now gim me cent;” with my
father’s: “Go to sleep, you young rascal, or I’ll come and spank you;”
the two cents I always got on the 4th of July, if I had been a good boy,
and the solitary penny if I hadn’t; the death of my mother of twins; the
copious tears of my father and Aunt Lucy; my grief at her sudden demise;
the country boarding school, and the blast of lightning that felled me
to the earth, while whittling on the summer green; my eyes soon open on
the glories of the lurid universe, and I scamper into the pretty
cottage, and bound into the arms of my aunt, who nearly smothers me with
affectionate embraces; the storm passes; a bow appears, with crimson
arrows, and lingers on the concave’s rosy verge, till Venus gleams
through the twilight leaves, when its gorgeous hues are vailed by the
revolving spheres, and it descends the dazzling west.
Whose Archer follows the resplendent sun,
Before whose darts the stormy Furies run;
the moon ascends the east in matchless splendor, and roams in tranquil
beauty through infinitude, spreading its snowy light on vale and mead,
that vie with lakes of liquid silver; my aunt lingers at my bed, while I
say my evening prayer, and invests my heart with sacred feelings; myself
and brother William, on our way to school, through a dreary wood, espy a
boy in a wagon, when I exclaim: “Why, Bill, there’s our brother Albert;”
Bill stares and says: “Steve, your perceptions are very foggy, and I
begin to think you aint got good sense;” I closely scan the boy, and
smile, but elicit no response, the little rogue riveting his bright blue
eyes on the vacant air; Bill passes on to school, with: “Steve, you are
raving mad, and I’m going to tell Aunt Freeman so;” when I address the
stranger thus: “Little boy, you look like my brother Albert, and this
horse and wagon resemble ours, and won’t you please to tell me if you
aint my brother Al, who lives far away from here, in a place called
Providence? I always dearly loved him, and I havn’t seen him for a long
time now, and I would like to see him very much; come, now, little boy,
aint you Ally Branch, and if you are, won’t you please to tell me so?”
Tears roll down his pale cheeks, followed by the sweetest smiles, (like
simultaneous rain and sunshine,) extending his arms, with: “How do you
do, dear brother Stevy;” I scream; dart into the wagon, and, placing my
arms around his neck, fondly kiss him. And then I made the woods ring
with my cries for Bill to return, and behold our dear brother, found so
mysteriously alone in the forest wild. Bill slowly returns; and I hear
the echo of a laugh, and see a man emerge from the monarch oaks, whom I
discern as father, whose playful stratagem blares brightly before my
enraptured vision. And with the velocity of light, I spring from the
wagon, and at a bound, am in the embraces of my adored father. The vail
slowly passes from the eyes of Bill, who stands like a statue in the dim
perspective, crying lustily over my triumphant conquest. We all shout
and wave our hands, and Willie bounds into Albert’s and father’s arms,
whose fervent kisses soon dispel his tears; when his crescent and
revolving eyes gently threaten to eclipse the sun and moon with
hilarious splendor; three happy brothers then rock the forest solitude
with merry vociferations, and run like deer, and sing like infant
Jubals, with sweet responses from congenial birds, prancing on the oaks’
majestic branches. And with hearts of gladness, we spring like hounds
into the wagon, and return to Aunt Freeman’s, and that I regard as one
of the happiest days of my early boyhood. On the following morn, we
leave for Providence, which I scarcely reach, ere our yard is a camp of
boys, eager to embrace their favorite commander, after his long
captivity in the desert wilds of Woodstock; myself and Albert soon go to
another country school; we board with a minister who has a large family,
and a small salary, which was tardily and scantily paid with very poor
provisions; myself and Al don’t like the fare; has fried pork too often
for breakfast, and pork and beans for dinner, with a cold cut of pork
and beans at nightfall; and we enter our solemn protest against so much
fried hog, and so many baked beans; we protest, too, against his not
fastening the doors and windows nights, as father does at home; we hear
strange noises nights, while abed; and respectfully implore him to put
locks on the doors, and nails in the windows, who refuses, and says,
that good boys are never afraid of robbers or assassins; we still hear
dreadful sounds at midnight; and bury ourselves, head and all, in the
bed clothes; sweat terribly, and nearly smother; grow pale; lose flesh;
get very weak; have cold night sweats; finally despair, and threaten to
leave for home; write long letters to father, full of bad writing and
spelling, who doesn’t answer them, because he can’t read them; we start
for Providence; our sacred host pursues us on a cadaverous horse, whose
ribs rattle, and captures us in the haunted woods, where, in old times,
a man was murdered, and two lovers hung themselves, because their
parents wouldn’t let them marry; I and Al were hurrying through this
dreadful wood, when old cadaverous and the parson pounce upon us, who
threatens to whip us if we don’t return, and cuts a switch for the
purpose; his eyes roll terribly, and, as I once heard he was slightly
insane at times, and, fearing he might murder me, I gave the wink to Al,
and we concluded to return, very gently shaking our heads and fists,
with threats of telling our father all about it some day, who was a
Justice of the Peace, and could lock up any body, and have them hung
beside; to silence our unceasing clamors, the parson gets some cheap
second-hand locks, and rusty nails, fastens the doors and windows
nights, and gives us fried liver twice a week for breakfast, and lets
pork and beans slide awhile, with very tender veal instead; don’t hear
strange sounds at night any more; sleep very soundly; don’t hear the
cheerless midnight winds as of yore; get fat as butter; are very
contented; Fourth of July close at hand; father comes after us; shed
tears of joy, and run and jump like wild cats, and get home alive once
more from a country boarding school; go to a party on the night of our
arrival; Oscar Rivulet and Clara Violet are there; at the party’s close,
I can’t find my hat, and while in its vigorous pursuit, Oscar takes the
arm of Clara, when I step up and whisper in his ear, that I will
chastise him the very next day for cutting me out; Oscar and Clara
depart; I find my hat in the oven, where Oscar doubtless put it, and
begin to cry with rage; to console me, my aunt places the arm of Flora
Rosebud in mine, who was a dashing little belle, with whom I slowly
ramble towards her home beneath a brilliant sky; soon after I bid Flora
good night, at her father’s door, a dark cloud rapidly arose and
obscured the moon, and I became afraid, and ran fleetly home, expecting
to meet an assassin at every corner’s turn, but when I heard the
cheerful watchman’s cry of “half-past eight o’clock, and all’s well,”
and beheld his noble form in the distance, my fears are tranquilized,
and I walk as erect and firm as the hero of many battles, and loudly
boast of my courage, after I get snugly in the trundle bed with Albert,
the shield of my father’s voice above me, to fortify my pretended valor.
On the following day, my step-mother struck me on the head with a jacket
with brass buttons, for my impudence at dinner in my father’s absence,
because she wouldn’t give me more boiled onions, of which I was very
fond; the blood flowed freely, and she was terrified lest I would bleed
to death, and she be hung; she dressed the wounds most tenderly, and
gave me plenty of onions and sugar, and warmly coaxed me not to tell
father when he came to tea, lest he would gently chide her for her
laceration of the skull of the prolific brain of the darling son who
bore his own father’s promising name of Stephen; and for many days she
gave me candy and peanuts, and gave me so many onions that I have
loathed them since; she even poulticed my lacerated head with boiled
onions, which I smell to this day; I had the ear-ache, and she even put
a small roast onion in my ear to check the pain; I once passed through
Weathersfield, (where onions are as thick as leaves in the Vale of
Vallambrosa,) whose atmosphere caused me to fertilize its streets with
bile; my step-mother finally stops my supplies of sweetmeats, and I
threaten to tell my father of her violent blow, and show him my scars,
when she surrendered, and gave me sweet things for a long period; and
she saved me many a whipping from my father, when I was mischievous,
lest I would tell and show the relics of her trouncing, which gave me a
boundless latitude for pranks until the scars all passed away; at this
time, my dog Watch was drowned, but he rose the ninth day, and I buried
him at the foot of my father’s garden, with funeral honors, a
neighboring dog, in traces, bearing his precious body to the grave, over
which I placed turf and stones in memory of a dog I dearly loved; after
the funeral, Cornelius Snow, nicknamed Flop, called me names, and I told
my father that “Flop Snow had called me names, and I meant to lick him
for it,” when my father effected a reconciliation, by allowing Cornelius
to call me Steve as long as I called him Flop. He had long been at the
head of my class, at school, and I had never been at the head, which
mortified my father, who told me if I would get above Flop through good
spelling, he would give me a sixpence; I tried long and hard, but I
couldn’t do it; so, on a very stormy day, while myself and Flop were the
only boys of our spelling class at school, I told him that if he would
make a mistake in spelling, and let me keep at the head until school was
over, I would give him three cents; Flop consented, and broke down on
beef, which he spelled _b-e-a-p-h-f-e_, for which the teacher boxed his
ears, and made him see ten thousand sparkling stars; I got sixpence from
my father, and gave Flop half of it; there was a full class the next
day, and down I went to the foot, my usual place; my father learned of
my collusion with Flop, and gave me a tremendous whipping; the next day
I went several miles down Providence river, in a canoe with Elias Smith
and Joseph Fuller, and was gone four days, and all the town was terribly
excited lest we were lost; but Mr. Proud, a neighbor, of whose peaches
and melons I was very fond, stuck to it like beeswax, that I would never
be drowned, while hemp grew in Kentucky; the day after my return, my
step-mother whips Albert for stealing a small lump of sugar, at about
11, A. M.; father usually came to dinner at 12, M.; Ally cried for a
long time; but he began to lull, and I was afraid he wouldn’t hold out
until father got home; so, I got Ally down cellar, and pinched him, and
pulled his hair, to make him keep it up, until father got home; it being
near twelve o’clock, and my step-mother knowing my influence over Ally,
told me if I would pacify him before father came to dinner, she would
give me as much sugar as I wanted for a whole week; I accepted the
bribe,—but Al overheard us, and declared that he would cry like thunder,
until father came, if I didn’t give him half the sugar; we finally
compromised, by allowing Ally a quarter of all the lumps I got; a few
days after, while returning from a Saturday excursion down the river, my
brother Bill cut up so, that the boat capsized, in very deep water, a
short distance from the shore; Jim Baker and myself got on the bottom of
the boat, while Bill’s feet and head were entangled in the ropes and
sail; Sam Thurber and others swam to the shore; Jim Baker and myself
couldn’t swim, and we expected to be lost; and we bellowed murder like
fury; amid this awful scene, the owner of the boat came down the shore,
and cried: “Pay for that boat, you rascals, pay for that boat;” he had
scarcely breathed these brutal words, when down went Jim Baker and
myself to the river’s bed; I rose to the surface first, and went down
again, when Jim grabbed my leg, and we came up together, and a noble
sailor seized and bore us to the shore, where we were put in barrels,
and pints of water squeezed out of us; Jim and myself open our dewy
eyes, shake hands, and walk home arm in arm, with the sailor behind,
thrashing the boat proprietor for demanding pay, instead of coming to
our rescue, whose unparalleled inhumanity the gallant tar couldn’t
tolerate. I went to bed, and had a horrid night-mare, and dreamed of
sharks and whales. On the day after the boat calamity of Jim Baker and
myself on Providence river, I arose with the glorious sun, ate a spare
repast, and went to school. My stomach yet complained of salt water, and
my head and books were at rapiers’ points. The teacher, SHAW, vainly
chides me for my indolence, and summons me before him, and demands my
spelling-book, and gives me _genuine_, which I spell “_gen-ner-wine_.”
The school is convulsed in the wildest screams. Shaw seizes his
lignumvitae ruler, darts through the aisles, rolls his big gray eyes,
and bangs the desks until the dust rises into clouds, when the mirthful
tumult is hushed into the silence of a tomb, and he bids me take my
seat, with furious cuffs of both ears. My brother Bill had been
snickering in his hat, and sleeve, and handkerchief, until he had
saturated them all with his hilarious tears, and, as I passed him on my
way to my seat, he burst into a _genuine_ Branch laugh, and all again
was chaos. The scholars were more uproarious than before, and Shaw rages
furiously, and calls up Bill, when all is silent terror, and every eye
is riveted on its book. Shaw demands Bill to extend his right hand,
which he declines to do, because he has a felon, and tender warts all
over his knuckles. Shaw then commands him to hold up his left hand, and
Bill obeys, when Shaw’s eyes flash sparks of fire, his cheeks are
deathly pale, and his ferule descends with tremendous violence
On the vacant air,
As Bill’s hand wan’t there!
The scholars roar again, and clap their little hands, and stamp their
feet in the wildest ecstacy, when Shaw bellows like a rabid bull, and
gesticulates fatality to the rebellious scholars, whose eyes fall
quickly on their books, and all violently move their pallid lips, with
pretense of study, while a terrible revenge rankles in their hearts, for
Shaw’s cruel treatment of Bill, who has so many warts and a felon, with
salt water still gurgling in his ocean belly. At Shaw’s wrathful behest,
Bill again raises his trembling hand, and keeps his eye fastened on
Shaw’s; and as the ruler nears his palm, he dodges, when Shaw flies to
his scholastic throne for his cow-skin, and descends his ramparts with
the pomposity of a king, calmly surveying his juvenile and affrighted
subjects, and directs Bill to remove his jacket, who firmly declines.
Shaw seizes him, and Bill cries murder; the girls weep and faint, and
water is sprinkled on their cheeks and foreheads; the boys shake their
fists, and dare each other to rush to Bill’s rescue, but Shaw threatens
them with utter annihilation if they interfere, and the belligerent and
affrighted boys leave poor Bill to his unhappy fate.—Fortunately for
Bill, Shaw is short, and of very slender mould. Bill is stout, knows
well the physical weakness of his adversary, and proves himself fully
equal to the awful crisis before him. For, while Shaw strives to get
Bill across his knees to switch and spank him, Bill, by a sudden and
very elastic movement, gets between, and coils himself, like a snake,
around Shaw’s legs, and pinches, and bites, and tears his pants, and
finally trips him, and down they go, with Bill on Shaw, and with both
hands so firmly and desperately clenched in Shaw’s white cravat, as to
make his tongue protrude. The girls faintly titter, while the stoutest
and bravest boys bang their desks, and wildly shout with joy. The
panting combatants spring to the floor, and, like two roosters, have a
moment’s respite; Shaw is pale, and trembles with shame, and relents,
and in feeble and broken accents, directs Bill to take his seat; the
silence of a Capulet pervades the school, when my tremendous horse laugh
breaks the calm; the scholars scream again with frantic contortions;
Shaw’s eyes roll like a demon’s, and his voice rises high above the
universal clamor, which slowly subsides, and all is still again; Shaw
then comes on tiptoe to my desk, and grabs and drags me to the aisle,
with one hand clutched in my throat, and the other in my long hair, when
I grab him in a tender spot, and make him squeal; and so severe and
unrelenting is my grasp, that he gladly gives freedom to my throat and
hair, and implores, in tones of excruciating agony, to release my hands.
I slowly do so, when he re-seizes me, and, dragging me several feet by
my hair, kicks away the scuttle, and casts me headlong beneath the
schoolhouse, closing the scuttle over me; I can hardly sit upright in my
new abode; all is darkness; I smell the awful perfume of a dead skunk;
little mice squeal, and run over me, and nibble at my mouth and nose,
and big and hungry rats approach, and violently attack me, which I keep
at bay with my feet and hands, and hideous yells, and they finally
scamper to their holes, while a myriad of mice remain to torment me; I
chew tobacco, to drown my abject sorrow; it is the first cud that ever
graced my mouth; I cover it with the fragment of a newspaper, to prevent
my giddy exhiliration through a too strong taste of tobacco; I soon got
deathly sick, and thump and scream for Shaw to let me out, who heeds not
my piteous cries; I am desperate, and resting my hands and feet on the
ground, I get an irresistible purchase, and with a mighty movement of my
back, I burst the scuttle with a tremendous crash, and dart from my
narrow and dreary cavern into the schoolroom, and run down the aisle,
vomiting at every step; the scholars are nearly gone; as I approach the
door, Shaw grabs me, when I belch the purest bile plump in his face,
which, of course, was purely accidental; Shaw is blinded with tobacco
bile, and wipes his cheeks, and nose, and mouth, and eyes, and commands
me to go to his desk; I refuse; he then expostulates, and breathes kind
words, which allay my anger, and check the flow of tobacco and salt
water bile; I go to his desk; he dismisses the few scholars that remain,
save my weeping brother Bill, curled in the corner; Shaw laments the sad
occurrence; hopes we will be better boys, and permits us to go home; on
our arrival, father is at tea, listening to brother Albert’s version of
the story; Bill and myself seat ourselves at table, when father directs
each to give his melancholy narrative; Bill is hungry, and slowly
begins, and lacks vivacity, and the impatient father turns to me for the
rapid and vivid analysis of the horrid scholastic anarchy and rencontre
then flying on exaggeration’s wide-spread wings, and distracting the
peaceful firesides of Providence; I swallow the delicious food already
in my mouth; cleanse my throat with a prolonged swallow of commingled
tea and sugar, and tell my story in a nervous strain; my father’s eyes
are large, and fixed on mine, throughout my exciting narrative, at whose
close, he gets his hat and cane and autumnal mantle, and bids myself and
Bill to follow him; we penetrate the pitchy darkness, and after varied
street meanderings in the turbulent and piercing evening winds, we
ascend the steps, and tap at the door of Shaw; we enter his pale
presence, who is extremely courteous to father, who is a member of the
Visiting School Committee, and invested with power of a teacher’s
dismissal, which Shaw now fears; father opens his deadly batteries, and
Shaw, perceiving no possible escape, pleads extenuation for the violent
temper that nature gave him; spoke of William as a very good and
studious boy, (a truth,) and of Stephen as a meritorious and
enthusiastic youth, who dearly loved his books, (a lie,) and deeply
regretted that his heated passion led him to the chastisement of
William, and the incarceration of Stephen; and declared in tones of warm
sincerity, that if father would forgive him, he would never whip nor
imprison us again, but lead us up the hill of science through gentle and
persuasive means; father pities and admires his humility, and, rising to
depart, directs Shaw to inform him every Friday by letter, how many days
William and Stephen have played the truant during the week, and with
what facility we recite our lessons, and what our general conduct is;
Shaw’s eyes flash joy at these delightful and magnanimous behests, while
the eyes of Bill and myself flash guilt and fury at Shaw’s apparent
conquest, because all our future sport is spoiled, and mine, especially,
as I played truant about twice a week, and Bill once a month; and
because I seldom got my lessons well; Shaw and father extend their
hands, and shake a warm good night: and while they linger at the outer
door in friendly conversation, I slyly crawl through father’s legs, to
get into the street as soon as possible, and away from Shaw’s victorious
presence; the last shake of hands transpire between father and Shaw, who
slowly closes the door with a beatific smile; father, myself, and Bill
muffle ourselves in our fervent garments; it snows and blows very hard;
and, as we walk slowly homeward against the snow and wind, father
delivers an affectionate and mournful lecture, gently chiding us for the
trouble we had caused him, and the rapid increase of his snowy locks;
kindly warning us that we were constantly exposed to the sad fate of
orphans, our tender mother being already gone forever; and with a
trembling voice implored us to be good boys, to study hard, to be kind
and obedient to Mr. Shaw, to cultivate manly virtues, and strive to
become intellectual giants, and the pillars of our country, in peace or
war, after the fathers of his generation had passed from the field of
action. We both wept bitterly, and besought our dear and indulgent
father to forgive the past, with assurances of our efforts to please him
and our teacher in the future. We reach home, and father kindles a
crackling, hickory fire, and gives us cider and walnuts, and tells us
pretty stories, and puts on extra bed clothes, because the night is so
piercing cold, and tucks our bed at the sides, to keep out the biting
air, and then directs us to clasp and raise our little hands to God, and
say after him our evening prayer of
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take;”
and then gives us a parting kiss, and pats our little foreheads, and
breathes sweet tones of affection until he passes from our view. Bill
and myself make good resolves for the future, and breathe a fond “good
night!” and then embrace the tranquil slumber and innocent dreams of
early boyhood.
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