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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

THE .Ni:\V YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

AST.^^,!-^-^'^ AND \ -pn-DP.N fntJNDATIONS

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

MEMORIES OF A PURITAN CHILDHOOD

BY

SARAH STUART ROBBINS

BOSTON THE PILGRIM PRESS

NEW YORK CHICAGO

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THE NEW Y^iRK PyBLIC LIBRARY

775589 A

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

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Copyright, 1908 By Sarah Stuart Rob bins

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

MOSES STUART

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FOREWORD

THE world of my childhood has passed away. Puritanism, with its virile asceticism, its restrained but lofty and concentrated fervor, is not only obsolete but misunderstood. Puri- tan Andover, once a leader in missions, theology, and religious life, by clinging too long to ancient good, has in great measure lost its ascendency, and is at last wisely turning to new fields of labor. There are few left now, of the world that is gone, to interpret Puritan Andover to the new world of to-day. No formal interpretation is attempted here ; the memories of an Andover childhood, as they have been sifted by fourscore passing years, are plainly

FOREWORD

written down, in the hope that these simple facts of our every-day hfe may carry with them some message warm from the heart of that once Hving and

vigorous age.

S. S. R.

[viii]

CONTENTS

Page

I Andover Hill 1

II The Sabbath of Old Ando\^r . 29

III The Schools on Andover Hill . 56

IV Andover Week-Day Meetings . 73 V Andover Holidays 89

VI Andover Women 110

VII Andover Trysting-Places . . . 128

VIII Some Men of the Olden Time . 142

[ix]

ERRATA

The illustration facing page 174 should be entitled " The Phelps House," not " The Moses Stuart House," and the picture of " Old Main Street " faces page 38, not page 94.

ILLUSTRATIONS

• ■

Page Seminary Buildings (1870) . . . Frontispiece

Shawsheen River 44

Old Main Street 94

Indian Ridge 136

Moses Stuart House 174

[xi]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

I. ANDOVER HILL

Andover Hill! are there many still living, I wonder, who know what those words meant in the old days? Pisgah, the Anniversary discourses used to call it, or Sinai, or the Hill of Zion, where Siloah's brook did flow fast by the oracles of God. Oh, they used to compare our Hill to every height men- tioned in the Bible, — except, of course, the mountain of the temptation!

It was not that our Hill was so very lofty: it was high enough to afford wide views of plain and river and distant de- lectable mountains ; high enough to get the full glory of sunrise and sunset and of the nightly hemisphere of stars ; high enough, also, to receive the purifying

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

and flesh-mortifying sweep of all the long, cold winds of winter. But when they called it Pisgah and Zion, they had rather in mind the presence there of Andover Theological Seminary, which was set on a hill in men's thoughts as is no similar institution in these widely different days.

On that broad-topped hill there was a row of three severely rectangular brick buildings, extending north and south; a long, wide common, with lines of young elms along the straight, gravel walks; and opposite the Seminary buildings, on the other side of the com- mon, a row of simple but dignified white colonial houses where the pro- fessors lived. Behind these, and stretch- ing off toward the brow of the Hill, were the wide fields and gardens where " the sacred plow employed " those " awful

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ANDOVER HILL

fathers of mankind " — through the hired man. There were also on the Hill the recitation-hall of Phillips Academy, and, a few other buildings; but the heart of Old Andover was the Semi- nary Common, over which trod intent black figures, passing between chapel and home or dormitory.

Severely plain and utterly quiet An- dover was, but it was not stagnant. The tides of intellectual life ran strong and high. The sense of being above and aloof resulted there in a feeling of proud responsibility and zeal for serious work. Professors and students alike felt them- selves anointed kings and priests, with a momentous task to perform for the world. They did not quite think their Mount Zion "the joy of the whole earth,'* but their thoughts certainly tended in that direction.

[3]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

In 1810 my father was called to An- dover from a pastorate at New Haven, to be professor of Greek and Hebrew; and there most of his children were born. The Hill, with its great common, its severe buildings, its monastic human figures, made up our whole child world. Sometimes, indeed, we strayed as far as Indian Ridge or the banks of the Shawsheen at Abbott's Village ; but such rare excursions merely accentuated our seclusion. Our only associates were the other " Hill children," sons and daugh- ters of professors and of the principal of the Academy, with now and then, as a rare exception, some favored Academy boy. We never went to the circus or to dancing-school ; but we were always ex- pected to take our silent and attentive part in whatever went on of services or celebrations within those studious walls.

[4]

ANDOVER HILL

The buildings upon the Hill formed so characteristic a setting for our life, that I will try to picture them somewhat in detail. The middle one of the three Seminary buildings, which we called the Chapel, looked very much as it does to-day, except that instead of the pres- ent tower it had a small round cupola. It was in those days divided into three stories instead of two, as now, the floors having since been shifted, and the win- dows of the middle story blocked up. This building had many uses. On the right, the chapel filled the lower story; and above was the library, which, with its books, portraits, and busts, was a most attractive place. The left side of the building was occupied by recitation- rooms.

The dormitories, Abbott and Bartlett Halls, though externally very much

[T]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

what they are at present, by their do- mestic arrangements, or by the absence of such things, conduced to a Spartan simplicity of life and character on the part of the students. There was no water in the buildings; the young men must bring it in their pitchers from out- side. There was no steam heat; they must tend their own stoves, carrying their fuel from a wood-pile which at first was not even protected from the rain and snow, up the steep flights of stairs to their rooms. They had to make their own beds, do their own sweeping, and fill their own lamps. But there was little complaint among the theologues of eighty years ago. They had done the same things in college; and most of them had been in the habit of perform- ing similar offices at home. That these hardships, which students of to-day

[7]

ANDOVER HILL

would doubtless think severe, did no harm to those then subjected to them, is proved by the quality of the graduates sent out by Andover in those early days. Behind the Seminary buildings proper was the structure known as the " Commons." It was well named, for nothing could be more common than both the outside and the inside of the building. Every vestige of the low, two- storied brown house is gone now; but there it stood, just back of the chapel, year after year, spreading their only table for scores of young men studying for the ministry. I have no doubt that it was kept as well as many similar eating- houses, — perhaps it was kept better; but it had this peculiarity: the cheap, poor food it offered was not accom- panied by the pleasant words that are as the honeycomb, sweet to the soul and

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

health to the bones. Instead there were disquisitions on Edwards and Emmons, on eternal punishment and redemption by free grace. Think of the clatter of knives and forks, dealing with tough meat and soggy vegetables, to the ac- companiment of these and kindred themes !

There used to be a story — but, mind you, no physician or nurse has been found who will swear to its truth — about a young man who, during one of the dietetic spasms to which the Com- mons was subject, when meat was ex- cluded and molasses substituted in its place, had some ailment for which, in accordance with the medical practise of those days, the doctor resorted to blood- letting. All the skill of the physician could draw from his veins nothing but a sweet, thick liquid resembling syrup!

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ANDOVER HILL

The long tables, the blue and white dishes, the capacious water-pitchers, the dingy tumblers, the patched table-cloths, the piles of brown and white bread, the crackers, mush, and buckwheat, the poor joints and cheap vegetables, have passed away ; and so have most of those who ate of them. But there remains the memory of the quaintness and chill of the old dining-room, of the sun strag- gling in through the little cracked win- dow-panes, of the shadows made on the low walls by the swaying boughs and glancing leaves of the near elm- trees; and through the hush which the years have dropped upon the place there come tolling in the warning notes of the soft chapel bell.

At the north end of the Common stood a plain stone building called the carpen- ter shop. It was later the residence of

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

Professor and Mrs. Stowe, and now forms part of the Phillips Inn. The purpose for which it had been built proves that the Andover authorities early caught some dim foreshadowing of modern theories of physical devel- opment. The plain statement that a healthy body makes a healthy mind and a healthy soul, would probably have been considered in the Andover of those days as rank heresy. Indeed, the body and the soul were often looked upon as the two ends of a seesaw, so to speak, of which, when one was up, the other was necessarily down. It was vaguely felt, however, that the students, in spite of the fact that they had to take care of their own rooms, and although their serv- ices were requisitioned on occasion to chop Professor Porter's wood, or to mow some other professor's hay, yet, take

ANDOVER HILL

the year through, did not get a sufficient amount of exercise. Mr. Bartlett, him- self a man of iron frame and iron nerves, with a common sense that told him how much these had contributed to his suc- cess, could easily understand that physi- cal strength would increase a man's effectiveness, even in the holy ministry. A project adapted to strengthen the bodies of the students he readily agreed to further; and a stone shell of a build- ing was erected, and within its great bare walls there were carried benches, tools, lumber, and all the et cetera that go to make up a regular carpenter shop. Thither were led — for I am sure very few ever went there of their own accord — the Juniors, Middlers, and Seniors, to grow into the full stature of a glori- ous, rounded manhood. And what do you suppose the authorities chose as

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

among the chief objects, in the construc- tion of which the theological students, weary, perhaps, from a lecture on the future of the wicked after death, should relax their minds and invigorate their bodies? You will hardly believe me when I assure you that they were set to making — coffins! There you have a theological consistency worthy of John Calvin himself!

Very ludicrous pictures come up be- fore me, of scenes which we children used to see there, when we stole in dur- ing work hours, to adorn our straight hair with the beautiful shining curls of shavings. There were pale, puzzled, weary faces, bending over corners that wouldn't fit, and over boards that were too long or too short, too narrow or too wide. There were failures to hit nails on the head ; there was dulling of saws,

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ANDOVER HILL

breaking of hatchets, and rasping of files ; — oh, the ignorance and incom- patibihty are as funny to remember as they must have been hard to bear! To the participants there was nothing amus- ing about the scene. Each man was as solemn as if the coffin he was making were his own. We hear of theological workshops! Here was one, the hke of which had never existed before, and probably can never exist again. Ham- mered in were the Greek and Hebrew, homiletics and ecclesiastical history, election, free grace, natural depravity, and justification by faith, — hammered down tight, and the nail clinched on the other side.

Of the row of professors' houses on the west side of the Common, the one at the southern end was that built for my father. Mr. Bartlett had bought for the

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

Seminary the six acres of land on which it was to stand, and had given my father carte blanche to "build a dwelling house thereon according to his pleasure." The house, though perfectly simple, was large and commodious. Behind and about it were the barns, sheds, and store- rooms made necessary by the conditions of existence in those primitive times. It should be remembered that the produc- tion of the necessaries of life was then much less specialized than it is to-day. We had to keep our own cow, and our own hens. We had to raise and store many of our supplies. We depended besides upon our own horse and car- riage. All this necessitated, even for a professor in a theological seminary, a certain amount of stock, implements, and service; and it called for an array

of outbuildings which have since fallen _

ANDOVER HILL

into disuse and have been torn do^vn. When the estabhshment was finished, and Mr. Bartlett came to inspect it, he said in his simple, brief manner, —

" This is exactly such a house as a professor ought to have."

The house was painted a pure and austere white. In fact, there was no building on the Hill which was painted any other shade, until my sister and I, as young ladies, having seen, on a visit to Newburyport, that the fashionable color for houses was then a delicate drab, went to the painter, procured a sample, and on our return to Andover, without consulting our parents, ordered our house painted in the worldly shade. My father only looked at us and drew his red silk handkerchief across his mouth.

No separate view of the house as it

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

used to be is in existence; and various changes and additions, with the removal of the outbuildings, have made the pres- ent structure almost unrecognizable. Some idea of how it used to look may- be obtained from the view opposite p. 38, in which it is the last house on the left.

Such a home as it was for children I The sheds and haymows, the three yards, the fields and gardens, afforded fine places for play. And then the fruit- trees I They bore cherries and plums, apples and pears and quinces, such as Massachusetts can no longer boast.

The next house to the north of us was for some time the Mansion House, of which I shall speak later. In the wide space between there was built in 1832 a brick building called the " book store." It is the middle building in the view op-

ANDOVER HILL

posite p. 38. Successive firms of printers made it their headquarters; and there many of my father's books were pub- hshed. The house to the north of the Mansion House was the residence of Professor Woods. It was a box-hke building, very square and plain. In the old days it was without blinds.

In striking contrast to this house was the one beyond it, which was occupied by the professors of rhetoric. It was presented to the Seminary by Mr. Bart- lett, who had given Dr. Griffin, who was to be the first professor to occupy it, the same privilege that he gave my father, of building his house to suit himself. Dr. Griffin, who had come from Philadel- phia, was a man of cultivated and expen- sive tastes. He built so many of these tastes into his house that the expense not only astonished and mortified Dr.

i [rT]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

Griffin himself, but was a source of trouble to every one concerned in the affair. It is said that after signing check after check to pay bills connected with the construction of the house, Mr. Bartlett gave Squire Farrar, the treas- urer, authority to pay whatever further bills might be presented, and forbade him ever to let him know how much the dwelling cost. The crowning extrava- gance of Dr. Griffin, to Andover minds, was his having put upon the parlor walls a paper which cost a dollar a roll. When he was remonstrated with for this lavish outlay, he tried to cover his mistake by ordering another paper, at twenty-five cents a roll, and having that put on over the other, — still at the expense of Mr. Bartlett. Dr. Griffin stayed in An- dover less than two years, when he was permitted to return to the elegance of

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ANDOVER HILL

Philadelphia. The house was then as- signed to Dr. Porter, who occupied it through the years of my childhood. It is often spoken of as the " Phelps house," sometimes as the " president's house"; and it has always been the handsomest among the residences of the Andover professors.

Next beyond this house was a low, unpretentious building occupied by the Seminary steward. Next in order stood the large, dignified square house occu- pied by Samuel Farrar, or Squire Farrar, as he was always called. This man was the " honest treasurer " whom Holmes called " the good old, wrinkled, immemorial squire." In his yard was a small building used as the treasurer's office. The house is still in existence, but has been moved back to the western brow of the Hill.

[19]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

During my early childhood this was the last house in the row opposite the Common; but in 1833 a brick house was added at the end. This was the home first of Dr. Skinner, and afterwards for many years of Professor Park.

A few other buildings not in this row must have mention. Nearly opposite my father's was the house of Dr. Mur- dock. This was a simple structure with a gable roof. In the yard was an old- fashioned well, with a sweep; and be- side the well hung a gourd, for use as a drinking-cup. In this house Oliver Wendell Holmes was for some time a boarder. My most vivid remembrance of him as a boy is as he stood by the well-sweep, drinking from the gourd.

A little way down the hill toward Boston from Dr. Murdock's, and on the same side of the street, stood Shipman's

ANDOVER HILL

store. Here we were often sent on er- rands, and here we spent our pennies on candy, swxet-flag, and slippery-elm. Even the stronghold of trade in the guise of this little country store was in Andover made to pay tribute to the re- quirements of theology and learning; for in this same building my father had his printing-press. This may seem a strange possession for an Andover pro- fessor; but when my father began to teach Hebrew, he found that he must write a Hebrew grammar, there being nothing adequate on the subject in the English language. When the granmiar was written, because there were no He- brew characters in American printing- offices, and no printers capable of setting up Hebrew type, he had to solicit con- tributions, buy a press, and import He- brew type. He even set up some of the

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

grammar himself, until he could train compositors capable of doing such work. As the first home of what was called, from the chief contributor, the Codman Press, Shipman's store has my lasting interest.

On the eastern side of the Common was the Academy building where my brothers went to school. It was a plain brick building with a cupola. In the corner of the Academy yard was the res- idence of the principal, — a dear house to me, for I was very fond of Mrs. Adams, and one of the Adams children was my most intimate girl friend. Just the other side of the Academy building stood the modest schoolhouse where Miss Davis taught the little girls living on the Hill. On a street running west from Main street, close by Squire Farrar's house, was a row of homely barracks

ANDOVER HILL

which served as dormitories for the boys of Philhps Academy.

It will be seen that the buildings on Andover Hill had almost all of them an academic, and in many cases a theolog- ical association. There was one house, however, which brought us in some de- gree into contact with the big outer world. This was the Mansion House, built by Judge Phillips in Revolution- ary days. Standing in the line of houses opposite the Common, it was much the largest and stateliest among them. It was for years separated from our house only by grass and trees, so that we could see it from our windows. We heard tales of the public offices and high social position of Judge PhiUips. We looked with awe on the windows of the room where Madam Phillips had received the great George Washington. The house

[IT]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

had become an inn ; and before it every afternoon drew up the stage that was our only public means of connection with Boston and the world at large.

Living in my father's family was a strong, noble-minded New England woman who occupied at once the place of " help " and of friend. In her youth she had been a member of Madam Phil- lips' household; and our earUest hours of story-telling were filled with descrip- tions of the grandeur of the Mansion, and with accounts of the fine doings that had taken place there in its palmy days. Our own home was plain with an almost Puritanic severity ; but at Madam Phil- lips' there had been such silver, such table-cloths, such pomp and ceremony of gubernatorial life! Who had the finest lace that human fingers ever wove? Whose muslin frills and bordered caps

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ANDOVER HILL

were a miracle of plaiting? Whose stiff silks and heavy, broidered satins came rustling down to us through the years? Who was the lady of Andover Hill, to whom the great and the small alike did reverence? Madam Phoebe Phillips. Her youthful romance was one of the very few to come to our carefully guarded ears. The attic window where she had prayed for her husband when he was away at the war was one of the Meccas of our youthful imagination. Indeed, so real a woman was Madam Phcebe Phillips to my childhood, that although I know she died before I was born, I cannot divest myself of the idea that I saw her as a living woman, and that she led me with other little girls over her great house, sho^ving us the dif- ferent rooms, and pointing out with pride the crepe-hung chair in which

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

George Washington had once sat down.

The dignity of Madam Phillips' social station, and the munificence of her char- ities, certainly counteracted in some de- gree the unworldly traditions in which we were brought up ; and under the cir- cumstances such an influence was per- haps not unw^holesome. Yet this stately dame, we were told, had had for the es- tablishment of the Seminary a deep per- sonal concern. She had contributed of her property toward its establishment. In the southeast parlor, the very room once dignified by the presence of Wash- ington, she had assembled the company which had inaugurated the new institu- tion. And her chief consolation in dy- ing was that she could see from her win- dow the Seminary buildings, and realize that within them thirty-six students

ANDOVER HILL

were already gathered. Thus the influ- ence of the Mansion House was not so antagonistic as might have been ex- pected to that of the other buildings with which we were surrounded.

Andover Hill, it must be admitted, was in some ways a strange place for children to grow up. We were not the center of interest, with our environment carefully adapted to every need and whim. Even the old adage, " Children should be seen and not heard," was amended in Andover to " Children should not be heard, and should be seen only on stated occasions, such as family prayers and Sabbath services." But, after all, a measure of repression has its educational advantages; the sense of pride is a comfortable inheritance; the gardens, fields, and woods were near and free ; and, as I have said, there were

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

thirty-two of us children together there. Besides, is it not an advantage to be born and bred where one unconsciously im- bibes the deep conviction that it is vul- gar— not perhaps to be rich — but at least to spend one's life and thoughts in slaving after wealth? Yes: it is some- thing to be born on a Hill.

28]

II

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

Among the most marked and charac- teristic institutions of the Andover of my childhood was the Puritan Sabbath. The day threw its long, gloomy shadow before it, beginning with religious exer- cises in school on Saturday morning. For three long hours our teacher, Miss Davis, held us prisoners over Bible les- sons, and over the mystical pages of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Hymns we learned also, and sang; the quavering of Miss Davis' thin, cracked voice comes back to me through the years. The singing was always followed by a prayer. Of this nothing remains to me but the wonder how she could always time her " Amen " so as to pro-

[29]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

nounce the last syllable precisely with the last stroke of twelve from the chapel belfry.

That stroke set us free, and gave us our holiday afternoon. This was as reckless and merry a time, as gay and careless, on Andover Hill, as anywhere else, — perhaps even more so, since it was in contrast with so much that seemed to press us down and hem us in. All the swiftly moving hours now belonged to us, until the sun shot its last rays from the long, low, mountain-bound horizon; but the moment its disk dropped below the hills, the time was God's, and of course was sacred. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy," was often written in letters of purple and gold all over the western sky. No matter where we were or what we were doing, the least infringement upon this Sabbath

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

time was a sin, and was treated as such. " Be home at sunset," — these words come ringing down to me now, stern and commanding, as they sounded then.

There was a remarkable similarity in the family habits and customs of the Seminary faculty. We cherished the feel- ing that we were one body, separated from the rest of the world. On Satur- day night, except in case of illness, not a light burned in any of our dwellings after nine; for Saturday night was the preparation for a day of rest. On Sun- day morning one bell might have sum- moned us all to our early breakfast. At nearly the same moment there went up from the family altars the prolonged prayers ; and in precisely the same way the solemn stillness which followed the "Amen" settled down upon us all. There came a Sunday hush upon every

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

child's voice, a softening of the step, a smile for a laugh, a pent, scared feeling, as if Satan in bodily shape was waiting near to gobble up any poor, unlucky sinner who should venture ever so little way from the strait and narrow path. I doubt whether there dawned upon us a glimmering of the great and beautiful truths the day was intended to shadow forth.

Let me, however, make a single ex- ception. To my father, Sunday was the social day of the week. Study was set aside. A chapter or two in his Hebrew Bible, or an epistle in the Greek Testa- ment, — and the remainder of the day was hterally rest. In the morning, for an hour or two before breakfast, he walked up and down the garden he loved so well, with quick steps, head erect, arms swinging, every muscle of his tall.

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

thin frame in active motion. Bent ap- parently upon the one object of secur- ing his exercise, he yet had eyes and ears for everything that surrounded him. Not a flower had budded or bloomed in the trim little beds of which he had the general care, not a vegetable had grown or ripened since his last visit, but he knew all about it. Very quick and keen his senses were, sources of great pleasure to him, as well as of much pain. In sum- mer he allowed us to pick flowers and carry them with us to church; but they must always be of the rarest and best, for we were laying them upon God's altar. Under the drawing-room win- dows grew some damask roses. Every Sunday morning while they were in blossom he gathered them and gave them to us, always with some apprecia- tive word and one of his own beaming

3 [33 ]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

smiles. The fragrance of those roses is around me now, making a June in my memory of those Andover Sabbath days. At nine in the morning we children all left our homes, wending our way across the bare, open Common to the schoolhouse. It always seemed as if Sunday had gone before, and had crept in and taken possession of our familiar schoolroom, and was waiting for us there. We children on Andover Hill had, in a sense, fewer of what are called " religious privileges " than any other set of beings out of heathendom. It must be remembered that we were not a legitimate part of the secluded reli- gious, literary life to which we were at- tached. The founders of the Seminary had made no provision for the young growi:h that had thrust itself without leave into the very midst. Pastorless,

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THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

the life and heart found only in an ac- tive, working church wanting, we grew up with no personal interest in our chapel or attachment to it. Sabbath- school was not introduced among us until it had become a settled institu- tion elsewhere; and it failed to influ- ence and mold us as such an institu- tion should. Our teachers were students from the Seminary; and the transitori- ness of our connection with them les- sened the good we might have received. Our recitations were brief. Then, to the slow tolling of the bell, we were marched along the road back of the Seminary to the chapel, the superintendent in front, we all following decorously, our teachers beside us.

In the chapel of those days there was nothing of old Solomon's magnificence. The walls were dingy blue, the pews,

[17]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

gallery, and desk were yellow white. Between the windows tarnished cande- labra swung out, holding long, thin tallow dips, which had a sacerdotal habit of dropping large, round, hot drops upon unsanctified heads. A small cushion in the pew of the invahd pro- fessor. Dr. Porter, was, I think, the only one upon the hard, bare seats; and the cold floor was without a carpet. To make amends, there were plenty of Bibles and " Watts and Select " hymn- books. In winter a great iron stove on one side of the pulpit with pipes running around the entire chapel formed the only means of heating. Into this the sexton, who had a seat near the wood-box, on the other side of the pul- pit, was continually shoving large sticks of well-seasoned wood. With the hot coals, foot-stoves were filled; and pass-

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THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

ing these stoves from one to another made the principal diversion during the service.

The front pew on the right-hand side as you entered was Dr. Porter's. Every Sunday until sickness kept him away, he was there with his quaint little wife. He was a tall man, with a large head covered with stiff, gray hair; a pale face; immobile eyes, deep-set; and a mouth drawn as if from suppressed pain. He was a man who never wandered within the precincts of our child world ; we be- held him from afar, venerated him, and always thought of him with a yellow bandana tied about his throat, and a long, dark cloth coat hanging from his narrow shoulders.

Dr. Woods sat next, a noble-looking man, decidedly the handsomest member of the faculty. It was a saying in those

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

old times, that no man could be a pro- fessor at Andover who was under six feet in height. Dr. Woods was every inch of this, and of rather stalwart pro- portions, which added to his personal dignity. His head was round, and sin- gularly even in its development; his forehead was high, sloping a little back- ward; his hair thin, gray, and always cut short ; his large eyes of a quiet blue ; his other features rather delicate than pronounced; and the whole presence that of a slow, quiet, dignified, entirely reliable man. There were some of us who had an undefinable dread of him because we heard him called " Old School." What that meant probably none of us knew; but we had a dim idea that it had something to do with his being a nephew of Cotton Mather, and that it made us, in his presence, par-

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I

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

ticularly on Sunday, practical illustra- tions of original sin, native depravity, free agents gone far astray. And yet not one of the grave, preoccupied men by whom we were surrounded had a pleasanter word for us, or a more kindly smile.

Professor Stuart sat third in order. Four-fifths of the year he carried his long blue cloth cloak on his arm to church. Spreading it carefully over the back of the pew, and .sitting on it, he was the most attentive and the most rest- less listener there. To keep still seemed to be a physical impossibility to him. If the sermon was poor, his impatience showed itself in shrugs, in opening and shutting his large white hands, in mov- ing in his seat, and in a lengthened face pitiable to see. If it was good, no one doubted his appreciation, or the

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

social feeling which made him wish to share his enjoyment. At the utterance of any especially pertinent remark, he would often rise in his seat, and, turn- ing round upon the young men, his stu- dents, draw his red silk handkerchief across his mouth several times, express- ing in every feature the keenness of his pleasure. If he differed theologi- cally from the sentiments uttered, no words could have expressed his dissent more strongly than did his looks and gestures.

In the next pew was Dr. Murdock, an impassive man, living far more in the past than in the present, caring little for the pulpit utterances of the day in com- parison with those of centuries ago. Small, with delicate features, thin brown hair, and brown eyes, he seemed to us like a hermit who had wandered away

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THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

from his cell. A great scholar we were told he was, with all the history of the world at his ready command; and we looked upon him as we should have looked upon a walking cyclopedia, not much pleased with the binding it showed us, or in the least attracted by the won- derful lore treasured within. He was to us a literary curiosity, and nothing more ; therefore we heeded him less than any other of the professors.

John Adams and Samuel Farrar occupied seats on the left of the pulpit. John Adams was principal of Phillips Academy, thus holding a post to us much more important than that held by any other of the dignified men in the assembly. Yet he had not the dignified look of these other men. Shorter and stouter, with a florid complexion, a large nose, and a live blue eye, he stepped, up

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

the broad aisle with the carriage of one used to command. Before him he held a great ivory-headed cane, which came ringing down into the corner of his well- filled pew with an emphasis not to be misunderstood.

Samuel Farrar was not a common man to any of us. With his delicate face, his long gray hair falling back from a rather peculiar forehead, a shy, retiring manner, and a very sweet, grave expression, even of his hands, he was to us by turns, Moses, David, Isaiah, John whom the Blessed One loved — any and almost every Biblical saint. He was a responsible man, carrying on his shoulders not only all the great pe- cuniary interests of the Seminary, but also, seemingly, the responsibility for its theology. He listened to every word spoken in the small wooden pulpit as if

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOYER

for one and all he must give account at the last great day.

What a peculiar audience that was! With the mysteries all unfolded, the glass lifted, seeing face to face, how, I wonder, do they feel about their old differences now?

Services ended, we filed out. The students by the door went first. Pew after pew was emptied, one by one, slowly, solemnly, as if it were a funeral, and somebody in the entry were beckon- ing to us in turn. Then, still more sol- emnly and slowly, we walked over the broad, graveled pathways homeward, families silently by themselves. If se- clusion were in truth sanctity, we were all near heaven on this holy day.

An intermission of two hours deco- rously passed at home, with a cold din- ner and a pious book, another walk

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

along the narrow foot-paths across the Common, more prayers and psahn-sing- ing, and our church Sabbath was over.

During the vacations of the Theolog- ical Seminary, the chapel in which we ordinarily "went to meeting" was closed; and we Hill children were sent to the Old South Church. This made one of our infrequent holidays, — a time to look forward to with longing, and back upon with regret. A grave little pro- cession we were, as we dropped into line from house after house, each child with a decorous basket in the hand, and each basket filled with some choice Sunday dainty expressly prepared for the occa- sion. We were conscious, too, of some extra touch of toilet ; it may have been a fresh ribbon for a sash, an embroidered pair of pantalettes, or the new hat which had been impatiently kept for the spring

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THE NEW VORK PUBLIC U3RARX

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

vacation. Even the boys made them- selves a shade more jaunty, tipped their caps at a little greater angle, brushed their cropped hair until its pomatumed surface shone with a higher brilliancy, and polished their boots until Day & Martin might have been glad to send them as advertisements around the world.

This Old South Church was typical, in its architecture, of the meeting-houses of its time. It had been built in 1788, and it remained until the building of the present church in 1860. It is therefore not difficult to recall it as it was, with its galleries around three sides of the house, its square pews, — those near the pulpit being reserved for deaf people and deacons, — its high pulpit with the round sounding-board suspended above, and over it, in great gilt letters on a

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

black ground, the solemn words, " Holi- ness becometh Thine house, O Lord, forever." The size and prominence of that " O " gave it something mystical. Over it our childish eyes traveled. Sab- bath after Sabbath, while we wondered whether it was not a round in Jacob's ladder, up which the minister's prayers mounted to heaven.

To the gallery, of course, we were sent, the boys to one side, the girls to the other. The church was a wide one; but was there ever a distance across which young eyes could not send a message, or young lips a smile? Our only dread was of the tithing-man, but my memory bears no record of any arrests; it may be that as guests we were treated with special indulgence.

After morning service we were ex- pected to enter decorously the " noon

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THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

house," and having eaten our lunches with Sabbath propriety, to go to the vestry-room, and Hsten to a second ser- mon read by one of the deacons. There was no Sabbath-school to fill the inter- mission, and I am afraid we Hill chil- dren played truant from the regular gatherings oftener than our highly reli- gious bringing-up would have led the Old South community to expect. We were found oftener out among the graves in the adjoining churchyard, down by the pretty brook that sang its song all the livelong week to the ears of the dead as merrily as it did on Sun- day to us children tired with psalm- singing and prayer and sermon. There were no tithing-men out there, — only the blue sky, the pleasant grove, the birds with whom it was always God's day, and the flowers, one of which in

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that holy church would have been con- sidered a desecration.

The old church has gone now, and with it the pulpit, the sounding-board, the square, unpainted, straight pews, the solemn motto, and the storied gal- leries. Near by in the churchyard, sleep pastors and parishioners, deacons, tith- ing-men, constables, all together there, waiting peacefully for the glad resur- rection mom.

What of the day remained after serv- ices were over was the pleasantest part of the whole week. There was a social tea, with toast, doughnuts, preserves, — a sort of family thanksgiving tea, dear to us all. Then, as on the beautiful yearly holiday, our father was our father, not the quiet, grave student, but a companion, talking with us,

interested in what we were doing, ready —

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

to laugh with his keen sense of amuse- ment at our innocent jokes, and, though never under any circimistances utter- ing one himself, enjoying them most of us all.

After tea came prayers — prayers which were ours, for in them we all took part. The old mahogany bookcase, with its open door; the shelf holding seven small black and gilt Bibles, all alike ; the twelve brown leather " Cod- man's Hymns "; the tall " Scott's Fam- ily Bible," — all come back to me with a distinctness no canvas could rival. From these Bibles we read by turns, the eldest child at home droning out the practical reflections with which the eru- dite Scott finished his conmientary on the words of Holy Writ. Then we sang a dear, familiar hymn to a dear, familiar old tune. Mear, Dundee,

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St. Martin's, Old Hundred, — ladders these, touching heaven, up which the father's soul followed his deep, drawling notes triumphantly. The rite ended with a long prayer and its welcome " Amen."

Then the low sun of an Andover Sab- bath evening glinted through the west- ern windows of a large upper room, upon a group of seven children gath- ered round a delicate, heaven-eyed mother, holding in her hand the "West- minster Shorter Catechism." West- minster was the golden clasp which bound those sacred hours together. We began and ended them over its mysteri- ous revelations. A hated old book it was to us, dog-eared, tear-blistered, full of restraints, chidings, and an infinite number of " must nots." Pity that we could not have seen then, as we can see

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

now, that, understand it or not, it was the stuff from which true men and women are made, the real old Puritan nourishment for sinew, muscle, and strong backbone!

" Now, children," says our mother, looking around lovingly upon us, " I want you to be quiet and attentive. Jamie, let your sister alone! Sit here, at my right hand."

Jamie darts into a chair close beside her, throwing an arm far out of a short coat-sleeve, around her neck, drawing down the delicate lace cap until it touches his brown curls, then giving her a kiss so loud and hearty that we all laugh.

A tap on the floor. " Will, * What is the chief end of man? ' Stand up, my son, and answer properly."

" * The chief end of man,' " answers

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Will, looking over the lace cap, out of the window, " ' is to glorify God and, en- joy him forever.' Look there, quick! I saw a bobolink! "

Fourteen eyes look for the bobolink. Another tap on the floor, and the next question.

" Jamie — " But Jamie has gone. He is swinging on the lightning-rod, watching the bird.

" My son! " sorrowfully.

Two eyes, blue as the mother's, stray from the bird to meet hers. They see the troubled look, and a voice shouts merrily back, " ' The word of God contained — ' "

"'Which is — '"

" * Which is contained in the Scrip- tures of the Old and New Testaments ' — Hullo, there's his mate! See them on the very tip-top of that pear-tree! "

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVEU

"Jamie!" this time with much authority.

" ' Is the only way ' — hear that, will you? " He gives a whistle that perfectly imitates the bird's notes, and six other mouths are puckered up to follow his example.

"Boys!" The voice that calls from the window below every child knows. The room is the " keeping-room," name redolent of associations with old Con- necticut. There, at this hour, sits the father. Little heads, girls' as well as boys', are turned down to see a thin, pale face with a serio-comic expres- sion. One long finger points toward the singing bobolink, and, " Put salt on its tail and catch it," the professor says.

It is leave granted. There is a scam- per of feet across the room. Westmin- ster, farewell! — but no.

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" Come back, all of you," the mother says. " Don't you see, the sun is not down yet? "

"It is only old Joshua commanding it to stand still," says Jamie, with an irreverent laugh, balancing his eager feet on the threshold.

Bobolink bhnks and carols in such a tempting, wicked way I — But the lesson begins again:

" Moses, * What do the Scriptures principally teach? ' "

" ' The Scriptures principally teach,' " answers a grave boy, whose large, seri- ous gray eyes have seen less of the bird than any others there, " * what man is to believe concerning God, and what God requires of man.' "

"Elizabeth, 'What is God?'"

Bobolink answers the question with one wild, long burst of praise; and just

THE SABBATH OF OLD ANDOVER

at this moment, slowly, majestically, down drops the big, red disk of the sun.

A shout from the seven prisoners, " Go behind us, dreary old Sabbath, for six happy days more! "

Dreary old Sabbath? We have since come to remember it as blessed!

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THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

The sons of the Andover professors were well cared for at Phillips Academy ; for the daughters, special provision was made in a school kept on Andover Hill by Mary Ayers Davis. I give her full name, for in the initials we one and aU took a peculiar delight. When an auda- cious child was very angry she would first say them forward, and then, with saucer-like eyes that looked around stealthily for the cloven hoof, she would think them — only think them — in re- versed order. In saying this, I do not mean to give a key to the woman's char- acter; if the angel Gabriel could have been sent to stand in that little brown

THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

desk, I am sure we should have " poked fun " at his wings. Miss Davis had some of the very first requisites of the good teacher; and her theology was in- vulnerable. I do not think she could have heard us spell " baker " without impressing on us the fact that this veri- table baker " in Adam's fall sinned all," or " brier " without suggesting the roughnesses of predestination and free grace. To teach us arithmetic by the number of sheep on the right hand and goats on the left; grammar, by an in- stinctive reverence for rules which could not be broken, and which admitted of no exceptions; geography, by a classi- fication of countries into lands irradi- ated by the glad gospel light, and those lying in the night of heathendom; read- ing, by the use of passages resonant with a power emanating from no human

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

mind, — to educate us thus was her task, and she performed it well.

In appearance she was a small woman, wdth a face like a half-baked apple, twinkling hazel eyes, a large black front, and a close black cap. Without bodily presence, she yet man- aged to make us hold her in great per- sonal regard. I do not know that any child ever gave her a flower, or even an apple ; yet we valued her smile or word of approbation above rubies. If our lessons were well learned, we did not move out of the way as we saw the green " calash " come nodding towards the Hill ; but if we had missed, or if we had a stick of candy or a bit of cake to be eaten surreptitiously in school hours, little feet trotted nimbly in an opposite direction. In a way utterly unknown

in these days, she was our conscience. —

THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

To US all, from the large girls in the back seats to the little ones in front, she represented, sitting demurely — nay, more, severely — in her desk, the Judge on the great white throne.

We were early taught to read and spell accurately; and we were not back- ward in our arithmetic or geography. We had occasionally what would now be called lectures in astronomy and even botany. Our text-books were few, and had small woodcuts that would look quaint enough to the school children of to-day. Whatever else may have been omitted, be sure we were well taught in the " Westminster Shorter Catechism."

I can see now a row of little girls wearing long, dark dresses, long panta- lettes, of the same material as the dresses, coming well down over strong, useful boots, and dark calico aprons,

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

with large, well-filled pockets ; with not a frill or cuff anywhere, but with bright eyes fixed intently on Miss Davis, and fidgety hands, as she asked us from "What is the chief end of man?" through the long and difficult questions to the very end. " What is election? " was a favorite with all of us; for we had a private understanding that it meant not the long, hard words we must repeat without misplacing a syllable, but that beautiful May holiday when the state officers were chosen, and some- body in Boston preached an Election sermon. On that day, ^dth our pennies, saved by much self-denial for the occa- sion, in our pockets, we trooped off, a merry party, down to Pomp's Pond, and spent some of our money in " 'Lec- tion cake," which Dinah, Pomp's wife, had spread upon a table covered with a

THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

snow-white cloth, before their cottage door. Pomp used to stand beside her, a large stone jug at his right hand, and a row of shining glasses before it, w^ait- ing for our three cents, for which he would dispense to us his sparkling root beer. An election this, well suited to our juvenile comprehension!

Was it necessary, we can wonder now, that we should sit on straight wooden benches, brown and knife-chopped, with straight desks, brown and more knife- chopped, before us, not daring to move our tired limbs, not daring to whisper, rigid little automatons, every one of us? The ferule, and the steel thimble with- out a top, though never indiscriminat- ingly used, were conspicuous on the desk before us, ready for emergencies. The thimble was a unique help in teach- ing, graduating the required punish-

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

ment in a droll way. For a serious of- fense we received so many blows with the ferule — never hard ones, for Miss Davis had a tender heart, and loved the little ones committed to her charge. For a lesser offense, two or three snaps of the thimble, innocuous but salutary, were administered upon some part of the child's head. That the teacher would have liked to kiss away the tears that followed the snaps there is no doubt ; but she was too much of a mar- tinet for that, so she contented herself with sniffs so loud and peculiar that we came to consider them a natural and necessary part of the proceeding.

From the entry of the schoolhouse opened a closet a few feet square. This closet held the chimney, piles of wood, and children's prayer-meetings. I doubt whether there is another closet in

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all this wide world that could tell the tales this one could tell, if it had the gift of speech. Sent to school in all weathers, on stormy days we carried our lunch, and no royal tables ever gave half the enjoyment we experienced when, upon our well-worn and not immaculate desks we spread our rows of doughnuts, biscuits, bread, cheese, cold meats, fried apple pies, nuts, and pop-corn — often some one of us asking a blessing before, hungry as we were, we ate a mouthful. Our repast ended, — tell it not in Gath, — the one amusement to which we most naturally turned was a prayer- meeting. Looking back, I am at a loss to understand precisely how the custom could have originated. Prayer-meet- ings, under circumstances which will be noticed hereafter, we certainly had ; but they were not, one would have thought,

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SO attractive that we should have been led to imitate them. At any rate, ac- count for it or not, the fact remains that we turned to these meetings where other children would have resorted to noisy games. So many of us entered into our closet and shut our door, that we stood shoulder to shoulder in the pitch dark- ness of our chosen sanctuary; and there we lifted up our childish voices in some- thing which, if it was not prayer, cer- tainly was intended for it. On these occasions a number of conversions were supposed to have taken place; and the hero-worship which we paid to the new convert on emerging from our obscu- rity, had in it something so true, that I cannot look back upon it, even now, without emotion. To be sure, we were not free from the surprises which often attend these phenomena. The younger

fell

THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

among us were astonished, after such a miraculous event, to find the convert with the same hair and eyes and smile, and even more wonderful still, to see her, that very afternoon, perhaps, miss in her lessons, and, it may have been, alas ! commit some overt act of naughti- ness which brought down upon her de- voted hand sundry blows from Miss Davis' long brown ferule.

At the side of our little schoolhouse, but separated from it by a large yard, was Philhps Academy. There is some- thing in its constitution which has been stable enough to preserve it to this day, and will probably hold it firm for years to come. Here it is :

" It shall be the duty of the Master," so the constitution runs, " as the age and capacities of the scholars will admit, not only to instruct and estabhsh them in

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the truth of Christianity, but as early and diligently to inculcate upon them the great and important doctrines of the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the fall of man, the de- pravity of human nature, the necessity of an atonement, and of our being re- newed in the spirit of our minds, the doctrines of repentance toward God, and of faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (in opposition to the erroneous and dangerous doctrine of justification by our own merit, or a dependence on self -righteousness) together with the important doctrines and duties of our Holy Christian Religion."

Our Saturday lesson in " Westmin- ster Shorter Catechism " fades into in- significance when compared with those awaiting the boys in the tall brick building so near us.

THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

It is a wonder that with such a pon- derous load of theology to carry, we children were yet light-hearted enough to amuse ourselves with the regular boy and girl intercourse which has been in vogue ever since the world began; but there were thirty-two of us Hill chil- dren, and we were young. If at times, when we girls and our brothers parted company upon the Common, they to take the broad, graveled walk that led up to the imposing Academy, we to follow the narrow foot-path that wound away toward the little brown schoolhouse, there was forced upon us a comparison not wholly agreeable to our self-esteem, several happy ways of solacing our- selves were afforded by the vicinity of the buildings. Will it, I wonder, be con- sidered telling tales out of school if I describe a few of the opportunities of

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which we took full advantage? Just back of our schoolhouse there was a rock, not high or lichen-covered, but filled with convenient crevices, in which small fingers dug out post-office boxes. There, independent of Uncle Sam, we, our own postmasters and mistresses, used to deposit various notes, some of which I can copy from that tablet which knows no erasure.

"My dearest Love,

"I'm going to be a minister and preach the gospel. Will you be the minister's wife is the fond hope of your loving D. S. "

To which went back this answer :

"I guess I won't. I don't like going to meeting awfully, so you must excuse yours respectfully

"P.M."

Here is one more:

"Old A. is a cuss! I should like to kick him better than to see you on the ice to-night, which I hope to do. Your devoted Sam."

The devoted Sam dropped the note out of his pocket. " Old A." picked it

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up. There was no meeting on the ice that night, but something else which neither of the young people concerned ever forgot. The future minister turned into a dishonest politician in the West, and ended his days in disgrace. The boy who used the disreputable word and showed such sanguinary tendencies grew into the gentlest and most patient of popular ministers, and went home only a few years ago to receive the crown of his rejoicing.

The meetings on the ice to which his note invited the little private school pupil were among the pleasantest of our coeducational opportunities. The " meadow," remembered by all Andover children, was a piece of land back of both schoolhouses, to which we claimed right and title, — which, however, was far from being undisputed. A little

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

brook, if dammed at the proper time, could be made to overflow the meadow, and also, unfortunately, the cellars of contiguous houses. Phillips Academy had boy engineers always ready in the face of law, and, as it was Andover, gospel, to dam it at the proper time; and our skating and sliding place was of the best. Girls upon skates were un- heard of then; but we had feet of our own, and knew well how to use them. Sitting on these feet, our short skirts tucked well out of the way, we would clasp in our little red-mittened hands a long stick held out to us by some chiv- alrous boy on skates. Thus prepared, the couples went swiftly flying over the smooth glare ice, happy being too tame a word to describe their blissful condition. Nor was it in winter only that our coeducation was carried on; summer

THE SCHOOLS ON ANDOVER HILL

had even more opportunities for us. There were Saturday afternoon meet- ings at Pomp's Pond, when the girls carried lunches, and the boys paddled out on rickety rafts for the pond-lilies that grew plentifully in the water. There was wading in with shoeless and stockingless feet, there was fishing from the rocks, strolling together through the thick, shadowless grove, picking check- erberry leaves, hunting wild straw- berries, and making wreaths of ground- ivy for heads which have since worn laurel.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was a pupil at the Academy in those days. I re- member how small he looked, walking beside my three tall brothers. He used to mind being so short; but no one else thought the less of him for it, he was always so good-natured and merry.

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

Never for a moment suppose that Old Andover gave its children only gloom and a severe, monastic life! We had prayer and catechism, rigid rules to keep, and little change of scene; but in our veins strong young blood ran riot, from our happy hearts merry mis- chief bubbled out continually, blithe songs filled the still Andover air, and bright-eyed, sunny faces gladdened the student at every turn. It seems to me now, in looking back, as if we were all of us, Phillips Academy boys and girls of the humble private school, God's smile upon the isolated, exclusive, rather gloomy life of the grave Seminarians, the sunlight coming in through the dim, cloistered windows, making their lives more cheerful, and therefore more effective.

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IV

ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

E\^RY evening in the week had, on An- dover Hill, its occasional religious or literary meeting. On certain Monday- nights was held the " Monthly Concert of Prayer for Foreign Missions." To go to this meeting was as obligatory upon us as to be found in our chapel seats on the Sabbath. With it no worldly business or pleasure was ever allowed to interfere. Punctually when that bell (it used in old times to strike the note A) gave the first warning sound, dressed in suits which were a sort of compromise between the tempered frivolity of the week and the solemnity of the Sabbath costume, we started, as

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

families, for two long, worship-filled hours.

As we tripped over the quiet Common or under the arched elms, we children felt a freedom about these not quite Sabbatical occasions which we always enjoyed. The heathen were a great way off, and a devotional frame of mind did not seem of any great consequence as far as their conversion was concerned. And then the moonlight or the starlight, the long, flecked, curious shadows on the broad graveled walks, the little groups dropping into line here and there, and the occasional merry greet- ings— these things were very week- day-like, and full of human interest.

Our chapel was but dimly lighted. The tallow dips in the candelabra threw only a few poor, scared beams down upon the sitter directly beneath them.

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ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

They often, guttering and sputtering as was their wont, dropped also some- thing far less agreeable. Upon the faded red velvet covering of the pulpit stood three branched candlesticks, which always had for me a wonderfully holy association. They were kept, when not in use, in a small closet in the entry. Scores of times I have opened the door and peeped in at them with awed curi- osity. They were, I fancied, made after the very pattern David gave to Solo- mon for that other altar: "Even the weight for the candlesticks of gold, and for their lamps of gold, by weight for every candlestick, and for the lamps thereof."

Imagine the room, dingy even in sun- light, thus dimly illuminated, and see us gathering demurely to our appointed seats. One of the professors generally

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

took charge of the meeting; and I do not think the exercises differed much from what they might be to-day. But to this there was one great exception. Mission work is now an accomphshed fact; then it was only a prayer, or at best a hope ; the results were all hidden. Yet I doubt if even with the record of to-day any more interest is awakened, or any greater certainty felt that it is a God-appointed institution. Never a shade of doubt or questioning crept into the opening prayer. The men who led the meeting were in earnest as men, and as full of beautiful faith as little children. Reports were brought in from every mission station, but so few and so weak were the laborers, fight- ing single-handed against principalities and powers, against the rulers of dark- ness, and spiritual wickedness in high

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places, and so slender were the results to be reported, that the wonder is, how sensible men could rise and go through the meager detail, expecting to arouse the hearer's sympathy, or even gain the assent of his common sense as to the propriety of continuing efforts appar- ently so fruitless. And yet I suppose that there were always at least a dozen among the men sitting on those hard seats, listening in that still, dim room, who felt that every story told might, and probably would, come true in their own lives, and express the result of all their work, their prayers, their self- abnegation. Richards and Spaulding, Goodell and King, Poor and Smith, sat there and listened, and yet went into the whitened field, boimd up their harvest sheaves, and have gone home with them, richly laden.

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I am not surprised as I look back upon these meetings that so much was demanded from prayer and music, the one in the way of comfort, the other as a means of arousing hope. Whether the hymn

*'From Greenland's icy mountains,**

and others similarly filled with mission- ary associations, were extant then, I do not remember, but

"Jesus shall reign where *er the sun,"

certainly was, and when it rolled out to the tune of " Old Hundred," it is no wonder that lips dumb at other times joined in the strain. It was like a clarion sounding the joy of certain vic- tory, suggesting that though the poor dead warriors lay stiff and stark upon the field, the glorious banner of Jesus, King of Hosts, was still flung out to the breeze.

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ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

Tuesday evening brought the " So- ciety of Inquiry." Knowing that the objects of inquiry were questions of re- ligious interest, we cared less to see the large windows of our chapel glimmer with their dull lights. Still we went often, and listened to things which were no doubt good, but which, shame to our unregenerate hearts, failed to interest us, or call forth in us any deep sympathy.

On Wednesday evening the lights struggled out again, and the bell tolled, but now to summon only the professors and students to a " conference meeting." It was a prayer-meeting, naturally; and, as I understood it, — of course, I never was present, — it was a social, informal gathering where the mental and moral needs of the students came under the teachers' kind supervision. Of the depth and height and breadth

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

of the needs of their hearts, I doubt whether even the faintest suspicion ever dawned upon the minds of those devoted men.

Thursday evening came the " Porter Rhetorical." That was the occasion we looked forward to and back upon. On Thursday we watched daylight fade, and evening shadows creep on, and al- most counted the moments that brought nearer our intellectual treat. We were to hear orations and a debate, perhaps a poem! And in all these we should feel a certain dash of life and worldU- ness, very taking to us secluded ones. At these rhetoricals, I suppose, weapons were forged which have since done great work on the broad fields of theological warfare. I know that Professor Por- ter, sitting in his cushioned seat with two yellow bandanas around his neck

Tsol

ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

and an overcoat unt^er his blue cloak, used to smile most b^nignantly on the wit and repartee which now and then threw its flash of light over the dim room.

In many respects these professional gatherings were not very different from similar occasions to-day. But what would they think in Andover now, should a young man make his appear- ance upon the platform to deliver an oration, in the costume described to me as his by a city clergyman?

" I used," he said, " to button up my vest and spread out the white cotton handkerchief I wore around my neck so as to hide my unbleached, bosomless shirt; and I always put a few fresh tacks into the holes of my boots to make sure my stockingless feet should not ob- trude themselves upon the public gaze."

6 [81]

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He looked back upon those rugged steps by which he had cHmbed as almost flower-covered, and spoke to me with tears in his eyes of " the blessed days when your mother was an angel of light to me." And this man lived to fill for years one of our most prominent pul- pits, and to exert an influence no one can measure.

Most peculiar, as an Andover week- day meeting, was the " Jews' Meeting," held on Friday evening at the house of Professor Porter. That house was very different then from what it is to-day. If it had been hermetically sealed from foundation to roof, the sun and air would have found almost as ready admittance. Closed doors, closed outside shutters and inside window-blinds, and a general shut-down and shut-in air made it seem, to us children at least, like a great

ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

wooden tomb. Here every Friday even- ing a few young people were gathered together to pray for the conversion of the Jews. I do not know but that some- where in this wide world meetings are held for this same object now, but simi- lar to these they cannot be.

Mrs. Porter, the wife of the professor, was the sole originator, and if I may so express it, the sole proprietor of these meetings. What charm she could have thrown around them to draw us young people thither, I cannot now even im- agine; but charm there was, so that on Friday evening, particularly in winter, when our other diversions were so few, we often climbed up the icy granite steps, swung open the two carefully closed outside doors, groped our way through the large, desolate hall, by the aid of the one tallow candle in the bright

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

britannia candlestick, to a small room, separated by a wooden partition from the piazza, of which it had originally formed a part. In this bit of a room was a light stand, upon which were placed two tall plated candlesticks, holding the inevi- table tallow dips, a pile of " Village Hymn-Books," and a Bible. Close by there was a red-hot stove, and almost touching the stove a little woman dxessed in a plain, old-fashioned black dress. A tight lace cap, with narrow black strings, surmounted a face so singularly placid and quiet that Mrs. Porter might have passed for some old saint stepped out from a picture-frame. Two small hands were always folded softly together in her lap, and two small brown eyes twinkled out the only welcome we ever received. Yellow wooden chairs were arranged in close and solemn order

ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

along the walls of the room, and before each of those intended for the smaller children was always carefully placed a carpeted footstool. No matter how early we came, not a syllable was ever allowed to be spoken; any attempt at a whisper was always followed by a denunciatory trotting of Mrs. Porter's little moccasin-covered feet upon the bare floor.

Generally three or four of the Semi- nary students came in to carry on the meeting, choice spirits, chosen by Mrs. Porter because they had evinced much fervor in regard to the conversion of the despised, downtrodden Hebrews; and upon these students, as well as upon us, seemed to fall the magnetism peculiar to the occasion. The Jews did not seem cold, formal, or distant objects of prayer; they were living, suffering,

[17]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

sinning fellow mortals, nearer and dearer, in that Christ had lived among them, and had been himself a Jew. Prayer, singing, and the reading of chapters from the Bible and a few per- tinent newspaper cuttings found during the week usually made up the services. The associations my memory holds of these meetings are these: the desolate- ness of the house, the gathering of so many young people for such an object, the demure, devotional, little central figure, and over all a peculiar Oriental glamour, so quickly to be felt, so impos- sible to describe — a glamour rendered more effective by the religious, literary atmosphere in which it was developed.

Saturday night brought a social prayer-meeting in the lower lecture room of the chapel. To this, when little girls, we were never invited; but when

ANDOVER WEEK-DAY MEETINGS

years made the need of such religious intercourse more apparent, the front seats were set apart for ladies and their presence tolerated — or perhaps I may truthfully admit any extra shade of wel- come that may be implied in the word allowed. But, little girls or grown women, we were never legitimate parts of this Andover life. We listened in these meetings; we sang with fear and trembling, lest our thin voices should in any way disturb the Lockhart So- ciety, which in so dignified and classical a way conducted the musical part of the services; we joined in the prayers in the half-hearted manner of those who feel themselves outsiders. When the " Amen " had dismissed us — shall I dare to confess it? — we sometimes went out through the entry with "lin- gering steps and slow," not expecting

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

escort — of course not ! — but still al- lowing to ourselves the possibility that our walk home might not be solitary. That it was not always solitary, no better proof can be given than the fact that of all the young ladies born and bred on Andover Hill, only one, that I can recollect, married a man who was not a minister. Many other religious serv- ices have had a similar outcome; let us not lay up the fact against the life or the meetings on Andover Hill.

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V

ANDOVER HOLIDAYS

That not all the variations in our An- dover life were afforded by our different religious meetings will appear from a short account of our holidays. They were few, but they were true holidays. There was Election Day, reference to which has already been made. There was Fast Day, if so religious an occa- sion ought to be called a holiday; at least we had no school, and if not a regular dinner, a wonderfully good luncheon, and the freedom of the day after the morning service in the chapel. Christmas was ignored. There was too much Puritan blood in the faculty to allow any such " popish recognition of a doubtful date." As for New Year's,

OLD ANDOYER DAYS

perhaps it is enough for me to say that one of my most YiYid childish recollec- tions is of a sermon preached on the first of January from the text, " This year thou shalt die." The preacher spoke of the opening year as the narrow neck of land between the two unbounded seas of past and future, and brought out the inexorable moral:

*'A point of time, a moment's space. Divides you from your heavenly place. Or shuts you up in — .'*

The Seminary Anniversary and Thanksgiving were the two main occa- sions of our full enjoyment. Anniver- sary, the week when the senior class graduated, was our great jubilee. It is difficult now, with the crowding of sim- ilar events and the changed status of the ministry, to realize the significance of such occasions when theological sem-

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inaries were few, religious and literary gatherings rare entertainments, and the " ephod of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen," as yet a priestly garment of God's appointing, pure and unspotted from the world.

The bustle of preparation began in the families of the faculty at least two weeks before the appointed date. We children were sent out to scour the coun- try for miles around, in search of eggs, chickens, and such nice fruits as were afforded by early September and the rather crude state of Andover horticul- ture. " Help " (that was the Andover term), trained by service in previous years, was duly notified of the coming need. Gardens were weeded, grounds were raked. Joe Pearson was put to work upon the broad walks leading up to the chapel. Stray rails were replaced

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

in fences and gates, dead branches were lopped from tree and bush; and a gen- eral air of Sabbatical jubilee pervaded the very atmosphere.

And then the cooking! I am almost afraid I should be considered exagger- ating if I should recount the loaves of richest, rarest, most delicious cake that crowded every pantry, and in my mother's house filled a little room up- stairs, set apart for this use. And the pies! hiding within their dainty cover- ings fruits flavored by the potent sun- shine, nowhere brighter in its brief season of shining than on this chosen Hill. To gaze on these pies, ranged on long rows of impromptu shelves, came almost hourly eager-eyed children on little tiptoeing feet. It is beautiful to recall this lavish hospitality, this bring- ing of the very choicest and best and

ANDOVER HOLIDAYS

piling it up so whole-heartedjy to do honor to the occasion. There was some- thing more than met the senses in the savory smells of roast and boiled and baked that day after day issued from the crowded, busy kitchens. These fam- ilies were in earnest in their belief that their work, even in so small a matter as entertaining, was ordered by their great Taskmaster, and that to help them perform it well all they had in the world was not too much to bring.

Every inch of space in all the houses near the Seminary was devoted to the accommodation of guests. The rooms of state in the different households were assigned to the " visitors," and to the " members of the corporation," the " vis- itors " being honored first. Capacious garrets were transformed into long sleeping-rooms. Beds were put up.

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

and draped in white by my mother's skilful fingers, in our airy wood-house chamber. The boys were assigned soft spots on the haymow. Extra " help " was tucked away in places imaginable or unimaginable, but strictly comfort- able. " Use hospitality without grudg- ing " ; never, even in Andover, was a Bible maxim more rigidly enforced than this one, by the hanging out of the latch- string at Anniversary time.

I have no recollection that Sunday brought to the graduation class parting words of affection and counsel; still, it was the last Sunday to be spent here with those who had borne an important part in our prayers and praises for three long years — the very last until we should all meet

'Where the assembly ne'er breaks up. The Sabbaths never end."

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On Monday morning Andover was astir with the first dawning of the gray- September light. The final touch was to be put on house and grounds; and such of the culinary preparations as could not be attended to during the pre- vious week must be hurried to an im- mediate consummation.

There were no railroads in those early days. Distance was overcome by fa- tigue, and long-considered, well-laid plans. The journey to an Andover Anniversary seemed as great an under- taking to the scattered sons and friends of the Seminary as would appear to us now a trip to Europe or even a tour around the world. There was pinching and deprivation in many a poor min- ister's family in order to allow the hus- band and father to go up with the other elect to this tabernacle of their Lord.

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There were long, weary miles trodden by weary feet, rough roads driven over with a thin, hungry horse in the old " one hoss shay," and rusty saddle-bags mended and packed with scanty, seedy wardrobes, always containing, however, no matter what they might be without, the immaculate white cravat. Oh, there was such a shaking of the dry bones of the poor country clergy, that their rattle comes down to me now. I write it rev- erently, with a smile which has in it far more of sadness than of mirth.

Any time after breakfast on Monday morning guests were expected to arrive. Our drawing-room chamber was set apart for Mr. and Mrs. William Reed of Marblehead. Wending its way along the pleasant Salem turnpike, there came in sight, about noon on Monday, Mr. Reed's handsome carriage. Mr. and

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Mrs. Reed were people of wealth, taste, and cultivation, and everything con- nected with them possessed a charm. Faultless in all their appointments of dress and equipage, with a certain air of refinement and high life, they brought into the professional world, the Anniver- sary of which they attended, an urbane influence that made itself immediately felt. With warm Christian hearts, ready sympathies, and open purses, they touched this strange life at points no others seemed to approach, — touched, and touching, blessed.

Up the Boston turnpike, at about the same hour, came John Codman, d.d., with his stout English horses, his stout English coach, his stout English coach- man, his ruddy, cordial English self, and his noble little wife. He was one of the cloth, this nature's nobleman; yet

7 [97]

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

the white cravat and the clerical air did not sit quite naturally on his round, portly form. An old English manor- house, with escutcheons emblazoned on portal and hall, with rich carvings in time-honored oak, shining plate deeply graved with the family arms, packs of hounds, stables full of hunters, retinues of retainers, — this would seemingly have formed his natural environment ; but here he was, a meek, working coun- try minister, rich in every good word, work, and deed, richer far in these than in the gold that turned the glebe lands into richest pastures, and the simple par- sonage into a tasteful, old-world home. If he had been absent, the Anniversary would have lost one of its brightest or- naments, and Andover one of its warm- est friends.

There would also come driving up the

ANDOVER HOLIDAYS

Hill about noon a large, old-fashioned stage-coach drawn by four horses. In- side upon the back seat sat Mr. Bartlett, one of the most generous benefactors of the Seminary. Thickly stowed away upon the other seats were as many of his grandchildren as the big vehicle could be made to hold. The coach drew up before the house of the Bartlett pro- fessor, who was always expected to en- tertain his illustrious guest. Generally one or two of his grandchildren re- mained with him, and the rest were eagerly sought for by the different fam- ilies connected with the faculty.

Mr. Bartlett's most evident charac- teristic on these occasions was his child- like simplicity. There was in him an utter absence of any demand upon the gratitude of those he had so nobly helped, — indeed, no man could have

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OLD ANDOVER DAY

been more humble and retiring. A stranger asked to select from the group who occupied the seats of honor the principal benefactor, would in all prob- ability have passed him by.

Another guest was Jeremiah Day, president of Yale College, high of fore- head, delicate of form, smiling benig- nantly over the assembly. He singled out the sons of his alma mater, watching and advising them from the wisdom of his great fatherly heart, proud of their success, and full of blessings.

Daniel Dana, d.d., brought hither the reputation of being " Old School," and. for that reason never ceased to be to us children a living wonder. Our father was to him a heretic ! — an awful word, of which only children bred on Andover Hill can conceive the full significance.

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ANDOVER HOLIDAYS

On Monday there was held the public meeting of the Society of Inquiry. It was never crowded, its specific interest being of a missionary and not of a liter- ary character. On Tuesday came the public examination, which tried young men's souls then as now, but which was then considered a little more final in settling the question of the student's fitness for the ministry.

On Tuesday, too, the social character of the holiday began to manifest itself. The throng of visitors had well-nigh gathered. Every house was full, every table crowded; and the assembling of friends — reunions, we should call them now — began. Guests were rapidly transferred from one house to another for dinner, for tea, and for the early breakfast. If there is a profession given to extreme sociability in its interviews

OLD ANDOYER DAYS

it is the ministry. After the saying of grace, always solemn with the sudden hush of voices and the cessation of the click of china, a more hearty and cordial abandon could not be found anywhere among any class of people than used for an hour to fill the various rooms. All theological differences were put aside; grim old, specters of natural de- pravity, original sin, election, redemp- tion, predestination, and free grace were relegated into the obscurity from which they came, and man met man, his fellow man.

Tuesday evening drew a crowd to listen to popular speaking by the Porter Rhetorical Society. There was a poem, and there were orations, with the worldly, literary smack of which I have already spoken as peculiar to the meet- ings of the society throughout the year.

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To d.0 well was to be assured of a pulpit, perhaps of a good parish. The hero of the occasion, if he had done well, was the distinguished individual who de- livered the address. If he had failed — well, failure was no worse then than now; only in those primitive days hearers were a trifle more honest.

Wednesday was the day of the week. Then every one who meant to come up to the Passover had gathered. All along the fences leading from the crowded Mansion House up and down the streets stood carriages of every de- scription, which had brought in heavy loads of visitors. Scores of horses were tied inside the fences, and busy boys and men were hurrying from one to an- other, big bundles of hay under their arms, and measures full of oats in their hands. Cheat a horse out of a spear of

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

oats on Andover Hill? The very sug- gestion is absurd.

Long before the chapel door was opened a dense crowd filled the walk and the steps. People huddled under the windows, sometimes irreverently climb- ing up to them and peeking in to see how soon entrance would be allowed. When the door was at last thrown open, what an orderly rush there was, how re- spectful and silent, but how decided! Though it was Andover, there was no thought that the first should be last.

When the " Honorable Corporation and Board of Visitors " were ready to make their slow and dignified entrance, a peculiar and distinguished-looking audience awaited them. Men and women were there whose names go down to posterity, who were powers, work- ing here in America, working in Europe,

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ANDOVER HOLIDAYS

Asia, and Africa, and in the many islands of the sea; God's workmen, guided, upheld, ministered unto, and finally gathered to the great Anniver- sary above.

Wednesday night the holiday was over. After one large tea-party, held at an early hour, the lines of horses and carriages quickly disappeared from fences and posts. Farewells were spoken, and even to us reluctant chil- dren came the consciousness that the great Anniversary was over. By Thurs- day noon nearly every guest had de- parted, and a stillness, an Andover still- ness, settled down over the peaceful Hill. Neighing of horses, ratthng of carriage wheels, trampling of many feet, greeting of friendly voices, — all were over now; and in the hush the chirping of noisy insects, the rustling

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

of falling leaves, spoke the soft on- creeping of the autumn time.

But Thanksgiving still remained to us, and even among the earliest of Old Andover Days it was a joyful holiday. Coming at the end of November, when autumn had changed her golden robe for one of glittering hoarfrost, when sleigh-bells were ringing merrily over our snow-bound streets, and when boys and girls, red-mittened, with gaudy comforters tied close around their necks, were exchanging their hoarded stores of walnuts and butternuts, swapping ears of pop-corn, and trading Baldwins for greenings, with much close attention to their relative values, — all this wdth an eye to a more worthy celebration of the coming festival, — it was only sec- ond in importance to the more public Anniversary.

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It was then, as now, a family occa- sion. There were few wanderers to come home; for in the famihes of the faculty the children were young and had not yet scattered; and to travel to Massachusetts from other states, in the old, slow stage-coaches, was con- sidered almost an impossibility at this inclement season of the year; for in- deed winter came earlier then, and with a usurpation of entire right to land and water that would be disputed now.

It is wonderful, in looking back, what a holiday we made of it ! Weeks before, preparation began in kitchen and pan- try. If Anniversary had shown shelves of pies and jars of cakes, Thanksgiving at least doubled the number. Mince pies lasted, even with hungry boys and girls who were never denied their piece,

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

well into spring. Frozen hard they were, but none the worse for that.

If any idea came into our heads that the day was in any sense a religious fes- tival, it has completely faded from my memory. To church we had to go on Thanksgiving morning, but we carried with us the fragrance of the roasting turkey, the warming pies, and the boil- ing vegetables ; and instead of the grave professor who was offering thanks for us all, I am afraid we saw rows of cran- berry tarts, currant jellies, piles of nuts, rosy apples, and pretty twists of mo- lasses candy.

What a jolly meal the dinner was! Every child's plate was piled high with delicacies until it could hold no more; and the fun and frolic were unsubdued by a look or word from the heads of the table. And then after dinner came the

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customary sleigh-ride, when, having hired a double sleigh from Ray's stable, we would pile it full even to the runners, and drive out to some small country tavern. There we played merry games, heated our soapstones, refilled our bottles of hot water, and paid for our blazing wood fire. At an early hour we went singing home. A decorous young party we were, but a very happy one.

The festival has become sacred now. Very hallowed are its memories, for the white-winged angel has borne one after another from the father's house here to the great Father's home above.

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VI

ANDOVER WOMEN

Among the women known to the chil- dren of Andover Hill, Mrs. John Adams, as an embodiment of the typical mother, must have the first place. She was a large woman, with a full, frank, beaming face, and soft hair, which, when we lost her, had silver threads run- ning through it. I write "we," for she was the mother of us all, as well as of her own nine children. When my child friend Emily sat on one of her knees and I on the other, her broad lap seemed to us the most cheerful and restful place in all our little world. If we hurt us, we tumbled incontinently into her nursery, and cried it out in her loving arms. If

ANDOVER WOMEN

we were overflowing with love and joy we took her by storm, pulled her down among our rag babies and block houses, fed her with our mud-pies, and grew wise and good as she petted us. I can- not remember that she ever told us that we were sinners, or prayed with us ; but she gave us big red apples, the biggest and reddest that ever grew out of the Garden of Eden; and she would tell us, as she watched us greedily devour them, how much better it was to be good and have such nice things given us, than to be naughty and for that be shut up in some dark, cold closet.

She loved flowers, and her little gar- den was always ablaze with the bright- est and sweetest. It seems to me now that her delight in their fragrance and color was characteristic, and that she was always watching for a chance to

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

drop them before us on the strait and narrow road, thus making it more allur- ing to our beauty-loving eyes. Dear human children we were to her, — not angels, and not fallen beings born under the curse, with the trail of the serpent over us all, — but little ones to be taken into her great motherly arms, and brought to Jesus for his blessing. Brought, that was it, not driven. And so, when we stood, a large weeping band, around her grave, heaven seemed very near and dear, very homelike to us, because she was there; and I doubt whether even to this day there is one of us who does not look forward to her warm welcome, if perchance we may go to her, with something of the yearn- ing with which, as little ones, we used to anticipate a visit to her sunny home here. A mother of the olden time, this ;

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can our " women of the period " show any better?

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Adams was Mrs, Porter. I have abeady had occa- sion to refer to her in the chapter on the week-day meetings; but these sketches would be incomplete without a fuller notice of this unusual woman. That she is in heaven I have no more doubt than that Hannah is there. Like this dolorous character, she was " a woman of a sorrowful spirit," who might em- phatically have declared, " I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thine handmaid for a daugh- ter of Belial : for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto."

Looking back through the years and trying to analyze her character, I find

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myself taking refuge in a legend which was told among us. It was said that the demure little figure gliding about in her old-fashioned clothes, with her brown eyes generally fixed upon the ground, and her hands clasping the strings of an odd-shaped black silk bag in summer, and in winter buried deep in the recesses of a big yellow fur muff, was once upon a time, the time of a woman's life, clad in a black velvet cloak, a black velvet hat surmounted by a sweeping ostrich plume being upon her head; and that thus attired she stood by the side of the grave and rev- erend Professor Porter, and then and there became a bride. This delightful hint of worldliness, touching, if only in a legend, our common humanity, formed the one link between us and her, and may have helped to give her the

ANDOVER WOMEN

influence which she certainly did exert over us all. Every one of us children, without regard to sex or age, did she strive to make into little Samuels, en- deavoring to gird us with linen ephods, and bring us to minister before the Lord.

Just where the dividing line may safely be drawn between common sense and rehgious fervor it would be difficult to say. That the two things are often un^dsely separated, no one who knew Mrs. Porter can ever doubt. Living en- tirely sequestered from society, occu- pying the great house alone with her husband and one servant, until, late in life, she brought into it two adopted children, shutting out from it sun and air and even God's beautiful light, she made it a place in which the " sorrow- ful spirit '* brooded over everything.

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" Eternity! " " Heaven! " " Hell! " These three words seemed to be written on the doors; they met you at the threshold, sat with you in the darkened rooms, and haunted your memories of the old house. To send us there on an errand was to compel us to obedience; for to lift the brass knocker, resplen- dent in its shining glory, the work of black Myra's hands, was to see visions of carpetless rooms, long ranges of wooden chairs, a table in the center holding Bibles and hymn-books, and ourselves drawn down on our unwilling knees, while Mrs. Porter prayed fer- vently that God would forgive us, mis- erable sinners!

" God can listen as well to a few words as to a longer petition," she would say, when we pleaded the command for haste; and, "No time is ever lost in

[TTel

ANDOVER WOMEN

seeking the divine blessing." Escape her we could not ; and perhaps the bless- ing did come ; God moves in a mysteri- ous way! A religious enthusiast may be as much one of God's chosen work- men as the quiet and steady worker who reaps noiselessly in the harvest-field; and that our repugnance was not our fault, or that in the end Mrs. Porter's influence was deleterious, I should be reluctant to say.

The intellectual woman of Andover Hill was Mrs. Farrar. A grandchild of President Edwards, she inherited in a remarkable degree those traits of mind and character which made him re- nowned. Theology was to her like prayer, in the good old hymn:

*' — the Christian's vital breath, The Christian's native air; His watchword at the gates of death, He enters heaven with" — theology.

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Coming to Andover in mature life, she was yet as thoroughly rooted and grounded in the sterner doctrines as if she had been indigenous to the soil.

You could not swing back the gate that opened upon her scrupulously nice domain without perceiving the odor of sanctity. You felt like leaving the world, the flesh, and the devil behind you, and rousing into active exercise whatever dormant goodness in you lay. We children, even, instinctively felt her blood and her breeding. She was a lady, -v^dth the somewhat stiff, old-time courtesies and courtliness. No rude, or — if we could help it — awkward thing was ever allowed to obtrude itself upon her presence. Her snow-white cap, fine and delicate, her handsome black dress, and the stomacher so purely white, were

ANDOVER WOMEN

outward signs of inward refinement, and as such we recognized them.

Having a keen interest in everything touching the religious life, whether in the closet, the church, or the universe at large, she kept herself intelligent with regard to passing events. She despised nothing as too small, and did not often overrate the magnitude of what was taking place; only she saw everything through a glass of the same color. She has left us the memory of one of those strong-minded women who for prin- ciple's sake would have crossed the win- ter's sea in the " Mayflower," or sung a Te Deum at the stake.

Two other women, although they crossed our horizon only at Anniversary time, left deep impressions upon our young minds. One of the chief orna- ments of the great occasion, as it seemed

rii9i

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

to US, was Mrs. William Reed. Born and bred in affluence, she was singularly fitted by nature to fill precisely the posi- tion she held. Tall and stately, graceful and dignified, she carried with her, wherever she went, an air of command and high breeding which no one could resist. Something in her own refine- ment seemed to draw out the refinement in others. So it came about that many were raised by the touch of her hand into a higher and nobler life. It is some- thing to find a Christian clown, and leave a Christian gentleman; and this she often accomplished. A philan- thropist whose wisely benevolent hands never wasted the gold she distributed; she was a philanthropist also by virtue of conferring that indescribable charm that makes life good because it is beau- tiful. I will not answer for the theol-

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ogy of this sentence; I only assert its truth.

Mrs. Reed's niece sends me an anec- dote about her which is quite in har- mony with the impression she made in earher years upon her young observers. After the election of President Harri- son, in 1840, the enthusiastic Whig voters of Marblehead, who had always been in the minority there, got up a torchlight procession, followed by ad- dresses and a dinner in the Hall. A niece of Mrs. Reed, whose house was nearly opposite this Hall, determining that the women should have a share in the festivities, assembled all the ladies belonging to the large family connec- tion, with many others, to see the proces- sion, and to enjoy themselves as best they might in the absence of the mascu- line element. The house was brilliantly

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

illuminated, making the street for some distance very bright.

As the procession approached, with torches, banners, and bands of music, they halted before the house, saluting the ladies with three times three cheers. The ladies responded by waving their handkerchiefs.

After the procession had passed into the hall, a noisy crowd gathered, and ^dth abusive epithets began to assail the house by throwing mud, sticks, and at last stones, so that one or two windows were broken. The ladies were much alarmed, as their natural protectors were all in the hall, unconscious of what was going on outside.

At this juncture Mrs. Reed suddenly opened the door and stepped out upon the porch. She spoke not a word, but looked with dignified surprise and re-

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proof upon the mob. Instantly the noise was hushed, some hands, still hold- ing missiles, remaining uplifted. Every eye was fixed upon her, as she stood at the most perfect ease and in unbroken silence. After a few moments she turned, and closed the door.

Immediately a shout arose, " Three cheers for Mrs. Reed!" They were given with a will, and the crowd dis- persed to burn General Harrison in effigy.

To all who knew Mrs. Codman, the other guest of whom I shall speak, her yearly visit to Andover was like taking down from the windows of their lives the eastern shutters, and letting in whole floods of morning sunlight. A small woman, without any of the natural pres- tige Mrs. Reed so eminently possessed, she yet came as near the hearts of others,

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and affected their lives with as lasting an impress. Of coarseness and rough- ness she showed no consciousness if she found a suffering human heart. Com- ing very near to such a heart and min- istering to it was her mission, — speak- ing appreciative, loving words, giving liberally, not as a donor, never as a patron, but as a tender mother, who felt every want more deeply than if it were her own. Young men would sit down by her side and tell her secrets of their inner lives hidden before from every one but the All-Seeing, — tell them, often, with tears in their eyes, nor feel one whit of their manhood abated because she saw them there. When she died she could hardly have needed angels to conduct her through the valley of the shadow, so many of those to whom she had ministered here and who had gone

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before her must have been waiting eagerly to bring her through with shouts of welcome.

In closing, let me touch lightly on her who to me was nearest, dearest, best, — my mother. As I look back, and try out of the Madonna-faced images that come at my call, to choose the one that shall be most characteristic, I remember that one of her sons, when the mists of death were shutting out his busy life, said while he looked for her with yearn- ing, trusting love in the gathering dark- ness, " My mother, from whose lips was never heard a word of disparagement of any human being."

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who came to live in Andover after I had left it, and was a family friend and neigh- bor for many years, wrote at the time of my mother's death a poem which gives

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SO sympathetic a glimpse of her that I will include it here :

**How quiet, through the hazy autumn air,

The elm-boughs wave with many a gold-flecked leaf! How calmly float the dreamy mantled clouds, Through these still days of autumn, fair and brief !

**Our Andover stands thoughtful, fair, and calm, Waiting to lay her summer glories by. Ere the bright flush shall kindle all her pines. And her woods blaze with autumn's heraldry.

**By the old mossy wall the golden-rod

Waves as aforetime, and the purple sprays Of starry asters quiver to the breeze.

Rustling all stilly through the forest ways.

**No voice of triumph from those silent skies Breaks on the calm, and speaks of glories near. Nor bright wings flutter, nor fair glistening robes Proclaim that heavenly messengers are here.

**Yet in our midst an angel hath come down. Troubling the waters in a quiet home ; And from that home, of life's long sickness healed A saint hath risen, where pain no more may come.

**Calm, like a lamb in shepherd's bosom borne. Quiet and trustful hath she sunk to rest; God breathed in tenderness the sweet, ' Well done ! * That scarce awoke a trance so still and blest.

ANDOVER WOMEN

"Ye who remember the long, loving years. The patient mother's hourly martyrdom, The self-renouncing wisdom, the calm trust, Rejoice for her whose day of rest has come !

"Father and mother, now united, stand,

Waiting for you to bind the household chain ; The tent is struck, the home is gone before, And tarries for you on the heavenly plain.

"By every wish repressed and hope resigned. Each cross accepted and each sorrow borne, She dead yet speaketh, she doth beckon you To tread the path her patient feet have worn.

"Each year that world grows richer and more dear With the bright freight washed from this stormy shore ; O goodly clime, how lovely is thy strand.

With those dear faces seen on earth no more !

"The veil between this world and that to come Grows tremulous and quivers with their breath; Dimly we hear their voices, see their hands. Inviting us to the release of death.

"O Thou, in whom thy saints above, below, Are one and undivided, grant us grace In patience yet to bear our daily cross, — In patience run our hourly shortening race !

"And while on earth we wear the servant's form, And while life's labors ever toilful be. Breathe in our souls the joyful confidence

We are abeady kings and priests with thee." *

^ "Lines on the Death of Mrs. Stuart." Religious Poems: Boston. Ticknor and Fields. 1867. p. 53.

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VII

ANDOVER TRYSTING-PLACES

There is hardly a spot in New England over whose quiet beauty the morning breaks and the sun rises with such grand solemnity as on Andover Hill. It is not difficult there to imagine God sit- ting behind the high altar listening to the prayers and praises which ascend to him with the earliest light from so many pious hearts. At evening, too, not even Italy can rival the rich draperies of gold and purple and amethyst, of crim- son and scarlet, gray and azure, in which the setting sun wTaps itself as it sinks slowly to its bed beneath the wide, hilly horizon. Otherwise, however, Andover has little of which to boast in the way of natural scenery. It was no wonder.

ANDOVER TRYSTING-PLACES

therefore, that we thought and made so much of the few spots that offered any allurements in the way of outdoor enjoy- ment. The first of which I shall write is Prospect Hill. This hill lies about two miles southeast from the Seminary buildings, a little off what used to be called the old Salem turnpike. It is not high, yet it well deserves its name; for when you have climbed its smooth green sides, the panorama is soft and beauti- ful. Small farms, with stone walls, neat white houses, and large barns, each with cattle feeding everywhere upon the broad meadow lands, creep up to the foot of the hill. Here and there are dense woods ; and small patches of birch or beech-trees dot the open spaces. The crowning glory of the view is the dis- tant ocean fifteen miles away. On a clear day ships can easily be seen with

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the naked eye. To stand there and watch them while hke white birds they skim along the blue is reward enough for climbing to the top.

Hither, during many years of his life, Professor Stuart used to come, once a sunmier, with the young men of his class. A pleasant holiday it was to him, one of the few he ever allowed himself; and into it he entered with a zest which those who shared it with him did not soon forget. He laid aside the pro- fessor, and made the students his boon companions, with whom he talked in his inimitable way. Not a thing in field or sky escaped him. The birds sang for him, and for him the wayside flowers bloomed along the road. The fields ripening for the harvest had their word of approbation or of condemnation, as he thought they deserved. The people

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met along the way he recognized by- some words of hearty good-will. And when at last the top of the hill was gained, not an eye caught the points of the landscape more quickly than his, or with greater appreciation.

The distance of this trysting-place from home caused it to be less fre- quently sought than others that were nearer; but still not a summer passed that the more adventurous among us did not plan our little parties thither, when, standing on the top, we felt as we might had we climbed Mont Blanc, and beheld from its summit the glories of the world.

Next to Prospect Hill in popular favor came the North Parish Pond. This was three miles from the Semi- nary Hill, and was not considered within walking distance; yet its beauty and availability when reached made it a

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

favorite picnic ground; so that a sum- mer which passed and left it unvisited was counted among the lost years. Sa- cred beyond any other trysting-place is this to the memory of those who once sang their merry songs to the dip of oars in its clear waters, and whose barks have now floated far away on the great unknown sea.

Picnics have come into disrepute of late, and well they may, with the elabo- rate preparations now customary; but in the olden time they had a simplicity and freedom charming to enjoy and no less charming to remember. We awak- ened on the day appointed for a visit to the pond, exhilarated and happy. It was to be a general holiday, and all the families on the Hill were astir with the dawn. Smoke rushed out from every chimney, great fires blazed and crackled

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in the ample fireplaces and ovens. Per- sis and Betsy, Phoebe and Myra, our long trusted, well-beloved " help," with their deft fingers were preparing good things for an early bake; and with quick steps and anxious, housewifely tact, our mothers were arranging bas- kets and pails to hold what the ovens were soon to yield. When at last, all being in readiness, the carriages stood before our doors, and we rushed pell- mell into them, it would have been hard to find a merrier or a happier party.

This pond, visited only on warm, bright summer days, had a tree-girt shore, a few small islands, and a crystal sparkle that shone and danced upon its little waves, with a beauty not to be for- gotten. Rowing out upon Lake Mag- giore in the glory of an Italian morn- ing, I saw the same sparkle, and was in

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

an instant far away from the scenes around me, back upon the shores of this Httle New England lake.

The avowed purpose of our excur- sion was to fish. There were a few leaky- old boats always to be hired, and boys proud to do the work of rowing, while the hands whose daily task it was to turn the leaves of ponderous theological tomes, baited the hooks, or with more than a boy's enthusiasm drew up and secured the fluttering little fish. Many flounders we caught, and — but I will not tell tales. After the catching came the cooking, and what a jolly time it was! I hope the word " jolly " will not be considered irreverent; for it was a jolly time, and our fish were — but, as I said before, I will not tell tales. If one only looked in the right places, one might doubtless find now the rough fire-

fiill

ANDOYER TRYSTING-PLACES

place wherein we cooked them, the rudely built seats that surrounded the rudely built table upon which we served them, and, perhaps, the footprints of those who kept tryst there so long ago! But it is around the two trysting- places. Pomp's Pond and Indian Ridge, both nearer the Hill and therefore easier of access, that there cluster the most nu- merous associations. Indian Ridge is an embankment about twenty feet high, which runs along at a short distance from the western bank of the Shaw- sheen River. It is broad and level at the top, and is carpeted by a short, thin greensward. Its sides are thickly cov- ered with trees. As children, we firmly believed it to be a vast mausoleum within which reposed the bones of vast Indian tribes. Their dusky ghosts, we thought, haunted their resting-place, looked

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down frowningly upon us palefaces from the high tree-tops, or stealthily glanced out from behind the old moss- covered trunks. I doubt whether you could have induced one of us to remain there after the shades of evening crept over the Ridge.

At certain hours of almost every day you would be sure to see other dusky forms, not quite so ethereal as those of the dead Indians, but almost as grave, moving around among the shadows and the flickering sunbeams. Sometimes these figures threw themselves prone upon the ground, and taking a book from their pockets were soon lost to all the happy external world. Sometimes they shouted bits of deep discourse, sang pious hymns, or uttered disjointed sen- tences of ejaculatory prayer. Some- times, — and this it is pleasant to re-

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ANDOVER TRYSTING-PLACES

member, — they ran, and sang every- day songs, whistled merry tunes, and leaped back over the years of manhood to the happy boy days. O Indian Ridge! if you could only tell the story of the unbending you have seen ; if you could whisper to us the sallies of ready wit, the jocundity, the heart merriment of which vou have been the hearer, what a revelation you would make !

Since the Ridge is silent, let us hear the testimony of one of the old-time theologues:

" For many hours each day it was the custom to study closely, severely, if you please, but when the hour of rest came it was greeted by a company as light- hearted and happy as is often found in this world. In long-drawn files we hur- ried by the back road toward the North Parish, or to Frye Village, or across the

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Shawsheen to Indian Ridge, and by other pleasant and well-known paths; and when the faithful muezzin on the chapel summoned us to commons, we hasted with wilhng feet not more eager to satisfy our hunger than to enjoy the social feast that awaited us. The tumblers were transparent, the joints could not have been tough, the vege- tables, i. e., the potatoes, were fair to look at, and all were partaken of by a company as thankful and as happy as good principles and young life could make them."

To Pomp's Pond I have referred in a previous chapter. It was only a small pond, so small that we could love every drop it held, could sit upon its green, sloping banks and count the little waves that broke along its pebbly beach, could venture out in a cockle-shell to float on

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its tranquil bosom, and feel no more fear than the wise men who went to sea in a bowl. The shadows and the lilies were the two great attractions here. Upon the still bosom of this lake, in the gloaming of a summer day, there were pictures of tall pine-trees, each needle dancing up and down as if in for an evening bath, pictures of sturdy oaks, their sturdiness lost in the rollicking waves, pictures of bending larches stooping over the bright mirror with a pleased smile at their own loveliness, and, most beautiful of all, clouds float- ing as quietly in the blue beneath as in the blue above. With all these mingled the lovely pond-lily, its white blossoms waiting, it seemed to us, to be gathered by boys and girls to whom the risk of a life seemed a small matter in compari- son to becoming the possessor of a

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long, drooping bunch of these favorite flowers.

Old Pomp and Dinah, with their happy black faces, and their careless, *' never mind " hearts, were fit patron saints for the place. Neither cold nor hunger nor sickness disheartened them. They had smiles for you if Pomp was " bad, with the rheumatiz," or Dinah was " laid up for a spell." They took life as God sent it, trusting him in summer and in winter alike; and when, old and feeble, they were taken home, they went with the same good cheer, leaving their blessing on the pretty pond to brood over it unto this day. What a trysting- place it was ! I am not going to tell of the words of love first spoken there, of the vows that were made, the promises registered and sealed there, and, let us hope, bravely and loyally kept to the

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end. If ever such natural retreats were needed, they were needed in Andover; for the life of a student is often the life of a recluse. The ponds, the Ridge, the hill, had each a mission work to do, and they did it well.

141 ]

VIII

SOME MEN OF THE OLDEN TIME I. LEONARD WOODS, D.D.

No one of the Andover professors was a more distinct personality for us chil- dren than Dr. Leonard Woods. To this result there contributed in different de- grees his handsome presence, his dark repute as a theologian, and his benig- nity towards us all.

The dwelling-house which he built shortly after coming to Andover was in strict keeping with the character of the man. It was a large, three-story house, plain even to the lack of blinds to shield its many windows, but with ample and convenient rooms, and closets large enough to serve us children as so many

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baby-houses. In this house he hved from the day of its completion to the day of his death; and here a large family of sons and daughters grew up to maturity.

Writing of her father to me, one of his daughters says:

" You well know my father's genial- ity and blandness, his great tenderness as a husband and father. I don't think I ever heard him speak of Sarah [a daughter who died young] without tears in his eyes. And you know of his unsur- passed tenderness to our mother in the ten years of her sickness, of the wagon he had made in which to draw her up and down beneath the elms, and how he used to put it on runners in the winter. Sometimes your father used to come in and ask, 'Where's Brother Woods?' When told he was drawing mother, he

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would go off without another word, and, joining them, would take hold and help draw, while they discussed, I dare say, some knotty point in theology. We used to congratulate mother on her il- lustrious team.

" I remember how I used to break down on going away to school in very abandonment of sorrow; but my tears would flow afresh when I caught sight of father's quivering lip. I knew with a moral certainty that as soon as I had left he would go into the study and pray for me. And then his beaming face and outstretched arms on my return! Oh, how vividly does it all come before me! Every child he had remembers all this."

There can be no more beautiful pic- ture than this of Dr. Woods drawing his invalid wife in that chair-wagon. A

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stalwart, handsome man, preoccupied moreover by the nature and demands of his profession, he might have been sup- posed by a stranger to be hf ted out from the world of small kindnesses and lov- ing tendernesses; but, in truth, no one was here so thoroughly at home. Wrapping the shawls around his little, pale wife so that no wind from the bleak Andover heavens could visit her too roughly, and seating her carefully and easily in the cushioned chair, he drew her over the graveled sidewalks with a minute attention to the spots upon which the wheels could run most smoothly. When the day was hot, he sought the deepest shadows thrown by the large elms. He passed the yards where the flowers were the brightest, or the lawns best kept, stopping now and then to ex- change a word of greeting with a friend,

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or to do an errand that would interest and amuse the invalid.

Writing of him in his domestic char- acter, an old pupil says :

" During the whole of my acquaint- ance with him, — as one who enjoyed the privilege of occupying a room in his own dwelling-house for the three years of my course in the Seminary, — the loveliness and faithfulness of his charac- ter in this respect was continually de- veloped, and excited my admiration and esteem. He was a most affectionate and faithful husband and father. I have seen him in times of domestic affliction and trial ; and when I think of him as he appeared then, I am reminded of what my imagination pictures to me of Abraham himself, walking forth with Isaac, or buying of the sons of Heth a burial place for his beloved Sarah. He

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had much of the dignity and the ten- derness in his dignity of the ancient patriarch." ^

The last days of his life were peace- ful, and filled with the faithful work which even the growing infirmities of years did not tempt him to discontinue. If there had come across his vision a glimpse into the troubled future await- ing his beloved Seminary, this holy calm would doubtless have given place to deep anxieties and forebodings; but, fortunately for him, he went home while from the old pulpit there had been ut- tered no heretical discourses, while Westminster Shorter Catechism still held its revered place by the side of the words of Holy Writ, while second pro- bation was a thing undreamed of, and

» Dr. Blagden: "Semi-Centennial Celebration," And- over, 1859, p. 188 f.

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a trial of a member of the faculty for heresy as impossible to anticipate as the burning of one of them at the stake for too close an adherence to the old the- ology. He was an old man when he died; and he was buried in the hal- lowed cemetery behind the chapel which he had loved, and in which he had taught and preached for so many long years.

n. WILLIAM BARTLETT

Sometimes in my childhood my mother took me with her when she went visiting. Two such visits I will describe, because they gave me lasting pictures of two of the principal benefactors of the Seminary in the earliest days. The first was to Mr. William Bartlett of ISTewburyport. I remember a large, three-story white house built directly on

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the street, and recall standing at the front door, holding tightly to my mother's hand, while the great brass knocker was lifted and fell with a cheery tone, as if it were sure something pleas- ant was to come. Then I remember an open door, a dark hall, with a big ma- hogany table standing on one side, and upon the table a black hat and a black cane. One more open door, and a room with an old gentleman in a large old, chair, the man and the chair seeming to fill the whole room. He did not rise, but he held out two great hands toward the entering guests, one to shake hands with the lady, the other to pat the little girl's head. He lifted the child upon his broad knee, where she sat not daring to raise her eyes, hardly daring to breathe, until he seemed to have forgot- ten her. Then she shyly turned her

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OLD ANDOVER DAYS

head half toward him, and saw a white ruffled shirt bosom that seemed to rise like a cloud between them and almost shut him from her. Above the shirt bosom there was a face surrounded by short gray hair, some eyes that looked at the mother but not at the child, and a mouth that smiled so pleasantly that little lips forgot to tremble and smiled too. Later, there was a tea-table cov- ered with curious old china. All stood a moment behind the chairs with bowed heads, while the gray-haired man ut- tered a simple blessing. This is the pic- ture of an old man about whom there was a halo, though for what reason the child's mind failed to recognize. Yet she gave to him, there and then, in that attitude of prayer, a hero-worship which long years have failed to lessen, — which, indeed, the years that have shown

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her what he was in his noble manhood, have only increased.

I afterwards saw Mr. Bartlett many times, when he came to Andover for the Anniversary. I remember him as he used to sit in one of the seats of honor upon the stage, with his large, well-built frame, his white hair, his expressive blue eye, and the benign, satisfied look with which he regarded the surging crowd before him. Never amid all the culture and refinement which he found await- ing him there, and of which he was the central figure, did he seem in the least embarrassed or out of place. On one of these occasions, because he had al- ways persistently refused to have his portrait taken, there was introduced into the chapel a painter, who took his likeness without his knowledge. This portrait, which still hangs in the Semi-

ri5ii

OLD AN DOVER DAYS

nary Library, has somewhat faded with time; and by a tradition truly charac- teristic of Andover Hill, the fading of the hues has been called a judgment on the surreptitious course by which the portrait was obtained.

Though liis portrait in the Seminary Library has faded, the portrait in my memory remains as distinct as ever. I see a large man, with a well-formed head, a mild and quiet blue eye, a Ro- man nose, a firm mouth, and a chin that looks as if chiseled out of marble. Never was there another human face where the upper and lower parts im- plied characteristics so different. Cov- ering the lower part, you would have said that the man was one of the gentlest and most lovable of human beings ; cov- ering the upper part, you would have knovni that there was in him neither

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pity nor forgiveness for the delinquent who through idleness or folly had come to grief.

m. MOSES BROWN

It was possibly during the same visit to Newburyport that I was taken to call on Mr. Moses Brown. I saw a little old man dressed in small-clothes, with buckles at his knees, long white stock- ings, and low shoes, also fastened with shining buckles. I recall, too, a shirt frill of the finest plaiting, and a blue coat with great gilt buttons down the front. Mr. Brown had a thin face, dark eyes, and small features. When he smiled, which he did a great deal, the wrinkles round his mouth seemed to pucker up like those on a dried apple; but the smile was winning, and drew the little girl close by his side.

The house in which he lived bore an

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important part in causing the glamour of the visit. It was a two-story, rather quaint house, with many windows, and was painted white with green bhnds. It stood in the midst of ample grounds, upon which grew large trees, and there were choice shrubs in the front yard, rose-trees under the windows, and large lilac and syringa bushes along the path from the gate to the front door. Curi- ous beds were bordered with tall box, and in the beds old-fashioned flowers, — pinks, marigolds, and touch-me-nots, — flourished luxuriantly.

The inside of the house was in keep- ing with the exterior. It had large, low rooms, with ample fireplaces holding shining brass andirons, heavy mahog- any chairs with claw feet, and straight- backed sofas covered with rich damask. It had high post bedsteads with carvings

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of flowers on the posts, and the most dainty of dimity curtains surmounting them. It had strange-looking toilet sets, which one of Mr. Brown's ships must have brought over from the far East. Scattered about were fanciful china toys, such as mandarins, that wagged their heads at you maliciously if you so much as touched them.

Among all these wonderful treasures I recall Mr. Brown playing tag with his little granddaughter and me, poking after us under chairs and sofas with a gold-headed cane, and laughing a queer, cracked laugh whenever he touched us. Then my mother brought me away.

IV. WILLIAM G. SCHAUFFLER, D. D.

Standing before me as I write is a queer-looking footstool. Its top is cov-

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ered, with black broadcloth, upon which a dog is worked in worsteds. The top is supported by four tall, slim, mahog- any legs, showily turned; and a broad black fringe hanging from the cushion does its best to bring legs and top into tasteful union. Time and use have ren- dered this footstool by no means an ele- gant piece of furniture; yet there is hardly an article among our household belongings which we should be more sorry to lose; for it was made years ago by William G. Schauffler, progeni- tor of the well-known family of mission- aries, while he was at Andover, prepar- ing for his work in Constantinople.

To us children Mr. Schauffler wore from the first a halo of romance. He had been born in Germany, land of vines, legends, ruined castles, and ad- vanced theology. He had lived in

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Odessa, in the far East, probably some- where near Jerusalem. He had been persecuted for righteousness' sake — or so we firmly believed — and had been saved from prison and death by an arch- duchess, who had conveyed him in her escutcheoned carriage, through the darkness and stillness of night, to a place from which he could escape. The source of this tale I do not know; cer- tainly no such occurrence is related in Dr. Schauffler's " Autobiography " ! Moreover, our hero had a wonderful flute, the strains of which, soft, sweet, and delicious, carried us into a dream world.

To meet Mr. Schauffler in the street and have him stop to pat our heads made us happy for the day. To bring him a flower, to offer him timidly half our candy, or to fill his large brown hand

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

with our nuts or pop-corn, greatly en- hanced the value of what was left. When our parents invited him to share the hospitality of our homes, we thought it a joyful holiday. We even went with blithe heart and willing step to the weekly Jews' Meeting, drawn thither by the hope that we might listen to the music of his flute. As I look back, our childish devotion seems to me a beauti- ful tribute to the simple-hearted truth of his character.

Now we knew that our friend was poor. There was of course nothing un- common in his poverty; many, indeed most, of the young men in the Seminary were fully as impecunious. But there was something so touching to us chil- dren in the poverty of our Mr. Schauf- fler, that a few of us combined to earn a cloak that should protect him from the

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pinching, piercing Andover cold. To do such a thing to-day might seem a slight matter, even to children no older than we ; but to attempt it in those days was an adventurous undertaking. We made a bedquilt, for one thing, out of small bits of calico. No more play now for us. Home we went as soon as Miss Davis said " Amen "; and there we pa- tiently plied the bit of polished steel, until at last — a long and weary at last — the quilt was done, and my mother paid us for it three whole dollars ! The bedquilt is worn out now, and most of the little fingers that wrought at it so patiently have been folded to their last rest over still hearts ; but the interest of this mite thrown into the treasury of our Lord is still accumulating unto this day. Some of the money we needed was earned in a more novel manner. When

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we asked Mrs. Porter to buy some bunches of gay lamplighters she re- plied, " I can make my own. But," pushing up her spectacles and turning her brown eyes straight upon us, " I will give you twenty-five cents, if you will come in every Wednesday and Satur- day afternoon, and read aloud to me * Mason on Self- Knowledge.' "

Think of it! That four little girls, full of life from the crowns of their heads to the soles of their feet, should spend all their holiday afternoons read- ing " Mason on Self-Knowledge " aloud to this peculiar old lady, in the faint glimmer of her big, vacant, tomb-like rooms! A hurried, frightened glance passed from one to another of us, and some one faltered out consent. We scrambled for the door, but the quiet voice called, us back, and we heard :

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" I want to add, that as we should make every occasion one of seeking Christ, I will give you twenty-five cents without, and fifty cents with remarks ! "

" Mason on Self- Knowledge," com- mented upon by Mrs. Porter! But we accepted the offer, and at the end of many long weeks received our fifty cents.

At last the money necessary for the cloak had all been collected. I have for- gotten who selected it for us, but I have a vivid remembrance of how it looked. The material was a red plaid. A full skirt, gathered into a yoke, descended to the feet; and as if this did not give sufficient warmth, a full, square cape came down almost as far. A large gilt clasp fastened the garment at the neck, and two red tassels dangled midway. Imagine a student on Andover Hill to- il [ 161 ]

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day in this gay plumage ! At that time it was not considered at all showy or out of taste, only appropriate and becoming.

Besides working hard over his books, Mr. Schauffler did everything he could towards earning his way. In the work- shop where the other students bungled at coffins he made a variety of beauti- fully wrought articles, for which there was always a demand. Of these things our O'svn parlor contained several; and one of them at least, the stool of which I have spoken, is still in existence.

Mr. Schauffler's eventful career after he left Andover is well known. I have always hoped that some of the inspira- tion and energy he showed in his labors among the Jews in Constantinople was received from the Jews' Meeting at Mrs. Porter's; that his success in help-

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ing to translate the Bible was due in some measure to his studies at Andover; and that he kept a warm corner in his memory for the four little girls who, to buy him a red cloak, pricked their fingers making patchwork, and on holi- day afternoons read " Mason on Self- Knowledge."

V. MOSES STUART

The last person connected with Old Andover whom I shall describe is my father, Closes Stuart, who was professor of Greek and Hebrew at the Seminary for nearly forty years. His home life was only an incident in his scholarly career. Seven children, three boys and four girls, soon filled his commodious house. If we could have brought, each one of us, a trail of exegetical glory from heaven, we should doubtless have

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met a warmer welcome; but, after all, we found the kindest and most gen- erous of fathers, — when he remem- bered us. We were there, we were to be cared for, to be loved, to be edu- cated, to want nothing that he could provide, but not to interfere with the work to which he had been called, and, children or no children, must faithfully perform.

That we, on our part, should have felt any particular interest in this work could hardly have been expected; I doubt whether, until we had left our happy childhood behind us, we had much idea what it was. We saw books printed in types unknown to us crowd- ing the study shelves and tables. We looked with awe upon the piles of manu- script written in the neat, characteristic handwriting of our father, wondering

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what they could all be about. It was the Bible, of course; but why the Bible? Did God need a new interpreter? If so, and our father had been chosen, was that the reason he was named Moses, the name borne by that other Moses who wrote the Ten Commandments on those wonderful tables of stone?

I think it must have come to us early that we were born to no common lot. Andover homes were, every one of them on that sacred Hill, withdrawn in a monastic seclusion from the rest of the world. Strict Puritan rules governed every household, and yet the young Ufe obeyed the Must and Must Not of the regime. To us as a family this was most imperative; for our mother, wisest and kindest of all mothers, kept the fact con- stantly before us that our father was chosen and set apart from the rest of

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the world to do a great and important work.

His appearance has been well de- scribed by Oliver Wendell Holmes in his reminiscences of his school-days at Andover. He writes:

"Of the noted men of Andover the one whom I remember best was Pro- fessor Moses Stuart. His house was nearly opposite the one in which I re- sided, and I often met him and listened to him in the chapel of the Seminary. I have seen few more striking figures in my life than his, as I remember it. Tall, lean, with strong, bold features, a keen, scholarly, accipitrine nose, thin, expressive lips, great solemnity and im- pressiveness of voice and manner, he was my early model of a classic orator. His air was Roman, his neck long and bare like Cicero's, and his toga — that

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is his broadcloth cloak — was carried on his arm whatever might have been the weather, with such a statue-like, rigid grace that he might have been turned into marble as he stood, and looked noble by the side of the antiques of the Vatican." ^

It is a difficult, almost a hopeless, task to sketch the character of one who, with delicate, poetical, literary tastes, yet gave his whole soul to dry, grammatical exegesis until he considered the inter- pretation of a word, even of a vowel, to contain a truth of the utmost impor- tance to the welfare of the sin-ridden world. It was the whole-souled earnest- ness of his work, his strong belief in it and its importance, that made his daily life so scholarly and set apart.

* " Pages from an Old Volume of Life," p. 149. Hough- ton, Mifflin and Co., 189 L

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This may be better understood through a simple and familiar record of his every-day home life during his long professional work at Andover. There is little to relate of anecdote or even of the usual experiences of a quiet New England town. From his study to the chapel of the Theological Seminary, back and forth, day after day, meeting no one, but in the silence and solitude through which he walked hearing and recognizing the song of every bird that caroled on the trees ; noting the changes in the elms which he had loved ever since he had seen the tiny twig planted in the rough, new ground; watching through the brief summer days for the flowers that sometimes dotted his path; over- looking no slightest thing in earth or sky that God had given, — such was his life.

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He brought into his daily life many of the habits acquired when he was a farmer's boy. He felt that every mo- ment passed in sleep, after the most rigorous demands of nature were satis- fied, was lost time. In simimer at four, and in winter at five, he was astir; and the occupations of the day began. In summer his garden was his delight. To this he went when Andover Hill was still wrapped in sleep. His trim beds, whether of flowers or of vegetables, were always in luxuriant order. To bring in the earliest flowers for the breakfast-table, to surprise his family with some fine home-grown fruit, gave him keen pleasure. That these results were not obtained without difficulty is plain from a reminiscence by one of his pupils.

" I well remember," writes Dr. Way-

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

land, " that on one occasion he needed a Httle assistance in getting in his hay, and indicated to his class that he would be gratified if some of us would help him for an hour or two. There was, of course, a general turnout. The crop was a sorry one, and as I was raking near him, I intimated to him something of the kind. I shall never forget his reply: *Bah! was there ever climate and soil like this! Manure the land as much as you will, it all leaches through this gravel, and very soon not a trace of it can be seen. If you plant early, everything is liable to be cut off by the late frosts of spring. If you plant late, your crop is destroyed by the early frosts of autumn. If you escape these, the burning sun of summer scorches your crop, and it perishes by heat and drought. If none of these evils over-

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take you, clouds of insects eat up your crop, and. what the caterpillar leaves the canker-worm devours.' Spoken in his deliberate and solemn utterance, I could compare it to nothing but the maledictions of one of the old prophets." ^

In winter he walked to the village, if possible, or around the square. When walking or working in the open air was absolutely impossible, he took refuge in his wood-house, accomplishing in a deft and rapid manner feats an Irishman might en^y. The one thing that must be accomplished was to bring his ex- hausted nervous system into such a con- dition that he could do hard mental work and do it well. To this one great end he made the most every-day inci- dents subordinate, and amid pain and

^ " Semi-Centennial Celebration," p. 158. Andover, 1859.

OLD ANDOYER DAYS

weakness and discouragement he ac- complished his purpose.

His exercise taken, he was ready for his breakfast, and woe to any mischance by which it and the whole family were not ready for him. I have pictures in my memory of sleepy little children hurrying into their clothes, and rushing pell-mell do^\Ti-stairs, when his step was heard on the graveled walk in front of the house. To be late at breakfast was an offense; to be absent was not allow- able except in case of illness. Break- fast was often a silent meal. The hour was still early; in winter we ate by the light of tallow candles. The exercise had. not yet recuperated Mr. Stuart's tired nervous system, and stillness acted beneficially with the smoking food.

Then followed family prayers. These often indicated the character of the

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previous night. Had it been quiet and restful, there were uttered bright and hopeful as well as devout words; but had there been sleeplessness, or the hardly less distressing visions of the night, nothing found voice but the most pathetic entreaties to his God for rest and solace, " before being taken away to be seen here no more forever." These moods generally passed with the " Amen." It was as if having told all to the divine Orderer of Events, sick- ness and death were no longer his care, and he had nothing more to do but take up his waiting work. From family prayers he went directly to his study.

To show how entirely the life of the whole family was affected by that of its scholarly head, I may say that almost every room in the house was known, at one time or another, by the name of

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

" the study." The study of later years was a large upper chamber facing south. It was not a cheerful room: old brown paper of a stiff pattern covered the walls, and four yellow maps of Pales- tine hung where they could be most readily used. In one corner a small bookcase stood upon a chest of drawers. The case was full of well-worn volumes, bound in Russia leather; and the chest was stored with sermons, lectures, and other professional papers. A square study table, and a high desk beside a window were both methodically ar- ranged with implements for writing and with books wanted daily, such as lexi- cons and Bibles in various tongues. Near by was a large fireplace, with a plain wooden mantelpiece, crowded vA\h books. The other furniture of the room was plain and old-fashioned, nothing

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being admitted except what was indis- pensable. Over the mantelpiece hung a silver watch which ticked for over fifty years, measuring off days, weeks, and months, rich in God's work.

When the door of this room was shut, it was set apart from daily life as com- pletely as if it had been transported to another world. Immediately every member of the household began to move about on tiptoe; and whatever words were spoken were uttered in subdued tones. From that moment until twelve, only a matter of the utmost importance made permissible a knock upon the study door. Visitors, no matter from what distance or of what social and lit- erary standing, were all denied admit- tance. Business exigencies were ig- nored; and any Seminary student who unluckily forgot the hours was sent

OLD ANDOVER DAYS

away with a short if not a curt reply. When two old friends asked him to marry them, the hour for the ceremony being fixed for ten o'clock, he refused, saying, " But that is in my study hours! " Even the ordinary housekeep- ing sounds were made under protest. An unlucky fall, the slamming of a blind, a second summons from the hall door, — all were received with a warn- ing thump from the study, or a pull at its bell. " I cannot be disturbed " ; no law of Medes or Persians was ever more absolute. The task of reducing a fam- ily so full of life to this state of or- derly quiet must have seemed nearly impossible, but Mrs. Stuart succeeded in accomplishing it for many long years.

Out from this closed room came first the voice of prayer. Within, one felt, a

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sensitive soul was wrestling with its God. Rising and swelling, broken often with emotion, his voice had a pleading, wailing cadence, touching to listen to, tender to recall. Then fol- lowed the intoning of passages from the Hebrew Psalms; and here the heart, mellowed, and comforted by near inter- course with the Hebrews' God, found full utterance. Into every room of that still house the jubilant words came ring- ing with their solemn joy. Then came several hours of intense intellectual labor. In the following note, sent dur- ing such a period of study to the student who was for the time the librarian at the Seminary, one can see beneath the punc- tilious pohteness of the request the stu- dent's utter preoccupation with his work, and his intolerance of finding his " way blocked up," even for a time.

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Wednesday Morning.

My dear Sir, — Unexpectedly I have come upon an exigency, this morning, wh. renders an appeal to the Coran necessary. Will you do me the kindness to send me the II Vol. of MaracciuSy wh. has the Arab, text, with the Versions and Notes, (for I want both these), if I rightly remember. Should it not be so, you may send the copy of Sale's Coran therewith.

I am sorry to trouble you; but I must find my way blocked up, unless I can make the appeal in question.

Yours truly,

M. Stuart.

Another librarian, later the Rev. John Todd, d.d., reports:

" The rapidity with which he exam- ined books was wonderful. The whole library was his lexicon. Being librarian during my senior year, I had occasion to marvel over, as well as to handle, the whole wheelbarrow loads he would send back on the close of every term. He took out, I think, more books than all the rest of the Seminary."

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It was always high holiday for his family when there arrived in one of the slow sailing-vessels a package of books bearing a foreign mark. For weeks, perhaps, it had been anxiously looked for. Every morning the small gilt vane on the Seminary chapel had been in- spected to see whether the wind was favorable for the coming ship; every evening the last ray of daylight was used for the same purpose; and never did an adverse wind howl more loudly around our house, or a storm seem more pitiless, than when it delayed the com- ing of the much coveted treasures.

It would have been a study for an artist, — the face of my father, when, the books at last his, the whole family was called together to see and admire them* His eyes, usually a little dull, seemed, to flash with delight. His lips,

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always his most expressive feature, quivered with emotion. The arrival of the books was to him hke the coming of much beloved, much longed-for friends, with whom he looked forward to spend- ing hours of delightful and congenial companionship.

Precisely as the college clock struck twelve there came an energetic pushing back of chair and footstool, and the whole family drew a long breath of relief. Morning study hours were over, and we were once more free I . Coming out of his room, always with a pale, weary face, the professor went without delay to his exercise again; seeking the garden, the grounds, the wood-pile, or the walk, as the season or the weather made most desirable. Then home just in time for the half -past- twelve dinner, which, like the breakfast,

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must always be on the table at the ap- pointed moment, with the family in in- stant readiness to partake. As he was a thorough dyspeptic, the matter of food was of the greatest importance to him. He was not dainty, but he re- quired and provided the very best the market afforded; and it was curious to notice how even the tones and words of the blessing he invoked were affected by what was spread before him. Good nourishing food braced the spent nerv- ous system, and gave tone and elas- ticity to the exhausted vitality, and con- sequent sunny views of life and its occupations.

After dinner came the social hour of the day. If we had any plans to make, any requests to proffer, now was the moment. Indeed, this was the only time when home and its needs seemed to have

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any place in the professor's thoughts. Then a newspaper, a review, or some book not connected with his studies, was in his hand, but he was ready to put it down if any other object of interest presented itself. If not, the reading continued until his lecture, which was delivered in the afternoon, and occu- pied about an hour, or sometimes two. This duty over, came the exercise again, the early tea, and family prayers; and evening was entered upon at the first approach of twilight. Every new lamp that promised assistance was purchased as fast as invented, the scholar, with his enthusiasm for the new and convenient, considering every one, for a time, better than its predecessor.

Study was never severe during these evening hours. Now he was willing to be interrupted, and often hailed as a

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godsend the visit of an agreeable ac- quaintance. Eminently social in his literary labors, he found in nothing greater pleasure than in discussing with one of congenial tastes the work upon which he was for the time engaged ; and if he absorbed the lion's share of the conversation, his listener was never wearied, and seldom failed to go away a wiser and a better man. With a friend in whose companionship he took especial pleasure, he read Greek plays in the evening for several winters, show- ing all the enthusiasm of a young man, and the critical acumen of a ripe scholar. This until nine o'clock; but the mo- ment the hands of the old mahogany clock pointed to that hour, night with the time for needed rest had come. After nine no guest lingered who under- stood the regime of this student's life.

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We children would as soon have been expected to get up a dance or a card- party as to be from home or out of our beds when that hour had come. Many hairbreadth escapes we had from de- tection, many frights, and many awk- ward contretemps. Gentlemen callers from the Seminary, ignorant of the nine o'clock rule, or for some unexplainable reason unmindful of the lateness of the hour, have been timidly but urgently requested by one or another of the four daughters of the house to leave cau- tiously by the side door. In the main, however, the law was another of the Medes and Persians, and kept as invio- lable as it could have been kept by seven young people full of occupations and amusements. Dogs and cats, window- blinds, gates, everything imaginable or unimaginable, were now under the ban

SOME MEN OF OLDEN TIME

of stillness. It was not a common still- ness that was required; but the only- stillness considered such by a man whose sleep was that of a diseased nervous system and an overtaxed brain. Often during the wakeful hours which drew their slow length along, there came from the professor's room the same wailing prayer which had ushered in his day of work; and often he might have been met gliding around the house, seeking for rest but finding none.

When he had grown old and feeble, it was a great delight to him to have one of the young students at the Semi- nary come in to read to him; and the hour was often forgotten in the interest of the book. Light literature, for the first time in his life, he then indulged in freely. He would often say to his daughters when they were reading to

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him, " You see the good of keeping this till you are old ; it is a tonic to me now." It was not an unusual thing for him to come quietly into the room where these books were kept, possess himself of the novel, his interest in which could not be postponed, and inform us of the de- nouement at the tea-table.

That the trend of his studies did not narrow his mind, or the quiet Andover hfe dull his sympathies toward all the great onward movements of the world, is a matter of surprise; but to the last of his busy life no one saw more quickly or enjoyed more keenly the promise of a wonderful future. Vividly comes the memory of a lovely Sunday morning when, as usual, we children, decorous in Sunday garb, surrounded him on the way to church. His Saturday night weekly newspaper had contained an

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account of a telescopic discovery in the moon. It was not his custom to allow a weekly paper to be read on the Sab- bath ; but certain it is that on that morn- ing he had seen the paper, had read the account of the discovery, and was too full of the story to reserve it for the pro- fane Monday so far away. His pale face alight with his interest, looking from one to another of us, he explained rapidly what had been discovered. We listened enthusiastically, while the sol- emn bell of the chapel tolled unheeded reproofs. When the first steam-engine drew its train of cars through the pleas- ant meadows that, stretching back of his house, bordered the Shawsheen River, we were at the dinner-table. He started from his seat, and clasp- ing his hands as if in prayer, said fer- vently, "Thank God! thank God!"

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He seemed sometimes to put aside his usual calm judgment, and to enjoy an improbability with particular enthusi- asm. It seems almost hard to think how much he lost by dying before electricity, photography, the Atlantic cable, the telephone. X-rays, and all the other modern marvels had been discovered and invented ; but perhaps in that other life he pities us, that in our ignorance we should pity him.

Such days stretched out into years with little of change, and such years into half a century of work. Time mel- lowed the life, smoothing the rougher edges, and ripening and perfecting the Christian scholar. We children grew from childhood to maturity, and one after another dropped out from the still, monastic life of Andover Hill into the great working world. Often, however,

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we carried back into the seclusion of our old home the interests of our new lives, to gladden the faihng days of our father. In him we always found the same enthusiasm for the new, and the same hopeful plans for fresh work yet to be accomplished. But the scholar's task was not to be finished here. In the howling of a fierce winter storm he listened to the summons, " Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

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