middle pier of the long covered bridge over the river stood upon a
great rock, and this rock (which was known as the swimming-rock, whence
the boys on summer evenings dived into the deep pool by its side) was
a favorite spot with John when he could get an hour or two from the
everlasting "chores." Making his way out to it over the rocks at low
water with his fish-pole, there he was content to sit and observe the
world; and there he saw a great deal of life. He always expected to
catch the legendary trout which weighed two pounds and was believed to
inhabit that pool. He always did catch horned dace and shiners, which
he despised, and sometimes he snared a monstrous sucker a foot and a
half long. But in the summer the sucker is a flabby fish, and John was
not thanked for bringing him home. He liked, however, to lie with his
face close to the water and watch the long fishes panting in the clear
depths, and occasionally he would drop a pebble near one to see how
gracefully he would scud away with one wave of the tail into deeper
water. Nothing fears the little brown boy. The yellow-bird slants his
wings, almost touches the deep water before him, and then escapes away
under the bridge to the east with a glint of sunshine on his back; the
fish-hawk comes down with a swoop, dips one wing, and, his prey having
darted under a stone, is away again over the still hill, high soaring
on even-poised pinions, keeping an eye perhaps upon the great eagle
which is sweeping the sky in widening circles.
[Illustration: WATCHING THE FISHES]
But there is other life. A wagon rumbles over the bridge, and the
farmer and his wife, jogging along, do not know that they have startled
a lazy boy into a momentary fancy that a thunder-shower is coming up.
John can see, as he lies there on a still summer day with the fishes
and the birds for company, the road that comes down the left bank of
the river, a hot, sandy, well-traveled road, hidden from view here and
there by trees and bushes. The chief point of interest, however, is
an enormous sycamore-tree by the roadside and in front of John's house.
The house is more than a century old, and its timbers were hewed and
squared by Captain Moses Rice (who lies in his grave on the hillside
above it), in the presence of the Red Man who killed him with arrow
and tomahawk some time after his house was set in order. The gigantic
tree, struck with a sort of leprosy, like all its species, appears
much older, and of course has its tradition. They say it grew from a
green stake which the first land-surveyor planted there for one of
his points of sight. John was reminded of it years after when he sat
under the shade of the decrepit lime-tree in Freiberg and was told that
it was originally a twig which the breathless and bloody messenger
carried in his hand when he dropped exhausted in the square with the
word "Victory!" on his lips, announcing thus the result of the glorious
battle of Morat, where the Swiss in 1476 defeated Charles the Bold.
Under the broad but scanty shade of the great button-ball tree (as
it was called) stood an old watering-trough, with its half-decayed
penstock and well-worn spout pouring forever cold sparkling water into
the overflowing trough. It is fed by a spring near by, and the water
is sweeter and colder than any in the known world, unless it be the
well Zem-Zem, as generations of people and horses which have drunk of
it would testify if they could come back. And if they could file along
this road again, what a procession there would be riding down the
valley!—antiquated vehicles, rusty wagons adorned with the invariable
buffalo-robe even in the hottest days, lean and long-favored horses,
frisky colts, drawing generation after generation the sober and pious
saints that passed this way to meeting and to mill.
What a refreshment is that water-spout! All day long there are pilgrims
to it, and John likes nothing better than to watch them. Here comes a
gray horse drawing a buggy with two men,—cattle-buyers probably. Out
jumps a man, down goes the check-rein. What a good draught the nag
takes! Here comes a long-stepping trotter in a sulky; man in a brown
linen coat and wide-awake hat,—dissolute, horsey-looking man. They
turn up, of course. Ah! there is an establishment he knows well; a
sorrel horse and an old chaise. The sorrel horse scents the water afar
off, and begins to turn up long before he reaches the trough, thrusting
out his nose in anticipation of the cool sensation. No check to let
down; he plunges his nose in nearly to his eyes in his haste to get at
it. Two maiden ladies—unmistakably such, though they appear neither
"anxious nor aimless"—within the scoop-top smile benevolently on the
sorrel back. It is the deacon's horse, a meeting-going nag, with a
sedate, leisurely jog as he goes; and these are two of the "salt of the
earth,"—the brevet rank of the women who stand and wait,—going down
to the village store to dicker. There come two men in a hurry, horse
driven up smartly and pulled up short; but as it is rising ground, and
the horse does not easily reach the water with the wagon pulling back,
the nervous man in the buggy hitches forward on his seat, as if that
would carry the wagon a little ahead! Next, lumber-wagon with load
of boards; horse wants to turn up, and driver switches him and cries
"G'lang," and the horse reluctantly goes by, turning his head wistfully
towards the flowing spout. Ah! here comes an equipage strange to these
parts, and John stands up to look: an elegant carriage and two horses;
trunks strapped on behind; gentleman and boy on front seat and two
ladies on back seat,—city people. The gentleman descends, unchecks the
horses, wipes his brow, takes a drink at the spout and looks around,
evidently remarking upon the lovely view, as he swings his handkerchief
in an explanatory manner. Judicious travelers! John would like to
know who they are. Perhaps they are from Boston, whence come all the
wonderfully painted peddlers' wagons drawn by six stalwart horses,
which the driver, using no rein, controls with his long whip and cheery
voice. If so, great is the condescension of Boston; and John follows
them with an undefined longing as they drive away toward the mountains
of Zoar. Here is a footman, dusty and tired, who comes with lagging
steps. He stops, removes his hat, as he should to such a tree, puts his
mouth to the spout, and takes a long pull at the lively water. And then
he goes on, perhaps to Zoar, perhaps to a worse place.
So they come and go all the summer afternoon; but the great event of
the day is the passing down the valley of the majestic stage-coach,
the vast yellow-bodied, rattling vehicle. John can hear a mile off the
shaking of chains, traces, and whiffletrees, and the creaking of its
leathern braces, as the great bulk swings along piled high with trunks.
It represents to John, somehow, authority, government, the right of
way; the driver is an autocrat,—everybody must make way for the
stage-coach. It almost satisfies the imagination, this royal vehicle;
one can go in it to the confines of the world,—to Boston and to Albany.
There were other influences that I dare say contributed to the boy's
education. I think his imagination was stimulated by a band of gypsies
who used to come every summer and pitch a tent on a little roadside
patch of green turf by the river-bank, not far from his house. It was
shaded by elms and butternut-trees, and a long spit of sand and pebbles
ran out from it into the brawling stream. Probably they were not a very
good kind of gypsy, although the story was that the men drank and beat
the women. John didn't know much about drinking; his experience of it
was confined to sweet cider; yet he had already set himself up as a
reformer, and joined the Cold Water Band. The object of this Band was
to walk in a procession under a banner that declared,—
"So here we pledge perpetual hate
To all that can intoxicate;"
and wear a badge with this legend, and above it the device of a
well-curb with a long sweep. It kept John and all the little boys and
girls from being drunkards till they were ten or eleven years of age;
though perhaps a few of them died meantime from eating loaf-cake and
pie and drinking ice-cold water at the celebrations of the Band.
The gypsy camp had a strange fascination for John, mingled of
curiosity and fear. Nothing more alien could come into the New England
life than this tatterdemalion band. It was hardly credible that here
were actually people who lived outdoors, who slept in their covered
wagon or under their tent, and cooked in the open air; it was a visible
romance transferred from foreign lands and the remote times of the
story-books; and John took these city thieves, who were on their
annual foray into the country, trading and stealing horses and robbing
hen-roosts and cornfields, for the mysterious race who for thousands
of years have done these same things in all lands, by right of their
pure blood and ancient lineage. John was afraid to approach the camp
when any of the scowling and villanous men were lounging about, pipes
in mouth; but he took more courage when only women and children were
visible. The swarthy, black-haired women in dirty calico frocks were
anything but attractive, but they spoke softly to the boy, and told his
fortune, and wheedled him into bringing them any amount of cucumbers
and green corn in the course of the season. In front of the tent were
planted in the ground three poles that met together at the top, whence
depended a kettle. This was the kitchen, and it was sufficient. The
fuel for the fire was the driftwood of the stream. John noted that it
did not require to be sawed into stove-lengths; and, in short, that
the "chores" about this establishment were reduced to the minimum. And
an older person than John might envy the free life of these wanderers,
who paid neither rent nor taxes, and yet enjoyed all the delights of
nature. It seemed to the boy that affairs would go more smoothly in the
world if everybody would live in this simple manner. Nor did he then
know, or ever after find out, why it is that the world only permits
wicked people to be Bohemians.
[Illustration: ENTERING THE OLD BRIDGE]
XIX
A CONTRAST TO THE NEW ENGLAND BOY
One evening at vespers in Genoa, attracted by a burst of music from
the swinging curtain of the doorway, I entered a little church much
frequented by the common people. An unexpected and exceedingly pretty
sight rewarded me.
It was All-Souls' Day. In Italy almost every day is set apart for some
festival, or belongs to some saint or another; and I suppose that when
leap-year brings around the extra day, there is a saint ready to claim
the 29th of February. Whatever the day was to the elders, the evening
was devoted to the children. The first thing I noticed was, that the
quaint old church was lighted up with innumerable wax-tapers,—an
uncommon sight, for the darkness of a Catholic church in the evening
is usually relieved only by a candle here and there, and by a blazing
pyramid of them on the high altar. The use of gas is held to be a
vulgar thing all over Europe, and especially unfit for a church or an
aristocratic palace.
Then I saw that each taper belonged to a little boy or girl, and the
groups of children were scattered all about the church. There was a
group by every side altar and chapel, all the benches were occupied by
knots of them, and there were so many circles of them seated on the
pavement that I could with difficulty make my way among them. There
were hundreds of children in the church, all dressed in their holiday
apparel, and all intent upon the illumination, which seemed to be a
private affair to each one of them.
[Illustration: THE OLD WATERING TROUGH]
And not much effect had their tapers upon the darkness of the vast
vaults above them. The tapers were little spiral coils of wax, which
the children unrolled as fast as they burned, and when they were tired
of holding them they rested them on the ground and watched the burning.
I stood some time by a group of a dozen seated in a corner of the
church. They had massed all the tapers in the centre and formed a
ring about the spectacle, sitting with their legs straight out before
them and their toes turned up. The light shone full in their happy
faces, and made the group, enveloped otherwise in darkness, like one
of Correggio's pictures of children or angels. Correggio was a famous
Italian artist of the sixteenth century, who painted cherubs like
children who were just going to heaven, and children like cherubs who
had just come out of it. But then, he had the Italian children for
models, and they get the knack of being lovely very young. An Italian
child finds it as easy to be pretty as an American child to be good.
One could not but be struck with the patience these little people
exhibited in their occupation, and the enjoyment they got out of it.
There was no noise; all conversed in subdued whispers and behaved in
the most gentle manner to each other, especially to the smallest, and
there were many of them so small that they could only toddle about by
the most judicious exercise of their equilibrium. I do not say this by
way of reproof to any other kind of children.
These little groups, as I have said, were scattered all about the
church; and they made with their tapers little spots of light, which
looked in the distance very much like Correggio's picture which is at
Dresden,—the Holy Family at Night, and the light from the Divine Child
blazing in the faces of all the attendants. Some of the children were
infants in the nurse's arms, but no one was too small to have a taper,
and to run the risk of burning its fingers.
There is nothing that a baby likes more than a lighted candle, and the
church has understood this longing in human nature, and found means to
gratify it by this festival of tapers.
The groups do not all remain long in place, you may imagine; there is a
good deal of shifting about, and I see little stragglers wandering over
the church, like fairies lighted by fire-flies. Occasionally they form
a little procession and march from one altar to another, the lights
twinkling as they go.
But all this time there is music pouring out of the organ-loft at the
end of the church, and flooding all its spaces with its volume. In
front of the organ is a choir of boys, led by a round-faced and jolly
monk, who rolls about as he sings, and lets the deep bass noise rumble
about a long time in his stomach before he pours it out of his mouth.
I can see the faces of all of them quite well, for each singer has a
candle to light his music-book.
And next to the monk stands the boy,—the handsomest boy in the whole
world probably at this moment. I can see now his great, liquid, dark
eyes and his exquisite face, and the way he tossed back his long waving
hair when he struck into his part. He resembled the portraits of
Raphael, when that artist was a boy; only I think he looked better than
Raphael, and without trying, for he seemed to be a spontaneous sort of
boy. And how that boy did sing! He was the soprano of the choir, and he
had a voice of heavenly sweetness. When he opened his mouth and tossed
back his head, he filled the church with exquisite melody.
He sang like a lark, or like an angel. As we never heard an angel sing,
that comparison is not worth much. I have seen pictures of angels
singing,—there is one by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck in the gallery at
Berlin,—and they open their mouths like this boy, but I can't say as
much for their singing. The lark, which you very likely never heard
either,—for larks are as scarce in America as angels,—is a bird that
springs up from the meadow and begins to sing as he rises in a spiral
flight, and the higher he mounts the sweeter he sings, until you think
the notes are dropping out of heaven itself, and you hear him when he
is gone from sight, and you think you hear him long after all sound has
ceased.
And yet this boy sang better than a lark, because he had more notes and
a greater compass and more volume, although he shook out his voice in
the same gleesome abundance.
[Illustration: THE NEW ENGLAND BOY]
I am sorry that I cannot add that this ravishingly beautiful boy was
a good boy. He was probably one of the most mischievous boys that was
ever in an organ-loft. All time that he was singing the vespers he
was skylarking like an imp. While he was pouring out the most divine
melody, he would take the opportunity of kicking the shins of the boy
next to him; and while he was waiting for his part he would kick out
behind at any one who was incautious enough to approach him. There
never was such a vicious boy; he kept the whole loft in a ferment. When
the monk rumbled his bass in his stomach, the boy cut up monkey-shines
that set every other boy into a laugh, or he stirred up a row that set
them all at fisticuffs.
And yet this boy was a great favorite. The jolly monk loved him best
of all, and bore with his wildest pranks. When he was wanted to sing
his part and was skylarking in the rear, the fat monk took him by the
ear and brought him forward; and when he gave the boy's ear a twist,
the boy opened his lovely mouth and poured forth such a flood of melody
as you never heard. And he didn't mind his notes; he seemed to know
his notes by heart, and could sing and look off like a nightingale
on a bough. He knew his power, that boy; and he stepped forward to
his stand when he pleased, certain that he would be forgiven as soon
as he began to sing. And such spirit and life as he threw into the
performance, rollicking through the Vespers with a perfect abandon of
carriage, as if he could sing himself out of his skin if he liked!
While the little angels down below were pattering about with their wax
tapers, keeping the holy fire burning, suddenly the organ stopped, the
monk shut his book with a bang, the boys blew out the candles, and I
heard them all tumbling down stairs in a gale of noise and laughter.
The beautiful boy I saw no more.
About him plays the light of tender memory; but were he twice as
lovely, I could never think of him as having either the simple
manliness or the good fortune of the New England boy.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES.
1. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
2. Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors have been silently
corrected.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
4. Some page numbers in the "List of Illustrations" have been changed as
many of the illustrations have been moved to the nearest paragraph
break.