seldom blooms. It is almost extinct save in old neglected house-yards.
My gardener allows me to cultivate it in an uncherished corner of one of
her beds. I can never pass it without plucking a spray of its fragrant
leaves. Its very smell is of other days and ancient gardens. The
fashionable rose cannot endure it. I mean sometime to disprove its
impotence and entice it into flowering for the encouragement of little
boy lovers that they be not ashamed of their infantile, ardent
attachments but bravely confess them as I do.
This phase of young life passes like so many others. How swiftly they
pass! and must, since we have in ten years to rehearse all the parts for
the next fifty. In due time my girl playmate and also the young woman
were married, and meeting long afterward we found nothing in common, not
even a memory. One had forgotten that we ever played together; the other
laughed incredulously at the boyish attachment. At length I too forget
these mere matrons; I remember only the little maid and the coquette of
twenty-three.
As one climbs the sides of a mountain it lowers its crest, but the view
becomes extended. The hills of Mendon diminished as often as I climbed
other hills or succeeded in reaching the topmost spires of taller trees.
They were no longer so lofty, so distant, so infatuating. The walls of
my world were expanded on two sides, the south and the west. All unknown
lands were on the north. China was there, which to me was a place where
they did nothing but fly kites; so much I remembered from my geography
book; there too was Boston, merely a place where we sold our
huckleberries in summer. I had been as far as Mendon and found that the
world did not end there, nor were there any hills even. They had moved
themselves to the next horizon whitherto my fancies had flown.
Disillusions increased with my height. A yardstick no longer measured to
the top of my head; the score is now marked upon the jambs of the cellar
door, and sometimes I cheat with yarn balls in the heels of my boots. I
cannot grow fast enough to keep pace with my ambition. When I am larger,
when I am a man, then I shall--could one but recover the predicate of
those phrases! There is a cell in my brain as yet filled with nothing;
but there is commotion, an eddy, like that of the vorticel which is
drawing thither its destined deposits. The things that draw me are also
themselves moving toward me. The cell is in time filled, emptied and
filled again and again. Particles of this and that remain. Who can
predict what will be the permanent deposit?
The Mendon hills and those, rising continually beyond, caused me many a
heart break, many disillusions, journeyings, pathless and lampless, many
apprenticeships to unprofitable masters. I explored the unknown because
it was unknown and because I knew not what I wanted. There was
disappointment wherever the pursuit ended. I would go on--never
arriving. "Stay, thou art so fair", is not the wish of boys. The
mountains were not so high, the ocean not so vast, the cities not so
immense, no good so good as anticipated. My heart hungered for the
impossible before it had attained the possible; for the fruitage of
things before the plough and the hardened hand; in fine, before
reckoning with those forces which determine the happiness and miseries
of life. But there is compensation for every disappointment and mistaken
dream of childhood and youth. I cherish them fondly as the early drama
of my life, in which, now a spectator, I see the small actor performing
his mimic part with mingled feelings of amusement, censure or sympathy.
When the curtain rises I am once more on my own side of the Mendon
hills; the walls of that first world enclose and protect me. Here I
again recover my first sense of nature and the existence of other
beings; here I discern the inward foreshadowings of what was to attract
and mould me through life.
SHADOWS AND ECHOES
Two things in nature impressed me more than any others in my childhood.
One was the apparent motion of the moon, when I tried to walk or run
away from it. To see it keep an equal pace with me, moving when I moved,
stopping when I stopped, sometimes vexed me and more often amused me.
The heavens are young when we are, close and companionable; they come
down to the earth not more than two miles from where we stand. I tried
many experiments with the moon, when it was full, to see if I could not
outrun the bright and tricksy traveller. My efforts were vain and only
increased my wonder. I never spoke of it nor required an explanation
from my elders. Children ask no questions regarding those simple
operations of nature which they first observe. They remain deep in their
silent consciousness. Such as they do ask are superficial, and are
either a passing impulse of a dawning social nature or are inspired by
parents and teachers. I have observed that when they ask these questions
they care nothing and remember naught of the answers. What is deepest in
them is growing in silence; it is not yet formed into conceptions, and
has no language. The difference between the spoken questions of children
and their impressions, as yet so undefined, is like that between
pictures of the snapshot camera and the astronomer's plates which, for
hours, gather and develop the figure of some distant, unseen star.
My other childish observation was of shadows, especially my own, cast
upon the ground by a low afternoon sun. This never vexed or puzzled me
as did the outfooting moon. An old play says that the shadows of things
are better than the things themselves; and Pindar places man at two
removes from them. But indeed shadows pleased me before I knew of the
humiliating comparisons poets and prophets had made; and sometimes more
than the real substances with which I was familiar--trees, brooks and
pastures. In the shadow of myself were the flattering length and size
which I coveted, the huge man; for I wished above all other things to
become a man as fast as possible that I might do and have the things
which men do and have. These as I remember were trousers, long-legged
boots, two pieces of pie, to sit up in the evening and never to go to
school again; for I was always driven to bed and went unwillingly to my
books. Many were the subterfuges by which I escaped my lessons, a lost
book or a headache; and how I rejoiced in the storms which made it
impossible to send me the long mile through snow or rain. I remember
only one evening when I was allowed to sit up as long as I wished, my
parents, having gone to see a man hung in Dedham, one of the festive
occasions in old Norfolk County, the boy was left in charge of a sister.
I remember it chiefly because my sister read to me that evening John
Gilpin's Ride. It was the first, and for a long time, the only poem in
which I took any interest. Gilpin on his horse, his cloak and bottles
twain visualized themselves before me so clearly that they still remain
more vivid than what I read yesterday.
But my shadow, ah, that was quite enough to satisfy my most ardent
longings. Moreover I seemed able to step on it, to lengthen or shorten
it, to make it assume strange grotesque shapes; in a word I could play
with it. This I could not do with such objects as trees, house, barn and
fences; or rather there was no such response from them as from the
shadow.
Echo was the only other direct responsive thing I found in nature as
yet. Echo is the shadow of sound. Echo and shadow are brother and
sister; irresponsible children of nature who love to sport and play
pranks with matter and make men doubt their own senses. I knew several
of the dwelling places of echo; one in chief was between a large barn
and a deep wood, and others at different points on Beaver Pond. Never
would they return the individual voice; all came reflected back as
echo's own, neither mine nor that of my companions; only now louder or
less, more distinct or faint. It had a lonely, plaintive, even
melancholy tone, which the Greeks explained was in consequence of an
unfortunate love affair with the beautiful Narcissus. It sulked, and
hiding in a cave, never spoke again unless first spoken to. I could
hardly believe that echo was not the voice of a human being. To satisfy
myself I examined the barn and forest for some mocking man or boy. Was
not this better than the explanations which never explain to children?
And who can expound a shadow? When I once heard a minister exclaim that
man is but a shadow I understood him literally and was glad in my little
heart thinking only of its size and nimble movements.
Echo and shadow hint of other things in nature besides solid matter and
that which can be appropriated by any machinery or resolved by any
chemical yet discovered. These and sounds and perfumes also remind us
that the world was made for admiration and amusement as well as for use.
I believe that the Creator was thinking, when He planned it, as much of
little boys and girls and poets as of the husbandman and craftsman. Echo
loves to imitate our voice as much as we love to hear it; and shadows
love to caricature our forms that we may laugh and even assist them; for
if you stretch an arm between the sun and a snowbank shadow aids you
with its comic pencil. It is no wonder the sad ghosts throw no shadow;
there must be sunshine, life and joy or you cannot even living cast a
pleasant one. I sometimes more admire the shadows in a painting than the
figures or the scene. The imperfect landscape of the Greeks excused
itself from observing none in the sacred enclosures of the temples of
Zeus. The light must find no impediment in the unsubstantial matter of
divine beings.
It was pleasant in my afternoon rambles to see my form projected over
places where I could not follow; on the other shore of a stream and
along stony fields good for nothing but a crop of shadows. Thus by my
shadow I triumphed over space, and when it came to a vanishing point, I
imagined it still extending itself to some neighbor's door or into the
next town. My eyes could not follow it nor my feet; yet something in me
accompanied it and gave me a sense of magic power. An unconscious
feeling for beauty in things of earth began to draw me away from houses
and children and to make me lonely. I found playthings I could not carry
in my pocket. These have remained with me all my life. The path we leave
behind us is the one we oftenest tread. One little brook still flows
through my heart. I feel it, I hear its smothered ripple, not meant for
hearing, and I smell its meadowy fragrance.
I treated matter with the perfect frankness and credulity which passes
away with childhood; and she rewarded me with visions and illusions that
are withheld from self-guarded and discreet manhood. I knew not then
that shadows were the scoffing synonym for all unsubstantial vanities
and day-dreams, or that other mystic conception that substance itself is
but the shadow and reflection of the power which created it, or that
light itself is but the adumbration of God. How good it is that the
child is ignorant of so many things. It leaves room for the existence
and growth of a mind, of an imagination which, in time, shall lead
rather than follow the processes of reason; which shall leap before it
looks, conscious of prescience before proof, arriving on wings while the
shoestrings are being tied. Blessed are the ignorance, the beliefs and
the innocency of the country boy. For if he can maintain a remnant of
these into maturity the world will be more beautiful; he will idealize
his friends and lovers, and never be conquered by the untoward
circumstances and events of his life. The child is a plant that blossoms
first at the root underground, like the fringed polygala, and only after
a free and natural nurture, again blossoms at the top with the same
color, the same modest beauty. Let the child pursue shadows and believe
them real; let him discover their unreality and suffer defeats; but he
shall not know when he is defeated, for still other shadows shall allure
him to the end of his days. The pursuit, not the attainment, is the true
joy of living. Perilous are the conditions of attainment. The goal is
seldom in sight. We are driven on from dream to dream, and to awake is
to lose the charm of existence. No pearl grows in the shell without the
pressure of some irritating substance; and no boy becomes a man until he
has felt the sting of opposition, discouragement, defeat, and has
pursued shadows with an unfaltering faith.
SHADOWS
Phantom of being, Protean face,
Parasite of rock, of towers and man
Since sun and matter erst began,
Fleet vanisher from our embrace,
Thy fairy forms the faithful ape
Of substance; all the landscape
In thy mimic loom mere woven air
Where naught is real yet all is fair;
Taunting us with bold mockeries
And willing cheats and splendid lies,
Deceiving all sense save the eyes.
Flying without wings
Gigantic o'er the mountain's knees;
Or of tiniest things
Etching their wavy images;
Or playing some fantastic trick
To please the fancy of a child;
Or tireless watcher of the sick
When others are by sleep beguiled.
Thou follower of sun and moon,
Gatherer of the undulating mass
Through which no light may pass,
Over the whole world darkening soon,
Or standing steadfast all an afternoon
Behind some oak tree's ancient crown
Until the lingered sun goes down--
Give to the weary traveller repose
In thy cool umbrageous tent,
And to the husbandman, who goes
To thee by heat and toil forespent,
Give sleep, and let thy veil his limbs enclose.
ECHO
Echo is mate of shadow and of shade,
Saying only what is given it to say;
Hiding in wall or cave or wooded glade,
Without ideas, sound with sound at play.
But thou, sweet echo, art my faithful friend;
For when my simple songs on all ears die
Thou art responsive to the very end,
And answerest them with perfect flattery.
HOLIDAYS
In the small towns of Norfolk County, even as late as the middle of the
nineteenth century, Christmas was not kept as a holiday. The people
adhered mainly to the Congregational and Baptist faiths. Christmas was
in some way associated with Popish superstitions. The Woman in Scarlet
was still preached against and feared as became the sons and daughters
of the Puritans. I have never forgotten my childish vision of this
wonderful creature, a vision that connected itself with a neighbor's
daughter who dressed in bright red mousseline-delaine and wore an
immense hoop, played the fiddle and scandalized the community by her
manners, music and muslin. But the young men were all in love with her
and she held a nightly court in a little brown house in that part of the
town called Hard Scrabble. She took the pick of her admirers, was
married at eighteen, bore what Aeschylus calls the "divine load" in
fifteen travails, fourteen sons and one daughter, and lived to play her
fiddle to more than thirty grandchildren. The community at length became
reconciled to her, although she continued to wear to the end of her life
red gowns and a bulging hoop--the women gossips now said to conceal her
usual condition. To me she was and is the Scarlet Woman, an inhabitant
not of Rome or Babylon, but of a town where I am the supreme pontiff, a
town not made of galvanized iron nor stone nor brick, but
weather-stained boards with sometimes a touch of red paint.
Doubtless many people sigh for the days when Christmas was not, for it
has become a burden in its secular observances, a game of give and take.
I never heard of the day in my childhood. Scarcely will this be
believed, so difficult is it to realise that a present universal custom,
and one so linked with religious sentiment, has not always existed;
nevertheless it is true. If I were relating something that happened
yesterday, or the day before, I should not be much chagrined to be
disputed and to find myself in error; but the memory of the events of
childhood is authentic and indisputable. There was no Christmas for
children in Bellingham, or I should remember it as vividly as I do Fast
Day, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and Town Meeting Day. The last named
was the first holiday of the year for the male population, occurring on
the first Tuesday in March. It was a day when the solid men of the town
came to the front and sat in high seats, dignified and important; when
the less solid or more gay got drunk, and the boys played games about
the town-house, and ate as many buns as they had cents to buy. The
town-house of Bellingham was an old Universalist church whose society
had been uprooted and driven away by the sermons, prayers and
persecutions of the Baptist brethren and sisters. It must have been an
ancient building as it had a high pulpit, a sounding board still higher
and square pews. I used to go in when hungry to buy the buns, which were
on sale in one of these square pews fitted up as a small shop, boards
being laid on the top rail, and the high seats forming shelves for the
display of eatables. I recall only the buns with distinctness, buns with
three large plums sticking out of their shiny red tops, which afforded
the greatest return to a hungry boy for the trifling sum he had to
expend. These plums deceived me into the belief that there were more
inside and sometimes I did find one lost in the air holes of the
sponge-like cake. But the bun was sweet and that was enough, sweetened
with white sugar too, a rare flavor in those days. I write white sugar
but its current name was loaf sugar. It came in cone-shaped packages
wrapped in heavy chocolate colored paper, and this paper was used by
women for dyeing. These packages were hung up over the counters of all
country stores. The sale was small as it was expensive and limited in
use, chiefly to the sick room, wedding and funeral feasts. A trader
would buy enough to last him for a long time; consequently the packages
hung in their places year after year, becoming dirty and fly specked.
But the inside was well protected with soft white paper, and, when
opened, revealed its dazzling crystals. I liked it almost as much as
candy and I rarely had a bit of the precious article. Brown sugar and
molasses were the common household sweets; bread and molasses an
excellent lunch for hungry boys always crying for something to eat and
never filled.
The town meeting bun is a thing of the past. When I ventured into the
town house I stepped very softly and felt an exceeding awe. It was a
strange sensation to be moving about among men whose legs were as long
as I was tall, and, generally, as unnoticed as if I did not exist.
Sometimes a kindly old man would look down, put his hand on my head and
say: "You'll be a man before you know it;" or another would vary the
expression with, "you'll be a man before your mother." Both meant the
boy had grown since the last town meeting. I have, since those days,
known town meetings from the standpoint of a man and voter and have even
taken part in their counsels; yet I have had always more interest in
them as an observer than as an active participant. Perhaps this was
because I was not an office seeker. I have revolved schemes for town
improvements a whole year and taken them into the March meeting only to
have them smashed in a moment. In general at the meetings in rural
districts, where there is little business to transact and the day is
before them, the citizens like to hear discussion, especially if the
disputants get into a passion or interject a little fun. Then everybody
takes a hand and the main question is so confused and lost that even the
moderator cannot restate it. Party spirit rages, old feuds come to life
and men remember all the ugly doings and sayings of their neighbors and
are hot to pay off old scores and get even, as they say. Suddenly, at
the height of the wrangle, the whole matter is dropped, peace reigns and
the regular business is resumed as if nothing had happened. These
tempests clear the air for a year, and everybody is in better humor
having discharged his accumulation of grudges and animosities. I have
heard closer speech, more sententious, more convincing and in more
direct and forcible language in town meeting than from any other forum.
Men are not so much ambitious of eloquence as they are to carry their
point. There is often more fun, wit and sarcasm as well as logic than
goes with more pretentious and popular rostrums. When the town-meeting
is abolished freedom will have lost her humble but most powerful ally.
When the town grows to a city all is lost; for our freedom and
individual rights depend on direct and individual participation in
public affairs. Otherwise, all is compromise, averages, irresponsibility
and mere chance how affairs turn out. The larger the city, the easier it
is for rascals to rule.
The town meeting was succeeded in April by Fast Day, appointed always
for a Thursday. For some unknown reason Thursday in New England was an
almost sacred day, a sort of secular Sabbath. Thanksgiving was
invariably on that day of the week; also evening prayer meetings and
usually religious conventions, quarterly meetings, Sunday-school
conferences and weddings. There is an ancient proverb which says
"Thursday come, the week is gone;" for farmers and laboring people it
was uphill to that day, and an easy and quick descent to the end of the
week. By Friday, or, at least, Saturday we could go a-fishing or
visiting; or to the store for some Sunday snuff, tobacco or "West Injy"
goods. Work relaxed a little, the strain to finish a job was less, we
went to bed and arose somewhat later. Boys were not generally compelled
to attend the Fast Day religious service. It had ceased to be as
strictly kept as formerly. In villages and centers of towns there was
customarily a match game of ball, very unlike the present base ball.
Boys played with boys and men with men. The New England bootmakers, of
whom there were some in most villages, were the leaders in these games.
Fast Day was above all days the established one for shooting and burning
powder. Why, it would be hard to discover, as it was too late for winter
game and too early for any other. However, it was fun and made men and
boys jolly and important to roam through the woods and fields with a gun
over the shoulder, for that was still the soldiery way of carrying it.
It was more often fired at a mark than at bird or beast. Powder had to
be exploded to give expression to the holiday exuberance and a noise
made, game or no game. I suffered dreadfully for several years in not
being able to have a gun, and my misery grew acute at the approach of
Fast Day. I had to content myself with percussion caps, powder and lead
cannon. The latter I made myself and when I had no lead I made them of
wood. These I fired as long as the ammunition held out and then with one
mighty charge I would burst them into fragments, and Fast Day was over
for me.
As Fourth of July approached, my chief concern was to get possession of
twenty-five cents. This was the traditional limit of a boy's spending
money for that day. He must save or earn it, or expect a miracle. How to
save on nothing a year was an early problem of mine; and as to earning,
my services, even then, were not in demand, and I cannot remember ever
to have been hired to be a good boy. My mother had a cheaper way and a
more effectual. Such is the miserable history of poor boys and poor
mothers. Thus it was that I rarely had the twenty-five cents; it was
oftener a dime. Even that seemed large enough to fill one pocket and buy
a world of things. To think over all the single articles that it would
purchase was to possess them for that moment, and I never had a truer
ownership in my life than that which was enjoyed in these imaginary
possessions. Strangely enough, I could so feel my own what I knew the
dime or the quarter would purchase, that I was content not to spend it
at all. Yet a day would come when some sudden impulse or appetite would
snatch it away from me; then with what penitence was I overcome; for, as
soon as I had a thing in my hand it ceased to have the least value; if
eaten, it did not fill me; if a plaything, I soon tired and then hated
it; and only its destruction gave me one passing moment of joy.