books. This, however, was not the real method by which I had learned to
use the pen or rather pencil. Much more skill was acquired in little
notes to Launa Probana during school hours, passed furtively under the
desks and benches or hidden in a book which I was suddenly anxious to
borrow or lend. What nothings we wrote! With what pains and searchings
of the brain for words! Still I filled my bit of paper while Launa wrote
only three words, yet her name signed in the tiniest letters satisfied
me. With that name in my vest pocket I felt her near me, fixed my
attention upon my book again, and learned my lessons more easily. I was
conscious that she watched all my movements out of the corner of her
eye, and at recitations it was she, who, when I hesitated and was lost,
bending her head down so as not to be observed by the teacher, whispered
softly the right word and saved me from shame. Thus in a thousand ways
she repaid the boy's devotion, and however out-spelt or out-grammared he
might be, where he stood, was for her the head of the class. What
lessons we learned, not in any book nor taught by any teacher! After a
year or two more of winter saw-mill and summer school my teacher thought
I was old enough to write compositions, an exercise usual in all New
England common schools. Long before this I thought myself competent and
was ambitious to begin. It seemed too much a school exercise to be
undertaken out of it. I saw the older pupils on appointed afternoons
stand up in their places and read from their slates the compositions
they had written. It fired my ambition beyond any of the other exercises
or lessons. It seemed to me the very pinnacle of greatness to stand up
and read a composition before the whole school. How I labored over my
first little essay, not being able to think of anything, or to find
language; how I began without any real beginning sentences that had no
end; how I strung together words without connection or sense, how the
whole school tittered and made faces as I read, how I sat down flushed,
trembling, completely overwhelmed with mortification, it pains me even
to remember. What would Launa care for me now! Without seeming to notice
her I looked over to where she sat and saw that she was weeping. I did
not speak to her for a whole week. Thus I punished myself, and all the
week pondered how I could write something which should make her again
proud of me and reinstate myself with my teacher and schoolmates.
Suddenly it occurred to me that next time I would choose a subject of
which I knew something. Wonderful discovery, which has been of use to me
ever since; a bit as well as reins--this is the reason why I have not
been a prolific writer. Between one book and the next I am totally
forgotten. I found also thus early that one needs a muse. I had made a
blunder in not taking Launa into my counsels, say rather into my mind,
for I had never once thought of her while writing, nor that she would be
my audience. No, I thought only of myself, and the distinction I should
win all for myself. Thus experienced, I did not repeat my mistake. When
we were next called upon for compositions, I coaxed Launa to go with me
at the nooning to the shade of the old blacksmith shop, where I proposed
that we should write them together. There sentence by sentence I made my
little essay, covering one side of my slate, with Launa for inspirer and
critic. My subject was the saw-mill, that one I knew best. There was a
pricking of ears in the school-room when I named my humble subject, and
an elder boy by my side whispered, "Now, give us some sawdust." I
prospered this time and won a smile from Launa. Had I helped her at all
in her own composition? I know not; yet when she read, it seemed to me I
had written it myself. Such has always been my experience in regard to
writing which I have admired, and thought I could do as well--until I
tried.
Thus passed two happy summers and two lonely impatient winters; then I
was ill with a fever and came to the doors of death. I never resumed my
apprenticeship to the mill-wright. For some years succeeding my illness
I suffered from periodical sick headache which, before and after, was
accompanied by a dreadful depression, an indescribable apathy, a
distaste for food, for play, for everything: I wished myself dead. My
mother and sisters were very tender to me at this time; they amused me,
they petted me, and in the evening read to me stories out of Merry's
Museum and from the school readers. It was at this time I was sent on a
visit to Boston, perhaps for my health and spirits. I say sent, for I
went alone in a stage coach the thirty miles. Much preparation was made
for my journey and many letters passed to relatives in Boston concerning
it. I had a new cloak lined with bright red flannel, home-made, and a
cap with an extremely flat crown and a tassel that fell upon my
shoulder. These were the first articles of clothing that made me feel
that everybody was looking at me, a feeling something between vanity and
embarrassment. My cousin met me in Boston at the stage office and took
me to his house in the old West End, at that time the residence of the
respectable middle class, with here and there some more wealthy
citizens. There were a few shops at the corners of the streets; but I
did not venture beyond the street where my cousin lived and saw nothing
at all of the city. I was taken to church on Sunday and once to the
Museum, where I saw the elder Booth in Shylock. The only scene that made
an impression upon me was that where Shylock is about to take his pound
of flesh. He squatted upon the floor, his wild and terrible face turned
directly upon me, as it seemed, while he sharpened his knife upon his
rusty shoe. I was filled with terror and began to cry and begged to be
taken away. Quite angry, yet pitying me, too, I suppose, my cousin led
me out and home where I went at once to bed, covering my head tightly,
unable to sleep for apprehension lest I should be discovered by Shylock.
At the Players' Club, in New York City, in the last winter of Edwin
Booth's life, I related this incident to him as a childish tribute to
his father's power. "Yes," he said, "that was my father, and such things
often happened among women and children when he was playing that
character. He was dangerous at times, not to his audiences, but
occasionally to his fellow actors."
I returned from Boston not much wiser nor more travelled than when I
went. I found nothing there that gave me so much pleasure as the freedom
of my own field, my sports and my companions. When asked what I had
seen, what I had done, I candidly confessed, nothing; yet among boys I
did feel a certain pride because I was the only one among them who had
been to Boston. And I have found the result of nearly all travel is
little more than the cheap avenue to conversation between those who have
travelled over the same ground, or the feeling of superiority that one
has wandered farther.
Although I was more active and restless than most boys, ever longing,
yet with no definite object, I believe I should always have remained in
the place of my birth, except for family exigencies, for I had no
ambitions, no special talent nor practical faculty. When I reflect on
the futility of literature without genius, or the miserly rewards of
scholarship, or the disastrous conclusion in a majority of business
enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be
preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could
have made for myself, came to me unsought and without effort. Such
education as I have, a miscellany of odds and ends of learning, and such
things as I have accomplished, are the chance results of various and
disconnected impulses; and God himself has given me my beautiful
friends. I have found them waiting for me all along my path, and their
attachment has always filled me with astonishment and gratitude; for I
cannot think it is anything I have done that should deserve it. So I
relegate it to that indefinable, unconscious self which is hidden from
our own knowledge. On the whole, who is he, that would not rather be
loved for himself than for his book, his horses or his honors? He, who
is capable of friendship, and inspires it, is happier than Alexander
with worlds conquered and to be conquered.
After much counselling and agitating of the change, my mother moved from
Bellingham, which was her native place, to Hopkinton; and, from this
time forth to the end of her life, she continued to change her residence
from town to town as work, cheaper rent, or the persuasion of friends
induced her. My eldest sister and I went with her. The change filled me
with a pleasant excitement, although we were going to the same place and
the very same house where I had suffered so much from home-sickness. I
did not then know that in leaving my birthplace I left behind me the
fountain head of half my later musings, regrets and imaginings. In
returning now, I find naught but the graves of my family, the elm of my
childhood, fallen to the ground, its bleached trunk and larger limbs
reminding me of a skeleton, the well filled with stones, and the Red
House converted into a woodshed. The river still flows by; one great
pine still murmurs and wonders what has become of the children once
playing in its shade; the pond, the arched bridge which spanned its
outflow are unchanged. And Launa, I fear to inquire what has become of
her, though I never lost her. She followed and reappeared in all my
wanderings.
BOOTMAKING
In Hopkinton I began to feel myself too old to play with girls. Boys
were numerous and knew more than those I had met before. I soon caught
up with their manners and customs, and in some respects bettered them. I
outdid them in mischief, looted the best apple trees, beat them at ball
and managed to escape my tasks oftener. My work was stitching the
counters of boots; my mother and sister filled their spare time with the
same employment. Indeed, at this period it was our sole means of
support. The making of boots, pegged boots, double soled and welted,
with legs treed until they were as stiff and hard as boards, was the
chief occupation of all that portion of the town called Hayden Row. For
a mile or more up and down this street were the houses of the
bootmakers, each with its little shop, either attached to the house, or
built in the yard. Each had from two to six workers. Generally every
part of the boot was made in these shops; the stock was cut and
distributed from some larger shop to which the finished boots were
returned to be put in cases and shipped. The smaller shops were the
centers for the gossip, rumors and discussions which agitated the
community. There men sharpened their wits upon each other, played
practical jokes, sang, argued the questions of that day, especially
slavery, and arranged every week from early spring to late autumn a
match game of ball either among themselves or the bootmakers of
neighboring towns for Saturday afternoon, which was their half holiday.
All this was possible where the men sat on low benches, making scarcely
any noise, and doing work which did not often require concentrated
attention. My uncle was a stern abolitionist, as were the other
bootmakers; and before I knew it, I was one; nor did I know at that time
that there was any other opinion in the world. Little did I understand
or care for the subject. My uncle took the Liberator, and it was
sometimes read aloud in the shop, and I can remember feeling angry at
some of the stories of cruelty to slaves. I am glad I was brought up in
such an atmosphere, for I have not changed on this point, as I have in
so many other of my beliefs. The only church in the place was the
Methodist, and my mother had, almost for the first time since her
conversion at the age of fourteen, an opportunity of mingling with the
brethren and sisters of her own faith. The chief financial pillar of the
Methodists of New England, Lee Claflin, was a citizen of Hopkinton,
although his place of business was Boston. He was, when I knew him, a
rather short, fat man with a large head and a face beaming with
benevolence and good will. To be noticed, to be spoken to by him was a
great honor, so that when he laid his hand upon my head and inquired if
I were a child of grace, although I had not the least idea what he
meant, I was equal to the occasion and said, "Yes, sir." My mother
smiled at my confession and I have no doubt her heart was made glad; for
though she was not at all rigid in the religious discipline of her
children, the great desire of her life was that they should be converted
and saved from the toils of Satan. I had, as early as I had any
conception of my own, a certain image of Satan as something huge, an
aggregation of all the largest objects with which I was most familiar,
arms and legs as long as the tallest trees and church steeples, and it
was of his size that I was afraid, rather than of his temptations and
torments, which I heard thundered from the pulpit. I had a fear, born of
sundry rough encounters with larger boys, of that which was superior in
strength, and to me Satan was as a big and ugly boy, whom I sometimes
looked for along the road, expecting him to dart out from behind the
stone walls, or clumps of bushes. Many writers have said harsh things
about the former religious creeds and preaching of our New England
forefathers, especially in their effects upon children. I do not agree
with them. It did often save the wayward from peril, and offered a rich
field for the imaginative interpretations of children. What does the
modern child find in a modern sermon to give him any sort of quickening?
Yes, my dear pulpit orators, with no wing left to imp your eloquence,
recover Satan in all his immense, Miltonic grandeur and energy.
Those happy Hopkinton days were filled with many new and fascinating
objects and boyish pursuits to which I gave an undivided heart. I
learned all the tricks and sleight-of-hand with which the bootmakers
amused themselves and puzzled each other in their shops. I was long in
discovering the secret of the best trick of all, which was making names
and pictures appear on the bare plaster of the shop walls by striking on
them with a woolen cap such as we all wore. Then there were all sorts of
string, button and ball tricks, and my pockets were full of articles
with which to astonish the uninitiated. He, who introduced or invented a
new trick or puzzle, was the hero of the shops for a day; and for many
days after, as soon as learned, the men and boys were confounding each
other by its performance. In those days Signor Blitz was travelling the
country, giving his necromantic shows, and left behind him everywhere a
taste for his wonderful performances. Our ingenuity was exercised in
weaving watch chains in various patterns with silk twist; in making
handsome bats for ball, and in making the balls themselves with the
ravelled yarn of old stockings, winding it over a bit of rubber, and in
sewing on a cover of fine thin calf skin. This ball did not kill as it
struck one, and, instead of being thrown to the man on the base, was
more usually thrown at the man running between them. He who could make a
good shot of that kind was much applauded, and he who was hit was
laughed at and felt very sheepish. That was true sport, plenty of fun
and excitement, yet not too serious and severe. The issue of the game
was talked over for a week. I did my daily stint of stitching with only
one thing in mind, to play ball when through; for the boys played every
afternoon. When there was to be an important match game the men
practised after the day's work was done.
Meanwhile my education was entirely neglected. I attended no school at
this time, either summer or winter, and came as near acquiring a trade
as I have ever done. In fact I longed to be able to make the whole of a
boot, to last, peg, trim, gum, blackball and stone it, all processes of
the craft as then practised. But how does one know when he is learning?
I was laying up a good store of things more valuable than any in books,
whilst the free life I led was preparing in me the soft and
impressionable tablets on which could be traced future experiences and
acquisitions of a more intellectual kind. Tomorrow would come and this
was its preparation. Yet not consciously can one prepare for it all that
it is to hold. I became a graduate of the shops of the bootmakers before
acquiring the whole of their trade, but not before absorbing most of
that which constituted the overflow of their lives. I began to imitate
the manners and conversation of men. Ridiculed for this, I retreated
into myself and became more observant and more silent. A small, very dim
yet new light appeared to me--reflection, silent thoughts at night, and
when alone; questionings with no least effort at answers. My new world
as yet was not much more than a mile square, as in my native town;
within that mile I knew every natural object and all the people.
Everybody called me by my first name, prefixing, usually, "little curly"
or "snub-nose," and my companions gave me nicknames according to their
likes or dislikes. I much affected the company of boys older than
myself, especially my cousins, whom I naturally looked up to and very
much admired. They would have none of me, called me "nuisance" and
"tag-tail." This last epithet wounded me sorely and made me slink away
like a whipped cur. Added to my mile-square world, I had now also the
germs of memory. Faintly and at long intervals I remembered my life in
Bellingham; but it seemed another planet, far off, indistinct, and I had
as yet no desire to return to it.
LOVE AND LUXURY
My mother had three daughters, one had died within a year of my father's
death. She was the belle of the neighborhood, fair-haired and blue-eyed,
not very tall, graceful and attractive. Every one admired her and her
friends loved her ardently. She had already ventured into verse,
religious in tone, and affectionate effusions to her girl friends. With
a little education she had begun to teach school. She was my first
teacher and the school her first. We were very fond of each other. Her
kiss was the only one I did not shrink from and try to escape. She took
most of the care of me, and I always slept in the same room with her.
Usually I went to sleep in her bed, and in the morning crept back into
it. When death came and took her away from me, when I found, in the
darkened room to which my mother led me where she lay in a white dress,
that she did not kiss me nor even speak, I was frightened and awed. In a
short time I forgot her; but before I grew to be a man I recovered her,
and shed the tears long due her love and loss. Another older sister was
already a successful teacher in the district schools of the region, so
successful indeed, that she taught winters as well as summers, which was
unusual for women teachers to attempt. Several winters she had
undertaken schools, the pupils of which were so unruly that no man could
be found who was able to control them. At length, through friends who
knew her success and abilities, she was invited to take charge of a
private school in Norwich, Connecticut. Her pupils were from the wealthy
and influential families of the upper, the aristocratic part of the
city, round about Savin Hill and along the Yantic riverside. After she
had become established there, she took me back with her at the end of a
spring vacation. I found myself among a very different class of children
from any I had ever known, highbred, well-mannered and well-dressed, I
felt at first abashed and suppressed; but as we were all children, more
or less unconscious of distinctions in rank, democrats at heart, I soon
came to terms with them; if there were any barriers, they were broken
down as soon as we began to play together. There is no realm of equality
like that of the playground; there you are estimated on your merits,
your skill, your honor and good nature. In two weeks I felt perfectly at
home, and already had two or three cronies to whom I was devoted. I
dreaded the hour of my return to my mother. It came; I found myself
again among men in shirtsleeves, and boys in blue jean overalls; my
mother's oven no more busy than of old, my hands black with leather and
sticky with wax, I, who had been eating the fine fare of rich men's
tables with silver forks and knives that shone like mirrors. The world
had been changed in a few weeks and fifty miles of travel. I felt myself
no part of anything around me; I loathed it and longed to return to my
sister. I had had a taste of better things, or so they seemed, or was it
their novelty? I began to look down with shame and disgust at the humble
life around me. Above all I wanted to escape my task and wondered how I
had ever wished to be a bootmaker.
Norwich was a small and beautiful city, well planted with trees, the
houses large and set in ample ground. Two riven meet there to form a
third, the Thames, at the head of which is the port or Landing as it is
called. At the port of the city I had for the first time seen steamers
and sailing vessels. Strange and wonderful creatures they were to me,
and I asked a thousand questions about them without comprehending in the
least the answers. I was told they sailed down the river with the tide,
past New London, then out upon the sea, and at once and ever since I
always behold vessels, as it were, double, one near and another far
away, disappearing on some vast level plain. Here was water enough,
water, the most fascinating thing in nature, tempting by its dangers to
boyish adventures, and I determined to be a sailor as soon as I was old
enough and could get back to Norwich. How to get back was the problem I
vexed myself over day and night for weeks and months. My sister
returning home for her summer vacation, I continued to tease and coax
until she consented to my wishes. My small trunk, covered with hairy cow
hide, was packed with my few belongings, and with a gay heart I left the
town and my mother's door never to return permanently, and as blind as a
stone to what I was going away for; I was going--that was all that
concerned me. There was no future; time does not exist for children;
yesterdays are faint, tomorrows undreamed, today endless. Arriving in
Norwich, at once, I felt at home. I met my former playmates without a
greeting, and just as if we had not been separated for half a year.
Nothing was changed; we resumed our sports, and every afternoon at the
close of school, in which I was now a pupil, we played among the cedars
of Savin Hill; or else we paired off and spent our time with the dogs,
rabbits and pigeons and other pets owned by my different companions. I
had myself one hen which the good dame, with whom my sister and I
boarded, allowed me to keep in a large box in her yard. I spent much of
my time, when without companions, with my hen. I made her many nests in
hopes of enticing her to lay eggs, for which I was promised a cent
apiece by dame Onion. I cannot recall how I came by this hen, nor what
was her final fate. What trifles we pursue! What trifles connect the
seven ages of life, more often remembered than the real steps of our
career. So let biddy spread her wing as wide as Jove's eagle, and eat
gravel with Juno's peacock; and in this narration I keep company with my
betters, who have not lowered their dignity by confessing their
obligations to the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and to all
those friendly creatures which dwell in the shelter of the house and the
barnyard. So, little red hen, I leave thee here on the road by which I
strayed, playing and singing, into the fearful arena of life, walled and
thousand-eyed; whether we fall or triumph, the spectacle and the wonder
of an hour.