THE ALLAN HOME.
Mr. Allan was at this time thirty-one years of age--a plain, practical
business man, or, as some one has described him, "an honest, hard-headed
Scotchman, kindly, but stubborn and irascible." His wife, some years
younger than himself, was a beautiful woman, warm-hearted, impulsive and
fond of company and amusement. Both were charitable, and though not at
this time in what is called "society," were in comfortable circumstances
and fond of entertaining their friends.
There was yet another member of the family, Miss Ann Valentine, an elder
sister of Mrs. Allan; a lady of a lovely disposition and almost as fond
of Edgar as was his so-called "mother." She was always his "Aunt Nancy."
The Allans were at this time living in the business part of the town,
occupying one of a row of dingy three-story brick houses still standing
on Fourteenth street, between Main and Franklin. Mr. Allan had his
store on the ground floor, the family apartments being above. This was
at that time and until long afterward a usual mode of living with some
of the down-town merchants; though a few had already built handsome
residences on Shocko Hill.
Little Edgar, bright, gay and beautiful, soon became the pet and pride
of the household. Even Mr. Allan grew fond of him, and his wife
delighted in taking him about and showing him off among her
acquaintances. In his baggy little trousers of yellow Nankin or silk
pongee, with his dark ringlets flowing over an immense "tucker," red
silk stockings and peaked purple velvet cap, with its heavy gold tassel
falling gracefully on one shoulder, he was the admiration of all
beholders. His disposition was affectionate and his temper sweet, though
having been hitherto allowed to have his own way, he was self-willed and
sometimes difficult to manage. To correct his faults and as a counter
balance to his wife's undue indulgence, Mr. Allan conscientiously set
about training the boy according to his own ideas of what was best. When
Edgar was "good" he was petted and indulged, but an act of disobedience
or wrong-doing was punished, as some said, with undue severity. To
shield him from this was the aim of the family, even of the servants;
and the boy soon learned to resort to various little tricks and
artifices on his own account. An amusing instance of this was told by
Mrs. Allan herself. Edgar one day would persist in running out in the
rain, when Mr. Allan peremptorily called him in, with the threat of a
whipping. He presently entered and, meekly walking up to his guardian,
looked him in the face with his large, solemn gray eyes and held out a
bunch of switches. "What are these for?" inquired the latter. "To whip
me with," answered the little diplomat; and Mr. Allan had to turn aside
to hide a smile, for the "switches" had been selected with a purpose,
being only the long, tough leaf-stems of the alanthus tree.
Another anecdote I recall illustrative of the strict discipline to which
Edgar was subject.
My uncle, Mr. Edward Valentine, who was a cousin of Mrs. Allan, and
often a visitor at her house, was very fond of Edgar; and liking fun
almost as much as did the child, taught him many amusing little tricks.
One of these was to snatch away a chair from some big boy about to seat
himself; but Edgar, too young to discriminate, on one occasion made a
portly and dignified old lady the subject of this performance. Mr.
Allan, who in his anger was always impulsive, immediately led away the
culprit, and his wife took the earliest opportunity of going to console
her pet. As the child was little over three years old, it may be doubted
whether the punishment administered was the wisest course, but it was
Mr. Allan's way, who apparently believed in the moral suasion of the
rod.
Edgar had no dogs and no pony, and did not ride out with a groom to
attend him, "like a little prince," as a biographer has represented. At
this time the Allans' circumstances were not such as to admit of such
luxuries. As to his appearance in this style at the famous White Sulphur
Springs, that is equally mythical.[3]
[3] Lest my mention of these little anecdotes and certain other
matters should lead the reader to conclude that I am quoting
from Gill, I would refer them to Appendix No. 1 of this volume.
There was, however, at least one summer when Edgar was six years of age
in which the Allans were at one of the lesser Virginia springs, and in
returning paid a visit to Mr. Valentine's family, near Staunton. This
gentleman often took Edgar out with him, either driving or seated behind
him on horseback; and on receiving his paper from the country
post-office would make the boy read the news to the mountain rustics,
who regarded him as a prodigy of learning. Thus far he had been taught
by an old Scotch dame who kept an "infant-school," and who then and for
years afterward called him "her ain wee laddie," and to whom as long as
she lived he was accustomed to carry offerings of choice smoking
tobacco. He also learned from her to speak in the broad Scottish
dialect, which greatly amused and pleased Mr. Allan. The boy was at even
this age remarkably quick in learning anything.
Mr. Valentine also delighted in getting up wrestling matches between
Edgar and the little pickaninnies with whom he played, rewarding the
victor with gifts of money. But there was one thing which no money or
other reward could induce the boy to undertake, and this was to go near
the country churchyard after sunset, even in company with these same
little darkies. Once, in riding home late, Edgar being seated behind Mr.
Valentine, they passed a deserted log-cabin, near which were several
graves, when the boy's nervous terror became so great that he attempted
to get in front of his companion, who took him on the saddle before
him. "They would run after us and pull me off," he said, betraying at
even this early age the weird imagination of his maturer years.
This incident led to his being questioned, when it was discovered that
he had been accustomed to go with his colored "mammy" to the servants'
rooms in the evenings, and there listen to the horrible stories of
ghosts and graveyard apparitions such as this ignorant and superstitious
race delight in. It is not improbable that the gruesome sketch of the
"_Tempest_" family, one of his earliest published, whose ghosts are
represented as seated in coffins around a table in an undertaker's shop,
and thence flying back to their near-by graves, was not inspired by some
such story heard in Mr. Allan's kitchen.
Undoubtedly, these ghostly narratives, heard at this early and
impressionable age, served in part to produce those weird and ghoulish
imaginings which characterize some of Poe's writings, and to create that
tinge of superstition which was well known to his friends. He always
avoided cemeteries, hated the sight of coffins and skeletons, and would
never walk alone at night even on the street; believing that evil
spirits haunted the darkness and walked beside the lonely wayfarer,
watching to do him a mischief. Death he loathed and feared, and a corpse
he would not look upon. And yet, as bound by a weird fascination, he
wrote continually of death.
Edgar Poe, like every other Southern child, had his negro "mammy" to
attend to him until he went to England, to whom and the other servants
he was as much attached as they to him. Indeed, a marked trait of his
character was his liking for negroes, the effect of early association,
and to the end of his life he delighted in talking with them and in
their quaint and kindly humor and odd modes of thought and expression.
Edgar had been about three years with the Allans when he was again
deprived of a home and sent among strangers. Mr. Allan went on a
business trip to England and Scotland, accompanied by his wife, Miss
Valentine and Edgar; the latter of whom was put to school in London,
where he must have felt his loneliness and isolation. Still, he came to
the Allans in holiday times, and was with them in Scotland for some
months previous to their return to Virginia. Little is known of them
during this absence of five years.