was really a _department_ store. When we had a half cent coming to
us, Mrs. Perry always produced a _needle_, for the exact change.
You see how honest we were! This honest department store stood, in
fact it _was_ Pump Cottage, for I think Pump Cottage is the same old
jackknife with different blades and handles. Farther up, on the Wenham
Road, lived Deacon Joseph Williams, a beautiful old gentleman, with
a disposition as sunny as a ripe peach. His house was small and his
family large. All the Williamses in this region would look back to that
little house as their old family homestead, and I was sorry when Mr.
Doane decided that it could not be remodelled, but had to be taken down.
Deacon Williams had a dog, a little black fellow named Carlo, who
always followed the good man about except on Sundays. On Sundays, Carlo
took a look at his master and then went and lay down dejectedly. But,
as I have intimated before, when you remember the Sundays of those
days, a sensible dog really had the best of it. In a former page of
these odds and ends of memory I have mentioned Uncle Ed Larcom and his
fondness for hunting. A good many of us _aborigines_ of old Beverly
Farms will remember his talks of _his_ dog Tyler, a mongrel dog, half
bull dog and half Newfound_land_, as Uncle Ed pronounced it. Tyler,
according to his master (and his master was the most accurate teller
of stories that ever lived, always telling his yarns in exactly the
same words,) was a most remarkable dog, understanding what one said
to him as well as a man, going a mile if he were merely told to fetch
a missing jacket, and as full of fun and tricks as a monkey. Uncle Ed
used to delight his young audiences with anecdotes of Tyler, and in his
old age, when mind and memory began to fail, it was rather hard to hear
him say, "Did I ever tell you about my dog Tyler?"
He must have been named for John Tyler. It was hard on a good dog to be
named for John Tyler, one of the poorest presidents we ever had.
There seems to be a great deal of interest among our summer people in
the old houses still left at Beverly Farms. I have mentioned the James
Woodbury house now owned by Mr. J. S. Curtis; another very old house
is the William Haskell house, owned by Mr. Gordon Dexter. I have a
little doubt as to whether the date on the house is right. I have a
very strong impression that Aunt Betsey Larcom, born Haskell, told me
in my childhood that her father built the house in which Aunt Betsey
was born, in 1775. She also said that when they dug the well back of
the house, they struck a spring and were never able to finish stoning
it, a fact which accounted for its never running dry, when all the
other wells in the village gave out. I think Mr. Dexter bought it of
the James Haskell heirs, but I am not able to state what relation James
Haskell (Skipper Jim) was to Mr. William Haskell, or how he came into
possession of it.
I wonder how many people are now left in Beverly Farms who ever tasted
food cooked in a brick oven. I am sure there are not many. But those
of us who ate of an Indian pudding or a pot of baked beans from that
ancient source of supply will never forget the deliciousness of that
kind of cookery.
The pudding would stand straight up in its earthen pan, a quivering
red, honey-combed mass, surrounded with a sea of juice to be eaten
with rich real cream in clots of loveliness. The beans would be brown
and whole, with the crisp home cured pork on top. That old New England
cookery, it seems to me, filled a big bill for health and physical
nourishment. We did not know much about proteins and calories and
fibrins, in fact, we had never heard of them. But we somehow hit upon
the best combinations as to taste and efficiency. We almost never had
candy, and we rarely had all flour bread. A good deal of Indian meal
went into my mother's bread.
Our amusements in those days were primitive enough. On Old Election
Day, which came the last Wednesday in May, there was just one thing to
do. We youngsters had an election cake all shining with molasses on
top, and raisins in the middle, and we went down to the beach and dug
wells in the sand. Now and then we hunted Mayflowers (saxifrage) and
played about the old fort left from the Revolution and now owned by Mr.
F. L. Higginson. Evenings we had parties and played Copenhagen and hunt
the slipper or knit the family stockings by our dim oil lamps. Winters,
there were singing schools. Those were great larks if we came at the
money to buy a copy of the "Carmina Sacra," or the "Shawm." I still
think they were fine collections of tunes, comprising all the old
standbys. Mrs. Lee's father, Mr. John Knowlton, was a wonderful singing
master, and a great disciplinarian, with a beautiful bass voice. He
would stand a good deal of fun at the recess, but when Mr. Knowlton
struck his bell and took up his violin, we all knew it meant singing
and no nonsense. I think my grandfather, Benjamin Ober, and Elsie's
great-grandfather, Deacon David Larcom, were also singing masters in
the old days, but neither Elsie nor I remember them,--old as we are.
[Illustration: _From a Daguerreotype taken about 1859_]
Over "t'other side," as we called it, in the house now owned by Mr.
J. S. Curtis, lived Uncle "Jimmy" Woodbury. He must have been a
"character." He was once very much troubled by rats in his barn. So he
conceived a plan for getting rid of them at his neighbor's expense.
Uncle David Preston's estate, where Miss Susan Amory's house now
stands, was diagonally opposite.
Uncle "Jimmy" wrote a letter to the rats, in which he told them that
in Uncle David's barn was more corn and better corn than they were
getting in his barn, and he strongly recommended that they move. Then
Uncle Jimmy kept watch and on a beautiful moonlight night he had the
satisfaction of beholding a long line of rodents with an old gray
fellow as leader, crossing the road on their way to Uncle David's.
(I tell the story as it was told to me). Uncle Jimmy's daughter,
Mary, married Dr. Wyatt C. Boyden, for many years the skilful family
physician of half the town. The fine public spirited Boydens of Beverly
are her descendants.
By the way, the old vernacular of the village ought not to perish from
the earth. It was unique. Our ancestors just hated to pronounce any
word correctly, even when they were fairly good scholars and spellers.
They called a marsh a "mash." Capt. Timothy Marshall, the rich man of
the place, was called Capt. "Mashall"; Mr. Osborne was Mr. "Osman";
the Obers were "Overs", a lilac was a "laylock" a blue jay was a blue
"gee," etc.
In closing these rambling papers of the old days at Beverly Farms,
my conscience accuses me a little of not sufficiently emphasizing
the _virtues_ of the villagers. Truly, they were a good, interesting,
law-abiding, religious people. Everybody went to church; a tramp
was unknown; a drunken person was nearly as much an astonishment as
a circus would have been. It would be unfair to class them as rude
fishermen and shoemakers for they came of the old Puritan ancestry, who
built their churches and schoolhouses on a convenient spot, before they
attended to anything else, and they paid their debts so promptly that
Mr. William Endicott, the good merchant of Beverly, said that he never
had any hesitation in selling on credit to "Farms" people. As one got
on to middle life, almost every householder had his horse, his cows and
often a yoke of oxen. Our favorite conveyance to school, in deep snows,
was an ox team with poles on the sides of the sled, where we held on
with shouts and screams of laughter.
Nobody thought of hiring a _nurse_ in cases of serious illness. The
_neighbors_ came with willing hands and helped out. It was a peaceful
little hamlet, with kind, straightforward, honest inhabitants, and
the small remnant of us who are left have reason to be proud of our
ancestry.
Elsie repeated to us, the other day, the epitaph on her
great-grandfather's grave stone, the Deacon David Larcom, who built my
old house, who asked the town for a cemetery for this village and was
laid to rest there in 1840, the first one to be buried in its peaceful
shadows: "His life exhibited in rare combination and in an uncommon
degree all the excellencies of the husband, the father, the citizen and
the Christian."
The epitaph was written by Lucy Larcom, whose home here was on West
Street. After she left Beverly for Lowell, and was a factory girl, she
wrote for the "Lowell Offering," a little magazine published by the
nice New England working girls. Copies of this little magazine were in
the wonderful attic of my house when I came here. They were probably
scented with Aunt Betsey's _simples_ that hung from the roof.
How I wish I could have foreseen how very precious they would be to me
now.
[Illustration: _Head enlarged from a group taken about 1899_]
LUCY LARCOM--A MEMORY
BY MARY LARCOM DOW
_Extracts from the Beacon, published in Beverly for a charity November
1, 1913._
I am proud to be asked to record some of my pleasant days with my
mother's cousin, Lucy Larcom. It will, of course, be natural to me to
speak principally of the six or seven years during which she lived at
Beverly Farms, the only time in which she had a real home of her own.
It has always seemed strange to me that Doctor Addison in his biography
of her, should have dismissed that part of her life with so few words.
I know that it meant a great deal to her.
My very first recollection of her was as a child, when she, as a young
lady, came to my house (then owned by "Aunt Betsey") spoken of so
affectionately in "A New England Girlhood." Afterward, when I bought
the old house, she expressed her great pleasure and when I told her I
had spent all my money for it, she said that was quite right; it was
like the turtle with his shell, a retreat.
When she came here in 1866, she was in her early forties, a beautiful,
gracious figure, with flowing abundant brown hair, and a most benignant
face. She was then editor of "Our Young Folks." She took several sunny
rooms near the railroad station, almost opposite "The witty Autocrat."
He dated his letters from "Beverly Farms by the Depot," not to be
outdone by his Manchester neighbors. The house was then owned by
Captain Joseph Woodberry, a refined gentleman of the old school.
She brought with her at first, to these pleasant rooms, a favorite
niece who resembled her in looks and in temperament, and she at once
proceeded, with her exquisite taste, to make a real home for them. The
bright fire on the hearth where we sat and talked and watched the logs
fall apart and the sparks go out, was a great delight to her, and I
have always thought that that beautiful poem "By the Fireside" must
have been written "in those days."
The woods and fields of Beverly Farms were then accessible to all of
us, and she knew just where to find the first hepaticas and the rare
spots where the linnea grew, and the rhodora and the arethusa, and that
last pathetic blossom of the year, the witch hazel, and she could paint
them too.
To this home by the sea, came noted people; Mary Livermore, Celia
Thaxter, whose sea-swept poems were our great delight, and many others.
I recall one great event when Mr. Whittier came and took tea. He was
so gentle and simple. The conversation turned on the softening of
religious creeds, and he gave us some of his own experiences. He told
us that when Charles Kingsley came to America, he went to see him at
the Parker House, and as they walked down School Street, Mr. Whittier
expressed his appreciation to Mr. Kingsley for his work in that
direction. Mr. Kingsley laughed and said,--"Why, when I first went to
preach at Eversley, I had great difficulty in making my parishioners
believe that God is as good as the average church member."
There was a comfortable lounge in the living room at Beverly Farms, by
an east window, and by that window was written "A Strip of Blue."
I do not think that Lucy Larcom had a very keen sense of humor, but she
enjoyed fun in others, and was always amused at my absurd exaggerations
and at my brother David's comical sea yarns. This brother of mine
strongly resembled her in face and build, and also in his determination
not to be poor. They would be rich, and they were rich to the end of
the chapter. Her income must have been always slender, but I do not
think I ever heard her say she could not afford anything. If she wanted
her good neighbor, Mr. Josiah Obear, to harness up his red horse and
rock-away and take her about the countryside, she said so, and we would
go joyfully off, coming home, perhaps from the Essex fields, with a
box of strawberries for her simple supper. Always the simple life with
nature was her wish.
She was decidedly old-fashioned, and though I do not suppose she
thought plays and cards and dancing wicked, she had still a little
shrinking from them. I remember that now and then we played a game
called rounce, a game as innocent and inane as "Dumb Muggins" but she
always had a little fear that Captain Woodberry would discover it,
which pleased me immensely.
Those pleasant days at Beverly Farms came too soon to an end, and for
the last part of her life I did not see so much of her. She remains
to me a loving and helpful memory of a serene and child-like nature,
and "a glad heart without reproach or blot," and I am glad to lay this
witch hazel flower of memory upon the grave of that daughter of the
Puritans, Lucy Larcom.
LETTERS
Beverly Farms,
April 25, 1893.
My dear Miss Baker:
I get such pleasant letters from you that I quite love you, though I
dare say I should not know you if I met you in my porridge dish being
such a short sighted old party. And liking you, when you joined those
other despots and lie awake o' nights, thinking how you can pile up
more work and make life a burden to school ma'ams, means a good deal!!
Here is Miss Fanny Morse, now, whom I have always considered a
Christian and a philanthropist, commissioning me to count and destroy
belts of caterpillars' eggs for which the _children_ are to have prizes!
The children indeed! The prizes are at the wrong end! Miss Wilkins and
I come home nights--"meeching" along--our arms full of the twigs--from
which the nasty worms are beginning to crawl!
And now come you, asking for a tree! Yes, yes, dear body, we will do
our possible, only if you hear of my raiding somebody's barn yard for
the necessary nourishment of said tree, or stealing a wheelbarrow or a
pick and shovel, please think of me at my best.
Now as to Mr. Dow, I must write his part seriously, I suppose, as he is
a grave old Scotchman.
He says he will use a part of the money--after proper consultation with
the selectmen, etc. And he suggests that a part of the money be used to
take care of the triangle and the trees already planted. He will write
you when he has decided where to put additional trees. And if I live
through the week I will write you whether we got a '92 tree in anywhere.
Yours very much,
MARY L DOW.
Miss Baker was Secretary of the Beverly Improvement Society; these
letters refer to her work.--(Editor.)
Beverly Farms, March 21, 1899
My Dear Miss Baker:
I want very much to go to Mrs. Gidding's high tea but I do not get out
of school till 3.30 and the train leaves at 3.34.
But after I am graduated from a school, for good and all, I mean to
go to some of the rest of these "feasts of reason and flow of soul."
We are making fine progress with the _wurrums_ and Miss Wilkins is
prospering with her enterprise in Wenham.
Yours truly
MARY L. DOW.
P.S. My regards to your father. I am sorry he has been ill. I told my
sub-committee that I thought, if Mr. Baker had been present when my
resignation was accepted, they would have sent me some little pleasant
message to remember. It seemed to me that after teaching about a
century in the town they might have at least told me to go to the
d----, or something of that sort.
M.L.D.
"Beverly Farms-by-the-Depot" 1918.
Dearly Beloved G.P.:
"Pink" has just brought me this little squigley piece of paper, so that
my letter to you may be of the same size as hers--some people are so
fussy. You sent me nine or ten bushels of love, and I have used them
all up, and am hungry for more, for that kind of diet my appetite is
always unappeased.
How I do wish we had you within touching distance as well as within
loving distance; I have always had a great desire to see more of you
since first my eyes fell upon you. I do just hate to get so old that
perhaps I shall never see you again in the flesh. But I'll be sure to
look for you, and now and then, when you get a particularly good piece
of good luck,--I shall have had something to do with it. That does not
mean that the undertaker has been called and to hear James and Sarah
Elizabeth talk, you would suppose that nothing could kill me--I only
mean that 84 years is serious; but, for the life of me, I never do get
very serious for long at a time.
Jimmy and I have been out to Northfield for five days, went to meeting
and sang psalms for seven hours a day. Jimmy takes to meetings, being
as Huxley said of somebody "incurably religious"--and really I did not
talk much.
The country was so sweet and beautiful, the spirit of the place was
like the New Jerusalem come down again. We slept in the dormitory in
the little iron beds side by side, "Each in his narrow bed forever
laid", only we did not stay forever.
We meant to come home by way of the Monadnock region, and we had a few
drives along the Contacook River, but we ran into a Northeaster, and
came ingloriously home.
Have not you been in lovely places, and in great good fortune in your
vacation? I am glad of it.
I love you--so does Jimmy--and Sambo, and so would Billy, the
neighbors' dog, who hangs about me for rice and kidneys, if he knew
you. As to Pink, she flourishes like a green bay horse, teaches French
and is in good spirits. Molly goes away on a vacation tomorrow. Poor
Jim! With us for cooks!
Remember him in your prayers.
Thine, thine,
MOLLY POLLY.
Beverly Farms. Jan. 25, 1919.
My Dear Mrs. Goddard:
I didn't know till the other day, when I accidentally met Mr. Hakanson,
that you had had an anxious and worried time this winter, with Mr.
Goddard in the hospital. I am glad to know that he is able to be at
home now. Tell him with my love, that our old neighbor, Mrs. Goodwin,
once broke her leg, and she told me that though she expected to be
always lame, that in a year she could not remember which leg was broken.
I hope you and the boys have been well, in this winter of worries. As
to ice, I am scared to death of it, nothing else ever keeps me in the
house.
My old assistant at school, declares that one winter she dragged me up
and down Everett St., every school day! Nothing like the quietness of
this winter at Beverly Farms was ever seen. I think I must suggest to
the Beacon St. people to come down. We have had a good many dark days,
but now and then, I lie in my bed and watch the sun come up and glorify
the oaks on your hill.
And then I quote to "Jim" Emerson's lines:
"Oh! tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire."
And he likes that about as well as he likes the stars in the middle of
the night!
By the way, we are thinking of going to Colorado and Florida next month
for a few weeks. We have got the bits in our teeth, though we may have
to go to the City Home when we get back. We mean to try the month of
March in warmer climes. We haven't anything to wear--but that does not
matter.
Miss Miller comes down now and then, always serene, though what she
finds in the inlook or the outlook is difficult to see. Serenity in her
case, does not depend on outward circumstances.
God bless you all, and we shall be glad to see our kind sensible
neighbors back.
Affectionately,
MARY L. DOW.
My Dear Mrs. Goddard:
I told the nice young person at your door, that I hoped I should some
day soon see your dear face, and so I do hope. But I understand all
your busy moments, and you understand my limitations, my having been
born so many years ago; and we both know what fine women we both be,
and that's all about it!
Then there never was such a salad as we had for our fourth of July
dinner. And I did have a little real oil, too good for any hawked about
stuff. I put it right on to those dear little onions, and that happy
looking lettuce! And that isn't all about that, for there are still
carrots--gentle and sweet--for our tomorrow's lunch. I told "Jim" they
were good for the disposition and he said he didn't need carrots for
his! Men are awfully conceited. And I am so pleased to see Mr. Goddard
a'walking right off, without a limp to his name. James and Miss Miller
send love, and so do I, while the beautiful hill holds you and always.
MARY LARCOM DOW.
Monday, July 7, 1919.
Mrs. Dow wrote to a California friend, Mrs. Gertrude Payne Bridgeford, a
short time before her death:
"I'd give my chance of a satin gown to see you, and I hope I shall live
to do that, but if I don't, remember that I love you always, here or
there, and I quote here my favorite verse from Weir Mitchell,
'Yes, I have had dear Lord, the day,
When, at thy call, I have the night,
Brief be the twilight as I pass
From light to dark, from dark to light.'"
Her prayer was answered for the twilight was brief.
Dear Elsie:
As soon as Mary said "E. Sill"--I found the Fool's Prayer directly.
It was in my mind and would not stay out. How well it expresses that
our sins are often not so bad as our blunders! A splendid prayer for an
untactful person. Perhaps I should not go so far as to say that want
of tact is as bad as want of virtue--but it is pretty bad! From that
defect, you will go scot free! But I often blunder.
Your TAT is here, I am keeping it as a hostage.
Thine,
YOUR OLD SCHOOLMA'AM.
Friday, April 9, 1920.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS
"Wouldn't it be lovely if one could fall--like a leaf from a tree?"
"Longevity is the hardest disease in the world to cure, you are beat
from the start, and get worse daily!"
"Ah, dear, sometimes I wish--almost wish--I did not love life so well!
But I try to think that if it is not a long dreamless sleep bye and
bye, that I shall take right hold of that other existence and love it
too!"
And speaking of Mr. Dow's serious illness she wrote:
"I try to believe that God will not take him first--and leave me with
no sun in the sky--nor bird in the bush--no flower in the grass."
APPRECIATION
BY
SARAH E. MILLER
It was in the autumn of 1872 that I first met my friend, Mary Larcom
Ober, at Wilmington, North Carolina, where we were teaching in the same
school.
In the spring of 1873, she invited me to her home in Beverly Farms.
How well I remember that first happy visit to beautiful Beverly Farms,
and the first walk in its woods. We went through the grounds of the
Haven estate and then to Dalton's hill which has such a fine outlook.
From that time my friend's home held a welcome for me whenever I chose
to come, and the welcome lasted till the close of her life.
What a hospitality, rest and peace there was in the dear "house by the
side of the road," and a never-failing kindness and love. What cheer at
Thanksgiving and Christmas festivals when friends and neighbors came in
to bring greetings, and stayed for friendly chat or a game of cards.
In the first years of our friendship, I made close acquaintance with
the woods of Beverly Farms, for we lived our summer afternoons mostly
out of doors in those days. We had two favorite places under the trees,
one, on a little hill deep in the pines, the other, with glimpses of
the sea, and we took our choice of these from day to day.
Here in the company of books, birds and squirrels we used to sit, read
and sew till the last beams of sunlight crept up to the tops of the
pines, then gathered up books and work and went home.
I learned much of book-lore in those days from my friend, much also of
wood-lore. She knew the places where the spring flowers were hidden,
hepeticas, violets, blood-root, the nodding columbines, and all the
others, and we searched them out together.
The memory of those first years at Beverly Farms, and of all the
following years are among the most precious possessions that I hold.
S. E. M.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS WRITTEN TO MR. DOW
_From Mrs. Cora Haynes Crosby_:
"I have known and loved her, our dear wonderful friend who has left us,
ever since I can remember, and what a friend she has been.
Not only was she dear to father and mother, but just as precious with
her great, noble, beautiful spirit to all of us younger ones, for she
was no older than we.
That happy outlook on life, her love of everything beautiful and fine
in nature, books and people, made her an inspiration to all who knew
her."
_From a letter by Mrs. Margaret Haynes Pratt_: