Speaking of those thin pumpkin-pies kept in the cellar cupboard, I used
to know a boy who afterwards grew to be a selectman, and brushed his
hair straight up like General Jackson, and went to the legislature,
where he always voted against every measure that was proposed, in the
most honest manner, and got the reputation of being the "watch-dog of
the treasury." Rats in the cellar were nothing to be compared to this
boy for destructiveness in pies. He used to go down, whenever he could
make an excuse, to get apples for the family, or draw a mug of cider
for his dear old grandfather (who was a famous story-teller about the
Revolutionary War, and would no doubt have been wounded in battle if
he had not been as prudent as he was patriotic), and come up stairs
with a tallow candle in one hand and the apples or cider in the other,
looking as innocent and as unconscious as if he had never done anything
in his life except deny himself butter for the sake of the heathen.
And yet this boy would have buttoned under his jacket an entire round
pumpkin-pie. And the pie was so well made and so dry that it was not
injured in the least, and it never hurt the boy's clothes a bit more
than if it had been inside of him instead of outside; and this boy
would retire to a secluded place and eat it with another boy, being
never suspected, because he was not in the cellar long enough to eat a
pie, and he never appeared to have one about him. But he did something
worse than this. When his mother saw that pie after pie departed, she
told the family that she suspected the hired man; and the boy never
said a word, which was the meanest kind of lying. That hired man was
probably regarded with suspicion by the family to the end of his days,
and if he had been accused of robbing they would have believed him
guilty.
I shouldn't wonder if that selectman occasionally has remorse now about
that pie; dreams, perhaps, that it is buttoned up under his jacket and
sticking to him like a breastplate; that it lies upon his stomach like
a round and red-hot nightmare, eating into his vitals. Perhaps not. It
is difficult to say exactly what was the sin of stealing that kind of
pie, especially if the one who stole it ate it. It could have been used
for the game of pitching quoits, and a pair of them would have made
very fair wheels for the dog-cart. And yet it is probably as wrong to
steal a thin pie as a thick one; and it made no difference because
it was easy to steal this sort. Easy stealing is no better than easy
lying, where detection of the lie is difficult. The boy who steals his
mother's pies has no right to be surprised when some other boy steals
his watermelons. Stealing is like charity in one respect,—it is apt to
begin at home.
X
FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD
If I were forced to be a boy, and a boy in the country,—the best kind
of boy to be in the summer,—I would be about ten years of age. As soon
as I got any older, I would quit it. The trouble with a boy is that
just as he begins to enjoy himself he is too old, and has to be set to
doing something else. If a country boy were wise he would stay at just
that age when he could enjoy himself most, and have the least expected
of him in the way of work.
Of course the perfectly good boy will always prefer to work, and to do
"chores" for his father and errands for his mother and sisters, rather
than enjoy himself in his own way. I never saw but one such boy. He
lived in the town of Goshen,—not the place where the butter is made,
but a much better Goshen than that. And I never saw _him_, but I heard
of him; and being about the same age, as I supposed, I was taken once
from Zoar, where I lived, to Goshen to see him. But he was dead. He had
been dead almost a year, so that it was impossible to see him. He died
of the most singular disease: it was from _not_ eating green apples in
the season of them. This boy, whose name was Solomon, before he died
would rather split up kindling-wood for his mother than go a-fishing:
the consequence was, that he was kept at splitting kindling-wood
and such work most of the time, and grew a better and more useful
boy day by day. Solomon would not disobey his parents and eat green
apples,—not even when they were ripe enough to knock off with a
stick,—but he had such a longing for them that he pined and passed
away. If he had eaten the green apples he would have died of them,
probably; so that his example is a difficult one to follow. In fact, a
boy is a hard subject to get a moral from. All his little playmates who
ate green apples came to Solomon's funeral, and were very sorry for
what they had done.
[Illustration: RUNNING ON THE STONE WALL]
John was a very different boy from Solomon, not half so good, nor half
so dead. He was a farmer's boy, as Solomon was, but he did not take
so much interest in the farm. If John could have had his way he would
have discovered a cave full of diamonds, and lots of nail-kegs full of
gold-pieces and Spanish dollars, with a pretty little girl living in
the cave, and two beautifully caparisoned horses, upon which, taking
the jewels and money, they would have ridden off together, he did not
know where. John had got thus far in his studies, which were apparently
arithmetic and geography, but were in reality the Arabian Nights, and
other books of high and mighty adventure. He was a simple country boy,
and did not know much about the world as it is, but he had one of his
own imagination, in which he lived a good deal. I dare say he found out
soon enough what the world is, and he had a lesson or two when he was
quite young, in two incidents, which I may as well relate.
If you had seen John at this time, you might have thought he was only
a shabbily dressed country lad, and you never would have guessed what
beautiful thoughts he sometimes had as he went stubbing his toes along
the dusty road, nor what a chivalrous little fellow he was. You would
have seen a short boy, barefooted, with trousers at once too big and
too short, held up, perhaps, by one suspender only; a checked cotton
shirt; and a hat of braided palm-leaf, frayed at the edges and bulged
up in the crown. It is impossible to keep a hat neat if you use it to
catch bumble-bees and whisk 'em; to bail the water from a leaky boat;
to catch minnows in; to put over honey-bees' nests; and to transport
pebbles, strawberries, and hens' eggs. John usually carried a sling
in his hand, or a bow, or a limber stick sharp at one end, from which
he could sling apples a great distance. If he walked in the road, he
walked in the middle of it, shuffling up the dust; or, if he went
elsewhere, he was likely to be running on the top of the fence or the
stone-wall, and chasing chipmunks.
John knew the best place to dig sweet-flag in all the farm; it was in a
meadow by the river, where the bobolinks sang so gayly. He never liked
to hear the bobolink sing, however, for he said it always reminded
him of the whetting of a scythe, and _that_ reminded him of spreading
hay; and if there was anything he hated it was spreading hay after the
mowers. "I guess you wouldn't like it yourself," said John, "with the
stubs getting into your feet, and the hot sun, and the men getting
ahead of you, all you could do."
Towards evening once, John was coming along the road home with some
stalks of the sweet-flag in his hand; there is a succulent pith in the
end of the stalk which is very good to eat, tender, and not so strong
as the root; and John liked to pull it, and carry home what he did
not eat on the way. As he was walking along he met a carriage, which
stopped opposite to him; he also stopped and bowed, as country boys
used to bow in John's day. A lady leaned from the carriage and said,—
"What have you got, little boy?"
She seemed to be the most beautiful woman John had ever seen; with
light hair, dark, tender eyes, and the sweetest smile. There was that
in her gracious mien and in her dress which reminded John of the
beautiful castle ladies, with whom he was well acquainted in books. He
felt that he knew her at once, and he also seemed to be a sort of young
prince himself. I fancy he didn't look much like one. But of his own
appearance he thought not at all, as he replied to the lady's question,
without the least embarrassment,—
"It's sweet-flag stalk; would you like some?"
"Indeed, I should like to taste it," said the lady, with a most winning
smile. "I used to be very fond of it when I was a little girl."
John was delighted that the lady should like sweet-flag, and that she
was pleased to accept it from him. He thought himself that it was about
the best thing to eat he knew. He handed up a large bunch of it. The
lady took two or three stalks, and was about to return the rest, when
John said,—
"Please keep it all, ma'am. I can get lots more. I know where it's ever
so thick."
"Thank you, thank you," said the lady; and as the carriage started she
reached out her hand to John. He did not understand the motion, until
he saw a cent drop in the road at his feet. Instantly all his illusion
and his pleasure vanished. Something like tears were in his eyes as he
shouted,—
"I don't want your cent. I don't sell flag!"
John was intensely mortified. "I suppose," he said, "she thought I was
a sort of beggar-boy. To think of selling flag!"
At any rate, he walked away and left the cent in the road, a humiliated
boy. The next day he told Jim Gates about it. Jim said he was green not
to take the money; he'd go and look for it now, if he would tell him
about where it dropped. And Jim did spend an hour poking about in the
dirt, but he did not find the cent. Jim, however, had an idea: he said
he was going to dig sweet-flag, and see if another carriage wouldn't
come along.
John's next rebuff and knowledge of the world was of another sort.
He was again walking the road at twilight, when he was overtaken by
a wagon with one seat, upon which were two pretty girls, and a young
gentleman sat between them driving. It was a merry party, and John
could hear them laughing and singing as they approached him. The wagon
stopped when it overtook him, and one of the sweet-faced girls leaned
from the seat and said, quite seriously and pleasantly,—
"Little boy, how's your mar?"
John was surprised and puzzled for a moment. He had never seen the
young lady, but he thought that she perhaps knew his mother; at any
rate his instinct of politeness made him say,—
"She's pretty well, I thank you."
"Does she know you are out?"
And thereupon all three in the wagon burst into a roar of laughter and
dashed on.
It flashed upon John in a moment that he had been imposed on, and it
hurt him dreadfully. His self-respect was injured somehow, and he felt
as if his lovely, gentle mother had been insulted. He would like to
have thrown a stone at the wagon, and in a rage he cried,—
"You're a nice"—But he couldn't think of any hard, bitter words quick
enough.
Probably the young lady, who might have been almost any young lady,
never knew what a cruel thing she had done.
XI
HOME INVENTIONS
The winter season is not all sliding down hill for the farmer-boy by
any means; yet he contrives to get as much fun out of it as from any
part of the year. There is a difference in boys: some are always jolly,
and some go scowling always through life as if they had a stone-bruise
on each heel. I like a jolly boy.
I used to know one who came round every morning to sell molasses candy,
offering two sticks for a cent apiece; it was worth fifty cents a day
to see his cheery face. That boy rose in the world. He is now the owner
of a large town at the West. To be sure, there are no houses in it
except his own; but there is a map of it and roads and streets are laid
out on it, with dwellings and churches and academies and a college and
an opera-house, and you could scarcely tell it from Springfield or
Hartford, on paper. He and all his family have the fever and ague, and
shake worse than the people at Lebanon: but they do not mind it; it
makes them lively, in fact. Ed May is just as jolly as he used to be.
He calls his town Mayopolis, and expects to be mayor of it; his wife,
however, calls the town Maybe.
[Illustration: COASTING]
The farmer-boy likes to have winter come, for one thing, because it
freezes up the ground so that he can't dig in it; and it is covered
with snow, so that there is no picking up stones, nor driving the cows
to pasture. He would have a very easy time if it were not for the
getting up before daylight to build the fires and do the "chores."
Nature intended the long winter nights for the farmer-boy to sleep;
but in my day he was expected to open his sleepy eyes when the cock
crew, get out of the warm bed and light a candle, struggle into his
cold pantaloons, and pull on boots in which the thermometer would have
gone down to zero, rake open the coals on the hearth and start the
morning fire, and then go to the barn to "fodder." The frost was thick
on the kitchen windows; the snow was drifted against the door; and
the journey to the barn, in the pale light of dawn, over the creaking
snow, was like an exile's trip to Siberia. The boy was not half awake
when he stumbled into the cold barn, and was greeted by the lowing and
bleating and neighing of cattle waiting for their breakfast. How their
breath steamed up from the mangers, and hung in frosty spears from
their noses! Through the great lofts above the hay, where the swallows
nested, the winter wind whistled and the snow sifted. Those old barns
were well ventilated.
I used to spend much valuable time in planning a barn that should be
tight and warm, with a fire in it if necessary in order to keep the
temperature somewhere near the freezing point. I couldn't see how the
cattle could live in a place where a lively boy, full of young blood,
would freeze to death in a short time if he did not swing his arms and
slap his hands, and jump about like a goat. I thought I would have a
sort of perpetual manger that should shake down the hay when it was
wanted, and a self-acting machine that should cut up the turnips and
pass them into the mangers, and water always flowing for the cattle
and horses to drink. With these simple arrangements I could lie in
bed, and know that the "chores" were doing themselves. It would also
be necessary, in order that I should not be disturbed, that the crow
should be taken out of the roosters, but I could think of no process
to do it. It seems to me that the hen-breeders, if they know as much
as they say they do, might raise a breed of crowless roosters, for the
benefit of boys, quiet neighborhoods, and sleepy families.
There was another notion that I had, about kindling the kitchen fire,
that I never carried out. It was, to have a spring at the head of my
bed, connecting with a wire, which should run to a torpedo which I
would plant overnight in the ashes of the fireplace. By touching the
spring I could explode the torpedo, which would scatter the ashes and
uncover the live coals, and at the same time shake down the sticks
of wood which were standing by the side of the ashes in the chimney,
and the fire would kindle itself. This ingenious plan was frowned on
by the whole family, who said they did not want to be waked up every
morning by an explosion. And yet they expected me to wake up without
an explosion. A boy's plans for making life agreeable are hardly ever
heeded.
I never knew a boy farmer who was not eager to go to the district
school in the winter. There is such a chance for learning, that he
must be a dull boy who does not come out in the spring a fair skater,
an accurate snowballer, and an accomplished slider downhill, with or
without a board, on his seat, on his stomach, or on his feet. Take a
moderate hill, with a foot-slide down it worn to icy smoothness, and a
"go-round" of boys on it, and there is nothing like it for whittling
away boot-leather. The boy is the shoemaker's friend. An active lad
can wear down a pair of cowhide soles in a week so that the ice will
scrape his toes. Sledding or coasting is also slow fun compared to
the "bareback" sliding down a steep hill over a hard, glistening
crust. It is not only dangerous, but it is destructive to jacket and
pantaloons to a degree to make a tailor laugh. If any other animal wore
out his skin as fast as a schoolboy wears out his clothes in winter,
it would need a new one once a month. In a country district-school,
patches were not by any means a sign of poverty, but of the boy's
courage and adventurous disposition. Our elders used to threaten to
dress us in leather and put sheet-iron seats in our trousers. The
boy _said_ that he wore out his trousers on the hard seats in the
school-house ciphering hard sums. For that extraordinary statement
he received two castigations,—one at home, that was mild, and one
from the schoolmaster, who was careful to lay the rod upon the boy's
sliding-place, punishing him, as he jocosely called it, on a sliding
scale, according to the thinness of his pantaloons.
What I liked best at school, however, was the study of history, early
history, the Indian wars. We studied it mostly at noontime, and we had
it illustrated as the children nowadays have "object-lessons,"—though
our object was not so much to have lessons as it was to revive real
history.
Back of the school-house rose a round hill, upon which tradition said
had stood in colonial times a block-house, built by the settlers for
defense against the Indians. For the Indians had the idea that the
whites were not settled enough, and used to come nights to settle them
with a tomahawk. It was called Fort Hill. It was very steep on each
side, and the river ran close by. It was a charming place in summer,
where one could find laurel, and checkerberries, and sassafras roots,
and sit in the cool breeze, looking at the mountains across the river,
and listening to the murmur of the Deerfield. The Methodists built a
meeting-house there afterwards, but the hill was so slippery in winter
that the aged could not climb it, and the wind raged so fiercely
that it blew nearly all the young Methodists away (many of whom were
afterwards heard of in the West), and finally the meeting-house
itself came down into the valley and grew a steeple, and enjoyed
itself ever afterwards. It used to be a notion in New England that a
meeting-house ought to stand as near heaven as possible.
[Illustration: IN SCHOOL]
The boys at our school divided themselves into two parties; one was the
Early Settlers and the other the Pequots, the latter the most numerous.
The Early Settlers built a snow fort on the hill, and a strong fortress
it was, constructed of snowballs rolled up to a vast size (larger than
the Cyclopean blocks of stone which form the ancient Etruscan walls
in Italy), piled one upon another, and the whole cemented by pouring
on water which froze and made the walls solid. The Pequots helped the
whites build it. It had a covered way under the snow, through which
only could it be entered, and it had bastions and towers and openings
to fire from, and a great many other things for which there are no
names in military books. And it had a glacis and a ditch outside.
When it was completed, the Early Settlers, leaving the women in the
school-house, a prey to the Indians, used to retire into it, and await
the attack of the Pequots. There was only a handful of the garrison,
while the Indians were many, and also barbarous. It was agreed that
they should be barbarous. And it was in this light that the great
question was settled whether a boy might snowball with balls that he
had soaked over night in water and let freeze. They were as hard as
cobblestones, and if a boy should be hit in the head by one of them
he could not tell whether he was a Pequot or an Early Settler. It
was considered as unfair to use these ice-balls in an open fight, as
it is to use poisoned ammunition in real war. But as the whites were
protected by the fort, and the Indians were treacherous by nature, it
was decided that the latter might use the hard missiles.
The Pequots used to come swarming up the hill, with hideous war-whoops,
attacking the fort on all sides with great noise and a shower of balls.
The garrison replied with yells of defiance and well-directed shots,
hurling back the invaders when they attempted to scale the walls.
The Settlers had the advantage of position, but they were sometimes
overpowered by numbers, and would often have had to surrender but for
the ringing of the school-bell. The Pequots were in great fear of the
school-bell.
I do not remember that the whites ever hauled down their flag and
surrendered voluntarily; but once or twice the fort was carried by
storm and the garrison were massacred to a boy, and thrown out of the
fortress, having been first scalped. To take a boy's cap was to scalp
him, and after that he was dead, if he played fair. There were a great
many hard hits given and taken, but always cheerfully, for it was in
the cause of our early history. The history of Greece and Rome was
stuff compared to this. And we had many boys in our school who could
imitate the Indian war-whoop enough better than they could scan _arma,
virumque cano_.
XII
THE LONELY FARM-HOUSE
The winter evenings of the farmer-boy in New England used not to be so
gay as to tire him of the pleasures of life before he became of age.
A remote farm-house, standing a little off the road, banked up with
sawdust and earth to keep the frost out of the cellar, blockaded with
snow, and flying a blue flag of smoke from its chimney, looks like
a besieged fort. On cold and stormy winter nights, to the traveler
wearily dragging along in his creaking sleigh, the light from its
windows suggests a house of refuge and the cheer of a blazing fire. But
it is no less a fort, into which the family retire when the New England
winter on the hills really sets in.
The boy is an important part of the garrison. He is not only one of the
best means of communicating with the outer world, but he furnishes
half the entertainment and takes two thirds of the scolding of the
family circle. A farm would come to grief without a boy on it, but it
is impossible to think of a farm-house without a boy in it.
[Illustration: A REMOTE FARM-HOUSE]
"That boy" brings life into the house; his tracks are to be seen
everywhere, he leaves all the doors open, he hasn't half filled the
wood-box, he makes noise enough to wake the dead; or he is in a
brown-study by the fire and cannot be stirred, or he has fastened a
grip upon some Crusoe book which cannot easily be shaken off. I suppose
that the farmer-boy's evenings are not now what they used to be; that
he has more books, and less to do, and is not half so good a boy as
formerly, when he used to think the almanac was pretty lively reading,
and the comic almanac, if he could get hold of that, was a supreme
delight.
Of course he had the evenings to himself after he had done the "chores"
at the barn, brought in the wood and piled it high in the box, ready to
be heaped upon the great open fire. It was nearly dark when he came
from school (with its continuation of snowballing and sliding), and he
always had an agreeable time stumbling and fumbling around in barn and
woodhouse in the waning light.
John used to say that he supposed nobody would do his "chores" if he
did not get home till midnight; and he was never contradicted. Whatever
happened to him, and whatever length of days or sort of weather was
produced by the almanac, the cardinal rule was that he should be at
home before dark.
John used to imagine what people did in the dark ages, and wonder
sometimes whether he wasn't still in them.
Of course, John had nothing to do all the evening, after his
"chores,"—except little things. While he drew his chair up to the
table in order to get the full radiance of the tallow candle on his
slate or his book, the women of the house also sat by the table
knitting and sewing. The head of the house sat in his chair, tipped
back against the chimney; the hired man was in danger of burning his
boots in the fire. John might be deep in the excitement of a bear
story, or be hard at writing a "composition" on his greasy slate;
but, whatever he was doing, he was the only one who could always be
interrupted. It was he who must snuff the candles, and put on a stick
of wood, and toast the cheese, and turn the apples, and crack the
nuts. He knew where the fox-and-geese board was, and he could find the
twelve-men-Morris. Considering that he was expected to go to bed at
eight o'clock, one would say that the opportunity for study was not
great, and that his reading was rather interrupted. There seemed to be
always something for him to do, even when all the rest of the family
came as near being idle as is ever possible in a New England household.
No wonder that John was not sleepy at eight o'clock: he had been flying
about while the others had been yawning before the fire. He would like
to sit up just to see how much more solemn and stupid it would become
as the night went on; he wanted to tinker his skates, to mend his sled,
to finish that chapter. Why should he go away from that bright blaze,
and the company that sat in its radiance, to the cold and solitude of
his chamber? Why didn't the people who were sleepy go to bed?