housewives dried some for winter use or preserved them in molasses. The
last we gathered were the swamp, or high-bush blueberries. These had a
sub-acid, delicious flavor, not unlike the smell of the swamp pink, which
grew in the same spot. The black raspberry, which we called thimble
berry, was found along the stone walls, but was not abundant. I knew a
few bushes and kept it secret, for if I found a saucerful I was sure of
a small pie baked by my mother, and all my own. If I could not find
enough for a pie I strung such as I gathered on long spears of grass. As
they were shaped like little thimbles, I fitted them on the grass stems
one over the other like a nest of cups, reversing them at intervals, to
make a pattern, which showed the young savage, generally intent only on
something to eat or to play with, to have a slight artistic instinct. As
I now recall those strings of thimble berries, I think they would make
an humble ornamental border to a picture of a New England roadside with
its crooked and tumbled stone walls. No road to me is attractive that is
not bounded by such walls and fringed with berry bushes, brush and wild
apple trees, from among which peer forth the cymes of the wayfaring bush
and sweet scented clusters of the traveller's joy. Let England have her
trim, hawthorne lanes and pleached gardens of fruit and flower, and
Italy her olive and orange; for me the New England wilding roadside,
interrupted only now and then by a farmhouse and littered yard, is
dearer.
I have not yet mentioned other berries that used to make a country boy's
life so full of interest. There was the cranberry, not yet exploited by
cultivation and proprietorship. In Bellingham the cranberry meadows were
still wild and free. The farmer who claimed an exclusive right to them
had no standing in the community and was universally denounced as mean
and stingy. No one wanted many, as they were not bought at country
stores, and, required as much sugar in the cooking as there were
berries; so cranberry sauce was a luxury rarely indulged. Like most wild
fruits they were never picked clean. When the spring thaws flooded the
meadows and washed them in windrows on the shore we gathered them to eat
raw and also for paint. Having been frozen and a little sweetened in
their winter and watery wanderings, we found them more palatable than
when cooked. I know not why, yet a country boy prefers the raw and wild
flavor far more than the condiments and seasonings of cookery. The chief
use of the spring cranberries was as a paint; the thin juice made a
pretty, pink color on white paper, or added an admirable touch to a
russet, red cheek, such as commonly beautified Bellingham boys and
girls, nurtured on milk, apples and brown bread, open air and unfinished
attic chambers.
I dwell much on the recollections of the doings of the day, but the
nights had also their joys, none greater than the rain on the roof and
the exquisite, semi-conscious moments when sleep began to overtake body
and soul, gently extinguishing them in a soothing, delicious languor.
The low country attic is the true house of dreams, where the good, the
strange or the fearful spirits play over the subjected and helpless
will. Long time I remembered some of those dreams which visited my
truckle bed, placed on rollers a foot from the floor and thrice as many
from the ridge pole. In winter, tightly tucked in by a loving mother,
the cold without only made me feel the more snug and warm within. The
snow sifted through the chinks in the loose shingles, making little
white hillocks on the floor, and often I found enough on my pillow in
the morning to press into a snowball and pelt my sister, who slept at
the other end of the attic.
I follow no order in my narrative: I wander; but how can one go far in
the small and circumscribed region of earliest memories, bound each to
each by some inwardly felt affinity, which neither time nor world
wanderings can dissever? One thing suggests another and the connection
must be found in the things themselves. Cranberry picking carried me
forward into springtime; now I return to the autumn, the harvest season,
when although not old enough to dig my mother's small patch of potatoes,
I could pick them up in a basket. She herself handled the hoe uncovering
the long reds and the white Chenangos. I liked better to shake down
apples than to gather things from the ground; for to climb trees is as
much a boy's as a monkey's instinct. That was my first thought when I
happened to observe any kind of tree, could I climb it? The wild grapes
which grew in profusion along the banks of our river clambering over the
tall grey birches gave me glorious opportunities for climbing, as the
sweetest and largest clusters were always at the very top of the trees.
The limbs of the grey birch, although small, are very elastic and tough,
making a sure footing for the climber. The danger was, that, as he
approached the slender spire of the tree, it would suddenly bend or
break and drop him into the water. This was all the more fun, if he
could swim. When he reached home he was liable to have his jacket not
only dried but "warmed," which was the colloquial for a thrashing. I
usually sold grapes enough during the day of the Fall militia training
to keep me in pocket money through the winter. This was my first effort
at any kind of trading and, I think, spoilt me for a commercial career;
for there was no cost, no capital, no loss; all was profit; and ever
since that day it has seemed to me the only manner of doing business
worth while. There are, or were, other compensations in a life of trade,
which might fire the ambition of a strenuous youth. I remember three
voyages made the merchant a Thane in ancient England.
When frost began to brown the grass and brighten the trees, the woods
were full of boys, partridges and squirrels. The boys and squirrels,
much alike in their appetites and ability to climb trees, were intent on
gathering a store of nuts for winter. In early morning after a sharp
frost, the chestnut burrs opened and the nuts dropped out, falling and
hiding among the leaves. There we hunted for them; the squirrels did not
appear to have to hunt, but put their intelligent paws under the leaves
with an infallible instinct. They were always on the ground earlier than
we, and filled their cheeks before we had filled our bags and pockets.
What extraordinary care the chestnut takes of herself; a rough outer
garment bristling with sharp needles, and within, the whitest, silkiest
lining fit for the cradle of a baby queen. To prevent accidents and a
more easy delivery from the burr, the nut is annointed with a slight
exudation of oil, which gives a soft, agreeable feeling as you hold it
in your hand. Doubtless it acts as a preservative also keeping the nut
from becoming too soon dry and hard. Chestnuts were laid away for future
use, to be brought out on winter evenings with cider and apples. Nobody
thought of going to bed without first eating something. Sometimes the
chestnuts were roasted in the ashes on the hearth, and less often
boiled. Of all places to warm them, a boy's pocket was the best; there
they were handiest to eat on the road, or at school, when the teacher
was not looking. If caught in the act, you were called up to her desk
and forfeited the contents of your pocket. It might be returned to you
if you had behaved yourself meanwhile and had not whispered, thrown spit
balls, or pinched the little girl who sat next to you. There were two
kinds of walnut trees in the neighborhood; the common name of one was
shagbark, of the other pignut. The shagbark was the walnut of the
market, a nut with a rich, oily kernel; the pignut was smaller with a
very thick shell and correspondingly small meat, hard to separate from
the shell. They were of little worth, not salable and we gathered them
only when the other kind was scarce. It took a hard frost, several times
repeated, to loosen them from the tree. We often clubbed them down. It
was a perilous undertaking to climb a walnut tree, for the limbs began
to grow high up and the trunk was covered with a rough bark, hence the
name shagbark; to shin up, and still more to descend, was apt to make
patches or a new seat to your trousers your mother's evening work after
you had gone to bed. Where grew anything good to eat and free to all, a
boy was sure to have it, although it cost him subsequent patches,
whippings and tears. Shall the squirrel hunt for nuts and the little
sons of men be forbidden, just to save a new pair of breeches, or an old
jacket? But the woes of country boyhood are naught in comparison to its
joys, and a day in a berry field, or a morning among the chestnut trees,
under the blue sky and a west wind, with merry companions, is a memory
that outshines all the purchased pleasures of later life. Confess to me,
ye humble and trivial things, confess what charms were yours, which
never the flood of years submerges. Alas, they have no speech. I hear
but a strain of imperishable music.
APPRENTICESHIPS
HOME AND HOMESICKNESS
It was thought best in New England country towns that boys, who were not
needed on the farm and were not to be educated beyond the common school,
should learn some trade. As my mother possessed no land nor any means to
send me to academy and college, it was early decided to apprentice me to
a trade with some good master. There was another reason; she did not
feel able nor competent to manage me when I should be older. She had a
presentiment that it would require a stronger hand than her own gentle
one to guide me in a straight path. Always after the death of her
husband, her only means of meeting her difficulties and perplexities was
by prayer. Three times each day, after the morning, noon and evening
meals she retired to her own chamber to pray. She read none but
religious books and the Bible. Her Bible was the wedding gift of her
husband--that and one silver spoon marked with his and her initials J.
A. and E. T. intertwined after the manner of silversmiths. My father
appears to have been the owner of but one book, Cotton Mather's, "Essays
to do Good," which I still possess and, alas, could never read through.
Of course the title of the volume at the date of its republication,
1808, had been greatly reduced. No Mather would be satisfied with a
title much less expansive than the contents, nor wanting some Latin
interlardings. The original title was "Benifacias," followed by ten
lines of sub-titles. This was unusual reserve for one of Cotton Mather's
productions. In its day it was as popular as is the worst novel of ours,
and was continually being republished. Even Dr. Franklin read and
praised it and professed that it had influenced his whole life. The
preface is a fine specimen of the manner in which a popular Boston
preacher at the beginning of the eighteenth century expressed himself
when he appeared in print. It has all the airs and attudinizing of a
full dress ball-room. He says that a passage in the speech of a British
envoy suggested the book and declares of it, "Ink were too vile a liquor
to write that passage. Letters of gold were too mean to be the
preservers of it. Paper of Amyanthus would not be precious and perennous
enough to perpetuate it."
A prayerful mother, the Bible and the Rev. Cotton Mather ought to have
been sufficient to turn out good boys from any household. Then there was
Sunday-school where we were much instructed about the nature and
consequences of sin and the end that awaited bad boys. Notwithstanding,
some closer and more practical guidance was needed for a growing lad;
something to put him in the way of preparing to earn his living.
Accordingly in my eighth year I was turned over to an uncle, my father's
only brother, who lived in the next town. He was a boot maker with four
sons of his own. At once I found myself cut off from all the objects and
persons I had ever known, thrown into a strange world, my own lost as
completely as if I had gone to another. I found myself introduced to a
small room up a flight of stairs at the end of the shed of my uncle's
house. The room was full of windows, all of which looked in the
direction of my lost home; it had a number of low shoemaker's benches
ranged along three of its sides. Here my uncle and two of his sons made
boots. I was directed to one of the benches and began by being taught
how to use a waxed end and stitch the counters of bootlegs. Never in my
life before had I been pinned to one spot for any length of time save on
a school bench; never before set at any work that was not or that could
not be made half play. A deadly home-sickness at once seized upon me, of
which I could not be cured by all the kindness and encouragement of my
uncle and aunt. I was constantly looking out of the shop windows,
expecting some one to come and rescue me. Constantly I wept and could
not swallow my food for the lump in my throat; at last food was
loathsome and my eyes became so swollen with continual tears that I
could scarcely see to thread my needle. Thus I suffered for three weeks
and my young heart was wounded and broken past all cure. My nature was
changed from that time; a kind of depression and melancholy, took the
place of my natural gaiety. I can readily believe, such were my misery
and agony, that one might die of home-sickness. I recall it so well that
I can diagnose its symptoms which are like those of a fever. It comes
over one in paroxysms, followed by a great calm as from sudden cessation
of acute pain, then by a choking sensation, a terrible sinking of the
heart, down, down, all things swim in the convulsion of lost senses
until tears once more relieve the overwrought soul. To add to my misery
my two young cousins would have nothing to do with me. For the entire
three weeks I never spoke a word; the moment I tried I choked and burst
into tears. No wonder my cousins and other boys avoided me. Such a baby
was past their comprehension or tolerance. In my own natural place I
should have had no more mercy on such an one. It is remarkable how early
boys begin to trim each other into manly character; they instantly
discover and attack any little weakness, and with rough and ready hand
or tongue make the weakling or the upstart ashamed of himself. But no
treatment harsh or kind could cure a homesick child, and one day my
uncle said he was going to see my mother, and that I was to go with him.
Oh, how my spirits recovered themselves! I never thought of the return;
only to go, to be once more in my own home, with my own river, fields
and companions, filled me with ecstacy. I went and I did not return. I
did not know what was said between my mother and uncle; I saw him drive
away and leave me behind with unspeakable joy. For many subsequent days
I observed my mother's sorrowful eyes when she spoke to me. Her first
experiment, which promised so well, had failed. If she was disappointed,
I was sobered and much easier to manage from that time forth: I tried to
please my mother. Our old way of life went on its usual round. Again the
little Red House was happy. I resumed my play under the garden apple
tree or on the great rock in the corner of the orchard. That year I
mastered the alphabet, and I was given a slate and pencil for the
purpose of keeping me still when not saying my letters. The school days
of that period are memorable to me, chiefly from the recesses and the
noon intermission an hour long. It was in that hour I became intimate
with some little girls, and found that I liked them as well as boy
playmates. How we choose our favorite companions, no man is wise enough
to know; yet choice there certainly was, with no formality or effort.
How could it be otherwise? From the troop by the door or the roadside,
eating their dinner from basket or pail or playing games, some
predestined affinity drew away a boy and maid to the birchen bower,
where with one mind they set up mimic housekeeping and forbade the
entrance of strange children. There one cloak covered them both. Or they
rambled hand in hand through the woods, or waded in the shallow water of
Beaver brook down to the stone arch bridge where the confined streamlet
gurgled softly over the slimy pebbles, and the arch echoed to the sound
of their voices. What matter though pantalets and little breeches,
pulled up as high as they could be, were wet with jumping and splashing;
hot sun and warm blood would soon dry them. Wrinkles and limpness might
betray them when they returned to the mother's fold at night, but her
reproaches had no terror nor any restraint for happy children, who alone
know the secrets of their own pleasures and have no remembrance of
interference with them. With boy and boy there is a perfect equality; no
pretentions are allowed, except those of age. With maid and boy it is
different. With my companion, I wished to appear superior, to show her
things, even to attempt to explain them; and thus I myself learned to
observe natural objects and to love them. She was my teacher, although I
believed myself hers. She listened, she looked up at me and asked
another question, and so I see her to this day. How should I not become
wise? If not, it is no fault of hers. My Launa, whom I led through the
woods, along the water courses, and to whom I promised, that some day we
would catch a cloud and ride around the sky visiting the moon and stars,
yes, it was Launa to whom I promised everything, and promised because
she wished it, and I felt it my business to seem able to gratify all her
desires. She already led me captive; well she knew it, and loved to test
me with impossible demands. She dared me to do a hundred things, which
attempting and failing, I boldly declared I had done. Just as willing to
be deceived as I to deceive, she never questioned my lie, but led me on
to some fresh feat, some brook or fence to leap, or inaccessible flower
or berry to bring her. Already I got out of difficulties by changing the
subject, by evading the challenge and diverting her to some other
object, play or plan to which she as readily listened. How proud, how
important and superior I felt and with what trust the little siren
permitted it. Among all my apprenticeships this to Launa Probana was
that which taught me most and is most ineffaceable.
THE SAW-MILL
The next effort to make a craftsman of me was in my tenth year. I was
put under the hands of a mill-wright. He set up the machinery of saw and
grist mills and repaired them when out of order. He had a saw mill and
shingle mill of his own, but he was often away from home, especially in
winter, and then I ran the saw mill alone. Its machinery was old
fashioned and now obsolete, an upright saw, a carriage for the logs
somewhat like that now in use, but much heavier and more clumsy. To set
the logs to the required width of boards or other lumber we used inch
rules, a bar made on purpose for the work and dogs to hold the logs in
place. The power was water turned upon the floats of a large wheel. No
large timber was left in the neighborhood, otherwise a boy of ten could
not have run the mill alone; but with a cant-hook I could usually manage
to roll the log upon the carriage and put it in position. We ran off the
slabs first and these were the perquisites of the mill owner. They were
used in his own family and some were sold or given to poor widows and
others. The saw mill was run only in winter time; the water of the mill
pond was drawn off in early spring, and where it had flooded the land,
grass grew in summer. While the log was running through the saw, it was
my never ending delight to lean out of an opening in the side of the
mill and watch the tailrace rush from under the building. All winter I
looked forward to the day when the great gates of the dam would be
raised and the pond disappear in a few hours. I cannot exactly describe
the feeling with which, after a few days of sunshine, I walked over the
ground where the water had stood; a strange commingling of awe and
curiosity, especially as I threaded the now dry, narrow and deep canal,
which led the water of the pond to the mill. There I often walked just
to enjoy in imagination the thought, what if the water should suddenly
come pouring down upon me! I even selected the best places to escape up
the rough stone walls of the canal. All my boyhood I enjoyed thrilling
imaginary perils, and the planning means of escape. The walls of this
canal were made of irregular stones from the field. Alternately wet and
dry they had taken on beautiful colors, variegated according to the
character of the stone, and between them in summer, and quite covering
them in places, grew many kinds of wild flowers, mosses and ferns, and,
most splendid of all, the cardinal flower. The canal was always damp,
and a few frogs and green snakes made it their summer home. Do not
imagine I made any such observations as these at the time, least of all
that I then knew the cardinal flower by its correct name. I saw, I felt,
I dreamed; now I remember and know a little more. I lacked the right
name and reason for most things, but knowing nothing, I named everything
after my own fancy and found the creation as good and sweet as the
Creator at the end of his week's work. Every boy is a new Adam, and
christens the world of his senses in the most primitive figure of
language, metonomy.
The terms of my apprenticeship included a new suit of clothes each year,
and that I should be sent to school in the summer. The clothes were
never forthcoming and my mother had to furnish them. My master gave me
my boots for winter and shoes for summer, but I went barefooted seven
months of the year. This was no hardship. How I hated to wear shoes on
the only day when it was compulsory, Sunday. It cost me tears to learn
to tie a double bow knot with my shoestring, as my master insisted upon
my doing, and this was the only thing during my apprenticeship that he
took pains to teach me--to tie a shoestring. He was a silent,
self-absorbed man with a stern manner, a square set jaw, wide mouth and
ponderous ears. He was very fond of his two little girls, three and four
years old; but he never had a kind word for me. However, he was not
peculiar in this respect. Boys were not cosseted in those days, but made
to feel the rod and keep their place. It seems to me now that I must
have been to him a necessary nuisance, tolerated for what service I
could render, yet I was not unhappy. My mother lived across the road and
I could see her every day. I had some time for play; the mills, the
tools, the dam and canals interested me and beyond all, I fished to my
heart's content. There was an old mongrel dog at my heels wherever I
went, and together we hunted woodchucks and squirrels without a gun. In
the evening, by the stove, he still hunted them in his dreams,
whimpering and barking as soon as he was sound asleep, and I myself
often had the same dream when I had been unusually excited by the sport.
In the autumn I set snares for partridges which I sold to the Boston
stage drivers for nine-pence apiece. Well do I remember the high hope
with which I entered the silent wood in early morning to examine my
snares, the exhilaration when I found a poor partridge in the noose,
limp and dead, with a white film drawn over her eyes. Pity for bird or
beast or human beings was an unknown feeling then: I liked to torment
such life as I had power over, to see it suffer. The sale of partridges
furnished me with considerable spending money; for what I spent it, I
know not. I am only certain I did not hoard it, as I have never found
any ancient silver pieces in my purse or pockets. I can think of no more
entertaining account book than one which should show the acquisition and
outlay of a boy's money; his financial statement from his fifth to his
fifteenth year. I should like to audit such an account and, however, it
came out I would agree to find it correctly cast, balanced and properly
vouched; for a boy always gets his money's worth and thinks he has what
he wants. In his trades with other boys, money seldom plays any part,
and the little swindler always believes he has got the best of the
bargain. And why? Because he has what he coveted, and what was
another's. Somehow the other fellow's knife is a little better than his
own, it is three blades to his two. When he finds the cheat he has only
to swap again. In this way I traded a dozen times in one summer and came
out with one blade, but a bright brass haft.