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PUBLIC LIBRARY

FORT WAYNfi A ALLEN CO.. 1ND.

kl -

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 01746 6886

GENEALOGY
974
N4215
1904

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012

http://archive.org/details/newenglandmagaziv30bost

New England Magazine

An Illustrated Monthly

New Series, Vol. 30

March, 1904

i August, 1904

Boston, Mass.

America Company, Publishers

238 Tremont Street

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1904, by

AMERICA COMPANY,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

INDEX

THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Vol. XXX March, 1904— August, 1904

Abbott, Jacob, A Neglected New England Author Fletcher Osgood 471

Abby Sophia's Legacy. A Story. . . . . . Harriet A. Nash 299

Acadia. What it Owed to New England. . . Emily P. Weaver 423

Alexander Hamilton William Dudley Mabry 443

Amateur Genealogy Fannie Wilder Brown 566

America, Darkest Kelly Miller 14

America. Paolo Toscanelli and the Discovery of Frederic Austin Ogg 664

American Science, The Beginnings of — The First

Botanist John H. Lovell 753

Armenian Monastery in Venice, The .... Mary Mills Patrick, Ph. D 175

Artists at the St. Louis Exposition, New England Jean N. Oliver 259

Beginnings of American Science :— The First

Botanist . John H. Lovell ■ . . 753

Black Jake's Souvenir. A Story Henrietta R. Eliot 330

Block Island's Story Charles E. Perry 515

Bog Plants Rosalind Richards 419

Boston as an Art Centre William Howe Downes 155

Botanist. The First (Beginnings of American

Science) John H. Lovell 753

Bridges — Ancient and Modern Clyde Elbert Ordway 548

Brown, John. The Funeral of Rev. Joshua Young, D. D 229

Cape Cod Town. A Typical (Yarmouth) . . Ella Matthews Bangs 678

Catharine's Land. Queen May Ellis Nichols 50

Church Organs « ■ ■ ■ Clyde Elbert Ordway 705

Colonial School Books Clifton Johnson 104

Complex Enchantment, A. A Humoresque . . Nathan Haskell Dole 147

Concerning Oriental Rugs Mary R. Towle 338

Concerning the Fowle Family Edith A. Sawyer 636

Constitution. The World- Raymond L. Bridgman 598

Contemporary Verse. New England in . . . Martha E. D. White ". . 408

Convention of 1787 Hon. George S. Boutwell 244

Darkest America Kelly Miller 14

Democracy. The Doubts of the Fathers Con-
cerning Frederic Austin Ogg 504

Discovery of America. Paolo Toscanelli and the Frederic Austin Ogg 664

Doubts of the Fathers Concerning Democracy . Frederic Austin Ogg 504

Dream of Emancipation, A Anna B. A. Brown 494

Ellsworth, Oliver Elizabeth C. Barney Buel 6ri

English Viewpoints. Two Sara Graham Morrison 728

Evolution of the Telephone. The Lewis E. MacBrayne 720

Exhibition. The Poland Spring Art 737

Exhibition. The Whistler Memorial .... Maurice Baldwin 289

Exposition. New England Artists at the St. Louis Jean N. Oliver 259

Index

Farmington, Maine Mary Stoyell Stimpson 387

Fifty Years' Wrestle, A. A Story Maude E. Smith Hymers 561

First Admiral of New England. The .... Alexander Cameron 51

Fowle Family. Concerning the Edith A. Sawyer 636

French Peace Advocate. A '. Elizabeth Foster 480

Friend of Washington's. A Charles W. Stetson . 279

Funeral of John Brown. The . Rev. Joshua Young, D. D 229

Garden Party, A. A Story Emilia Elliott 464

Gardens of Rome. The Pleasure Felicia Butts Clark 3

Genealogy. Amateur Fannie Wilder Brown 566

Georgia. The Massachusetts Model School in . Mary Applewhite Bacon 131

Girl of Maine, A. A Story Gertrude Robinson 125

Gypsies. The D.'C. Cahalane 321

Hamilton, Alexander William Dudley Mabry 443

Hawthorne. The Tales of Poe and George D. Latimer 692

Her Anniversary. A Story Harriet A Nash 435

Hermit Thrushes. A Story Grace Lathrop Collin .... . . . . . . 490

How She Settled It. A Story Kate Gannett Wells 661

Hudson Bay. Whaling in P. T. McGrath 188

Humour. The Utility of Zitella Cocke • • . . 83

Inns of New England. Noted Mary H. Northend 68

In the Kentucky Mountains Lillian Walker Williams 37

Introduction to Unpublished Whittier Poem . Amy Woods 574

Irish Peasant Sketch, An. Jamey's Mother . . Cahir Healy 632

Italians of New England Amy Woods 626

Jacob Abbott, A Neglected New England Author Fletcher Osgood 471

Jamaica as a Summer Resort. Part I. . . . . Maurice Baldwin .... 499

Jamaica as a Summer Resort. Part II. . . . Maurice Baldwin 577

Jamey's Mother. An Irish Peasant Sketch . . Cahir Healy 632

Japan of To-Day. The Hiroshi Yoshida . 354

Joel Veltman's Moving Day. A Story . . . . A. L. Sykes 748

Kennebec. The Pilgrim Fathers on the . . . Emma Huntingto'n Nason 309

Kentucky Mountains. In the Lillian Walker Williams 37

Keziah. A Story Eleanor H. Porter ....... 723

Knowles. The Poetry of Frederic Lawrence 251

Last Primeval White Pines of New England.

The Fletcher Osgood 530

Library, A Model Public. (Branford, Conn.) 484

Lisbeth. A Story Emilia Elliott 180

Love of Libby Baxter, The. A Story .... Imogen Clark 377

Lucca — Rome. Viareggio — Maud Howe 138

Maine. Farmington Mary Stoyell Stimpson 387

Massachusetts Model School in Georgia, The . . Mary A ppleivhite Bacon ........ 131

Memorial Exhibition. The Whistler .... Maurice Baldzvin 289

Mexican Hacienda, The. Its Place and Its People George F. Paul 198

Micmac and Mohawk. A Story Lillian Loring Trott 591

Middleman, The. A Story Elliot Walker 28

;i of Andrew, The. A Story Annie Nettleton Bourne 538

Model Public Library, A. (Branford, Conn.) 484

Model School in Georgia. The Massachusetts . Mary Applewhite Bacon 131

Mr B a et^s Fall. A Story Elizabeth Robbins 272

Neighborhood Sketches. Chapters VII. — VIII. Henry A. Shute . H3

New England Artists at the St. Louis Exposition Jean N. Oliver 259

New England Author. Jacob Abbott, A Neglected Fletcher Osgood 471

Index

New England in Contemporary Verse .... Martha E. D. White 408

New England. Italians of '.. . Amy Woods 626

New England. Noted Inns of Mary H. Northend 68

New England. The Last Primeval White Pines of Fletcher Osgood 530

New England. What Acadia Owed to . . ... Emily P. Weaver 423

Newspaper Satire During the American Revolu-
tion Frederic Austin Ogg 366

New Hampshire Log-Jam, A Walter Deane 97

Noted Inns of New England Mary H. Northend 68

Old Town by the Sea, An. (Scituate, Mass.) . Hayes Robbins ... 167

Oliver Ellsworth . Elizabeth C. Barney Buel 611

Ordeal by Fire, An. A Story ' . F. M. Coates 225

Oriental Rugs. Concerning ....... Mary R. Towle . 338

Our Front Parlor Alligator. A Story .... Bradley Gilman • 76

Paolo Toscanelli and the Discovery of America Frederic Austin Ogg* 664

Passing of a Soul, The. A Story Lucretia Dunham .500

Peace Advocate. A French Elizabeth Foster 480

Pilgrim Fathers on the Kennebec, The . . . Emma Huntington Nason. : 309

Plants. Bog Rosalind Richards .......... 4J9

Pleasure Gardens of Rome, The . . . . . . Felicia Buttz Clark .......... 3

Poe and Hawthorne. The Tales of .... George D. Latimer 692

Poland Spring Art Exhibition, The 737

Primeval White Pines of New England, The

Last . Fletcher Osgood . . 53°

Public Library, A Model. (Branford, Conn.) 4&4

Queen Catharine's Land May Ellis Nichols 45

Reed, Thomas B. An Appreciation .... Enoch Knight 215

Reminiscences of an Old Clock Ellen Burns Sherman 344

Rome, The Pleasure Gardens of . . . \ . . Felicia Buttz Clark 3

Rome. Viareggio — Lucca— Maud Howe 138

Rugs, Concerning Oriental Mary R. Towle 338

St. Louis Exposition. New England Artists at the Jean N. Oliver 259

Tales of Poe and Hawthorne, The ..... George D. Latimer .... 692

Telephone, The Evolution of the Lewis E. MacBrayne 720

That Angel Boy. A Story . Eleanor H. Porter 4°3

Toedium Vitae. A Story Jeannette A. Marks .......... 525

Toscanelli, Paolo, and the Discovery of America Frederic Austin Ogg 664

Two English Viewpoints Sara Graham Morrison 728

Undoing of Charity Randall, The. A Story . . Eleanor H. Porter 207

Utility of Humour, The Zitella Cocke . • 83

Venice, The Armenian Monastery in . . . . Mary Mills Patrick, Ph. D. . .' . . . . . 175

Viareggio — Lucca — Rome ......... Maud Howe 138

Washington's, A Friend of Charles W. Stetson ......... 279

Whaling in Hudson Bay P. T McGrath 188

What Acadia Owed to New England .... Emily P. Weaver 423

When the Rose Bloomed. A Story Edith Richmond Blanchard 22

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, The .... Maurice Baldwin 289

White Phlox. A Story Winnif red King 686

Whittier. Introduction to an Unpublished Poem Amy Woods 574

Woman's Relief Corps, The Elizabeth Robbins Berry 643

World-Constitution, The Raymond L. Bridgman 5°8

Yarmouth — A Typical Cape Cod Town . . . Ella Matthews Bangs . 678

Index

POETRY

All Things Are Thine Mabel Cornelia Matson 128

Beauty M. C. Allen 228

Caged Helen A. Saxon 673

Colonial Day Fair, The Mary Sargent Hopkins 124

Compensation . Clarence H. Urner 13

Days Gone By. The John G. Whittier 576

Estrangement, The Mary White Morton 376

Heirs of God Burton Ives 288

Home Path. The Frank Walcott Hutt 747

Human Heart. The Mabel Cornelia Matson 137

In the Arnold Arboretum Emily Tolman 691

Imagination H. Arthur Pozvell 271

Insight Maurice Baldwin 187

Mist Ellen Frances Baldwin 36

My Creed Cora A. Matson Dolson 499

Old Mirror, The L. M. Montgomery 384

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Zitella Cocke 597

Perplexity Clarence H. Urner . 224

Poetry of Frederic Lawrence Knowles, The 251

Quatrain Will Ward Mitchell 434

Relic, A Edwin L. Sabin 608

Sarracenia Purpurea I'na Lord McDavitt 21

Since Knowing You Helen A. Saxon 546

Singers, The Cora A. Matson Dolson 596

Star of Love, The Clarence H. Urner 479

Understanding Charlotte Becker 50

Valley Road, The James Owen Tryon 727

Whittier Poem, An Unpublished John G. Whittier 576

Worth of Life, The Katharine Lee Bates 243

New England Magazine

March, 1904

Volume XXX

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Number i

The Pleasure Gardens of Rome

By Felicia Buttz Clark

THE Italians are essentially a
pleasure loving people. Cen-
turies of the highest develop-
ment of art, literature and music
have formed in them love of all that
it is bright and beautiful. This is
demonstrated by their fondness for
brilliant colors and their delight in
the sunshine which is so freely be-
stowed upon their country. In
Rome, it is seldom that rain falls
more than a few hours at a time,
and rarely is one prevented from be-
ing out in the air at some hour of
the day. All this leads to a life of
pleasure and enjoyment, and even
the stranger within the gates of the
"Eternal City" feels an uncontrol-
lable longing to leave the gloomy
palaces, with their vaulted ceilings
and bare floors, and hasten out into
the numerous gardens and parks
with which the city has been from
time immemorial so abundantly
supplied.

When one thinks of the glories
of Rome two thousand years ago, in
the midst of the utmost luxury,
when magnificent baths and spa-

cious gardens were provided for the
enjoyment of all, even the humblest,
one can no longer wonder at the
unusual provision in modern Rome
for life "Al fresco". Here are small
parks, where comfortable benches
invite the passerby to rest and
breathe in the delicious air, while
basking in the warm sunlight ;
fountains falling into ancient sar-
cophagi, carved by hands long
since laid away in eternal rest,
cool the heated air, and gay flowers
of scarlet and purple and blue are
artistically arranged to charm the
eye and delight the senses. Not
only are there many of these rest-
ing places, but the Villas, sur-
rounded by large grounds, are
thrown open to the public, by the
laws of the city. When the present
Prince of the family of the Doria-
Pamphili came into possession of
the magnificent property which
lies on the Janiculum Hill, outside
of the city gates, he positively re-
fused to allow his fellow citizens
to make use of his beautifully kept
parks and breathe the pine-scented

A BIT OF OLD EOME

THE PLEASURE GARDENS OF ROME

IN THE VILLA BORGHESE

air of his broad lawns. But the law
was brought to bear upon him, and,
although he was limited to the time
for the admission of the public to
Fridays and Mondays, from one
o'clock to sun-down, he has been
obliged to throw the gates open.
This villa is a most delightful
pleasure garden for the people. On
the days appointed, long lines of
carriages are seen winding up the
Janiculum Hill, past the ancient
Church of San Pietro in Montorio,

through the carefully cultivated
park just below the fountain of San
Paolo, whose waters dash out with
enormous force, going on down the
hill to turn several mills on the
banks of the River Tiber. They
pass the borders of the spacious
grounds reserved for the statue of
the great General Giuseppe Gari-
baldi,— sitting on his bronze horse,
with his face turned toward the
Vatican Palace beneath him, — and
on, on, through the gate in the Au-

N E AY ENGLAND MAGAZINE

relian Wall, passing the tablet
which records that on this spot
Garibaldi's troops met the Papal
troops in 1849, until the carriage
rolls into the park, under the shade
of tall trees and beneath broad
reaches of smooth grass, dotted
with daisies. The Prince desires
that only two-horse carriages be
driven through his premises, so the
humbler vehicles must be left at the
gate-way. Here, under the um-
brella pines, one may wander for
hours, following winding paths,
cunningly devised so as to disguise
the fact that the distances are short.
Fountains spring up in shady nooks
and wild flowers blossom among
the old bits of Roman ruins. The
Villa itself is not remarkable ; but
all Romans are thankful to those
Princes who many years ago chose
this lovely place for their residence
and gave to their fellow men an op-
portunity to enjoy with them the
cool air, the velvet turf and the
miniature lakes, bordered by wil-
low^.

Another Villa which is open on
Thursdays, lies on the old Coelian
Hill, above the Church of Gregory
the Great, from the steps of which
he sent out the .Monk Augustine
and his little band of brethren to
evangelize Britain. Near the en-
trance to the Villa stands the
Church of St. Stephen, ornamented
with paintings of the cruel tortures
inflicted upon the martyrs of old.
Luckily for the peace of mind of
tourists, this church is not often
visited, and is only open for service
on one or two days in the year.
The pictures are too realistic to be
pleasant. In the Villa Mattei are
walk- bordered by tall boxwoods
trimmed into elaborate designs,-
flower beds full of lovely blossoms
and old statues and pieces of sar-

cophagi, green with the moss of
ages. Here, Rome lies spread out
before one, its towers and domes
rising into the clear air, that air of
Italy which seems to cover with
glory even the ugly bits of archi-
tecture, and tinges with romance
every dark corner or ivy-green wall.
The river flows like a silver cord far
below, the cross upon St. Peter's
glistens and sparkles, while the
broad Campagna, tinted with rose
and dull brown, stretches into the
distance, until it touches the sur-
rounding circle of mountains, half
hidden by the faint blue haze of
late afternoon. It is a scene never
to be forgotten, this view of Rome
from the Villa Mattei.

But the park most frequented by
Romans is that belonging to the
Villa Borghese, outside of the Porto
del Popolo, now called Villa Um-
berto I., in memory of the assassi-
nated monarch. The grounds are
open free. For many years the
Villa was the property of Prince
Borghese, but during the past year,
the young King, Victor Emmanuel
III., has bought it and has presented
it to the city. The plan is to join
the park to the Pincian Hill. If
this is done, — and I believe the esti-
mates for the work are already be-
fore the authorities, — Rome will
possess one of the most beautiful
parks in the world. It will not be
so large as those of London, nor as
the Bois de Boulogne, but it will De
so interesting on account of its as-
sociations, in fact, so typically
Italian in every way, that it will
prove to be one of the most attrac-
tive places on the tourist's list. A
statue of King Humbert is to be
placed in the park.

On Thursday afternoon, when
the school children are out in full
force, — for Thursday is the holiday

AMONG THE ILEX TREES

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

in Italy, — when the nurses in their
gay dresses, with white ribbons
floating from their large caps, and
gold and silver pins decorating
their glossy hair, carry infants un-
der the shade of the tall trees, when
hundreds of carriages drive through
the gates, along the roads leading
past woods and flowers, coming in-
to the deep shadows of the ilexes,
large with the growth of centuries,

and biscuits are dispensed at small
round tables, many women and
children sit. Down by the minia-
ture temple, near the tall cypresses,
by the fountain, under the pine trees
which cast long shades on the soft
grass, everywhere, are the children,
laughing, playing and enjoying
themselves after a week of hard
study. Ah ! the Villa Borghese !
What a boon it is to Rome ! in the

THE TALL CYPKKSSKS

or past fountains green with age,
the Villa Borghese presents a very
gay appearance. Out in the fields,
where cows are grazing peacefully,
a group of young Seminarists are
playing ball. Their long robes do
not seem to impede their move-
ments and they are as eager over
their game as boys of any other
country. At the "Latteria," where
fresh milk, cream, fruit in its season

heat of summer it is a blessing to
the poor and rich alike, and in July
and August, when the foreigners
have forsaken the city for some cool-
er clime, the Romans take posses-
sion of their parks, and, as the sun
goes down, a ball of fire, they begin
to come into the Villa Borghese,
where the fresh breezes blow and
the stately pines rear their heads
toward a cloudless, starlit sky.

THE PLEASURE GARDENS OF ROME

There are two other large and
beautiful gardens in Rome which
are not open to the public. These
are the Quirinal Palace garden, and
the one belonging to the Vatican.
When the new King came to the
throne, he selected for his resi-
dence,— his "Home," as he said he
wished it to be called, — the "Palaz-
zina," a part of the large Quirinal
Palace which has not been used for
many years. This was newly deco-
rated in the best English style, after
designs selected by their Majesties,
and from the private rooms of the
Queen, a terrace was built, over-
looking the garden. On the terrace
were placed hundreds of flowering
plants, making it almost a continua-
tion of the rose-covered arbors be-
low. Here the King and Queen and
little Princesses, Yolande Marghe-
rita and Mafalda, walk among the
blossoms ; but the inquisitive eyes
of the people may not penetrate
here, and only from hearsay does
one know of the beauties of this
garden, hidden behind high, gray
walls.

The Vatican Garden may, how-
ever, be visited occasionally, if a
special permit is obtained, and I had
the pleasure of going into it not
very long ago. It is peculiarly love-
ly because here nature has been al-
lowed to wander at will, and the
woods are wild and untrimmed, a
relief to the eye after the conven-
tional gardens of the city. The
birds sing sweetly in the depths of
the woods and tiny streamlets
trickle softly over the beds of moss.
Until entering this quiet, peaceful
spot one would not imagine that
Rome, with its bustling, restless
population, contained such a haven
of rest. It is many years since the
Popes laid out this park, and built
a small villa in the midst of the

trees, to which they could retire
when weary of the round of state
life. Since Pope Pius IX. laid down
the reins of temporary power, this
villa has been used for the summer
home of the pontiff. It is a small
building, containing not more than
a dozen rooms in all, but connecting
with a tower in which there is a
large reception room. Here the
Pope receives his ministers and
transacts business. When the heat
of summer comes on, he withdraws
to this villa and, in the midst of the
trees and birds of the park, spends
two months or more, as it pleases
him.

The park which is best known to
all visitors to Rome is the "Pincio,"
carefully laid out on an elevation
overlooking the city. So ingenious-
ly has it been planned that one does
not realize the very limited space
which it covers. The most effective
approach is from the Piazza del
Popolo. The road winds back and
forth, upward between the cacti and
palms until it turns into the Pincio,
and then continues a circuitous, ser-
pentine route around the summit of
the hill.

Not the least interesting part of
this well-known park is its history.
Here, centuries ago, Lucullus had
his famous Gardens, full of the
greatest luxury. Near here was his
Villa where he entertained emper-
ors and the high and noble of those
days at feasts so elaborate that their
cost can scarcely be estimated. In
these gardens were held orgies un-
mentionable, so we are told by the
historians, and amid the flowers and
palms of his gardens, who knows
what plots have been laid, what
schemes formed for the pulling
down of the mighty from their seats
of power, and placing there some
favorite of the people?

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Lucullus passed away, and later,
Claudius came to the throne, with
a wicked woman, Messalina, for his
wife. Claudius was indolent, fond
of pleasure and not given to watch-
ing the deeds of his beautiful wife.
Messalina cast her eyes upon this
garden, then the property of a Ro-
man noble, and determined to have

first, he was incensed ; then his
natural indolence overcame him,
and possibly his love for Messalina
still possessed his heart, for he en-
tered Rome, went directly to his
palace and sat down to eat his
dinner, without giving orders for
the arrest of his wicked wife. But
Messalina was not to escape so

IN THE VATICAN GAIJDENS

it for her own. Like Jezebel of old,
she made a plan to get possession of
the Gardens, and caused the owner
of them to be put to death. Messa-
lina immediately called the gardens
her own and went to them to spend
most of her time. She carried on
wild revels there, the news of
which, in time, came to the ears of
her husband, who was then on his
way from Ostia, by the sea. At

easily. The words of the Lord,,
through the Prophet Elijah, to
Ahab, when he was going to take
the vineyard of Naboth are par-
ticularly applicable to Messalina.
" Thus saith the Lord, ' In the place
where dogs licked the blood of Na-
both shall dogs lick thy blood, even
thine. ': An enemy of Messalina,.
wishing to end her life, went to her
villa on the Pincian Hill, and, with-

THE PLEASURE GARDENS OF ROME

out any orders from his master,
forced the Empress to fall upon the
sword and thus end her terrible ca-
reer.

So charming are these gardens
upon the Pincian Hill that one does
not remember long the awful trage-
dies which have been enacted here.
The light, the mirth, the music and
merry faces of the children serve to
remove from the mind the sad im-
pressions made by the history of the

possible, and they are certainly suc-
cessful.

Let us go there on a clear, beau-
tiful afternoon, about four o'clock,
and, sitting near the wall of roses,
watch the people as they pass by.
Here they come, in carriages and on
foot ; of every nationality. The
Turk with his fez, doubtless the
Ambassador from the Sultan's do-
mains ; the Greek minister lying
back on the cushions in his luxuri-

WHERE NATURE REVELS

place. Lucullus is gone, Messalina
is" gone, and the long line of em-
perors has passed away, with the
record of bloodshed and horror.
Christ has come to earth, and has
brought love and light and peace.
So we wander along the flower-bor-
dered paths, listening to the flow of
liquid Italian falling from the lips
of the hundreds of persons who are
almost always to be found here, and
seeing what the Italian pleasure
gardens really consist in. They are
made for the purpose of passing
away one's time as agreeably as

ous carriage ; the group of Ameri-
can ladies, with the red-covered
Baedeker well in evidence; the
family of the English clergyman,
father and mother and four rosy-
faced daughters ; all are here. And
between them and all around are
the handsome Italians, wth smiling
faces, long moustaches, and delicate
hands making graceful gestures to
save superfluous words.

The musicians strike the first
notes and the Municipal Band plays
loudly, while the carriages draw up
on the other side of the benches

&&<+

A PALM OF A HUNDRED TEAKS

COMPENSATION

where the ordinary people sit, and
all listen quietly to the overture.
Occasionally a gentleman leaps
from his carriage and, going to the
side of a couple of elegantly dressed
ladies, holds an animated conversa-
tion with them. Indeed, this is the
afternoon reception for the Romans.
Everybody in society is here, and
there are many exchanges of com-
pliments and many solicitous in-
quiries about the health of each in-
dividual member of the various
families.

The music ceases, and the coach-
men drive their horses forward,
around the circle of Pincian Hill.
The Water Clock tells the time of
day above the heads of a flourish-
ing brood of little ducks, and two
graceful white swans glide in a dig-
nified manner across the tiny pond.
The German priests, robed in scar-
let, move about under the trees,

adding another touch of color to the
gorgeous scene. Hark ! the band
begins again ! This time it is the
" Victor Emmanuel March." A
high cart comes around the curve,
and in a flash the King, driving with
the sweet-faced Queen seated by his
side, whirls by, received with re-
spectful salutations from all the
crowd.

The last piece is being played and
the carriages go swiftly down
toward the Corso. The sun is get-
ting low, and St. Peter's dome is
resplendent in silver gleams of
light. Monte Mario lies like a mass
of emerald on the right. The birds
are singing in the Villa Borghese,
below the steep wall of the Pincio.
One by one the people go away,
and twilight falls over Rome, that
pleasure-satiated, beautiful city, ly-
ing as a gem, encircled by a border
of amethystine mountains.

Compensation

By Clarence H. Urner

The dewdrop on the wilding bloom,
Afar from earthly pomp withdrawn,

Feels not the lonesome desert's gloom,
For in its clasp it holds the Dawn.

Darkest America

By Kelly Milier :1

Professor of Mathematics, Howard University

THERE is much speculation as
to the ultimate destiny of the
Negro population in the
United States. History furnishes
no exact or approximate parallel.
When widely dissimilar races are
thrown in intimate contact, it is in-
evitable that either extermination,
expulsion, amalgamation, or the
continuance of separate racial types
will be the outcome. So far as the
present problem is concerned, ex-
termination and expulsion have few
serious advocates, while amalgama-
tion has no courageous ones. The
concensus of opinion seems to be
that the two races will preserve
their separate identity as co-inhabi-
tants of the same territory. The
main contention is as to the mode
of adjustment, whether it shall be
the co-ordination or subordination
of the African.

All profitable speculation upon
sociological problems must be
based upon definitely ascertained
social tendencies. It is impossible
to forecast coming events unless we
stand within the pale of their
shadow. The Weather Bureau at
Washington, discerning the signs
of air and cloud and sky, makes
probable predictions of sunshine or
storm. Such predictions are not for
the purpose of enabling us to affect
or modify approaching events, but
to put ourselves and our affairs in
harmony with them. Sociological
events have the inevitableness of
natural law, against which specula-
tions and prophecies are as unavail-
ing as against the coming of wind

and tide. Prescient wisdom is ser-
viceable only in so far as it enables
us to put ourselves in harmony with
foreknown conditions. Plans and
policies for the solution of the race
problem should be based upon as
full a knowledge of the facts and
factors of the situation as it is pos-
sible to gain, and should be in line
with the trend of forces which it is
impossible to subvert. Social ten-
dencies, like natural laws, are not
affected by quackery and patent
nostrums. Certain of our socio-
logical statesmen are assuming in-
timate knowledge of the eternal de-
crees, and are graciously volunteer-
ing their assistance to Providence.
They are telling us, with the assur-
ance of inspiration, of the destiny
which lies in store for the black
man. It is noticeable, however,
that those who affect such famili-
arity with the plans and purposes
of Providence are not usually men
of deep knowledge or devout spirit.
The prophets of evil seem to derive
their inspiration from hate rather
than love. In olden times when
God communicated with man from
burning bush and on mountain top,
He selected men of lowly, loving,
loyal souls as the chosen channel of
revelation. To believe that those
who breathe out slaughter and hat-
red against their fellow-men are now
his chosen mouth-piece is to assume
that Providence, in these latter days,
has grown less particular than
aforetime in the choice of spokes-
men.

The most gifted of men possess

DARKEST AMERICA

very feeble clairvoyant power. We
do not know the changes that even
a generation may bring forth. To
say that the Negro will never attain
to this or that destiny, requires no
superior knowledge or foresight ex-
cept audacity of spirit and reckless-
ness of utterance. History has so
often changed the "never" of the
orator into accomplished results,
that the too frequent use of that
term is of itself an indication of
heedlessness and incaution. It is
safe to follow the lead of Dr. Lyman
Abbott, and limit the duration of
the oratorical 'never" to the present
generation. When, therefore, we
say that the Negro will never be ex-
pelled or amalgamated, or that he
will forever maintain his peculiar
type of race, the prediction, how-
ever emphatically put forth, does
not outrun the time which we have
the present means of foreseeing.
The fortune of the Negro rises and
falls in the scale of public regard
with the fluctuation of mercury in
the bulb of a thermometer ranging
alternately from blood heat to
freezing point. In i860, he would
have been considered a rash
prophet who should have pre-
dicted that within the next fit-
teen years colored men would
constitute a potent factor in
state legislatures and in the nation-
al Congress. On the other hand,
who, in 1875, would have hazarded
his prophetic reputation by predict-
ing that during the following
quarter of a century the last Negro
representative would be driven
from places of local and national
authorit}^, and that the opening of a
new century would find the last two
amendments to the Constitution
effectually annulled? No more can
we predict what change in public
feeling and policy the remote or

near future may have in store. But
of one thing we may rest assured,
the coming generations will be
better able than we are, to cope with
their own problems. They will
have more light and knowledge,
and, let us hope, a larger measure
of patience and tolerance. Our
little plans of solution that we are
putting forth with so much assur-
ance and satisfaction will doubtless
afford ample amusement in years to
come.

"We call our fathers fools,

So wise we grow
Our wiser sons, no doubt will

Call us so."

The late Professor Freeman, in
his "Impressions of the United
States" suggests a unique solution
of the race problem : viz. — let each
Irishman kill a Negro and get
hanged for it. In this way America
would be speedily rid of its race
problems, both Ethiopic and Celtic.
We read this suggestion and smile,
as no doubt the author intended we
should. And so we smile at the
panaceas and nostrums that are be-
ing put forth with so much ardor of
feeling. Many such theories might
be laughed out of existence if one
only possessed the power of comic
portrayal. While we muse, the fire
is burning. But alas, we lack the
discernment to read aright the signs
of the times.

Physical population contains all
the potential elements of society,
and the careful student relies upon
its movement and expansion as the
controlling factor in social evolu-
tion. It is for this reason that the
federal census is so eagerly awaited
by those who seek careful knowl-
edge upon the race problem in
America. There are certain defi-
nitely ascertainable tendencies in

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the Negro population that seem
clearly to indicate the immediate, if
not the ultimate destiny of that race.
Amid all the conflicting and con-
tradictory showings of the several
censuses since emancipation, there
is one tendency that stands out
clear and pronounced : viz. — the
mass center of the Negro population
is moving steadily toward the Gulf
of Mexico. Notwithstanding the
proffer of more liberal political and
civil inducements of the old aboli-
tion states of the North and West,
the mass movement is in the South-
erly direction. The industrial ex-
clusion and social indifference of
the old free states are not inviting
to the African immigrant, nor is the
severe climate congenial to his
tropical nature. The Negro popula-
tion in the higher latitudes is not a
self-sustaining quantity. It would
languish and gradually disappear
unless constantly reinforced by
fresh blood from the South. Al-
though there has been a steady
stream of immigration for the past
forty years, yet 92 per cent of the
race is found in the states which
fostered the institution of slavery at
the time of the Civil War. The
thirty-one free states of the North
and West do not contain as many
Negroes as Alabama. There is no
likelihood that the Negro popula-
tion will scatter itself equally
throughout the different sections of
the country. We should not be mis-
led by the considerable Northern
movement of the last census decade.
This period was marked by unusual
unrest in the South, and many of the
more vigorous or more adventurous
Negroes sought refuge in the cities
of the North. But evidently this
tendency is subject to sharp self-
limitation.

In the lower tier of the Southern

States, comprising Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
Texas and Arkansas, there has been
a steady relative gain in the Negro
population, rising from 39 per cent
of the entire race in 1850 to 53 per
cent in 1900. On the other hand
the upper tier including Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri,
showed a decline from 54 to 37 per
cent during the same interval. The
census shows an unmistakable
movement from the upper South to
the Coast and Gulf States. The
Negro constitutes the majority of
the population in South Carolina
and Mississippi, and also in Louisi-
ana, outside of the City of New Or-
leans. The colored race forms the
more numerous element in the group
of States comprising South Caro-
lina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana, a con-
tiguous territory of 290,000 square
miles. Within this region the two
races seem to be growing at about
the same pace. During the last de-
cade the Negro rate of increase ex-
ceeded the white in Florida, Ala-
bama and Mississippi, but fell below
in South Carolina, Georgia and
Louisiana,

But the State as the unit of area,
gives us a very imperfect idea of
the relative and general spread and
tendency of the Negro element.
The movement of this population
is controlled almost wholly by
economic and social motives, and is
very faintly affected by State bound-
aries or political action. The
Negro is segregating in the fertile
regions and along the river courses
where the race was most thickly
planted by the institution of slavery.
This shaded area extends from the
head of the Chesapeake Bay through

DARKEST AMERICA

Eastern Virginia and North Caro-
lina, thence through South Caro-
lina, middle Georgia and Alabama
and Mississippi to the Mississippi
River. Leading off from the main
track, there are darkened strips of
various width, along the Atlantic
Ocean through Eastern Georgia
and Northern Florida and along the
tanks of the Chattahoochee, Ala-
bama, Mississippi, Sabine, and
Brazos Rivers leading to the Gulf
of Mexico. The South is dotted
with white belts as well as with
black ones. Western Virginia and
North Carolina, the Southern and
Northern extremes of Georgia and
Alabama, and the peninsula part of
Florida are predominantly white
sections. There are scores of coun-
ties in which the Negro does not
constitute ten per cent of the popu-
lation. The Negro element not
only does not tend to scatter equal-
ly throughout the country at large,
but even in the South it is gather-
ing more and more thickly into
separate spaces. The black belts
and white belts in the South are so
interwoven as to frustrate any plan
of solution looking to political and
territorial solidarity. The measures
intended to disfranchise the Negro
in Eastern Virginia operate against
the ignorant whites in the Western
end of the State. The coming po-
litical contest in the South will not.
be between whites and blacks, but
it will be over the undue power of
a white vote based upon the black
majority. The black counties are
the more populous, and therefore
have greater political weight. The
few white voters in such counties
are thus enabled to counter-
balance many times their own num-
ber in the white districts. This
gives rise to the same dissatisfac-
tion that comes from the North be-

cause the Southerner's vote is
given added weight by reason of
the black man whose representative
power he usurps. A closer study of
the black belts reveals the fact that
they include the more fertile por-
tions of the South. The master
settled his slaves upon the rich, pro-
ductive lands, and banished the poor
whites to the thin and barren regions.
These belts are best adapted to the
culture of cotton, tobacco, rice and
sugar cane, the staple productions
in which the South has advantage
over other sections of the country.
The Negro by virtue of his geo-
graphical distribution holds the key
to the agricultural development of
the South.

A clearer idea of the distribution
of the Negro population can be
gotten by taking the county as the
unit of area. The number of coun-
ties in which. the Negroes out-num-
ber the whites has risen from 237
in i860 to 279 in 1900. This would
make a section as large as the North
Atlantic division of States. With-
in these counties there are, on the
average, 130 Negroes to every 100
whites. In i860 there were 71
counties in which the Negroes were
more than twice as numerous as the
whites, which number had swollen
to 108 in 1900. The region of total
eclipse shows a tendency to spread
much more rapidly than the penum-
bra surrounding it. The average
number of Negroes in these dense-
ly black counties is about three to
one. In some counties there are
from ten to fifteen Negroes to every
white person. The future of such
counties, so far as the population is
concerned, is too plainly fore-
shadowed to leave the slightest
room for doubt.

There seems to be some concert
of action on the part of the afflicted

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

States. The Revised Constitutions
have followed with almost mathe-
matical exactness, the relative
density of the colored element. The
historic order has been Mississippi,
South Carolina, Louisiana, North
Carolina, Alabama and Virginia.
Georgia and Florida have not fol-
lowed suit, for the simple reason
that they do not have to. But po-
litical action does not affect the
spread of population. The Negro
finds the South a congenial habitat.
Like Flora and Fauna, that race va-
riety will ultimately survive in any
region that is best adapted to its
environment. We can no more stop
the momentum of this population
than we can stop the oncoming of
wind and wave. To the most casual
observer, it is clearly apparent that
the white race cannot compete with
the Negro industrially in a hot cli-
mate and along the miasmatic low
lands. Where the white man has
to work in the burning sun, the
cadaverous, emaciated body, droop-
ing spirit, and thin, nasal voice be-
speak the rapid decline of his breed.
On the other hand the Negro multi-
plies and makes merry. His body
is vigorous and his spirit buoyant.
There can be no doubt that in many
sections the Negro element is
gradually driving out the whites.
In the struggle for existence the
fittest will survive. Fitness in this
case consists in adaptability to cli-
matic and industrial environment.
In the West Indian archipelago the
Negro race has practically ex-
pelled the proud Caucasian, not,
to be sure, vi et armis, but by the
much more invincible force of race
momentum. This seems to be the
inevitable destiny of the black belts
in the South. For example; in the
State of Georgia the number of
counties in which the Negro popu-

lation more than doubles the whites,
was 13 in i860, 14 in 1870, 18 in
1880, 23 in 1890, and 27 in 1900. In
the same interval the counties in
which the Negro constitutes the ma-
jority had risen from 43 to 67. This
does not imply that the white popu-
lation in the Southern States is not
holding its own, but the growth of
the two races seems to be toward
fixed bounds of habitation.

Numerous causes are co-operat-
ing toward this end. The white
man avoids open competition with
the black workman and will hardly
condescend to compete with him on
equal terms. Wherever white men
and women have to work for their
living, they arrogantly avoid those
sections where they are placed on
a par with Negro competitors, and
if indigenous to such localities, they
often migrate to regions where the
black rival is less numerous. For
this reason European immigration
avoids the black belts as an infected
region. The spectacle of black and
white artisans working side by side
at the same trade, of which we used
to hear so much, is rapidly becom-
ing a thing of the past. The line
of industrial cleavage is almost as
sharp as social separation. The
white man does not desire to bring
his family amidst a Negro environ-
ment. The lynchings and outrages
and the rumors of crime and cruelty
have the effect of intimidating the
white residents in the midst of
black surroundings, who move away
as rapidly as they find it expedient
to do so. Only a few Jewish mer-
chants and large planters are left.
The large plantations are becom-
ing less and less profitable, and
are being broken up and let out to
colored tenants, to enable the land-
lord to move to the city, where he
finds more m congenial social en-

DARKEST AMERICA

vironment for himself and children.

The rise and development of
manufacturing industries in the
South also adds emphasis to the
same tendency. The poor whites
are being drawn off in considerable
numbers from the rural districts as
operatives and workmen along lines
of higher mechanical skill. In the
black belts the Negro is protected
by the masses around him. One
may ride for hours in many portions
of the South without meeting a
white face. The great influx of
Negroes into the large cities comes
from regions where the Negro
is thinly scattered among the
whites, rather than from the
regions of greatest density. These
factors, operating separately and co-
operating conjointly, will perpetuate
these black belts of the South. The
bulk of the Negroes seems destined
to be gathered into these dark and
dense areas.

If, therefore, we are accorded so
large a measure of prevision, it is
the part of wisdom to arrange our
plans in harmony with the social
movement which we have not the
power to subvert. The first essential
of a well ordered society is good gov-
ernment, which affords satisfaction
to the people living under it. The
Negroes in the South are not satis-
fied with the present mode of gov-
ernment, not only because it was not
formulated in harmony with their
sensibilities, but because of its la-
mentable failure to protect life and
property. Perhaps there is no other
government of European type which
so ruthlessly disregards the rights
and feelings of the governed since
the effacement of the Boer repub-
lics in South Africa. The first need
of the South is a brand of states-
manship with capacity to formulate
a scheme of government which will

command the hearty good will and
cheerful co-operation of all the
citizens, and at the same time leave
the controlling power in the hands
of those best qualified to wield it.
This is the desideratum devoutly to
be wished. The amiable African
can be ruled much more effectively
by the wand of kindness than by a
rod of iron. Strange to say, South-
ern statesmanship has never serious-
ly tested this policy. European
powers in control of tropical races
have found that reconciliation is es-
sential to effective control. The in-
ferior element must feel that they
are a constituent part of the govern-
mental order and are responsible for
the maintenance, authority and dis-
cipline. But Southern statesman-
ship has been characterized by brok-
en pledges and bad faith and open
avowal to humiliate a third of the
population. The democratic party
claimed to have won the election
in 1876, upon a platform which, in
clearly avowed terms, accepted the
amendments to the Constitution of
the United States. But the demo-
cratic states forthwith proceeded to
revise their Constitutions with the
undisguised purpose of defeating
the plain intendment of these
amendments. This on the plea
that if the Negro were eliminated
from politics, the government
should be equitable and just,
guaranteeing to all, equality before
the law. But, as soon as these plans
are adopted, the very statesmen who
were most instrumental in bringing
them to pass are urging more dras-
tic and dreadful measures. They
are demanding the repeal of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend-
ments, which, by indirect tactics, they
have already annulled. Has the
Negro any reason to feel that the
demanded appeal would stop this

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

reactionary movement? There can
never be peace and security and per-
manent prosperity for whites or
blacks until the South develops a
brand of statesmanship that rises
above the pitchfork variety.

The next great need of these black
belts is moral and industrial re-
generation. This can be effected
only through the quickening touch
of education. Outside help is abso-
lutely necessary. These people un-
aided can no more lift themselves
from a lower to a higher level than
one can sustain the weight of his
body by pulling against his own
boot straps. The problem belongs
to the nation. Ignorance and deg-
radation are moral blights upon the
national life and character. It is
wasteful of the national resource.
The cotton area is limited, and this
fabric will become more and more
an important factor in our national,
industrial and economic scheme.
And yet thousands of acres of these
valuable lands are being washed
away and wasted annually by igno-
rant and unskilled tillage. The na-
tion is contemplating the expendi-
ture of millions of dollars to irrigate
the arid regions of the West. But
would it not be a wiser economic
measure to save the cotton area of
the South through the enlighten-
ment of the peasant farmers? The
educational facilities in the black
counties outside of the cities are al-
most useless. The reactionary cur-
rent against the education of the
Negro in the South is deep and
strong. Unless the nation, either
through statesmanship or philan-
thropy, lends a helping hand, these
shade places will form a continuing
blot upon the national escutcheon.
There should be better school fa-
cilities and social opportunities, not
only as a means of their own better-

ment, but in order that contentment
with the rural environment to which
they are well suited may prevent
them from flocking into the cities,
North and South, thus forming a
national municipal menace.

The Negro's industrial opportu-
nities lie in the black belts. He oc-
cupies the best cotton, tobacco,
rice and sugar lands of the South.
The climate shields him from the
crushing weight of Aryan compe-
tition. Agriculture lies at the base
of the life of any undeveloped race.
The manufacturing stage is a later
development. The exclusion of the
Negro from the factories is perhaps
a blessing in disguise. The agri-
cultural industries of the South are
bound to become of greater and
greater national importance and the
Negro is to become a larger and
larger industrial factor. The cotton
area is limited, but the demand for
cotton stuffs increases not only with
the growth of our own national
population, but with the expansion
of our trade in both hemispheres.
A shrewd observer has suggested
that the time seems sure to come
when a pound of cotton will be
worth a bushel of wheat. When
cotton regains its ancient place and
again becomes king, the Negro will
be the power behind the throne.

It is interesting to notice from the
last census the extent to which Ne-
groes are owning and managing
their own farms. The large estates
are being broken up into small
farms and let out to Negro tenants
at a higher rate of annual rental.
This is but the first step toward
Negro proprietorship. There is a
double field for philanthropy.
First, to furnish school facilities so
that the small farmer may become
intelligent and skilled in the con-
duct of his affairs; and second, to

SARRACfiNIA PURPUREA

make it possible for him to buy
small tracts of land. The holders
of the old estates do not care to
atomize their plantations, but would
gladly dispose of their entire hold-
ings. There is a vast field for phi-
lanthropy with the additional in-
ducement of five per cent. Already
such attempts have been made.
Hon. George W. Murray, the last
Negro Congressman from South
Carolina, has disposed of 60,000
acres of land in South Carolina in
small holdings to Negro farmers,
and is equally enthusiastic over the
commercial and philanthropic as-
pect of the. enterprise. Some North-
ern capitalists have undertaken a
similar movement in the neighbor-
hood of Tuskegee Institute, which
promises to have far-reaching ef-
fect upon the betterment of black
belt conditions. There are also in-
dications of Negro villages and in-
dustrial settlements to afford better
social and business opportunities.
Colored men of ambition and educa-

tion will be glad to seek such com-
munities as a field to exploit their
powers. The secret and method of
New England may thus be trans-
planted in these darksome places by
the sons of Ethiopia. Thus those
that now grope in darkness may yet
receive the light.

Mr. John Temple Graves has, in
a recent, notable utterance, advo-
cated the separation of the races,
and has elaborated his doctrine with
great rhetorical pains. But mass
movement of the Negro race seems
clearly to indicate immediate, if not
the ultimate outcome to be separate-
ness rather than separation.

No one can tell what the ulti-
mate future of the Negro is to be;
whether it is to be worked out in
this land or on some distant conti-
nent. We may, however, be per-
mitted to foretell the logical out-
come of forces now at work, with-
out assuming the prophet's preroga-
tive.

Sarracenia Purpurea

By Ina Lord McDavitt

As some old castle of the feudal barons

Seemed to the traveller, in his pilgrimage,

Like some great inn, where he might rest, and wagf

His battles over, for a dole of bread;

But once within, did find it tenanted

By thieves and robbers, and his purse despoiled ;

So thou dost lay a bait of honey, sweeter

Than charmed nectar to the wandering fly,

Who, once within, doth find his struggles futile,
And fares no more his way beneath the sky.

When the Rose Bloomed

By Edith Richmond Blanchard

MISS Lucrece was busy among
her roses. Tall old bushes
laden with bloom, lined
either side of the brick walk which
led up to her small white house, and
here and there between these frag-
rant veterans, low tea-rose clusters
peered out and offered their small
sweet wares. Sometimes a long
green briar, swaying in the soft air,
would lean and catch at Miss Lu-
crece's muslin skirt as though fear-
ing lest she should overlook its
especial treasure of loveliness.
Sometimes a down-dipping, heavy-
headed blossom would beat gently
against her cheek, leaving upon it
the kiss of the morning dew.

They were old friends, Miss Lu-
crece and the roses. Years ago,
when she was a little girl, their tallest
sprays had hung just a span's
breadth above the golden glint in
her dark curls, and they still nodded
just a span's breadth over the locks
whose golden glint had long since
softened into a silver shimmer.
Miss Lucrece had never grown up
to the roses. They had watched
over her so many days, so many
years, that it was as though they
shared with her the same gentle
spirit of protection which they felt
for the tea-roses at their feet.

Indeed Miss Lucrece was very
like a tea-rose herself, so small, so
delicate, so sweet in an old-
fashioned way. As the spirit of re-
membered Junes seems to steal over
one when one breathes the frag-
rance of that dainty yellow flower,

so when one saw Miss Lucrece,
one's mind instinctively filled with
vague tender thoughts of those
lovely lost summers when she was
a girl, when the gold glint was still
in her hair, when the now faint pink
in her cheeks was but a shade paler
than her small red mouth, when her
dark eyes sparkled instead of softly
glowing.

She was as different from her con-
temporaries in the little village of
Meadowvale where she lived, as her
lavender muslins and clinging grey
wools were different from their
purple cambrics and stiff black
silks. Even her name set her apart.
There were Lucretias in plenty, it
was a favorite name in the place, —
there was but one Lucrece —
a queer heathen sounding name the
towns folk thought it, and, loving
Miss Lucrece most loyally, they re-
gretted this defect. They had been
very proud of her in the gay old
days when "Lovely Lucrece Hamil-
ton" was the name on every young
gallant's lip, and that pride was not
yet submerged in the gentle affec-
tion with which every one thought
of her now that she was "Miss
Lucrece," living alone with her old
servant Martha and her roses.

Perhaps Meadowvale held her all
the dearer because there were two
mysteries about her which had been
the source of endless conjecture and
had never yet been solved.

One mystery was Miss Lucrece's
reason for remaining single. There
had been so many lovers at her

WHEN THE ROSE BLOOMED

door, and all Meadowvale had been
sure at one time that either Squire
Wood's eldest son, Holt, or the
young lawyer, Basil Hunting,
would be the favored one. But
Holt Wood had died at sea years
ago, and Basil Hunting had left
Meadowvale about the same time,
and had become one of the
famous judges of the state. Rumor
said that he had married late in life
and that his wife had died, but all
that Meadowvale was sure of, was
that a few years ago he had come
back to his native town and opened
the old Hunting house where he
lived with his two servants, elderly
like himself. One of these was a
staid old fellow in bright blue coat
and brass buttons, who was said to
have been the Judge's butler in his
city home ; and the other was a sis-
ter of Miss Lucrece's Martha, who
had by some strange coincidence be-
come lodged in the Judge's house-
hold, and who regaled her master
with the same dainty concoctions for
which Miss Lucrece's table had long
been famous. Between Miss Lu-
crece and the Judge themselves,
nothing passed less formal than the
low bow and quaint curtesy which
they exchanged on meeting.

The other mystery had to do
with one of the rosebushes that bor-
dered Miss Lucrece's front walk.
It was not one of the very old ones
set out by her father, though it
dated back to the days of her girl-
hood. It stood green and tall near
the doorstep at the end of the row,
but not one flower had it borne, and
Meadowvale's practical mind could
not understand why such a worth-
less thing should be preserved.
Once when Miss Lucrece had hired
a new gardener he had spoken to her
of removing it, and had even thrust
his spade into the soil about its

roots in pursuance of his suggestion,
but Miss Lucrece had snatched the
spade quickly away ; with her own
small hands she had smoothed over
the wound its blade left in the earth
and her eyes were filled with tears
as she told him that never so long
as she lived must that rose bush be
disturbed.

Always, when Miss Lucrece had
filled her garden basket with roses
from the other bushes, she would
stop by this one for a moment be-
fore she went in ; sometimes
gathering a spray of the shining
leaves, since in them lay all its
beauty.

She was standing there this morn-
ing in the shadow flecked sunlight.
The basket at her feet was a pink
puff of bloom, but she turned away
from its mass of musky fragrance
and touched the flowerless branches
of the rose bush caressingly with
small white hands.

"You are sorry that you have
nothing for me," she said, softly,
"Yes, I know that you would have
gladly given me roses if you could,
but there was a mistake, such a
dreary mistake somewhere, and you
can give me nothing, though I love
you best of all. I used to be angry
with you, so angry that you would
not let me have one tiny bud when
I was sure you knew why I wished
it. I am not angry with you any
more. One grows patient after
many years. He did not go by this
morning nor yesterday. I am won-
dering— " Miss Lucrece stopped
suddenly. One little hand went
fluttering to her heart, the other
caught at a low branch which a sud-
den gust of wind had blown into
view. She drew it tremblingly into
the sunlight regardless of the thorns
that pricked her soft palm. Under
the silver-lined leaves, wholly hid-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

den by them until now, hung a rose,
a half blown rose, its great velvety
petals tinged with the merest blush
of pink where they met the green,
but white as snow flakes where they
clung still folded above the golden
Heart within.

"Why it's white !" Miss Lucrece
said softly, "It's white and we
thought, — he told me it would be
red. 'Like your lips, Lucrece, and
I am to have the first one' he said
when we planted it here in the
moonlight years ago."

Miss Lucrece framed the flower
gently between her hands as though
it were a little face. Her voice was
as low as the voices of the pigeons
cooing under the eaves, and full of
sobbing notes as were theirs.

"You were long in coming, dear
first rose, that I have waited for
such a weary while. You did not
come when you might have done so
much to help the pain that has long
ceased to be so hard to bear. The
first one, so you are not mine after
all, but his. It was fifty years ago
and perhaps he would not remem-
ber. Fifty years, and it is not red
but white, and I am not the Lucrece
that used to be, but an old, old
woman, Basil, an old, old woman.
Perhaps you would not know what
it meant, perhaps you have for-
gotten. If only I might keep it my-
self, I would love it so, but I
promised, I promised the first one
to you."

She was not talking to the flower
now. Though she still held it be-
tween her hands, her eyes looked
over it as though at some one stand-
ing just beyond. The next moment
a child's laugh in the road came
crashing in upon her dream and
rent its shadowy web. With a little
gesture of confusion she put both
hands before her face and went in

out of the sunlight. Through the
cool hall up the narrow whispering
stairs to her own chamber she went
with the shreds of the dream mist
still in her eyes. The smell of the
roses came eddying into the room
with every gust that stirred the
white curtains at the open window,
and their fragrance blended with
the vague breath of old lavender
that has long lain amid cool sweet
linen.

There was as it wrere a gentle
aloofness about the room, not un-
like Miss Lucrece herself. On that
low white bed she had slept the deep
child-sleep, the silent gap between
the days of busy play; there she
had dreamed the dear bright dreams
of girlhood; there she had watched,
as a woman, the long nights which
follow when the dream webb raveis
and fades at last. The oval mirror
over the dressing case had seen so
many faces look into it, so many
Miss Lucreces, that had slipped
away to give place to the gentle
presence that it now knew. There
was a little rose-wood box on the
dressing case under the mirror and
Miss Lucrece drew it toward her
and slowly turned the tiny key
which made it fast. Within on the
velvet lining, half hidden by the
length of faded blue ribbon from
which it once had hung, lay a gold
locket from whose crystal heart the
half faded photograph of a man's
face looked out with clear young
eyes. The hair lay in a soft dark
sweep over the broad forehead and
the chin was held high above the
deep black stock. On the lips still
hovered the shadow of a smile
brought by some fleeting fancy
which passed but left its imprint
evermore.

Miss Lucrece bent low over the
tiny frame as she held it to the light.

WHEN THE ROSE BLOOMED

"Basil," she said softly, "Basil,
our rose has blossomed at last. The
first one, the one I promised should
be yours. I cannot keep it, and yet
how can I send it to you now? If
only I could be sure that you still
care, still care as I do and as you
used to before the dreary mistake
that ended all. Oh, Basil, you were
so blind, so blind, why could you
not see !"

The cool fragrant bedchamber
suddenly faded from Miss Lucrece's
sight. She was back in the garden
again sitting on the doorstep in the
twilight of a summer day. She
wore no longer this soft pale mus-
lin, but a quaint white gown and
there -was a red rose in her hair.
There was some one beside her, and
his eyes, as they sought hers, were
dark with a deep wonderful meaning
that thrilled her heart into glad un-
rest. She lifted her hand to her
lips to hush the outcry that trem-
bled there and her quick gesture
caught from its hiding amid the soft
folds on her breast, a long loop of
blue ribbon from which hung a
golden locket. Before she could
seize and hide it again, the man be-
side her had caught a glimpse of
the pictured face it held. He
leaned toward her in the dusk.

"Who is it, Lucrece?" he said.

The spell of his glance bewildered
her. All thoughts save one were
blotted out.

"It is the man I love, Basil," she
answered, and then at the sudden
realization of her confession buried
her hot face in her hands.

There was a moment's silence.
When he spoke his voice sounded
strangely harsh and strained.

"Will you let me see the man you
love, Lucrece?"

But she did not raise her head,
"I cannot, Basil, I cannot," she

cried in an agony of maiden shame.

She heard him take one step
away from her and stop.

"Do you really love him then,
Lucrece? Are you sure you* cannot
let me see the picture?"

She longed to go to him, to draw
him back to her again, but her
gentle reticence proved suddenly
too strong a bond. How could she
reveal the secret of her love before
he had sought it !

"I cannot, Basil, I cannot," she re-
peated.

She lifted her face to meet his and
stretched out her hand with a little
pleading gesture, but he had turned
away with her first words. The
gate clicked noisily in the stillness.
He was gone.

She turned and went into the
house groping as though in dark-
ness, though the moonlight flooded
the hall. Over and over through
the long nights, the long days that
followed, she comforted herself with
one phrase which echoed in her
mind with persistent pain and hope.
"He thought it was Holt, but when
Holt comes home, it will all be
made plain."

"When Holt comes home." Miss
Lucrece felt again the quick stab
of sorrow and despair which came
that day when she learned that that
return would never be. There had
been selfish tears amid the bitter
ones she shed for the dead lover;
but among old regrets a new hope
had blossomed in her heart.

"When I send him his rose, the
first rose, he will understand," she
told herself, and waited for the
flower that would give her back her
joy: — waited how long! And now
the rose had come at last — after
fifty years, and had he ceased to

care

There was a sound of footsteps

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

on the stairs, and of low rapping on
the chamber door. Miss Lucrece
started to her feet. "Come in,
Martha, come in," she called.
"Why, "Martha, is anything the
matter? What has happened?"

The old maidservant stood awk-
wardly on the threshold, rolling her
apron string about her finger. Her
eyes were red and filled again with
tears as she spoke.

"It's Judge Hunting, marm.
Hannah's just been over telling me.
She's known he was sick for some
time now, though he wouldn't own
up to it. He's been up and dressed
every day, but the last two morn-
ings he hasn't gone out as he gen-
erally does and last night he was
took bad. Hannah and Thomas
were up all night with him. The
doctor couldn't get to him till near-
ly morning and he was out of his
head most of the time. He kept
calling and calling, one name over
and over, Hannah said, till it nearly
broke her heart to hear him. I
don't know as she ought to have
asked me what she did or as I ought
to have said I would, but she seemed
to think it would comfort him so,
and he's all alone except for Thom-
as and Hannah, so, — so I, — Oh,
Miss Lucrece, it was your name he
was saying."

Martha raised her eyes to her
mistress's face for the first time
since she had begun to speak and
wondered at the strange light that
shone there. It was as though some
one had brought her good news in-
stead of ill. Her voice had almost
a note of gladness in it.

"Tell Hannah I will go to him,"
she said.

Old Judge LIunting sat alone, in
his great winged arm chair by the
west window of his room. In spite

of the doctor's cautions, and the
protestations of Thomas and
Hannah he had insisted upon being
up and dressed as usual, though
even they did not know what effort
it had cost him and how weary he
felt as he sat with fine white head
thrown back among the cushions
and heavy hands idly resting on the
broad chair arms. There were
books on the stand beside him, but
they had grown strangely tiresome
to hold of late, and they lay un-
touched and unheeded. He laughed
softly as he remembered the look on
the doctor's face when it had first
dawned out of the troubled visions
of the night. It was really not
worth while to read any more, and
the afternoon sunlight was so rich
in dreams — in one dream that
changed and changed but was ever
the same. He sent the restless
shuttle of his thoughts back and
forth across the golden warp of
light and wove the bright threads
of his fancy into its gold.

He was too happy at his weav-
ing to hear the sound of footsteps,
of gentle tapping at his door. Miss
Lucrece waited for a moment on the
threshold and then came softly
across the room to his side. Still
he did not heed her and she hesi-
tated in the shadow of his chair.
The faint color deepened in her
cheeks and one hand tremulously
sought her heart, but when she
spoke her voice was clear though
very low.

"Basil," she said, "I have come
to bring you your rose."

She held out the great velvety
white flower and stood smiling
gently at him as he turned quickly
and gazed at her from wondering
eyes. Slowly he stretched out one
hand to meet hers, very slowly as
if he feared she would fade away be-

WHEN THE ROSE BLOOMED

fore he touched her, but the little
hand with its fragrant offering
yielded soft and cool to his fevered
clasp.

"Lucrece — Lucrece ! You, Lu-
crece?"

Miss Lucrece sank on the foot-
stool at his feet.

"It is fifty years, Basil, fifty years,
and this is the first rose. You re-
member how I promised it to you,
you remember, Basil?"

"I remember everything, Lu-
crece, but it does not matter now."

He lifted her hand with the rose
to his lips but she drew it gently
back to her again and touched the
flower petals softly with the other
hand.

"It is white, Basil. You know
you thought it would be red. I
wanted to keep it in spite of my
promise ; you see I did not know
that you still cared. It is so many
years."

He laughed, a queer low laugh,
repeating her words as if to him-
self.

"So many years, and I have
cared all of those many years, Lu-
crece. You do not know, you can-
not know how I have cared."

Miss Lucrece's eyes grew blight
with the same glad radiance that
Martha had seen in them that morn-
ing. She drew something from the
bosom of her dress and held it on
her outstretched hand before him.

"Look, Basil," she said.

He bent his head to look as she
directed but he turned quickly
away, pushing her hand back al-
most roughly.

"Not now, not again, Lucrece.
He has had you all these years,
must he come between us still?"

Miss Lucrece put aside the de-
taining fingers and held out the
object once more.

"But look, Basil," she pleaded.

The sunlight played on the gold
frame and on the handsome young
face that gazed up into the Judge's
own. He caught his breath and his
voice trembled when he spoke.

"It is my picture, Lucrece."

She stooped to kiss it lest he see
her tears.

"Yes, it was always yours, there
was never any other, Basil. I could
not tell you. I was ashamed to
have said so much, and I thought
when Holt came back you would
know. But he did not come, and
the rose I thought to send you did
not bloom. We have both waited
long for the rose, Basil, but it is
very lovely now."

She smiled up into his low bent
face, and, as she smiled, the lines of
regret and pain imprinted there
faded wondrously.

"Yes, it makes up for all, Lu-
crece," he answered.

Through the long still afternoon
they sat together side by side, hand
in hand, the old lovers. There were
many things to say that had long
sought for utterance, lost confi-
dences of fifty years to be shut
away in two waiting hearts. When
the sunlight began to fail them and
she rose to leave him, he caught at
her dress and drew her back, but he
did not speak. It was his eyes that
spoke for him and her eyes read
their message. The color started to
her old cheeks but she bent low
above him.

"Lucrece, Lucrece, — " he re-
peated as he kissed her.

>H * * *

Miss Lucrece was in the garden
among her roses when Martha came
to find her the next morning, came
stumbling through the wet grass
with one crumpled corner of her

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

apron held to her streaming eyes.

A bird high up in a tree by the
roadside was pouring out its little
heart in the glad joy of living, and
to Miss Lucrece the song seemed
in some strange way to blend with
Martha's sobbing speech as she told
her story.

Told how on the evening before
when old Thomas and Hannah
went to their master's room to see
that he was comfortable for the
night, they had found him sitting
among the moonlight shadows in his
great armchair by the window.
There was a white rose clasped be-

tween his hands and on his face
was a smile, a smile so happy that
they thought he dreamed.

Miss Lucrece stood silent in
the path till the sound of Martha's
footsteps died away. There was a
mist in her eyes, but the mist did
not utterly veil the glad calm that
dwelt behind it. She went slowly
to the rosebush at the end of the
walk near the step and pressed her
face against its cool green leaves.

"It is such a little while, such a
little while to wait," she said softly.
"We had waited so long before, and
now we know."

The Middleman

By Elliot Walker

^T GUESS I'll have to give up,
J[ Rachel. Every day tacks on
a little more worry, a little
more debt, and I'm just about crazy
with it. I've been floundering along
for months, getting in deeper and
deeper. There is no way out that I
can see except to quit while we still
have a roof over our heads. If we
had to leave the old house, it
would half kill us, wouldn't it?"

Cyrus Hayden's deep voice,
strong at the beginning of his
speech, rose to an almost childish
treble at the end, faltered and broke
piteously.

His wife, thin, and possessing
rather belligerent eyes, scanned the
woeful countenance sharply, before
replying. Her sewing slid from her
slender knees to the worn, old-

fashioned sitting-room carpet. She
picked it up with a firm hand.

"No," said she. "It wouldn't.
Steady, Cyrus. What's the matter
with you?"

"Matter," groaned the man. "You
should know it all, I suppose. I
can't keep on trying to do business
the way things are running. I'm
behind on what I owe and I cannot
begin to collect enough to meet my
bills, and that means a shut-down
on the part of the packing company.
That is, I get no more meat. I've
had one notice ; next week I'll get
another, then good-bye Hayden's
Market."

"But why can't you make it pay?
Your father did. I know you've
been worrying lately but I supposed
things were going right. You have

THE MIDDLEMAN

a good trade, and other butchers
seem to get along. Brace up, Cyrus !
I don't believe it is as bad as you
make out. You did first rate at first.
Only a few months ago you told
me you had seventeen hundred dol-
lars on your books."

Rachel, optimistic always, smiled
encouragingly.

"That's it," muttered Cyrus.
"It's on my books still. I can't get
it. If I could I'd be safe enough."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Mrs. Hay-
den, "you are too easy with people,
just as your father was. They owe
you the money, don't they? Go to
work and make them pay up."

Her husband gave an impatient
sigh, shrugging his broad shoulders.
"You don't understand," he said, ir-
ritably. "It's useless to talk busi-
ness with you, Rachel. You never
did understand. That's why I never
say anything until the last minute,
but I tell you now that I'm in a bad
way, and I'm going to finish up be-
fore matters grow any worse. I'll
get enough from these old accounts
to square myself, and then what?"

"Oh, you will easily find some-
thing else, I guess, and I'll be glad
to have you, Cyrus. You know I've
always hated to have you in the mar-
ket— a man of your appearance and
education. Of course, it will be a
great deal better. Some nice office
position with a steady salary is what
you are fitted for. I always said so.
I've been a butcher's wife for five
years, dear — now I'm willing to go
up a peg. Can't you get a place in
one of the Banks? Banking is such
a genteel occupation."

Again the man sighed and his face
grew red. "It was father's busi-
ness," he said. "Father built it up
from nothing and was mighty proud
of it. He just doted on his custom-
ers. I honestly think he imagined

the best people in town couldn't
exist without him. He knew exact-
ly what they liked. Why, I've
known him to fret himself sick over
little complaints. And every one
loved him. I'll never forget the day
old Judge Parlow came raging into
the store. 'Where's Zack?' said he.
'Out,' said I. 'He'll be right in.
What's the trouble, Judge?'
'Trouble,' said he, 'that roast was
the toughest — well — I'll talk to
him!' and just then father came
back. It seems that confounded boy
(you remember Pete) had delivered
Mrs. Dickey's order at Parlow's.
She ran a cheap place and used to
pick out pieces that would last, and
the Judge got a beauty. Father had
that minute learned of the mistake
from Mrs. Dickey, who had com-
plained she ordered twelve pounds
and only got eight, although it was
nice tender beef, and he was in a
state — pretty near crying. Well, he
marched right up to the Judge and
looked at him. Swallowed three or
four times but he couldn't say a
word, he felt so bad. I can see him
now, his -nose twitching and his big
round eyes appealing like a great
dog's, wrho knows he is going to be
licked for a thing he didn't mean to
do.

"Rachel, the Judge sensed it in a
second. The thunder cloud in his
face cleared into the funniest grin
I ever saw, and he put his hand on
father's fat shoulder. 'Zack,' said
he, T merely stopped in to say that
my teeth ain't what they were when
we divided that chunk of hardtack
the night after Chancellorsville,' and
with that he turned and went out.

"Father stood still for about a
minute, breathing hard. Then he
said to me, 'Cy, don't you ever for-
get yourself and send the Judge's
bill. When I'm gone and you're

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

running the shop, remember, what-
ever happens.' Then he slipped out
of the back door and got a drink, I
guess. He allowed himself one a
month on special occasions and that
must have been one of 'em.

"Dear me ! To think of those two
good old men, both dying the same
week — and the Judge didn't leave
very much."

The butcher's face sobered from
the jollity brought by his remem-
brance.

"I'm glad father's dead," he flung
out savagely. "This state of things
would have broken his heart. He
loved his shop and the folks he sold,
and he would have gone up just
as I'm doing. We're the old kind.
I can't hammer money out of the
trade he left me and I can't refuse to
sell them. They are honest —
they're good for it, but everything's
cash nowadays and it is hand to
mouth with lots of the best people.
Some pay every six months, some
quarterly — when they get their in-
come. I have to pay every Monday
or be frozen out. A fellow can't
borrow at the banks without se-
curity and I've reached my limit.
No, it's impossible to carry my trade
any longer. I've got to quit — I've
got to." ,

He was talking to himself, now,
and pacing the floor. His head sank
on his breast, his hands clinched;
a good-looking, well-built man of
twenty-seven, with nothing in his
neat appearance to indicate a call-
ing more or less associated with
gory fancies. Many had wondered
why Cyrus, after passing through
the public schools with credit, and
studying for a year at a business
college, had chosen to take up the
humble occupation of his father.
He certainly was fitted for more
ambitious endeavor.

Zachary had put it squarely be-
fore him from a practical stand-
point. "The shop is established,
Cy," he had said. "There's money
in it for you the very first day you
step in and you're independent with
a chance ahead. It means that in a
few years you can marry some nice
gal, have a comfortable home of
your own, and hold your nose up
with anybody; it means an honest
living, friends, comforts, hard work
and wearin' an apron. You won't
have to do any slaughtering and it's
a healthy way to live. Think it
over, son. If you'd rather do some-
thing else, I'll back you to my last
dollar, but some day I'll go quick,
the doctor says, and it won't hurt
my feelngs any to feel the old shop
is going to stay in the family."

Cyrus thought it over and decided
on the apron and independence.
Later he decided on the "nice gal"
and took her to the house of Zach-
ary who, long a widower, was great-
ly pleased with the arrangement
and prayed to be a grandfather.

This prayer being happily granted
after two years, the kindly old fel-
low passed a twelve month of bliss
(for he minded not wails and house-
hold disturbance) and died with the
baby in his arms and the croon of
an old war lyric on his lips. He left
a wide circle of sincerely sorrowing
friends, and the business to Cyrus.

Two years more and this chapter
opens. Little Zach had thrived.
The business hadn't. Rachel was
a cheerful and contented although
a somewhat ambitious wife. Cyrus
was a badly worried young man.

As he turned in his uneasy walk,
the woman spoke gently. "I'm
sorry I didn't know before. Maybe
I could have helped in some way.
With no rent to pay, no meat bills
and you trading accounts with the

THE MIDDLEMAN

grocer, we don't spend much, ex-
cept Bridget's wages — and clothing
is cheap. I can let the girl go,
Cyrus — and do my own work/'

"Not yet," answered her husband,
desperately. "You've Zach to look
after and you're none too strong.
Don't think of it, Rachel."

"Who owes you the most? It
does seem as though we ought to
get what belongs to us. There must
be a way."

Hayden shook his head dubious-
ly. "No use in thinking so," he
grunted. "Oh ! there is a whole
string of them. The Macons, the
Pilasters — old lady Parlow — but
then I don't count her, although it's
the biggest of all."

"How much is her bill?"

"About a hundred and sixty."

"What?"

"I can't help it," said Cyrus,
apologetically. "She wrote me a
note the first of January saying that
she had intended sending me some
then, but she couldn't conveniently.
I hadn't asked her for it. It's on
her mind, evidently."

"I should think it would be,"
snorted Rachel. "What does she
keep that big house for if she can't
pay her bills. It must be an enor-
mous expense. If she hasn't money
what does she live on, I'd like to
know ?"

"Meat, I guess," responded Cyrus
with a woeful smile. "And on the
interest of her debts. Bless me!
She is a fine old lady though."

He picked up his hat as the hall
clock struck two. "Got to get back
to the shop," he exclaimed. "Gra-
cious! I've been loafing around for
an hour, but it doesn't make much
difference."

Kissing his wife sadly, he went
slowly out, unheeding her parting
injunction not to be cast down.

Walking on to the busier streets,
Cyrus paused to greet a friend — a
tall man with a clean shaven, whim-
sical, pursed-up mouth. " Hullo,
Sam," he accosted heartily.

"Hullo Cy! How's biz?"

"Good!" returned Cyrus with
quick mendacious business diplo-
macy. "How's groceries?"

"Fine !" They studied each other's
masks for a few seconds, then
nodded significantly.

"I'm going to close up, old man,"
observed Cyrus, lightly. "It doesn't
pay. Rachel wants me to try some-
thing else. It's got to come, you
know."

"I know." The pursed lips gath-
ered in a knot. "I see my finish in
about a year, Cy. We middle men
ain't in it any longer. Best thing
you can do. Kind of hard to give
up though, eh?"

"O — oh ! no !" drawled Hayden.
"I'll be glad to leave the old shop.
Let her go. What's the use of feel-
ing bad?"

"Come off! come off!" said the
older man, impatiently. "Let's talk
this thing over. I'm in the same
boat. Won't sink yet awhile, but
the leak's started. What is going
to become of us fellows eventual-
ly?"

"Give it up," replied Cyrus, weari-
ly. "There will be quite a crowd of
us, Sam. I'm afraid the odd jobs
won't go 'round. What's your idea
of the future?"

"It's definite," said the other.
"We will go up or go down together,
according to individual ability, and
it's going to be easier to sink than
to rise. Cy, the thousands of good
men who make their living between
the producer and the consumer are
all on the way to be wiped out.
Then what? Why, Jones gets a job
watching in a factory, and his child-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ren go to work in it. There's Mr.
Jones and his family to help swell
the laboring classes. And Smith,
who is single and has a friend at
court, sheds his old feathers and
gets in ; hugs right up to the big
ones, and stands 'pat.' Oh ! he's all
right. One man in luck through no
virtue of his own to rank with the
capitalistic class. Where one will
go up, a half dozen will drop and
degenerate. It's being done to-day.
By Harry! I'm thinking hard, Cy.
I've a wife and four little ones. All
the Quilberrys have been, small fry
in business but they have lived de-
cently and been somebody. Are my
children to eke out an existence in
a blamed mill and be nothing —
along with a gang of cheap help —
they — the . grandsons and grand-
daughters of General Quilberry, a
man who left his little grocery when
Lincoln called him — went in a pri-
vate and came out a Brigadier. No !
By Thunder! this is their country
and God meant 'em to have a chance
in it. Shall they be ground down
in this land of Freedom to the level
of slaves because a gang of mag-
nates say they shan't do what their
grandfather and their father did?
No ! this thing will turn, Cyrus
Hayden. Our babies will turn it if
we can't. You cannot kill blood.
You cannot break the spirit of in-
heritance."

The man was white with excite-
ment. Cyrus stared at him. "Well,
Sam," he exclaimed. "What's got
into you?"

"Just what will get into you, if
you'll think!" cried Quilberry.
"We've got everything for our child-
ren but a chance, — men like you and
me, Cy. Schools, libraries, every-
thing to make good men and women
of them — and then, what? Nothing
to do? Can my boy go into trade

as I did? Can yours? Will my
little Jennie go through the High
School and then scratch for bread
and butter tending some dirty ma-
chine from morning to night?"

Cyrus began to look disturbed.
"I — I — hope not," lamely.

"She may," growled Quilberry,
fiercely. "If anything should hap-
pen to me, she may. Not while I
live though. Under different con-
ditions she might marry a success-
ful retailer and have a happy home
and bring up boys to carry on the
old man's business. Does that go
through your hide?"

"Rather!" said Cyrus. "Still, I
think you make too much of it, Sam.
If I could collect what is due me
and sell for cash, I would go on
well enough, but I've a credit trade,
same as you."

"And why not? Credit is the
basis of almost every achievement.
Wrho borrows? Who gets trusted?
The Government. The City. The
Church. The great enterprises.
The business of every country is
done mainly on credit. It has to be.
But if you can't get it, you can't
give it. That's your fix. See now
what has brought this about, and
what in my mind will follow. The
combinations are aiming at strictly
cash transactions. What is the
source of demand? The home, gen-
erally speaking. The producer in-
tends to sell the consumer direct,
just as soon as possible, and for
cash. It will put the home in the
position of a man with absolutely
no credit. The householder will live
simply hand to mouth. He will
have to get money, or no food.
Every employer will know this.
Will wages increase? Not where
people are hungry and are willing
to work for a pittance. The retailer,
the best friend the people ever had,

THE MIDDLEMAN

will be gone. He will be one of
the two classes — the cash sellers or
the cash buyers. Everything is
coming into line/ Cyrus, it is swing-
ing right along."

"But won't it be cheaper for
folks in the end, Sam? That is
what they say. People will live
within their means, then."

"Credit is means, confound it!
Who says it will be cheaper? The
trusts. Cheaper for them, yes.
With the middle man out it ought
to be. They can fix prices as they
please, then. Can't you see that the
retail man is and always has been
the bulwark that stands between the
producer and the consumer. He
holds down prices for the people.
All he wants is his margin of profit.
His trade won't pay more, neither
"will be. And he trusts his customers
when they are hard up. He takes
a personal interest in them and they
in him — they are neighbors,
friends — and when the middle man
is no more, you'll see a crowd of
mourners. It will be like buying
■stamps at the postoffice, if you have
two cents, they give you permission
to lick one stamp. Can you mail
another letter — an important one?
When you get two cents more, you
can. Go out and try to borrow it.
You'll see nothing but heels, and
those hurrying. There is some hu-
manity in credit. There is none in
•cash. It's going to knock all decent
feeling out of business. It won't be
""Let him have it, he is straight and
wall pay.' It will be 'Has he the
money in his paw? If not, tell him
to go to the devil and whistle for
liis grub."

As Mr. Quilberry paused for
b>reath, Cyrus looked thoughtful.
"I swear, Sam," he said, "I believe
father would say you were right.
He'd like that about trusting people

and the friendship part. I do, my-
self, but it has never seemed real
good business. If everyone would
settle to-day, I'd feel better about
it."

"They can't," resumed his com-
panion, recovering. "And for this
reason. The net is narrowing about
them in a hundred little ways. They
are being pinched. Their credit is
getting whittled down, and they are
afraid to let go a cent for fear the
wrong man will get it — or else they
pay out every penny the minute it
comes in. And we, Cy," he added
bitterly, "are the wrong men, I'm
afraid. We're the old sort. Speak-
ing of your father, why I don't be-
lieve he ever lost a dollar by wait-
ing— and he never refused to fill an
order. No wonder he had friends.
He's carried people along over hard
times, and I've heard more than one
man say that Zach Hayden would
get his money if he had to steal it
for him. And he always did get it,
some time. I'm afraid he would
have gone under, though, by this.
These new retail dealers are a dif-
ferent set. .-Jt's straight cash with
them as it must be with us all — and
I hope they will make it pay.
Trouble is that little by little ac-
counts get started, and by and by
they too will drop out, leaving only
the big stores and agents. Anything
in view, Cy?"

"Not yet. I must be trotting,
Sam. Good-bye. Glad I met you."

"Good-bye, Sam. If I hear of a
job I'll let you know."

Quilberry watched the stalwart
form swing down the street and
stroked his long nose in reflection.

"Too bad!" he muttered. "I get
better terms than he, and can hang
on yet awhile. Cy isn't the kind to
rise in a big business ; too much
like old Zach — easy, sympathetic and

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

independent, but a man all through.
I'd like to know if us middlemen
do not represent a good part of the
real backbone of the community,
anyway? Wipe us out and what's
left? The rich, growing richer, and
the poor, growing poorer. We have
done our share in making the coun-
try ; now we can take a back seat."

And Cyrus Hayden, hurrying on,
said to himself: "I never knew
Sam to speak out like that before.
Right or wrong, he was in earnest,
and I guess I'll figure to wind up
my affairs at once."

At that moment, Rachel, some-
what flushed, was being ushered in-
to the presence of Judge Parlow's
widow. The sweet-faced, dignified
old lady was no unfamiliar figure,
but Rachel had never met her per-
sonally. And her quick impulse to
show Cyrus that she could be a prac-
tical collector faded to a shudder of
dismay as the portly butler waved
her into the appartment of simple
luxury, and her feet felt clumsy and
out of place in the soft, sinking car-
pet. A huge portrait of the de-
parted magistrate eyed her severely
from the wall. A green parrot in a
habitation of gilded comfort, rasp-
ingly remarked : "Tut ! tut ! don't
do that!" in exact imitation of the
Judge. A desire to flee clutched the
spirit of Mrs. Hayden, but she held
herself bravely and smiled.

The smile of Rachel was extreme-
ly pleasing and counteracted the
aggression of her look, which, by
the way, was no indication of
character; merely a brow contrac-
tion caused by slightly defective
vision.

"Ah, sit down, my dear," greeted
Airs. Parlow, gazing alternately at
Rachel and her card. "Mrs. Hay-
den. Yes, very glad to see you."

"Tut! tut!" from the parrot.

The caller drew a long breath.
"I — I have come," she commenced
with hesitation, "to — to ask — "

"Don't say that!" interrupted the
parrot harshly.

Poor Rachel's carefully concocted
speech vanished from her brain.
She looked distressedly from the
mistress to the marplot and gasped.

"To be sure !" said her hostess.
"He does annoy strangers some-
times with his chatter. I don't
mind him." Then pressing an elec-
tric button by her chair, she whis-
pered to the maid who instantly
responded, "Remove Paul."

Paul being removed with shrieks
of protestation, the old lady settled
comfortably. "Now, my dear," she
said, "you were about to ask — ?"

Rachel cleared her throat reso-
lutely. "I know it is out of the
way," she said tremulously, "and
I'm sure I don't know what you'll
thing Mrs. Parlow, but my husband
is awfully worried about his busi-
ness, and I — I've come to see if you
could help him out."

Her companion stared. "Why,
why," she uttered, adjusting her
spectacles, "I do not quite compre-
hend. Mr. Hayden has never asked
me for money."

"I know it," burst out Rachel.
"Plis father told him to never send
you a bill — he — "

"I see — I see," put in the other.
"The Judge thought highly of
Zachary Hayden. Why? Zachary
was in my husband's regiment, my
dear — they were real friends. How
often he spoke of him in his last
days. 'That man was a lion in a
fight, Mary,' he'd say, 'and after a
battle he was like a woman among
the wounded, friend or foe.' He
would cut the very clothes from his
back to tie up their hurts. Many a
man has blessed him with his dying

THE MIDDLEMAN

breath — ' the old woman wiped her
glasses. "Yes," she went on, "and
when the Judge was taken, Zachary
was one of the first to call. I recol-
lect now — he was, and I saw him.
He wept, I think— yes, I remember
his great red handkerchief. It was
pitiful to see such a big strong man
so affected. And shortly after I
heard he was dead, too. Dear me !
Sad days. Sad days." \<$0$V

She was far from mundane af-
fairs as her faded eyes rested lov-
ingly upon the stern features in the
great gilt frame. Rachel arose. "I
guess I'd better be going," she re-
marked a bit thickly. "Another
time — "

"Oh! What was it? Don't go,
my dear. Sit down again. Let me
see. You spoke of it's being con-
venient for Mr. Hayden — Cyrus
I've always called him — to receive
a check."

"That was it. But no matter just
now. He doesn't know I came. It
worried me to have him so upset,
and I started out without thinking,
hoping I might help him."

Mrs. Parlow pulled at her rings,
looking greatly distressed. "My
dear," she observed sorrowfully,
"my bank account is overdrawn. I
haven't a dollar in the house. What
shall I do? Next month I have my
remittance and Cyrus will get what
is due him, although I haven't the
faintest idea of the amount."

"It's all right," said Rachel, get-
ting up again. "The only trouble is
that he has to settle with the men
who supply him, next Monday, or
go out of business. It may be for
the best."

"Go out of business!" ejaculated
the widow sitting very erect. "He
musn't think of it. Where will I
get my meat?"

Rachel laughed weakly. "There

are other markets," she answered.

"I won't trade with them," cried
Mrs. Parlow. "Indeed, the way
matters are going on is ridiculous.
Everyone wants their money and
I've lately been horribly pestered
for trifling bills that I never used to
think of paying until it was perfect-
ly convenient. I fail to understand
it. Of course, I settle them at once,
but it's very annoying to be dunned,
and now I have overdrawn my ac-
count and have nothing for Cyrus.
It's a shame. Even Mr. Quilberry,
my grocer, has importuned me.

"Has he? Cyrus said he was hav-
ing a hard time, too, and it wouldn't
surprise him if Sam Quilberry went
to the wall some day."

"Wnat!" exclaimed Mrs. Parlow
with a start.

A bright color rose in the
wrinkled cheeks. "I wish to see
Cyrus to-night," she said sharply.
"Be sure and tell him. Come and see
me again, my dear, and bring your
little girl."

"He's a boy," replied Rachel,
laughing, and departed leaving her
entertainer /-perusing the Judge's
picture with a curiously decided ex-
pression.

"Get anything, Cyrus?" inquired
his wife, when he returned from his
call that evening.

The man sat down heavily. "I
can't talk to-night, Rachel," he said
hoarsely. "They say that when the
Judge had a difficult case he used
to consult with the old lady. I be-
lieve it. I told her everything, even
to giving her a list of my debtors.
Now, I'm going to bed."

During the three fine days ensu-
ing, old Mrs. Parlow was noticed to
drive about town at all hours.

Saturday morning Hayden met
Quilberry, whose pursed mouth
wore a cheerful grin. "What's

36 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

struck people, Cy?" he greeted. "She? Who?"

"I'm getting receipts to beat all. "Why, Mrs. Parlow. I'm blessed

Little checks, big checks — good ac- if the old lady hasn't interviewed

counts and bad. Mrs. Judge Par- folks right and left. What is more

low has settled in full." she sold a bond in order to square

"She has settled me" returned up. I guess your receipts are due

Cyrus, and his eyes, so like his to her. Said she thought a lot of

father's became misty. "I've just you, Sam."

mailed my draft to the shippers. Mr. Quilberry gave a long whistle

W7hat's more, I've a thousand in the of astonishment. "Say anything

bank — and I'm going on. Yes, Sam, else?" he inquired.

but it will be a cash business — Cyrus ventured a laugh, which

ahem ! with some exceptions. That was half a sob. "Only that she was

is what she advised when she lent sure that people didn't want the

me the money." middleman to go," he replied.

Mist

By Ellen Frances Baldwin

A morning mist hangs over all

In folds serene — a silver pall.

The many hills themselves seclude —

Lone anchorites in solitude.

The sun gleams palely through the mist,

Like longing face unloved — unkissed.

The river flows toward mystery ;

As summoned soul upon its way.

The trees within the forest vast

Seem shrouded wraiths from out the past.

O'er muffled nature falls no song;

The birds in silence flit along.

No pall of mist but what shall rise,

That we may see the hidden skies;

In noble strength the hills stand forth,

Toward east and west, toward south and north

The pallid sun, like one love-kissed,

Shall smile as if there ne'er was mist;

The river flow to meet the sea,

With never look of mystery;

The stately trees, like kings and priests,

Shall stand, from clinging shroud released ;

And song be heard and singer seen,

'Mid sunshine's gold and woodland's green;

While benediction over all,

The Unseen Presence ssem to fall.

KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS — PUPILS AT BEREA COLLEGE, BEREA, KY.

In the Kentucky Mountains

Colonial Customs That Are Still Existing in That Famous
Section of the Country

By Lillian Walker Williams

"MLL 'em plum full o' whis-
key ; that cures 'em. Why,
when I wus a young un I
wus bit by a rattler and wus
mightily afeard of tellin' maw. I
know'd she'd guv me a whippin',
but I got powerful sick and she jest
know'd what wus the matter and
filled me plum full o' whiskey.
Ther snake? Why, I killed him,
and cut off his rattles. Must alius
kill ther snake. Now's their fust
time I wus ever on ther cars. Be'n
up along ter see Reuben's mammy.
Reuben 's be'n on 'em lots. He told
37

me, 'Now don't yer be lookin' out
ther winder or yer '11 git hurt ;' but
I say, if yer don't look about, yer
don't see no thin', and I 'low I'm
goin' ter see. Where 'd you'uns
come from ? We'uns live ten mile
on yon side ther mountain. Yes, I
alius walks to an' fro. We'uns got
a nice cabin and field o' corn. I
scattered two papers o' cabbage
seed in ther plantin'. What we'uns
goin' ter do with our crop? Sell
it ! 'Pears like heaps of folks don't
know enough ter git ready fer ther
time thev '11 eit huno-rv ; then them

MOUNTAIN HOME — ONE ROOM CABIN WITH PORCH

's got ter

home : my
be realized.

folks what don't hev,
buy."

I had long wished to visit the
mountaineer in his
dream was about to
We were on a little train which
slowly climbed a mountain railroad,
built for carrying coal and, inci-
dentally, the public. The mercury
stood at ioo degrees, and the trip
was becoming wearisome, when I
was aroused from a reverie of the
land and people of John Fox by the
consciousness of being watched.

*When paths lead into the woods, as in this picture, it
other end of the path. The government officers often find i

Across the aisle a pair of bright, in-
telligent eyes were studying me.
Without hat, and with hands bare,
I did not meet the social require-
ments of this mountain maid, for
over her sunny hair was the pictur-
esque sunbonnet of that country,
and woollen mitts covered her
hands to the knuckles. The sudden
stopping of the train gave us a com-
mon interest, and an opportunity of
entering into conversation which I
was not slow in seizing. Only too
soon we parted, and as I extended

is supposed that some kind of business is carried on at the
t to be a "moonshine still"

IN THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

my hand to express the good-bye of
a New Englander, she put her arm
around my neck and said : "Go
home with me, won't yer?" Warm-
hearted and trusting, ready to share
his home if you treat him justly,
ready to shoot if you play him false,
is the Kentucky mountaineer.
The terminus of the railroad,

stopped over night in a typical
mountain town a mile from the rail-
road. Arriving at a pleasant hotel,
surrounded with flowering vines,
"mine host" greeted us most cordial-
ly. Here among others we found
the "Col. Carter" (made historic by
Hopkinson Smith), an old-time
Southern gentleman ; also a mine-

A MOUNTAIN STABLE-

THE LOWER PART IS FOR THE ANIMAL, THE MIDDLE IS A CORN-CRIB,
AND THE TOP IS FOR HAY OR CLOVER

which extended a hundred miles in-
to the mountains, was only the
starting-point of our trip. Before
we reached our destination, fifty
miles more over five mountains and
up several river-beds must be
travelled in carriage, on mule-back,
or afoot, through a land unknown
to steam or electricity. In order to
make the journey in two days, we

owner and coal expert, full of anec-
dote and mountain experiences, and
a revenue officer just returned from
breaking up illicit distilleries, whose
hair-breadth escapes were more fas-
cinating than fiction.

The next morning a rather start-
ling conversation awakened us.
We were to start at "sun up" for
the most interesting trip we had

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ever taken. "Why. jedge," I heard
our driver saying, "I haint never
seed no sech roads, all gullied out
an' nuther places filled in, till plum
sure to be fallen someways."
"Where's that, Uncle Jim?"
"Why, von side o' wild cat."
"What "side?"
"Why, yon side, yon side."
This was to be our route, and the
prospect was not encouraging. The
judge of the district court was not
expecting re-election, for, as one
politician expressed
it, "He ain't wuth
nothin' fur keepin'
the roads goin' ; he
ain't b e ' n along
sence he gin inter
office."

Before the town
awoke we were
winding up the river
bed into the moun-
tains, surrounded by
dense forests with
distant glimpses of
successive blue
ranges. Travel is
only possible where
the rivers are low
enough for their
beds to form the
highway. Even
then it is somewhat
dangerous to be
caught on the way.
river rise several feet in a few hours,
fed by a passing thunder storm.
The only "roads" are across the
mountains and are wide enough for
but one wagon, with an occasional
"turn-out." At one place we hap-
pened to meet a heavily loaded
wagon. The mountain, hundreds
of feet above us on one side, and
hundreds below on the other, pre-
sented a problem. With the calm-
ness that characterized Uncle Jim,

our weather-beaten driver, he said:
"Now, I ain't nuthin' ter say, but
ef you'uns wants ter git out, yer
can." From a distant point I saw
our vehicle almost literally carried
around the other wagon, where the
foothold was but scant.

Burr-r-r, burr-r-r! came from a
cabin, as we journeyed, and on
opening the door, the pages of his-
tory were turned back a hundred

years.
Prisci

Before us was a beautiful

m
$

■fr

GOING TO MARKET

We saw the lids" of blue
patterns we
looms," the

singing to the music of the
spinning-wheel, and
swaying with that
graceful motion that
accompanies it.
The soft brown hair
|, drawn from her oval

face was confined in
a loose coil by the
"tuck comb" of the
mountains. She was
\ gowned in "linsey

\C woolsey," the thread
■ f^- 0f which she had
spun after her grand-
mother had carded
the wool, and her
mother had woven
it on a wooden loom,
c o m mon in New
England a century
ago. With justifiable
pride they showed
us the "kive'r-
and white; -.the:1 Maine
'prize in our "heir-
towels, 'vthe flax for
which they had raised, and blankets
and cloth of their weaving.

People of the outside world sel-
dom penetrate these forests. Here
generations live and die without,
hearing the whistle of steam or see-
ing a modern invention. We are in?
the land of "our contemporary an-
cestors."

In Kentucky a majority of the

IN THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

mountain families may be traced
back to rural England, by distinct
English traits, legends, and even
songs. We find survivals of Saxon
speech. The Saxon pronoun "hit"
holds its place almost universally.
Strong past tenses — holp for helped,
drug for dragged, and the like — are
heard constantly.

The houses, with few exceptions,
are of logs, many having but one
room twelve feet square and win-
dowless. Often when there is a
window it has a wooden shutter in-
stead of glass. Frequently, when
the house is enlarged, instead of the
second room being joined to the
first, it is built at a distance of
twelve feet and the roof extended
to the first cabin. Thus a third
open room or court is formed.
This is called the "dog run," but in
reality is the family sitting room.

The love of pets among the
people is universal, and I saw few
places where the aesthetic taste of
the woman was not shown by a
flower-bed. Stately hollyhocks al-
most reached the eaves of the
houses, trumpet-vines tossed their
flaming blossoms on roof and chim-
ney, and smaller blooms pushed their
heads through fences which were
festooned in vines. There was one
house, where the beautiful flowers
bordering the path and clustering
about the cabin, were planted by a
little boy so crippled with rheuma-
tism he was obliged to crawl on his
hands and knees to "tend" them.
He said, " 'Pears like I can't live
without a blossom-bed, I hev such
a sorry time with rheumatiz." The
perseverance of this child is one of
the characteristics of the mountain-
eers. As a class, they overcome al-
most ^insurmountable obstacles to
accomplish what they desire. One
boy heard of the steam cars; he

"aimed ter know jest what hit wus
like," so he walked fifty miles to a
town through which the railroad
passed, obtained work and stayed a.
month in order to see the cars every

A MOUNTAIN STUDENT AT BEREA COLLEGE
— SUIT IS OF HOME MADE JEANS — HIS SIS-
TERS ARE FAMOUS FOR MAKING BED-
SPREADS

day. A girl wanted to go to school,

and she said, "If yer '11 only let me
go, I'll put my things in a meal sack
and walk thar ; I'd ruther do that

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

than not git to go." Walking there
meant over the mountains forty
miles. Many children walk ten
miles a day to a little log school-
house.

The same quality of determina-
tion is shown in making their mar-
bles. A piece of limestone some-
what larger than the desired marble
is chosen. The edges are knocked
off as much as possible, then it is
put into the split end of a stick.
This is held and rolled between the
palms of the hands, with the stone
revolving against a harder rock, un-
til the marble is complete, and as
round as if manufactured from clay.
The girls make their jumping-ropes
of the bark of grape vine.

A house raising or "working" is
most interesting, and an exact
counterpart of those described in
books. When the location is
chosen, the trees are "banded," and
the largest left standing. We saw
acres of magnificent trees killed in
this way. Most cabins are built by
the side of streams and in the open.

This is a land of feuds, and trees
might hide an enemy. While walk-
ing over a mountain, the gentlemen
of the party pushed ahead, while I
stopped at a spring. Presently a
mountaineer came up and eagerly
inquired, "Who's that man?" My
explanation seemed satisfactory, as,
soon there came along a team
driven by a man of energetic ap-
pearance. With him was a young,
sad-eyed woman. The usual "how-
'dye" was exchanged, and after they
passed I saw a reason for the
anxious question, for on his back
was a shoulder holster which held a
large pistol so placed that it could
be instantly seized. As he drove
and looked cautiously up the moun-
tain road, the woman looked back-
ward. The pathos of the mountain

feud was brought home to me.
Mothers, sisters, wives, watch for
the ambushed enemy ; they see
their dear ones shot, they expect
them to be brought home dead.
We met one man whose dearest
friend was shot by his side from am-
bush. He begged not to be left to
die alone, and all through the night
this man held his hand as his
friend's life ebbed away.

As there are no valleys, the
mountain sides are cultivated.
Some are so steep, it is said, that
after two plantings the soil is
washed away and carried off by the
swift streams. The women, as-
sisted by the children, plough, plant,
hoe and garner the crops. They
milk, feed the cattle or sheep, shear,
wash the wool, card, spin, color,
spool and weave it. They wash and
iron, sew and cook, and when a
neighbor is sick they nurse him.
They do not have the latest 'inven-
tions with which to work. In some
places the utensils are made of
wood. The wash-bowl is scooped
from the end of a log, and is emptied
by brushing out the water with the
hand. The washing is done at the
"branch," the clothes are battled
with a paddle, the tub being a hol-
lowed out log. Boats are made in
the same manner. Candles, and
sometimes lamps, are in use, but in
many places a "pine knot," pointed
at one end, and stuck between the
logs in the side of the room, fur-
nishes the only light. Besides weav-
ing, the women make artistic
willow and splint baskets, and beau-
itful hats, of the inside bark of the
horse-chestnut tree.

"How can you tell the time away
here in the mountains?" I asked.
"Why, we'uns use sun time."
Houses are built to "cast a time
shadow." The older people keep

IN THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

January 6th as old Christmas, for
they, like the Russians, have not
adopted the Gregorian Calendar,
which England and the colonies
adopted 150 years ago. The young
people often have their festivities
on New Christmas, December 25th.
On account of the sparce settle-
ment, funerals are rarely or never
held at the time of burial. Possibly

ly that world outside the mountains.
The custom still prevails of cover-
ing the graves with little houses.

Of all colonial customs, the most
interesting to me was the "live em-
ber." A hot July day, calling at a
cabin, we found the "live coal"
kept. A custom inherited was too
strong to be overcome, and to this
fact I am indebted for the choicest

A MOUNTAIN GIRL WITH FANCY WORK

after years have elapsed and several
of the family have passed away, the
circuit "preachers" gather for the
''funeral occasion." It is a great
day. Preparations of pies and fried
chicken are made, and from all the
country round friends gather to
hear the preachers discourse, not
only on the shortness of life, but the
wickedness of the world, — especial-

memento of my trip — a water-
color painted on the spot. The
smoky walls, and stone fireplace,
the gleam of fire and the memory of
the woman's hearty welcome, a
vivid picture of domestic life in the
mountains, are mine. To her the
picture gave the old place a new look,
for she "aimed ter keep hit goinV
she "didn't know hit wus so pretty."

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

The "blind tiger" causes more
trouble in the mountains than all
the wild beasts. It is a cabin, at
the single high window of which
one may be served by an invisible
bartender. Place the sum of money
you wish to spend in whiskey on
the window-sill, retire from the lo-

help feeling that Uncle Sam could
clear the mountains of illicit dis-
tilling at less expense if he would
establish in their fastnesses, indus-
trial schools and send good social
settlement workers instead of in-
ternal revenue officers. Teach the
people the use of their hands and

*A MOUNTAIN POST OFFICE

cality, return and you will find in
the window the quantity called for
by your piece of silver. The moun-
tain "still" is responsible for the
"tiger," and usually for the feud.
As I look at it, somebody is respon-
sible for the still. I can't help sym-
pathizing with the moonshiner. I
can't help thinking somewhat as he
does about his own corn, and I can't

*It may be interesting to know, in this connection,

minds, let them know how much'
the world needs what is best in
them, and they will do their part.
To quote Pres. Frost :

"That the native vigor and capacity of
these people has been obscured but not
extinguished is shown by the record of
those few individuals who have made their
way to the region of larger opportunities.
Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ad-
miral Farragut, Munsey, the great Metho-

that the mail is carried in saddle-bags thrown across a.
mpossil

horse, there being no roads over which wagons can pass all through the year. As it is impossible to travel more than
fifty miles a day, a man leaves the town at the terminal of the railroad and travels twenty-five miles. At this point be is
met by a man who has come a distance of twenty-five miles from the mountains. They exchange saddle-bags of mail,.
and each returns to his starting place, distributing the mail at the several post-offices he passes.

QUEEN CATHARINE'S LAND

dist orator of Baltimore, are examples of
the sterling abilities of the mountain
people."

The mountaineer is bound to
have whiskey even if he has to make
it with an iron kettle, a half barrel
upturned over it, and a small copper
tube for condensation. This copper
tube is the part the revenue officers
destroy when "breaking up a still."

They pick it full of holes, using a
pick that is called a "little devil."
That these stills are numerous is
illustrated by the story of a reve-
nue officer who alighted at a station
and wishing to find a government
still, accosted a native with, "My
friends, which road leads to the still?"
"Wal, stranger, take most eny
road and hit '11 bring you thar."

Queen Catharine's Land

By May Ellis Nichols

DAME Nature must have been
in a prodigal — or was it a reck-
less?— mood, when she fash-
ioned New York State ; certain it is
that, after completely encircling it
with natural gems, she seems to
have jumped up and spilled her re-
maining treasures, helter skelter,
out of her apron, here a vista, there
a mountain, now a long row of little
lakes like pearls on a string, the
whole so fascinating, so enchanting,
that you may look long and never
find another region of its size that
equals it in quiet lovliness.

Nor has this country all been
"spied out." It is full of delightful
surprises, by-ways in the usual
routes of travel, so that, should you
enter by Hendrick Hudson's door-
way in New York Harbor, and sail
up the Hudson past the pillared Pali-
sades, the blue-peaked Catskills and
hills, rolling to the scarcely less pic-
turesque Mohawk; should you con-
tinue to historic Lake George and
Lake Champlain ; should you push

on from there through the pine-
scented Adirondacks, past the siren
band of the Thousand Islands, till
borne on Erie's broad bosom you
reach the torrent of Niagara itself,
still something remains. There is a
beautiful valley far inland, as calm
and sweet and fairylike as the gar-
den of an enchanted palace and this
valley is "Queen Catharine's Land."

It is more than a century since
the vicissitudes of war first revealed
Catharine Valley to the white man.
In 1779, after the Massacre of Wy-
oming, General Sullivan marched
his army up the Susquehana on their
terrible mission of extermination,
fought the battle of Newtown, where
Elmira now stands, and from there
followed Catharine Creek till it emp-
tied into Seneca Lake.

It was the first day of September,
the very anniversary of that march,
that we stood on the hill, a mile
south-west of the village of Montour
Falls, and saw Catharine Valley
spread out below us. It extended

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

for miles, a mere strip of vivid
green between the deeper green of
the forest-covered hills that rise five
hundred feet on either side, while
back and forth, in and out, a flash-
ing silver line in the sunshine,
weaves Catharine Creek, threading
its way through the weeds and gay
marsh blossoms to the broader silver
expanse of Seneca Lake.

rine Creek stood the town of Catha-
rine Montour.

Catharine Montour, or Queen
Catharine, as she was called, was
one of the most romantic characters
in American history. She has been
the heroine of many a romance, and
the historian, as well as the novelist,
has sometimes allowed her to fire
his imagination. The authenticated

•

CATHARINE VALLEY

On our right, a line of trees fol-
lowed one of the gorges, which are
so common in this locality, and the
creek made a curve, as if to meet
its descending stream.4 This is Ha-
vana Glen, once the hiding and rally-
ing place of the Seneca Indians; in-
deed, one square opening in the
rocks is still called the "Council
Chamber." At the entrance of the
Hen, built on either side of Catha-

facts of her history are all too few.
She was the daughter of a French
Governor and the Indian Princess,
Margaret Montour, a granddaugh-
ter of Madam Montour, so famous
in early Pennsylvanian history, and,
if tradition can be credited, a great
granddaughter of the famous Fron-
tenace. It is certain that she in-
herited royal blood from the old
world as well as the new.

QUEEN CATHARINE'S LAND

COUNCIL CHAMBER, HAVANA GLEN

In her childhood she was cap-
tured by a war party of Senecas and
carried to this town three miles
south of Seneca Lake. When she
became a woman she married their
fiercest war-chief, Telenemut, and
after his death in battle, ruled the
tribe herself. She not only super-
intended the planting of grain and
raising of horses and cattle, but at-
tended the war councils of the Six
Nations and even accompanied some
of the chiefs to Philadelphia to lay
some Indian grievance before the
Continental Congress.

There are many stories of the
firmness and wisdom with which she
ruled her treacherous, vacillating
people. Those who saw her told
much of her physical charms, her
great lustrous eyes, her hair, like
the purple grape in color, but silky
and fine, the straight sensitive nose
and full curved lips ; but, most of
all, the sweet voice and dignity of
bearing, well becoming a queen.
She spoke French and English as

well as several Indian dialects, and
the idle beauties at Philadelphia
found her interesting as well as
amusing. They petted and flattered
her, and long years afterward, told
their grandchildren of the days be-
fore the Revolutionary War, when
they had entertained a real Indian
Queen.

When Sullivan's army drove her
people from their homes and de-
stroyed their village, she fled to Ft.
Niagara and spent the winter of
1779 there, as a prisoner. She was
treated with respect and considera-
tion by the soldiers, but after her re-
lease, she crossed into Canada and
when last heard of in 1790, was still
living near the Canadian border.

She must have had a strong and
unusual personality to so impress
herself, not only on her savage tribe,
but on the surrounding region.
Catharine Valley has had many fair
women, but the only one whose
name is perpetuated is Catharine
Montour, the half-breed queen of a
practically extinct race. It is in-
teresting to notice how often her
name is on the lips of those who
have never so much as heard of her
existence. The township is named
Catharine — Cathareen the country
folk pronounce it — and there is
Catharine Valley and Catharine

CATHARINE CREEK

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Creek ; on the banks of the creek
is a dilapidated barn-like building,
once intended for school purposes,
that is interesting to us because it
is called "Queen Catharine's Hotel ;"
there is also a township named Mon-
tour, beside the waterfall called
Montour Falls and the village of the
same name.

We turned and looked far down
the valley to the south, where the
hills met in the blue haze. It was

MONTOUR FALLS

there Sullivan's men came down, but
not in the blue and gold of the Sep-
tember day; they were approaching
the very stronghold of the Senecas
and took up their line of march after
the sun had set. It was an unknown
country and the banks of the Catha-
rine Creek were an almost impassa-
ble swamp, a very slough of des:
pond to the heavy-laden, discour-
aged men. Together with the weary
pack-horses, loaded with ammuni-

tion and tent equipments, but all too
little provision, they floundered
along till midnight, almost forget-
ting their fear of ambuscade in the
present misery of the quagmire be-
neath their feet. "A march through
roads that cannot be described,"
wrote Major John Burrows in his
journal. "A most horrid, thick,
miry swamp," recorded another of-
ficer.

They spent the whole night strug-
gling, wading, floundering along,
with Catharine Creek apparently al-
ways in front of them. It turned
and doubled and impeded them as
if in alliance with their savage foes.
No one knows how many times
they crossed and recrossed it; some
say nine, some fifteen, some thirty
times. Now it is as merry a little
river as Dr. Van Dyke ever found
in his travels, and as we stood on its
bank and watched its current, it was
hard to believe that it was the same
stream that flouted and tormented
those disheartened men till some
were ready to lie down with their
exhausted horses and give up the
struggle. Indeed we found it so en-
ticing, as it rippled on its winding
course, that we yielded to its per-
suasion and followed along its
bank. In and out it went; the wil-
lows hung low, almost dipping their
slender branches in its waters, the
golden rod and purple asters nodded
to each other from either shore, the
bright flecks of sunshine showed the
stones in its bed and all the time it
was humming the cheeriest of little
songs. How we did wish we could
understand what it was saying, for
surely it must often babble of those
old days when Queen Catharine's
lodge stood on its bank and her
Seneca husband guided his birch
canoe down its coarse to the lake
three miles away.

QUEEN CATHARINE'S LAND

But if Catharine Creek keeps its
secrets, a record, though a more pro-
saic one, remains. Before the days
of daily papers, every one kept a
journal and some of those written
by Sullivan's soldiers have been
carefully preserved. Quaint old rec-
ords they are with here and there
a refreshing touch of humor. Major
Jeremiah Fogg, for instance, de-
serves a more fitting name, for he
lights up his accounts by many
vivid bits of description. He tells
us, among other things, that "the
surrounding country was as uneven
as a sea in the tempest" and was
seamed by "prodigious gullies."

The army spent the second of Sep-
tember in camp and evidently they
took the opportunity to write up
their journals. They all record the
terrors of the night in Bear Swamp
and the day's rest at Catharine's
town. Each one varies the name to
suit his individual taste. They write
it Katareen's Town, French Cath-
rene, Queen Catharene's Castle,
French Catherone's Town and Cheo-
quock, and there are almost as many
ways of spelling Catharine as there
are writers. The Indian name of the
village was Sheoquoga.

We learn from these journals that
the village consisted of forty or
fifty houses and as each house was
a "long house/' that is built to shel-
ter five or six families, there must
have been several hundred Indians
in the settlement. These houses
were not rude wigwams of bark or
skins stretched on poles, but sub-
stantial dwellings : indeed, we are
told that "the Queen's Palace was
.a gambril ruft house about 30 feet
long and 18 feet wide." Neither was
the village surrounded by forests
as we might imagine, but by fields
of corn and by "apple and peach
trees fruited deep."

. The soldiers heard the barking of
dogs as they approached and the
fires were still burning, but the town
was deserted except for one old
squaw, too feeble to go with the
others. She was a veritable "find"
for the annalists and no one who
brought his record down to Septem-
ber second failed to use her as ma-
terial. Major Fogg dubbed her
"Madam Sacho," and said she was
a "full-blooded, antediluvian hag."
They made various guesses as to
her age and Lieutenant Beatty, who
evidently believed "a woman is as
old as she looks," boldly pronounced
her to be a hundred and twenty
years old at least. They treated her
kindly, however, building a little
hut for her in a secluded place and
leaving her some bacon, a bag of
meal and some of their few remain-
ing biscuits, though not an officer
under the rank of a field officer had
tasted any since leaving Tioga. The
same Lieutenant Beatty remarks, a
little grudgingly perhaps, "I sup-
pose now she will live in splendor."

In turn she told them, and truth-
fully, as fthey afterward learned,
that Col. Butler had been there a
few days before stirring up the tribe;
that the women had begged to re-
main in their homes, but had not
been permitted to do so for fear they
would be captured and held as hos-
tages ; that they had been sent away
in the morning, but that the braves
had waited till they could hear the
march of the army and the voices
of the soldiers.

Some say that Queen Catharine
lingered behind and hid under the
"Rushing Waters" that are now
called for her, Montour Falls. They
may be seen from almost any point
in the village, rushing from one of
Major Fogg's "prodigious gullies."
The stream starts high up in the

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

western hill and, reaching its brink
two hundred feet above the town,
plunges down only to rise again half
its height in mist that catches the
sunlight and reflects all the rain-
bow's tints. When it first flashed
its spray before the dazzled eyes of
Sullivan's soldiers, one of them, at
least, believed it to be the great
Niagara of which he had heard the
trappers tell. If you creep close
to the edge you can see the cavern
under the fall where the fugitive
queen concealed herself, or rather, —
though not quite the same thing to
be sure — where tradition says she
was hidden.

But the sun was already setting
on the western hill, for, alas, it does
not stand still even in this enchanted
land, and we reluctantly turned from
the site of Queen Catharine's town
to follow a little further the path
she took when she bade a last fare-
well to the village that still bears
her name. On the one side, the
mountains rose precipitously two

hundred feet from the well-trodden
road; on the other side, Catharine
Creek ever wound in and out, as if
guiding us to the broader pathway
down which Queen Catharine disap-
peared. At last Seneca Lake lay
before us, like a second heaven with
its white mass of reflected clouds.

We looked far down its smooth ex-
panse till the blue hills were blurred
into the rosy haze of the September
sunset, and, as we gazed, a vision
came of that September dawn, more
than a century ago. We seem to
hear the dirge of a departing race.
From the southern shore a flotilla of
canoes shot out and, leading them
in the royal canoe, the eagle's feath-
ers in her hair, the robes of beaver
and martin beneath her feet, Queen
Catharine sat, a fugitive but still a
queen, like Arthur of old "going a
long way," while in fancy, we stood
as stood Sir Bedivere,

"Revolving many memories, till the hull
Looked one black dot against the verge

of dawn
And on the mere the wailing died away."

Understanding

By Charlotte Becker

One only heard the beating rain,
The low wind stir the grass,

A vagrant bee drone drowsily,
A lilting robin pass.

But one heard, laughing from the sky,
And singing from the sod,

And whispering from each least thing,
The messages of God !

Firft Admiral of New England

By Alexander Cameron

WITH the rise of the Tudors in
England, her navy took defi-
nite shape and became of ac-
knowledged importance. It is true
she had possessed at various times
quite formidable fleets. Three hun-
dred years earlier, under the great
Plantagnet, two hundred vessels
had been used to convey her army
to the crusade in the Holy Land,
and for generations the ceasless
wars between France and England
had necessitated some means of
transporting soldiers across the
Channel. But it was due to the
first Tudor king that any amount
of thought was given to systemati-
cally strengthening the very small
collection of miscellaneous vessels
that by courtesy might be consid-
ered the Royal Navy of England.

In those early days England did not
dream of becoming the successful
rival of Spain, who was unquestion-
ably the mistress of the seas, but her
attempt at a navy gave Bartholomew,
the younger brother of Columbus,
when efforts elsewhere had been fu-
tile, the suggestion to appeal to Henry
the Seventh to furnish ships and
money for the Cathay project. The
king turned a deaf ear to his entreat-
ies and thus lost to England the
opportunity of discovery that finally
became the glory of Spain. Columbus,
in pursuing the theory of the shorter
route to Cathay, discovered a world
of which he had never dreamed and
5i

the magnitude of his discovery he
never realized. No more did Europe.
For over a century the belief in the
existence of the passage that led di-
rectly to the treasures of the East was
unshaken, and even in the face of ac-
cumulating testimony that overthrew
the old theory, the world was slow to
learn that it was America, not China,
that had been discovered.

During these years England forged
steadily ahead; her power upon the
sea was growing. Henry the Eighth
is accredited with planning a method-
ical arrangement for the government
of the navy, and he could boast four
men-of-war and fifty-three other ves-
sels, in all. Under his daughter,
Mary, the navy was permitted to go
to ruin ; her reign, however, was
short, and when the last of the Tu-
dors wielded the sceptre, Elizabeth's
navy was one to be feared, not on ac-
count of the number or superiority of
her vessels, but in the quality of the
men who manned them, winning for
her the proud title of "Restorer of
Naval Power and Sovereign of the
Northern Seas." Her dauntless sea-
men were inspired by four motives,
war, discovery, commerce, and colo-
nization. Howard, Drake, Hawkins,
Raleigh, Frobisher, each have added
to England's fame, while the united
efforts of all made possible the defeat
of the Armada. Their life work
called forth some of the noblest quali-
ties of manhood, for it was an age of

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

fearlessness and adventure, an age of
ambition and courage, of steadfast-
ness and patient endurance, this gold-
en age of Elizabeth. True, these
men had many faults, but they were
heroes, and the age of hero-worship-
pers has never passed. If we admit
that a child's education begins a
hundred years before he is born,
then we must look to many in-
fluences such as these, to appreciate
the forces that shaped the life of one
man and the destiny of a continent.

At Willoughby, in the county of
Lincoln, there lived a well-to-do
farmer by the name of George Smith,
to whom was born in the year 1579 a
child to be known to future genera-
tions by the prosaic name of John
Smith ; but the name is the only thing
about him that is prosaic, for his was
a life full of stirring events, crowned
by noble achievement. As a child he
dreamed dreams, the life upon the sea
attracted him and, fired by the exam-
ple of the men of his day whose ad-
ventures were repeated again and
again in every home in England, he
ran away from the merchant of Lynn
to whom he had been apprenticed
since his father's death, and at the age
of fifteen went to France in attend-
ance on Lord Willoughby's second
son, and there he first began to learn
the life of a soldier. But it was not
long ere Henry of Navarre agreed to
the Peace of the League, against
which he had struggled for so many
years, and civil war was at an end in
France. Smith then drifted to. the
Low Countries, where for four years
he fought for the Protestant cause
before he returned to his old home in
Lincolnshire.

No doubt he became the hero of

the hour, but the interested rustics
evidently wearied him, for, as he ex-
presses it, he was "glutted with too
much company," so with one servant
he retired to the woods, where "by a
faire brooke he built himself a pavil-
lion of boughs;" here, with the exer-
cise of horse, lance, and ring, and
with two books, "Marcus Aurelius
and Macheavillie's Arte of Warre,"
he passed some little time in rest and
study. But such a spirit as Smith's
could not remain long inactive; he
was only nineteen, with all the inex-
perience, over-confidence, and enthu-
siasm of youth. The thought of the
slaughtered Christians appealed to the
poetic and chivalrous side of his na-
ture, and he determined to try his for-
tunes against the Turks.

His first experience was to make the
acquaintance of some Frenchmen, who,
seeing in him an easy victim, repre-
sented themselves as also eager to
fight the Turks and begged him to
join their party; when they lured him
to France they promptly robbed him
and left him to make his way as best
he could to Marseilles, where he took
ship for Italy. The other passengers
were all Roman Catholics on their
way to the Eternal City, and when a
severe storm arose and he was discov-
ered to be the only Protestant aboard,
it was decided to follow the example
of the ancient mariners of Joppa, and
cast the offender into the sea. No
great fish was provided for his trans-
portation, but he was not far distant
from the deserted little island of St.
Mary's, and being an expert swimmer
reached the shore. Fortunately in
this uninhabited spot he was destined
to remain only twenty-four hours be-
fore a passing French vessel was

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

hailed and took him on board; then
came a cruise in the Mediterranean,
terminating in a fight with a Venetian
vessel, more than twice the size of the
French, in which the latter was victo-
rious, and as Smith was conspicuous
for his valor, he obtained a corre-
sponding share of the spoils.

Meanwhile the armies of Rodolph
of Germany were waging war with
the Turks under the Third Mahomet.
Smith after reaching Italy, made a
leisurely journey to Gratz in Styria,
the residence of Ferdinand, Archduke
of Austria, afterwards Emperor of
Germany. Here he was soon intro-
duced to several persons of distinc-
tion in the imperial army and was for-
tunate in attaching himself to the staff
of the Earl of Meldritch, a colonel of
cavalry. The year 1601 was nearly
closed, and the advantage of the con-
flict had so far been with the Turk.
Hungary had been the battlefield, and
many of the strongest fortresses were
taken, and the crescent was waving
triumphant as far even as Canissia
on the border of Styria. This was no
time for one who merely sought the
spoils of war to join the Christians,
yet, young as he was, our soldier of
fortune offered his free lance with
so much heartiness and such evident
love of the science of war, that he at-
tracted the attention of those highest
in command, who listened to his va-
rious plans for conducting the cam-
paign with a sense of good-natured
amusement, that quickly gave place
to the feeling that here might be a
budding genius. And so it proved.

The Turks had moved on as far as
Olympach and were besieging that
important place with twenty thousand
men. Baron Kisell, with the cavalry

of Meldritch, ten thousand men in all,
had gone to the relief of Lord Ebers-
baught, but unless the besieged and
the relieving party could act in unison
nothing could be effected. Smith
told Kisell that one day he had dis-
cussed with Lord Ebersbaught the
subject of telegraphing by means of
torches, a practice that had once been
used by the ancient Greeks and Ro-
mans. Permission was given him to
attempt this means of communication,
and that night on the mountain,
Smith built three fire signals to
which Ebersbaught, keenly on the alert
for aid, replied in like fashion. The
message was carefully spelled out, the
number of torches displayed at one
time corresponding to the letter of the
alphabet. "On — Thursday — night
— I — will — charge — on — the —
east — at — the — alarm — sally —
you," and Lord Ebersbaught an-
swered: "I — will."

Smith unfolded another plan to di-
vide the strength of the Turks and to
render half their force useless. The
Turkish army lay on both sides of the
river; behind one of these divisions
he arranged at stated intervals "two
or three thousand pieces of match,''
connected by lines, and "armed with
powder," this was to be fired before
the alarm and would thus seem so
many musketeers. This manoeuvre
kept half of the Turks chained to the
spot, where they awaited in vain the
full charge of Kisell's forces, while
Ebersbaught made a successful sally
from the town. The Turks were
slain in great numbers and the siege
was raised. Smith received well-
earned honor and reward, and was
given a command of two hundred and
fifty horse, and, though but twenty

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

years old, he bad won his way to
recognition with only his clear intel-
lect, undaunted bravery, and single-
heartedness of purpose.

His next commendable plan was the
adoption of the "Fiery Dragon,"
round earthen pots filled with gun-
powder and bullets ; these bombs were
thrown into the besieged town of
Alba Regalls with great effect, not
only slaughtering the Turks, but set-
ting the place on fire. Finally this
stronghold fell. The campaign was
pressed with unremitting zeal till the
Christians were before the walls of
Regall, a city of the mountains which
was regarded by the Turks as abso-
lutely impregnable. Meldritch was
determined upon its fall, and his can-
non were dragged through almost in-
accessible passes and his troops sta-
tioned on the table-land of the moun-
tain. Regall, confident in its own
strength, laughed at the slow steady
efforts of the besiegers and tauntingly
sent a challenge from Lord Turbishaw
to the Earl of Meldritch, stating that
as the Turks feared that the Chris-
tians would have no opportunity of
affording amusement to the ladies,
they begged that one of their captains
would come forth to single combat,
the victor to possess the head, the
horse and the armor of the van-
quished. Such eagerness to accept
prevailed among the Christians that
the choice had to be made by lot, and
John Smith was the lucky man. On
the appointed day the Turks, with
their fair ladies, took an advantageous
position on the walls of Regall, while
on the table-land was drawn up the
Christian army, displaying every ban-
ner and holiday device that was theirs.
It was all conducted in the manner of

a hundred years before, Turbishaw,
gorgeous in armor, as the chal-
lenger, arriving first on the field,
preceded by a 'noise of howboys to
announce his coming." "On his
shoulders were fixed a paire of great
wings compacted of eagle's feathers,
within a ridge of silver, richly gar-
nished with gold and precious stones. '*
Smith was dressed very simply, but
his old training in the woods of Lin-
colnshire with horse, lance and ring
gave him such skill that at the first
encounter his lance pierced the eye
and penetrated to the brain of Lord
Turbishaw, before that nobleman
could inflict upon him a single blow.
The intended amusement for the
Turkish ladies was turned to bitter
lamentations when the body of the
commander of Regall was laid at
their feet.

But the fury of Grualgo, Turbi-
shaw's clearest friend, knew no bounds
and breathing vengeance against
Smith, he sent him a challenge, offer-
ing his own head to win back that of
Turbishaw. Smith gladly accepted
his offer and the next day the combat
was repeated. The result was defeat
for Grualgo ; his head was the forfeit,
and again Regall's gates opened to
receive the body of her dead cham-
pion.

Nothing more was heard from the
city suggesting further amusements,
but after some little time Smith him-
self took the initiative and sent a most
courteous message, addressed to the
ladies of Regall, saying that he would
be delighted to return to them the
heads of their knights, and his own,
as well, if they would send a cham-
pion to win the prize. A third time
the contest of valor was made and a

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

third time Smith was successful, and
Mulgro met the same fate that had
befallen his two friends.

But individual acts of prowess, al-
though very cheering to the arm},
could accomplish nothing in the face
of the overpowering force of Crim
Tartars the Christians were soon to
meet in November, 1602, in Rothen-
thurm, a pass in Transylvania. There
they were utterly defeated and the
victor of Regall was left wounded on
the field. His rich dress saved him.
however, for it argued he would be
worth a ransom. His wounds were
carefully tended and he was bought
as a slave by Bashaw Bogall, who
destined him as a present to his "faire
mistresse," Charatza Tragabigzanda,
and by "twentie and twentie chained
by the neckes" the conquered Chris-
tians marched to Constantinople.
Charatza could speak Italian ; Smith
had also acquired some familiarity
with that language, and his dignity,
bearing and accomplishments attracted
the "faire mistresse," who, as Smith
expresses it, showed him "compas-
sion." But the pity soon grew to
love, and fearful lest her mother
should discover it, she appealed to her
brother, Timour Bashaw, of Nal-
britz, on the Don, in Tartary,
to take Smith under his protec-
tion and treat him as an honored
prisoner of war. Charatza was still
under the control of her mother
and not yet free to act as she chose,
but, alas, for her well-laid plans. In
a letter to her brother her interest in
the prisoner was too evident, her se-
cret was revealed, and the haughty
Turk, while accepting Smith, deter-
mined to countenance no such love af-
fair on the part of his sister. Ac-

cordingly, for about six months,
Smith's life was as hard as the
Bashaw could devise. He was treated
worse than the lowest slave, and every
time the Bashaw visited his grange
where Smith was at work, he never
failed to administer a flogging to his
sister's unhappy lover. But Smith
was not the kind of man to endure
bondage longer than was absolutely
necessary. He had talked of escape
to the other prisoners, but found them
useless as confederates ; the difficulties
were too many, their spirits too
crushed ; so with a patient acceptance
of the inevitable present he abided his
time.

One day when Smith was doing his
appointed work of thrashing corn in
rather a secluded place, the Bashaw
approached alone on horseback. Dis-
mounting, he advanced to his prisoner
and as usual struck him. Quick as a
flash the heavy flail descended on the
Bashaw's head. The long-suffering
prisoner had turned, and before the
strong arms ceased their blows the
brother of Charatza was dead. Smith
then stripped the body and hid it and
his own clothes under the straw; he
could not unfasten the heavy iron
ring, the mark of slavery, from about
his neck, but clothed as a Turkish
Bashaw and mounted on a Turkish
horse, he made a wild dash for the
desert and for liberty. It was a des-
perate flight; for eighteen or twenty
days he rode for life, till he reached
Ecopolis, a fort on the Don held by
the Russians. Here was safety and
protection. The governor received him
gladly, took off his irons and treated
him most kindly; he was also pre-
sented to the Lady Callamata, prob-
ably the governor's wife, who "largely

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

supplied all his wants," the governor,
moreover, gave him the protection of
a convoy to Transylvania. There he
met a royal welcome, many of his old
friends, his colonel, the Earl of Mel-
dritch, and his general, Prince Sigis-
mundi, who had mourned for him as
dead. The Prince, in • memory of
Regall, gave him a grant of arms
(three Turks heads) and five hundred
ducats of gold. Smith's cup of hap-
piness was full ; as he expresses it in
his own words, he was "glutted with
content and neere drowned with
joy."

A few more experiences, this time
in Northern Africa and the Canary
Islands, and then Smith set his face
towards home. At the time of his
return, in 1604, England was eagerly
and hopefully determined to colonize
in the New World with the ultimate
view to a plentiful increase of gold
for the mother country. The Span-
iards had reaped such a harvest from
Peru, Bolivia and Mexico, why
should not England find correspond-
ing wealth in Virginia? So far
Smith had been a free lance, he had
fought for the pure love of adventure,
but now, on his return home, patriot-
ism, that had lain dormant, stirred
within him, and it was to England
and for England's glory that the re-
mainder of his life was given.

Both the Virginia and Plymouth
Companies were busy fitting out ex-
peditions to colonize. Smith threw
himself heart and soul into the inter-
ests of the former, assisting in the
work .as much as lay in his power and
investing £500 as a stockholder.
The affairs of this company were gov-
erned by thirteen men appointed by
the Crown. They selected the local

council for each colony, which chose
its own president from among its
members. With great lack of wis-
dom the names of the Council were
kept a profound secret; the box of
instructions, though given in London,
was not to be opened till the little
colony of one hundred and five men
had reached the New World. In
ignorance of who was in command,
during the long months of the voy-
age, dissensions broke out, and
Smith, suspected of being one of the
leaders, was put in chains. But the
man who had endured slavery in Tar-
tary wasted no force in useless fret-
ting, but accepted the humiliating,
though temporary, condition with
calm patience, for in the young colony
he knew that every strong arm would
be of value and his freedom would
soon come.

They had left England on Decem-
ber 19th, 1606, and on the following
23rd of April, after a voyage of more
than four months, the three little ves-
sels were finally driven by a severe
storm into Chesapeake Bay, and the
point of land at which they touched
was so refreshing to the weary trav-
ellers that, to give expression to their
satisfaction, they called it Point Com-
fort. The box of instructions was
then opened and the seven following
men found appointed : Newport,
Wingfield, Martin, Smith, Gosnold,
Ratcliffe, and Kendall. Smith being
in chains was excluded, and the Coun-
cil elected Wingfield as president.
They tarried here but a short time
before exploring Powhatan's river, as
the Indians called it, but which they
named the James, in honor of the
King, and established themselves on
May 13, 1607, on the site which they

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

called Jamestown. In some respects
the position was favorable, being a
peninsula two and one-half miles
long, three-quarters of a mile in
breadth, and with a strip of land fifty
feet wide connecting it with the main-
land. Upon this isthmus they built
the block house. The harbor, with its
six fathoms depth, was all that could
be desired, but unfortunately the land
was low, marshy, and subject at high
tide to encroachments from the river,
and malaria lurked in the air.

Though still regarded as a prisoner,
Smith, was entirely too necessary a
man to the success of the enterprise
not to be given his personal liberty.
Soon Newport with twenty others, in-
cluding Smith, explored the James
River to its falls, where Richmond
now stands, the main object being to
find the lake or channel that led to
Cathay, at the same time to visit the
mighty Powhatan, and with numerous
gifts endeavor to propitiate the
Indians to the presence of the
Europeans. The great chief of Vir-
ginia accepted the gifts, professed
friendship, but determined upon
treachery. Newport managed the ex-
pedition well, but it is needless to say
no short cut to Cathay was discov-
ered, and the Indians proving quite
unfriendly he thought it best to re-
turn to Jamestown. Soon the infant
colony was surrounded by four hun-
dred savages, and it was necessary to
disperse them by means of shells from
the boats. By the time peace was re-
stored, the ships were ready to return
to England, and Wingfield concluded
it was an excellent opportunity to get
rid of his difficult associate, so he
decided to accuse Smith of mutiny
and let him be tried before an English

court." Smith forced his opponent's
hand and demanded an immediate
trial on Virginia soil, at which
trial he was unanimously acquitted
and Wingfield ordered to pay £200
damages, which sentence did not tend
to endear Smith to the heart of the
president.

Smith was now admitted to his
rightful place as a member of the
Council, and through the influence of
the Rev. Robert Hunt, temporary
peace was established. Soon New-
port returned with the ships to Eng-
land to report the condition of the
colony to the London Company and
to await further instructions. The
fine of £200 was chiefly in stores
and clothing, and was used by Smith
to relieve the wretched condition of
the colonists. The excessive heat,
miserable food, and severe labors
were proving fatal to European
health; the summer dragged along,
fifty died, and the rest were ill, many
too ill to work. The Indians were
restless and showed daily signs of
hostility. Wingfield, who desired
only the honors of office and courted
no such dangers as were imminent,
decided to betake himself, with a few
chosen friends, quietly home in the
pinnace, and, that Smith might not
be grieved at the parting, they did not
take him into their confidence. When
he accidentally heard of their pro-
jected trip, he laid a detaining hand
upon the president, and when, a few
months later, in Smith's absence on
the Chickahominy expedition, a sec-
ond attempt at flight was made, Rat-
cliffe, who was now elected to the
presidency which Smith had declined,
kept Wingfield a prisoner in the
pinnace, shot his confederate Ken-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

dall, and ordered to be unloaded from
the boat the provisions Smith had with
such infinite, pains secured from the
Indians, and that were intended to
last the mere handful of colonists
throughout the winter.

There is another and a darker tale
connected with the shooting of Ken-
dall. It was a well-known fact that
Spain, uneasy at England's success
upon the seas, was even more uneasy
at the thought of her establishing a
colony in the New World. Had not
his holiness Pope Alexander VI., a
native of Arragon, given all this
western land of North America to
their Most Christian Majesties Ferdi-
nand and Isabella and to their heirs
forever, and was the heretic to plant
his foot upon these Western shores:
Therefore the colony was to be
watched closely, and Kendall is ac-
credited with being the paid agent of
Spain. Wingfield states that he him-
self was accused of conspiracy with
Spain and his papers were searched,
but no treasonable evidence found.
The Spanish Ambassador Zuhiga
wrote to Philip in September, 1607,
that he had secured a "confidential
person" in the London Council and
some one was also a spy in the colony.
No wonder summary action was taken
upon Kendall. The situation was not
a happy one ; there was treachery to
guard against from Spain ; there was
a constant demand from the London
Company for either the gold of
America or the discovery of a passage
by sea to the gold of China; the col-
onists had but little food ; there were
hostile savages on every side; those
on whom the government of the col-
ony depended were jealous of each
other, and, with the exception of

Smith, possessed very little ability to
meet the strenuous necessities of the
times; worst of all the majority of
the colonists were totally unfit for the
difficulties of the life before them.

Meanwhile, thinking the colony
comparatively quiet, for a time at
least, Smith had, with a small party,
undertaken the trip up the Chicka-
hominy for the purpose of explora-
tion. After a journey of seventy
miles Smith left most of the men in
the larger boat, and taking with him in
a canoe two of his friends and an
Indian went a little further up the
stream. Then, leaving the canoe in
the charge of the two white men with
positive instructions not to come
ashore, Smith plunged into the wilder-
ness with the Indian guide. In a very
short time, to his perfect amazement,
he saw behind every tree there lurked
a red skin, and treachery was in the
air. Seizing his guide, he used his
body as a shield from the arrows of
the hostile Indians, and commenced
backing towards the river and the
canoe, but he dared not look over his
shoulder to watch his steps, and soon
he found himself sinking into a
morass. It was a wretched predica-
ment ; surrender was the only sensible
course, and Smith was sensible. So
with a good grace he yielded to the
unavoidable and permitted himself to
be taken prisoner without sign of fear.
Opechancanough, the brother of Pow-
hatan, to whom he had surrendered,
decided to put the courage of the white
brave to the test. He was first fas-
tened to a tree and arrows shot pain-
fully near him, to prove his nerve.
The chief gloated over the capture of
so great a "prince" and had him borne
in state from village to village, where

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

for three days the wildest kind of
orgies imaginable were held over the
captive. His high courage never
flinched, and even as a prisoner he
contrived to impress his foes with the
superiority of the white race. In-
timidations had availed nothing, per-
chance bribery might win this fearless
stranger ; he was offered "life, liberty,
land, and women" if only he would
show them how to get possession of
Jamestown. He would not even con-
sider the suggestion, though if he re-
fused he might have to endure the
torture, an art of which the Indians
were past masters, yet he scorned to
betray the men whose necessities and
dangers had lain so near his heart.
The Indians, however, were in no un-
due haste to kill the pale face ; he had
taught them the use of his compass,
he should also instruct them in the
use of his firearms. Smith gravelv
advised them to plant the gunpowder
in order that they might have a crop
next year, and in showing them the
use of his pistol was so clumsy as to
break it. Thus their pursuit of
knowledge in that direction was ar-
rested.

The next destination of the cap-
tive was Werowocomico, the capital
of Powhatan. Two hundred warriors
were there assembled and a large
retinue of women, whose custom it
was to participate in their councils.
That Smith was regarded as no mean
prize was evidenced even in trifles,
for no less a personage than the
Queen of Apamattuck was ordered to
serve him. He was provided with
food; and then the long consultation
of the chiefs began, which finally ter-
minated in the sentence that by lot his

fate was to be decided. And Fate de-
creed death.

A little child with wide open eyes
was watching the scene with eager
anxiety. There he lay bound and
helpless, that wonderful pale-faced
chief who had sailed far over the
seas from another world, a world that
was a veritable fairy-land to the little
princess. Had she not seen the treas-
ures he had brought, bells and beads,
hobby horses, and musical instru-
ments, and was this glorious being to
be slain before her very eyes, and
she utter no protest? She was only
between ten and twelve years of age,
yet the child plead with her father,
the mighty Powhatan, to spare the
life of the captive. The powerful
chief thrust his little daughter aside
and the simple preparations were
made. Two great stones were ar-
ranged to pillow the head of the vic-
tim, Smith was eagerly dragged to the
spot, and the clubs of the warriors
raised to beat out his brains, when
with a child's impetuosity and a
woman's wisdom the dauntless little

"Pocahontas, the King's dearest daughter,
when no entreaty could prevail, got his
head in her arms and laid her own upon
his to save him from death; whereat the
Emperor was content he should live to
make him hatchets and her bells, beads,
etc."

Thus Powhatan pictured the future
life of Smith, and two days later
adopted him as his son. After a few
days had elapsed Smith was allowed
to return to Jamestown, accompanied
by an Indian escort, which was to
bring back the guns and grindstone,
besides the vprious trinkets promi.'xd
Powhatan and others of the tribe.
The grindstone was so heavy and the

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

gun, which had been fired for their
benefit, terrified them so, that both
those treasures were left behind in
Jamestown.

About six weeks had elapsed since
Smith left the settlement and again
he found the malcontents, headed this
time by Ratclifre:, ready to flee. The
lazy, shiftless men, with broken for-
tunes, who left England on a fruitless
quest for gold, had no mind to endure
the privation of the life before them.
The few fortunate ones who could
have fled would gladly have loaded
the pinnace with provisions and
sailed away, leaving their less fortu-
nate comrades to die of starvation or
be massacred by the Indians, but
Smith inexorably held them to their
duty. The power of his presence was
so great they dared not disobey him.
So they plotted against him, accusing
him of being responsible for the
death of the two men who had been
left in the canoe, and although such a
foolish accusation came to naught, for
the men could easily have escaced
had they but remained in the canoe
and followed Smith's instructions, he
was held a prisoner. Luckily at this
juncture Newport returned from Eng-
land and liberated both Smith and
Wingfield.

The other members of the council
became jealous of the regard the In-
dians had shown for Smith, for Pow-
hatan had created him a Werowance,
or chief of the tribe. Smith under-
stood the Indian nature as did none
of his contemporaries, moreover he
possessed the traits the Indians most
admired : cool intrepidity, patience
and the cleverness to outwit them.
Powhatan was a wily politician, get-
ting the better of the whites in nearly

every dealing with them. Smith
alone was his superior and the means
of saving the infant colony from utter
annihilation. Moreover, in Pocahon-
tas, Smith had a powerful ally. Re-
peatedly she visited Jamestown, fas-
cinated by the strange sights she saw
there, and bringing back with her on
each occasion liberal supplies of pro-
visions. But the colonists, most of
them careless and self-indulgent,
never seemed to appreciate the situa-
tion. Smith was giving his all, "his
goods he spent, his honor, his faith
and his sure intent — but 'twas not
in the least what these men had meant
— they did not understand."

The winter of 1607-8 was severely
cold; the great granaries Smith had
built, and by tact and diplomacy in
trading with the Indians had suc-
ceeded in filling with grain, were
totally destroyed by fire, as well as
the church and a number of the set-
tlers' homes. This was a terrible
calamity, and the exposure and priva-.
tion that followed caused the death of
one-half of the settlement. But in the
spring, with the help of one hundred
and twenty additional colonists, the
church, storehouses, dwellings and
fortifications were again rebuilt, and
none too soon, for though peace had
been concluded in the winter through
the efforts of Smith, yet the Indians
were once more growing restless and
began their depredations by stealing.
Smith was again to the fore and in
an expedition attacked and defeated
the Indians, taking eighteen prisoners.
Through them he learned of another
conspiracy in his own household, to
deliver him into the hands of the
Indians that they might put him to
death. His enemies in the colony, who

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

had brought many accusations against
him, finally asserted that he exceeded
his authority and they resorted to this
last cowardly expedient to get rid of
him. They could not see that he was
abundantly able to defend himself
from harm, while they without him
could scarcely preserve themselves
from utter destruction.

Sick at heart he left them for a
while, and that summer he spent in
making two exploring expeditions,
the first along the Potomac, the sec-
ond to the mouth of the Susquehanna.
He found no gold for the London
Company, but he made a close study
of the Indian life and also drew up a
map of Chesapeake Bay and its trib-
utaries, an invaluable addition to the
geography of the world. Meanwhile,
in the colony, RatclifTe had been de-
posed from the presidency and Smith
elected in his stead. It was an office
he had refused more than once and
had never desired. Nor on the other
hand did the majority of the colo-
nists, idle, dissipated, "unruly gal-
lants," as Smith termed them, desire
him, but they had begun to realize
that he was the only man who could
save them, that he alone could carry
them through the approaching winter.
Smith had a strong backing in thirty-
eight soldiers, the best men in the
colony, who remained through life his
staunch friends, and upon whom he
could absolutely rely; two of these
men had served under his command
in Rothenthurm. His first work as
president was to strengthen the fort,
rebuild many of the houses and es-
tablish a weekly drill. Soon a ves-
sel came from London bringing again
Newport and between seventy and
eighty additional colonists, and also

the most visionary, impracticable or-
ders from the home company. A
number of presents were prepared for
Powhatan, including a crown sent him
by King James, with a bedstead and
furnishings. The haughty Indian
objected to kneel to receive a crown
from England's King; was he not
already the ruler of Virginia in his
own right? Newport, under the in-
structions of the London Company,
was determined upon discovering
gold, and also upon finding Raleigh's
lost colony; both of these misdirected
efforts only exhausted the strength
of his men and accomplished nothing.
One of Smith's strongest points lay
in the fact that he was quick to recog-
nize actual conditions, while most of
his countrymen, either in Virginia or
London, clung to a theory and wasted
their energies in pursuing phantoms.
But the London stockholders must
get some return for all their outlay of
money, and the importance of the
very existence of the colony was lost
sight of in the lust for gold or its
equivalent. So Smith at this time,
much against his good judgment, was
obliged to take men from the im-
portant work of providing for the
coming winter, and by the orders from
London was forced to manufacture
what goods he could. Newport had
brought with him a few skilled work-
men, and the colonists learned amidst
the greatest difficulties to manufac-
ture glass, while others worked at tar,
pitch and soap ashes. And none
worked harder than Smith himself.
Meanwhile winter, with its usual
scarcity of food, was approaching,
and again Smith started on a forag-
ing expedition. But Powhatan had in-
fluenced his people not to trade, and

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

it was only by heeding the Emperor's
request that some carpenters be sent
to build a house for his fine bedstead
that Smith could succeed in bargain-
ing- for any grain. These carpenters
were Dutchmen, and thinking it would
be very unlikely that Smith could
keep the colony alive during the win-
ter, betrayed its weakness to Pow-
hatan in order to save themselves
from starvation. Feeling that now
Smith was in his power, Powhatan
determined to kill the one English-
man whom he feared. Smith's little
party after trading with Powhatan
was unable to leave that day, for the
tide was too low when the corn was
brought, and they suspected no
treachery. But early that night the
little maid Pocahontas made her way
to the English camp and told Smith
of her father's plan. Forewarned
was ever forearmed with him, and
again this Indian princess, though but
a child, saved his life and that of the
colony.

Still there was not enough corn and
Smith next tried trading with Ope-
chancanough. This mighty chief first
tried to entrap the white man and
then sought to kill hirn, but Smith
was too clever and succeeded in tak-
ing Opechancanough himself prisoner.
Upon his demand for corn it was
given and given in abundance, though
some of it, they discovered to their
sorrow, was poisoned. Next came
the news from Jamestown that two of
the Council, Scrivener and Gosnold,
were drowned, and Smith hastened
home with his provisions — and none
too soon, for a strong hand was needed
in the colony. Through the treachery
of the Dutchmen, the Indians were
no longer afraid, and were stealing

from the colony everything they could
lay hands on. Smith took command
of a small fighting party, killed six
or seven Indians, took a few prison-
ers, and burned several wigwams,
before he succeeded in intimidating
them. Peace was then established,
and when the spring time came Smith
ordered the first planting of corn that
was ever done by the English in
America. The live stock, too, was
more flourishing in this spring of
1609.

In England, affairs were taking a
new turn. The London Company had
been re-organized and several ves-
sels had set sail for Jamestown, bring-
ing the old enemies of Smith — Rat-
cliffe, Martin and Archer. Some con-
sider it an accident, others again
regard it as another plan to murder
him ; be that as it may, when Smith
was up the river one hundred miles
from Jamestown in an open boat, the
bag of gunpowder on which he slept
exploded. That he escaped death was
miraculous, but the magnificent con-
stitution of the man of thirty con-
quered the frightful burns, though he
was in no condition to remain and
endure the hardships in the colony.
He bade farewell to Percy, the new
governor, who had been elected by
the malcontents, and sailed for Eng-
land, October 4, 1609.

At last he was gone. Their ill-
disciplined, reckless natures would
brook no prudent restraint. Most of
them were so self-centred that they
considered only their own individual
hardships, with very little thought of
the good of the whole. John Smith
summed up the situation in one sen-
tence : "Nothing is to be expected
thence but by labor," and labor was

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

the last thing they desired. They
longed for gold. The wretched fail-
ure of the expeditions under both
Raleigh and Granville were caused
chiefly by the lack of food; Smith's
diplomatic treatment of the Indians
procured in a large measure both food
and peace. His time had been mainly
devoted to obtaining for them the ac-
tual necessities of life, but "the excel-
lent things he planned, the work of
his heart and hand, were given to the
men who did not know, and did not
understand." On that weary voyage
home, beyond the agony of his physi-
cal pain, was the consciousness that
though "some of him lived, yet most
of him had died" in that fair new land
of Virginia. His bright hopes, his
noble ambitions, his wise plans for the
success of Jamestown were slain by
the men who could not be made to
comprehend the condition and with
the remembrance of those former lost
colonies it was with a heavy heart he
crossed the seas. Three times Eng-
land had tried and failed, and if she
now retreated, Spain, her hated foe,
would unquestionably take possession
of North America, as she had of the
Southern continent.

Once again in England the report
he gave of the colony seriously
alarmed the London Company, and
provisions and the right kind of men
under Lord Delaware were sent as
soon as possible to the relief of James-
town, and none too soon did they ar-
rive, for the miserable, nearly fam-
ished sixty survivors of the terrible
winter known as "Starving Time,"
were all that remained of the prosper-
ous five hundred colonists that Smith
had left six months before. These
sixty wretched men, unable to face

further disaster, had broken up the
settlement, and in the pinnace had
determined to set sail for home, but
with abundant food and additional
men, hope revived, and Jamestown
again renewed the struggle for exist-
ence. Thus whether in Virginia, or
in London, John Smith's protecting
care was felt. Unknown to himself
his life work had been accomplished,
his impress had been made on Virginia
forever. Though only two years he had
been in the colony, he had given a
permanency to the settlement, and in
the eyes of both the Spaniards and the
Indians the position of England was
henceforth established.

The London Company did not relish
Smith's advice though they followed
it, and asked his counsel on more than
one occasion. His "rude answer/1
written several months before his re-
turn, stated the distressing condition
of the colony and in no honeyed
phrases had expressed his opinion of
the unreasonable demands of the com-
pany. Now his presence was a too
constant reminder of their mistakes
and they cared to meet him as little
as possible. Moreover, the men who
had been with him in Virginia, in
order to vindicate their own actions,
united in denunciations of his ; they
could prove nothing, but their tongues
created the fire, the smoke of which
for years enveloped him like a cloud,
that burned even more cruelly than
the gunpowder. He then wrote and
published a book entitled "The Pro-
ceedings & Accidents of the English
Colony in Virginia," a vindication
of his conduct there, and also "A
Map of Virginia," as well as books
and pamphlets on war, trade and
colonization.

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

He was not alone in the endeavor
to clear his name and reputation.
About this time, 1612, William Phet-
tiplace and Richard Potts, two of
the sixty survivors of that horrible
"Starving Time," published a state-
ment in which they speak of Smith.
These men did know and understand.
They were no politicians or office-
seekers; they desired no appointment
from the London Company; they
merely testified to the character of the
man as they had seen him day by
day.

"What shall I say? but this we lost
him (4th Oct. 1609) that in all his pro-
ceedings made justice his first guide & ex-
perience his second ; ever hating base-
ness, sloth, pride, & indignity more than
any dangers; that never allowed more for
himself than his souldiers with him; that
upon no danger would send them where he
would not lead them himself; that
would never see us want what he either
had, or could by any means get us; that
would rather want than borrow or starve
than not pay; that loved actions more
than words, & hated falsehood & cozen-
age than death;* whose adventures were
cur lives, & whose lives our deaths."

A noble vindication truly.

In 1614, restored in health, his de-
sire for an active life reasserted itself.
He would not return to Virginia; the
memory of wounds received in the
house of his friends could not so soon
be forgotten, but in the early spring
days, in command of two small ves-
sels, fitted out by some merchants of
London, he sailed north of his old
course to the land which he named
New England. This was no coloniz-
ing expedition ; perhaps Smith had
had enough of that at present; gold,
copper and whale fishing were his
chief objects. He made a careful sur-
vey of the coast, and finding neither

gold nor copper, he wisely took the
treasures within reach, fish and furs;
of the latter an immense quantity.
The map he made of New England
he presented to Prince Charles, after-
wards King Charles the First, who
graciously accepted the gift, but
changed many of the names. Thus,
the Massachusetts cape that in calling
Tragabigzanda Smith sought to per-
petuate the name of his old love in
Constantinople, the prince changed to
Cape Ann. Cape James he altered to
Cape Cod, and Accomack he changed
to Plymouth. The name the prince
left untouched was the group of three
islands off Cape Ann, which still is
known as the "Three Turks Heads,"
in memory of the three victories be-
fore the walls of Regall.

The following year, 161 5, he again
sailed for New England, and fell in
with what appeared to be a pirate ves-
sel, but these "pirates" were mostly
English soldiers who had been
stranded off the coast of Africa, had
stolen the vessel and were making for
home, and strange to say, many of
them had served under Smith in the
Transylvania wars. Smith was of-
fered the command of the vessel, but
it was for England that he labored and
not for his own personal gain, so he
declined the offer of his old soldiers
and sailed away to encounter two
other pirate ships, but from these he
skillfully escaped, only to be captured
by a French man of war. To be a
prisoner was no novelty for Smith, so
he philosophically spent his time in
writing an account of his voyages to
New England. When in France,
many came to his aid, and he mentions
Madame Chanoyes of Rochelle, with
deep gratitude.

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND

He returned home in December,
1615, and in June of the following year
a bit of his old life drifted back to
him. Six years had elapsed since he
had been in Virginia. Pocahontas,
then a child between ten and fourteen
years of age, now developed into a,
blooming woman, had become the
wife of John Rolfe, one of the colon-
ists who at this time had returned to
England with his bride. Upon learn-
ing this news, Smith in a long letter
to her Majesty Queen Anne told how
this Indian princess had repeatedly
saved the colony in Virginia and often
at the risk of her own life,

"the lady Pocahontas hazarded the beat-
ing out of her owne braines to save mine;
and not onely that, but so prevailed with
her father, that * * * had the salvages
not fed us we directly had starved/'

So Smith paved the way for her
favorable presentation at Court by
Lady Delaware. -

Poor Pocahontas, — her life had
been a sad one.. Her friendship for the
whites had antagonized her father
and she had been forced to make her
home with the King and Queen of the
Potomacks, who had treacherously
sold her to an Englishman, named
Argall, for the price of a copper
kettle, and she was carried a prisoner
to Jamestown, where the English held
her, their best friend, for a ransom,
demanding from her father all the
English fire arms in the possession of
the Indians. Powhatan refused. The
following year she had been married,
and three years later came with her
husband to visit England.

It was some time before Smith met
Pocahontas in person; she had been
told by his enemies that he was dead,
yet it is evident that she and her father

had their doubts of the truth of this,
for in her interview with Smith she
said,

"they did tell us alwaies you were dead,
and I knew no other till I came to
Plimouth, yet Powhatan did command
Vittamatomakkin to seeke you, and know
the truth, because your countriemen will
lie much."

Alas for the reputation of truth and
honor among the colonists; in Smith
alone the Indians had faith. And now
her joy in this interview was great.
"You did promise Powhatan what was
yours should bee his, and he the like to
you; you called him father being in his
land a stranger, and by the same reason
so must I doe you. * * * Were you
not afraid to come into my father's
countrie and caused feare in him and all
his people (but me) ; and feare you here
I should call you father; I tell you then
I will, and you shall call mee childe, and
so I will bee for ever and ever your coun-
trieman."

She had spoken truly, never again did
she see the dusky faces of her own
people; she had cast her lot with the
English and on English soil she was
to die, for when preparing to leave
for Virginia, before her ship sailed,
she fell a victim to consumption and
the gentle spirit of this princess passed
away. A little son she left behind
her, Thomas Rolfe, whose descend-
ants now are manifold in Virginia.
Though the English blood has pre-
dominated and has almost wiped away
all vestige of the Indian nature, yet
it is with pride they trace their ances-
try to this noble princess who so
bravely aided John Smith to accom-
plish his great work.

About 161 7, the Plymouth Com-
pany promised Smith the command
of twenty ships to sail the following
spring and created him for life

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Admiral of New England. But this
hope of colonizing was never to be
fulfilled. He offered to lead the Pil-
grims to the land of promise, but their
religious scruples hindered his desire.
He was a Protestant of the Church
of England, they, Puritans yearn-
ing for a freer land than England
in which to worship God. Smith's
record in Virginia showed that
a cross, no matter how rude, had
been erected by him in every place
he visited in the New World, and
the church at Jamestown bore witness
of his faith. On that ground alone
he was not permitted to be the captain
of the Mayflower, although he met
their ideals in every respect, as he was
"from debts, wine, dice, and oaths so
free." The Plymouth Company would
tolerate no adherent of the Church of
England as its founder in the new
world, and the New England of which
he had been created Admiral he was
never to see again, and he who was so
able with the sword at last fell back
upon the mightier weapon of the pen.
John Smith had never married ; no
home ties had been his ; only in early
childhood had he known his parents'
loving care ; when they had died he
eagerly fled from the apprenticeship
of the merchant of Lynn, and for years
his life had been that of the camp or
the sea — strenuous, full of difficulties
valiantly met and bravely conquered.
And now at the age of thirty-eight,
with fourteen years more of life before
him, the years that might have been
so full of active joy, were to hold for
him the bitter sickness of the heart
that is known as hope deferred. To a
man of his eager activities, with so
much work to be done, and he so com-
petent to do it, the restraint was

galling. But the full beauty of his
life shone forth when, frustrated in
every hope of employment, he did not
allow his own sorrows to fill his hori-
zon, but the clear eyes looked out
across the sea to that wondrous new
land that stood in need of him, and
with a generosity and patient helpful-
ness that was so characteristic, aided
others to accomplish the work he was
not permitted to do.

In his own words he writes towards
the end of his life

"Having been a slave to the Turks;
prisoner among the most barbarous sav-
ages; after my deliverance commonly dis-
covering & ranging those large rivers
and unknown nations with such a handful
of ignorant companions that the wiser
sort often gave me up for lost; always in
mutinies, wants, and miseries; blown up
with gunpowder; a long time a prisoner
among the French pirates, from whom
escaping in a little boat by myself, and
adrift all such a stormy winter night;
when their ships were split, miore than
100,000 lost which they had taken at sea,
and most of them drowned upon the Isle
of Rhe — not far from whence I was driven
on shore, in my little boat, &c. And
many a score of the worst winter months
have (I) lived in the fields; yet to have
lived near thirty seven years (1593 — 1630)
in the midst of wars, pestilence, and fam-
ine, by which many a hundred thousand
have died about me, and scarce five living
of them that went first with me to Vir-
ginia, and yet to see the fruits of my
labours that well begin to prosper
(though I have but my labour for my
pains) have I not much reason, both pri-
vately and publicly to acknowledge it,
and give God thanks?"

Of his voyages he spoke most lov-
ingly as his children, and from this
time on till his death in 1631, he occu-
pied his time in writing and distrib-
uting his writings through the south
and west of England. The earnest-
ness he displayed, the good sense and

FIRST ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 6'

practical views he advanced were
strong influences in mouldingthe lives
of many who were to make their home
in America, and he showed that not
"unruly gallants," but steadfast men
were needed. His writings possessed
in themselves no literary value; their
importance lay in their power to turn
the current of English thought in the
right channel. Never again did Eng-
land repeat her mistake of demanding
that her colonists be forced to become
manufacturers before they were capa-
ble of self-support or self-protection.
The old idea which had. hampered
former discoverers and had ruined
the success of other colonizers gradu-
ally gave way. Heretofore, unless the
leaders of an enterprise could return
with the material success of gold, or
find a passage to the riches of China,
all their other - achievements were
considered fruitless and many were
misunderstood, misjudged and ac-
counted failures. Smith was not only
to be the first to securely establish the
Anglo-Saxon race in America, but on
his return to London, out of his rich

experience and clearsightedness he
did a great work in helping to destroy
the false theories of the English peo-
ple and in preparing them to justly
estimate the goodly heritage that lay
before them.

And now, with three hundred years
between his life and ours, with a
truer perception and clearer vision we
can appreciate the debt we owe to him,
and this colonist of Virginia, this first
Admiral of New England could have
no fitter monument than the preserva-
tion of the old landmarks at James-
town. The tides wash over the penin-
sula as they did of old, and unless
means are soon taken to shut out the
river, the water will claim every foot
of this historic ground and all trace
of the first successful colony will be
swept away, and Jamestown remain
only a memory, while its restoration
would stand as a lasting expression of
a nation's gratitude to the man whose
indomitable courage, patience and
sagacity shone forth most brilliantly
when the future of that nation was
obscured in darkest clouds.

Noted Inns of New England

By Mary H. Northend

THE most modern hotels of the
present day cannot compare in
importance with the ordinaries
or inns that were opened in the early
settlement of our country, by order
of the General Court, in every town
under the direct jurisdiction of the
minister and the tithing man. These
worthies were given authority to en-
force the laws that prohibited the
inordinate sale of liquors. As the
inns were often required by law to
be situated next the meeting house,
many a pleasant nooning did our
ancestors spend before the hospi-
table fire; for scant comfort did the
footstoves of our forefathers' time
give during the long church services
in the winter months.

The landlords were men of dis-
tinction, being often the local magis-
trates, and the walls of the inn were
posted with items of interest, such
as notices of town meetings, elec-
tions, new laws, bills of sale and auc-
tions. With these exciting topics
before them, the men of the town
might sit before the great wood fire
and sip their toddy while discussing
the news.

The tavern in Ipswich was pre-
sided over in 1771 by no less a per-
sonage than the granddaughter of
Governor Endicott, thus showing
that some of the best families in New
England were represented in this
business, also showing that women
were appointed innkeepers in many
places by the advice of the General
Court, so well did they perform their
duties.

The business of inn-keeping was

not a particularly profitable one, as
the sale of liquor was at times pro-
hibited, no games were allowed, and
the sale of cakes and buns forbidden.
Small wonder that the town of New-
bury was fined twice in those early
days for inability to secure a person
to open an ordinary. These houses
were primitive affairs, often having
but two rooms and a lean-to. Com-
fort was not expected, and frequent-
ly travelers had difficulty in secur-
ing beds. One's dinner cost six-
pence by order of the General Court,
regardless of quality or quantity of
food served, the landlord and his
wife always acting as host and host-
ess at the table.

Among the signs that were or-
dered placed on conspicuous parts
of the houses where was provided
"good entertainment for him who
passes, horses, men, mares, and
asses," was one representing a bust
of General Wolfe, surrounded by a
wreath of scroll work. It was carved
by William Davenport of Newbury-
port, and was partially destroyed by
the great fire that swept through that
city in 181 1, laying the principal part
in ashes. A new sign was then
painted by Samuel Cole to replace
the original one, and it is still used
at the same tavern. In Georgetown
also, ten miles from Newburyport,
a very ancient sign, bearing a por-
trait of General Wolfe, is in an excel-
lent state of preservation. The
house on which it originally hung
was built twenty years after the Pil-
grims landed at Plymouth. The
original frame of the house still re-

NOTED INNS OF NEW ENGLAND

SIGN AT WAYSIDE INN, STOCKBRIDGE, MASS

mains, together with the heavy oak
beams and interior panelling. In
other respects the building presents
a modernized appearance.

Concerning this old sign the
following interesting incident is
vouched for. Just after the battle of
Lexington and Concord, a company
of Yankee soldiers were on their way
from Ipswich to the seat of war.
Passing through Georgetown, they
came to the old inn, over the front
entrance of which hung the portrait
of General Wolfe, swinging in the
brisk morning breeze. Up to this
time of "unpleasantness" between
the mother country and our own,
the memory of the brave Wolfe had
been revered and loved alike by
Englishmen and Americans. But
now, in their intense hatred of every-
thing British, the soldiers halted,
lifted their old flint locks to their
shoulders and riddled with bullets
the offending sign. Several passed
clean through it, while a few re-
mained imbedded in the wood, and
are plainly discernible at the present
time.

An old tavern at Medford dis-
played a sign representing two old
men shaking hands and bowing,
which gave to the place the name of
"The Palaver's Tavern." But it
proved so offensive to the innkeeper

that he substituted another and more
appropriate design in the form of a
fountain pouring punch into a large
bowl. This "Fountain Tavern" had
substantial platforms in two large
shade trees connected with each
other and the house by bridges. In
these tree nests the traveler might
sit through the long afternoon or in
the early twilight, cool and remote
among the branches, drinking tea ;
watching horsemen and cartmen,
and sturdy pedestrians come and go,
and the dashing mail coach rattle
up, — a flash of color and noise and
life, — pour out its motley passen-
gers, and speedily roll away with re-
newed patrons and splendor.

Among the several ancient inns
standing at the present time, is one
in By fiel'd, Massachusetts, kept by
"Old J. P." as he was familiarly
known, from the fact that these
initals were stamped on the barrels
of rum with which his cellar was
filled. This tavern of Jeremiah
Pearson's was a lively center on
Muster days, and many a yarn was
spun across the board in Indepen-
dence Hall, so christened at a din-
ner given the returned troops after

COLLECTION OF OLD CHINA, WAYSIDE INN,
STOCKBRIDGE, MASS

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the Revolutionary War. Hither al-
so, the eccentric Timothy Dexter,
often wended his way and drank
deep of the flowing bowl, — a habit,
no doubt, that enhanced his eccentri-
cities.

Copied from one of the favorite
signs of England, "The Bunch of
Grapes" formerly hung from the
tavern of that name on State Street,
Boston. It was made of baked clay
and had been brought from Eng-
land. A portion of this sign can be
seen in the Essex Institute, Salem,

spirits of the Ohio Company, called
their first meeting. At the expira-
tion of the lease, the old land-mark
was torn down and a granite struc-
ture erected, and nothing now re-
mains for us but the memory of this
by-gone splendor.

The Ames Tavern of Dedham,
the original license of which was
granted in 1658, was kept by the cele-
brated almanaC maker, Nathaniel
Ames in 1735. The sign on this
tavern was unique and is said to
have portrayed some family history.

llt'\*f ' -

. • • : -

WAYSIDE INN. SUDBURY. MASS

while two bunches of the grapes are
stored in a steel vault in the Masonic
Temple, Boston, for the Masons take
every precaution to preserve this
old relic of the inn, in which all the
meetings of the oldest benevolent
association in New England were
held in 1767-8. Here also the first
President of the United States
stayed. The tavern of "The Bunch
of Grapes" was moved to Congress
Street, and here General Stark came
after his victory at Bennington.
Here also General Rufus Putnam
and Manasseh Cutter, the moving

In the settlement of his son's (Fish-
er Ames) estate, a suit was brought
into court. This so disgusted the
inn-proprietor, that, although the
suit was decided in his son's favor,
he expressed his dislike by causing
the whole court to be painted on a
sign board for his tavern. So faith-
fully were each of the judges repre-
sented, they could not fail to be
recognized. The august court heard
of the proceeding and sent a sheriff
to seize the sign. Ames was in Bos-
ton at the time, and hearing of their
intention, rode post haste to Ded-

NOTED INNS OF NEW ENGLAND

ham, reaching the tavern first, and
in time to save the sign before the
sheriff's arrival. What a thriving
business would the sign painters of
today have, and where should we
find space for the signs, if all men
showed their disgust of law suits
in this manner?

A sign verse which hung in front
of "Mother Red Cap Inn/' Holway,
England, and which was reproduced
on ancient signs in America, savors
strongly of our dear old Mother
Goose, and possibly these old dames
were relatives.

"Old Mother Red Cap, according to her

tale,
Lived twenty and one hundred years, by

drinking this good ale;
It was her meat, it was her drink, and

medicine beside;
And if she still had drunk this ale, she

never would have died."

As the settlement of New Eng-
land increased, the demand for pub-

lic houses became greater, more at-
tention being paid to the preferences
of guests. A public parlor became
a necessity for the entertainment of
private parties, and gradually the
tavern became more like a well-to-do
private house, where one could re-
ceive the best of care.

Although a few of the original
New England taverns still exist,
many of those now standing are
more recent ones built on the same
site and bearing the same name.
The house at Stockbridge, Massa-
chusetts first built in 1773, and added
to from time to time, was on the
stage route between Boston and Al-
bany, and was a large and popular
hotel when burnt in 1896. In the
public room of the present tavern,
which was re-built on the old site, is
a collection of old-fashioned furni-
ture, crockery and bric-a-brac, con-

.^*&&

INTERIOR OF WAYSIDE INN, SUDBURY, MASS

BLACK HORSE TAVERN, SALEM, MASS

sidered by collectors of the antique,
the best in the country. What bet-
ter advertisement could any hotel
of our day want than the reputation
which these inns have won, — that of
hospitality, bountiful store and up-
right management.

"The Wayside Inn" at Sudbury,
Massachusetts, made famous by
Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside
Inn" was the assembly place of the
soldiers after the Battle of Lexing-
ton.

"Wright's Tavern" at Concord
calls to mind a thrilling scene when
Major Pitcairn, the British com-
mander, stirring a glass of brandy
with his bloody finger the morning
before the Battle of Concord, boasted
that he would thus stir the blood
of his enemy before night. A great
structure once stood on the site of
the present Stearns Building, Sa-
lem, Massachusetts, known as the
"Tavern with many peaks" later on
as "The Ship Tavern." Here was
formed the Social Library in 1760.
The "Salem Coffee House" was kept
in a building near the site of St.
Peter's church, while "Thomas

Beadle's Tavern" stood on Essex
Street, nearly opposite its present
juncture with Pleasant Street. In
this latter house were held the pre-
liminary examinations in witchcraft
times.

Many Manchester-by-the-Sea
people will tell you of one Elizabeth
Crafts, an ancient innkeeper of that
town, who went to Boston either by
packet or on horseback for her
goods. She was an industrious wo-
man and sitting on the deck of the
vessel one day, knitting, the sail sud-
denly veered and Elizabeth was
knocked overboard. Tradition, that
truth teller, says that she kept on
with her knitting and took seven
stitches under water before being
rescued. This remarkable woman
also had a romance. A Scotchman,
before leaving his native land,
dreamed of a fair-haired American
girl with a blue ribbon in her hair.
That very night Mrs. Crafts, then
a young girl, dreamed that she mar-
ried a sailor. Not long after the
lad's arrival in Boston, he spent the
Sabbath in Lynn. Entering the
meeting house (this act being the

NOTED INNS OF NEW ENGLAND

proper thing to do in those days)
he saw his dream-girl seated in the
choir. He made inquiries, followed
her to her home in Manchester, and
married her not long afterward.
We presume they lived happy ever
after, though that was not vouched
for.

"Fountain Tavern" at Marblehead
was the resort of sea captains and
the gentry of the town, and it has

drew rein at the door of the tavern.
Sir Harry Faulkland, a young Eng-
lish gentleman who had been sent
to superintend the building of the
fort and who was also collector of
the port of Boston, alighted, and
attracted by the maiden's beauty,
stopped to speak with her. The ac-
quaintance ripened into a love that
pride of race and position prevented
from culminating in marriage at

WRIGHT TAVERN, CONCORD, MASS

been rumored that the pirates, who
were finally captured in the streets
of Marblehead, made this tavern
their rendezvous. What better ro-
mance could our twentieth century
girls have, than that which fell to
the lot of Agnes Surriage, a girl of
sixteen who was scrubbing the floor
of the inn, to be sure, but who was
also strikingly handsome. In the
autumn of 1742 a coach and four
dashed through the streets and

that time. But after long years,
through her devotion in saving his
life, the thought of class distinction
passed away and they were married
with the sanction of the Faulkland
family. After a brief residence in
London, they removed to Boston,
where Sir Harry died.

The first temperance inn was
opened in Marlboro, New Hamp-
shire, when liquor was of prime im-
portance in all taverns. This inno-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

vation was looked upon with dis-
favor by drivers of stage coaches and
loud were their lamentations. Be-
ing assured, however, that coffee
and tea would be served them, the
tavern became one of the most popu-
lar in New England, and thus our
first coffee house was started many
years ago, being heartily recom-
mended by stage drivers. \
One of the quaintest and mostj

make the six-footer duck his head,
while the broad fireplaces easily ac-
commodate seven-foot logs.
Ancient china, books and prints are
here in profusion, and there are
canopied bedsteads, claw foot chairs,
and two arm chairs once the prop-
erty of Robert Burns. The paper
on the office walls is Shakesperian,
a old English landscapes are in the
f hall, while hunting scenes and sports

FERNCROFT INN, DANVERS, MASS

picturesque taverns in all Essex
County is "Ferncroft Inn," located
on the old Boxford road. The views
from the piazzas are unsurpassed in
diversity and grandeur. It would
indeed puzzle the heads of our mod-
ern architects should they attempt
to duplicate the architectural de-
signs of this ancient structure that
was erected in 1692, with low ceil-
ings and heavy oak cross beams that

of "Merrie England" delight the
eye in the dining room. The front
of the inn is an exact imitation of
the home of Ann Hathaway.

At a bend of the road we come
upon a sign used in the beginning
of the last century at the old tavern
in Topsfield, kept by William Ready.
On one side of the sign is a port-
rait of George Washington, on the
other, that of John Quincy Adams.

NOTED INNS OF NEW ENGLAND

"The Boynton Tavern" in old
Newbury was presided over by a
most eccentric man. One of his
sons, who was born while the tav-
ern was being torn down, was named
Tearing. The second son, coming
when an addition to the new inn
was under way, received the name
of Adding. Mr. Boynton was the
inventor of the first silk reel. Groves
of mulberry trees were set out in
different parts of Byfield, furnish-
ing proper food for the worms.
With Tearing and Adding, these
groves grew in size and beauty.
Several of the trees are in a flourish-
ing condition on a Byfield farm at
the present time.

The "West Parish" of Boxford
boasted for many years an old tav-
ern that was erected in 1776, where
the militia met to be reviewed. The
fine country inn, now located in the
"East Parish" was refitted from an
old tavern, by Deacon Parker Spof-
ford. Here the first post office was
kept, mails being brought by the
stage coach. The mails were taken
to the church and distributed by Mr.
Spofford to the people living at a
distance. Even in those days the
good deacons used drawing cards
for church services, it seems.

In the town of Danvers stands
the old "Berry Tavern" originally
built in 1741. This public house has
been maintained continuously from
that time, being at the present day
a thoroughly equipped hotel. Could

we, for a short time, bring before us
pictures of the young farmers on
their way to Boston from all parts
of New England, on their jumpers,
or long sleds, where were heaped
the corn, grain, bundles of yarn,
homespun cloth, etc., which were to
be exchanged for other merchan-
dise; of the severe storms they en-
countered, making them willing
prisoners for a while at these hos-
pitable houses; of the buxom lasses
met and oft times made the partner
of their joys ; and of the merry-mak-
ings in the long winter evenings, —
would not all this compare favor-
ably with the present mode of en-
joyment of our young people, and
does it not make us wish for a
glimpse of some oldtime inn? for:

"No longer the host hobbles down from

his rest
In the porch's cool shadows to ' welcome

his guest
With a smile of delight and a grasp of the

hand,
And a glance of the eye that no heart could

withstand.

"When the long rains of Autumn set in

from the west,
The mirth, of the landlord was broadest

and best ;
And the stranger who paused over night

never knew
If the clock on the mantel struck ten or

struck two.

"Oh. the songs they would sing and the

tales they would spin
As they lounged in the light of the old

fashioned inn;
But a day came at last when the stage

brought no load
To the gate, as it rolled up the long dusty

road."

Our Front Parlor Alligator

By Bradley Gilman

Author of "Ronald Carnaquay,

IN those days my father often sent
home to us boys rather queer
presents. It was just after the
war, and he was "travelling" for
"Kip and Kidd/'boot and shoe people,
with whom he was later joined in
partnership. My mother had died, two
years before, leaving Eph and me to
the home-care of Mother's unmarried
sister Lydia. She was a faithful, lov-
ing aunt to us, but very sensitive and
timid, and I fear that some of our
pranks seriously shook her nerves.

My own preference, in the way of
boyish possessions, was for books,
curios, stamps, birds' eggs and the
like — such objects as would "stay
where you put them" ; so I said to
Eph; but he scorned my "dead
things," and was most pleased with
pets, and live creatures of all sorts.
So that while Father at times sent me
rare stamps, or a book, or a stuffed
bird, or an Indian relic, he was more
likely to send Eph some boxed-up
live insect or animal, like a bird, or a
pair of guinea pigs, or — as once hap-
pened— two live chameleons.

These presents from Father, who —
best of fathers — seemed always to
have us in mind, though hundreds of
miles away, brought dismay to ner-
vous Aunt Lydia, but filled our
youthful hearts with joy, and made
us the envy of our schoolmates. So
we were a little surprised, but not

alarmed, when one day a telegram
came from New Orleans:

"Have sent alligator by express. Do not
be afraid.

Father."

Well, we were not exactly afraid,
but we felt a certain amount of per-
plexity and anxiety. I had read
about ferocious alligators, and how
they seized animals or human beings
at the brink of some river or lake,
and dragged them into the muddy
depths ; and sometimes they snatched
boat-men from boats, or overturned
the boats themselves ; and then what
chance had a man, when in the water
with them ! So we were eager but
uneasy. As for Aunt Lydia, she stood
speechless for five minutes, when she
read the telegram, and then trembled
so that she had to go and sit down
in the big arm-chair, where she con-
tinued to sit, — removing and wiping
and replacing her spectacles on her
peaked nose at least five times.

There was, however, another mem-
ber of our household, who must here
be mentioned. It was Uncle Zack,
Aunt Lydia's brother ; he was by occu-
pation a farmer, or had been one in
earlier life, and now came to us on
occasional visits. We boys never en-
joyed Unzle Zack, partly because he
was always preaching to us on our
conduct, and lecturing to us on
themes which interested him far

OUR FRONT PARLOR ALLIGATOR

more than they did us, and partly be-
cause we were expected to black his
old-fashioned leather boots, reaching
nearly to the knees and pulling on by
stout leather straps at the sides.

He was a tall, gaunt man of sixty,
with a bald, dome-like head, fringed
with greenish-white tufts of hair. He
wore spectacles, and stooped as he
walked. Slow in movement and im-
pressive in speech, he believed him-
self an oracle; whereas I fear he was
rather a walking dictionary, and a
rheumatic one, at that. In other
words, he had much learning, but
very little practical sense. He knew
a great many book-things, but always
failed to connect them with daily
human needs.

Such, at least, is my judgment of
him, as I now recall him, after thirty
years have passed away. Possibly
this opinion may have been reached
by me without sufficient ground, but
at least one definite bit of evidence
comes up vividly before me as I
write. That was during one of
Uncle Zack's earlier visits to us,
when he explained to us boys the
law of centrifugal motion, and led
the way, in a lordly fashion, out
into the kitchen, where our colored
cook, Susannah, was baking. There
he laid hold of a two-quart pail
nearly full of milk, and, — despite
alarmed Susannah's protests, —
warning her grandly back with one
arm, with the other he set the pail
in motion, swinging it, and finally
attempting to revolve it, at arm's
length, around his head. I remem-
ber that he was just saying how
simple the experiment was, and that
he had done it several times, with-

out spilling a drop, when — bang!
The pail struck the gas-bracket,
nearly over his head, and down
came the white torrent over him
and over Susannah's clean floor.
His theory was all right, but he
failed to apply it to existing condi-
tions, and he had to go dripping to
his quarters in the back-parlor,
leaving a trail of milk behind him
all the way.

So when Uncle Zack, in turn, was
handed the alligator telegram, he
read and re-read it, as if it had been
a Chinese manuscript, and difficult
to decipher. He never allowed him-
self to be caught off his guard, — al-
ways held himself up to every occa-
sion, however unexpected. So he
presently turned to his sister, and
spoke in his loftiest and most re-
assuring tone. "Lyddy, don't get
flustered ! I never get flustered.
Getting flustered shortens the life,
by increasing the heart-beats, and
wearing it out before its time. I
have reacj — "

He was going off on some medi-
cal studies of his younger days, but
recalled himself. "As for this alli-
gator, Robert doubtless has some
plan about keeping him, or he
wouldn't have sent him. There is
Hillside Park. They have animals.
Very likely the creature is to be
sent there." Then he turned toward
us boys and started on a lecture
about the alligator and his points
of variation from the crocodile ; but
Eph and I bolted for the door, and
left him to make his speech to Aunt
Lydia.

Two days later the expressman
brought the alligator. We ex-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

pected to see him unload a huge
box, or perhaps tank, requiring sev-
eral men to carry it. We had dark-
ly implied this to the other boys.
But, instead, the expressman came
gaily skipping up the walk, bearing
his big record-book in one hand, and
a box, not half so large, in the
other.

The box contained our alligator.
It was a wooden box, perhaps ten
inches long, four wide, and four
deep, with a bit of wire screen over
one end. The alligator was alive,
stared at us out of his filmy, ex-
pressionless eyes, and occasionally
emitted a little sound like the
squeak of a small French doll. His
long tail looked so much like a
handle that we used it as such, and
transferred the sluggish creature to
the bath-tub, experimentally, and
later to a small hand-tub.

Of course all the neighbors were
eager to see the little reptile, but
they were manifestly disappointed
when they gazed upon his diminu-
tive scaly form, in the front parlor,
by the window, where we kept him
most of the time for readier ex-
hibition. Our boy-friends tempted
him with flies and worms and pieces
of raw meat, but nobody ever saw
the shy little saurian eat. I think
he did eat, however, but in the
night. He was much more active
after night-fall than during the day.
He developed an unexpected de-
gree of agility also, during the
night. Usually he seemed sluggish
and sleepy; but sometimes after
dark, we could hear him splashing
in the shallow water of his tub, and
often, when we brought a light sud-

denly near, he leaped away from it
very actively.

Uncle Zack professed to have no
fear whatever of the uncanny crea-
ture, but I noticed that he never
touched him ; he often looked on
sagely, as Eph deftly handled him,
and generally contributed informa-
tion about the reptile's nature and
habits. One day, when a neighbor
came in to see the little beast, Eph
put him down on the floor, and he
lay still, as usual. Uncle Zack was
laboriously unloading some of his
learning about the "genus" and
"species" to which the reptile be-
longed, when I noticed that "Allie"
(as we boys had come to call him)
had twisted around, and was walk-
ing across the room, in the general
direction of my reverend Uncle's
slippered feet. Uncle Zack, ab-
sorbed in his monologue, did not
notice the movement, and was just
confuting Cuvier or some other
naturalist, when "Allie" reached one
of his feet, and proceeded to climb
over it. When the little reptile's
claws pricked through Uncle Zack's
thin sock, the owner thereof forgot
both his learning and his dignity,
and with some emphatic interjec-
tion, sprang to his feet and showed
a disposition to even step up into
his chair. But he quickly mastered
his trepidation, and went on, as well
as he could, with his lecture. He
seemed relieved, however, when
Eph picked up the scaly little mon-
ster and popped him back into his
tub.

Father did not return from his
Southern trip for several weeks.
There was no need for his presence,

OUR FRONT PARLOR ALLIGATOR

so far as the alligator was con-
cerned. Evidently the creature was
intended for a sort of curio-pet, and
as such afforded us all much amuse-
ment. We hit u|gpn various names
for him, sometimes calling him
"Hard-Shell, " from his bony exte-
rior, and sometimes "Diogenes,"
because he "lived in a tub." But
"Allie" he was, most of the time ;
and little as his evil merciless eyes
expressed of friendliness, I think he
learned to distinguish Eph from the
rest of the family.

When father returned, a month
later, the alligator was no longer a
member of our family ; and the
cause thereof I must now relate.

One morning, when Eph slipped
into the front parlor, as usual, be-
fore going to school, to have a look
at his queer pet, the creature was
not in his tub. Just what had hap-
pened we were not sure, but Eph
had put a flat stone into the tub the
day before, and the distance from
the top of this stone to the edge of
the tub was not very great. This
fact, joined to our knowledge of
"Allie's" nocturnal activity, made us
suspect that he had climbed over
the edge and tumbled out upon the
floor. Either that, or somebody
had taken him out. Who could
have done it ? We were quite sure
that Uncle Zack would not have
handled the creature, and as for
Aunt Lydia, she had a horror of him
that sometimes threatened hyster-
ics. We began to feel uneasy, after
we had looked in vain for him, and
Susannah had stated her entire ig-
norance of his whereabouts. Some-
how the situation grew more and

more uncanny, as we failed to find
him. "Allie" or "Hard Shell," or
"Diogenes" — by whatever name we
called him — was a well-conducted
member of the household, when in
his tub or when under our eye, upon
the floor ; but when loose, and in
hiding, nobody knew where, — that
added an element of mystery which
was akin to open terror.

We enjoined upon Susannah to
say nothing, and jto keep a look
around, in case the creature hove in
sight. Then we hurried off to
school, resolved that afterward we
would make a thorough search,
even moving desks and bureaus,
behind one of which he was prob-
ably lurking. During the session
of school I fear that Eph's thoughts
were not on his lessons, and I know
that mine were not. At recess,
when some boy asked Eph, casual-
ly, about "Allie," he received a curt
response that puzzled him. Eph's
face showed anxiety, and his rumi-
nations took about the same course
that mine did. As we left school,
at noon, he asked me, in an off-
hand way, which poorly concealed
his agitation, "How fast did Uncle
Zack say those alligators grew?
Do you remember?"

I did not remember; but I saw
the trend of my brother's disturbed
reflections. It evidently struck him,
as it did me, that if the alligator
were not discovered, he might take
to himself some dark haunt in the
house, under it or near it, and con-
tinuing his nocturnal activities,
might support himself, and grow,
and grow — and — grow — "How

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

large, Eph, did Uncle Zack say they
sometimes grew to be?"

The prospect was serious, and
even thrilling. "Think, Eph, of
having a live alligator, a really
large one, living somewhere in the
house or garden, and ready to
spring out at you in the dark — you
remember how he could spring —
and bite off — O there ! Let's not
say that ! We shall find him, when
we get home. Perhaps Susannah
has already found him." And home-
ward we hurried.

Alas, Susannah had not found
him, although she had taken a little
time from her regular work, to
make a superficial search. At this
stage of proceedings Aunt Lydia
surmised that something was
wrong, and asked such penetrating
questions that the truth had to be
told. When she had the plain
truth from Eph, "she did not feel
any the better for having it," as
Eph remarked. She hurriedly told
her brother, and then sank down in
her arm-chair, and carefully ar-
ranged her feet and clothing on
another chair in front of her. "Find
that — that — O find him !" she ex-
claimed, in woful tones, not daring
even to call poor "Diogenes" by his
generic name.

By this time the household was
in a demoralized condition. The
mystery of the situation greatly en-
hanced poor "Allie's" supposed
powers of injury. My own fancy
being tolerably vivid, I pictured our
family as haunted, for weeks,
months, years, by this little demon,
who would remain hidden by day
but would wander at night, like?

Hamlet's father's ghost, rendering
one's bed his sole safety, until —
until — until the creature grew large
enough to — to jump up upon a bed!
bed! |

Even if we moved out (thus my
fancy ran on) what would happen
to the next unsuspecting family
coming in? Indeed, would we be
morally justifiable in allowing an-
other family to come in, without
warning them of the growing and
strengthening monster Who lurked
in the walls or dark cellar-depths
of the rather broken-down old
house ?

Meanwhile we were keeping up a
desultory and increasingly nervous
search for the animal. But now my
uncle came to the rescue. He took
charge of the search. It was his
great opportunity for leadership.
Susannah was scrutinizing her pan-
try, hardly daring to put her hand
in a dark place, even on an upper
shelf. We boys were desperately
taking down the books from the
top row of a book-case, thinking he
might have gone in between it and
the wall. "There, now, cease that !"
said Uncle Zack, with calm dignity.
"Such indiscriminate searching will
never result in anything. As soon as
you have looked in one place, you go
into some other room, and the creature
very likely slips over and hides in the
place you have just left. Those
saurians are very clever ; I have
heard— " Then he checked himself
from going into the subject which
opened invitingly before him, and ar-
ranged a plan of campaign.

"Let us all make thorough search of
one room, — this front parlor, let us

OUR FRONT PARLOR ALLIGATOR

say, — and when we are sure he is not
here, we will go out and close the door,
and lock it, and — "

"What! And leave me in here?1'
screamed Aunt Lydia, from her for-
tress of the armchair. "Never ! O
Zachariah, you wouldn't, you couldn't
do such a thing." And she burst into
tears and rocked hysterically, until she
discovered that her dress was being
rocked down toward the floor ; then she
convulsively gathered it up and softly
wept.

"No, Lyddy !" responded Uncle
Zack, solemnly, "we will not be un-
mindful of you. Perhaps you would
best go up stairs, now. You — "

"O, I can't; I can't;" exclaimed
nervous Aunt Lydia. "I never can
feel safe until I see that awful monster
back in his tub." But, being morally
and physically supported by her dig-
nified and sagacious brother, she did
manage to cross the room, and went
flying up the stairs, and later was dis-
covered sitting on top of a high chest
of drawers, in her room.

"Now," said Uncle Zack, mar-
shalling his forces, — to wit, Eph and
Susannah and myself, — "Now let us
take each room in turn. And remem-
ber this, for it is best to make an intel-
ligent use of our faculties, that a small
alligator like — like yours, Eph " (here
he showed a retributive tendency
toward my brother), "could not pos-
sibly climb up to any height above a
few inches, at most a foot ; so we need
not examine any places, upstairs, or
any places on this floor, higher than a
foot above the floor level."

Here Susannah, who was furtively
turning a picture around, on the wall,
hastily desisted, and gave close atten-

tion. Then the search began, although
I am compelled to say that Uncle Zack
kept well in the centre of the room, and
issued his orders wtih firmness and
gravity, while we three tugged and
pushed at the furniture, resting not
until every article had been moved1
and every square inch of the floor in-
spected, and every nook and cranny
explored by somebody's trembling
fingers.

No result. The clever little beast
was not to be found. He was cer-
tainly not in that front parlor. Then
we went out, closing the door, and
made the same careful search, under
our general's orders, of the other
rooms on the floor; last of all Uncle
Zack led his brigade into the back par-
lor, his own room, and there directed
operations, repeatedly enjoining upon
us that there was no use in searching
any spot a foot above the level of the
floor. In this, his own room, he did
deign to assist a little, taking one or
two garments gingerly from the floor,
and changing his tall leather boots, — ■
which were standing stolidly in a cor-
ner,— to a centre-table, the better to
facilitate our search over the entire
floor.

So at it we went (on all fours, most
of the time), peering and feeling, and
making most thorough work of it.
But no result ; and at length we
paused, in breathlessness and perspira-
tion. We looked inquiringly at our
uncle, feeling inclined to hold him re-
sponsible, as general-in-chief, for the
failure of our campaign. Just then he
zioticed that the side door leading to
the garden was slightly open, and a
new idea struck him ; but, as ever, he
showed no unbecoming surprise. "I

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

am inclined to think," said he, with de-
liberation, "that the wily creature has
gone out through that door," pointing
slowly and convincingly to the door, as
he spoke. "They are amphibious ani-
mals, hence they love the water ; and
with last night's heavy rain, the water
is standing in pools, outside, I have ob-
served ; and I believe that the members
of the saurian genus often scent water
a long distance, and seek it ; indeed I
once read—"

Here he again checked himself, with
an effort, leaving the genus and re-
turning to the particular specimen we
were most interested in. "We will all
go out into the garden, keeping up the
same system we have thus far fol-
lowed, and, I doubt not, we shall find
our recreant pet disporting himself in
some shallow pool in the garden."

His face showed traces of satisfac-
tion at his own acuteness, and a faint
smile was traceable on his usually
compressed lips. "Wait a moment,"
he said, raising a warning finger to us
impulsive boys, "and I will direct the
search." Then he glanced at his feet,
in slippers, and mindful of his rheu-
matic tendencies, he stepped across the
room and took down hat and cloak
and boots, and began to make ready to
lead his forces.

One of the boots he put on, without
remark ; then he put his other foot
down into the other boot. Then he
sprang about a yard into the air, de-
spite his years and his dignity, emit-
ting an indescribable shriek as he rose,
and, as soon as he reached the floor, he
began pounding his foot, — in the
boot, — upon the floor, with desperate
energy, vociferating spasmodically as
he did so; and then he fell over on his

bed, exhausted, more dead than alive,
but still feebly waving that booted leg
in the air.

Eph and I were not slow to guess
the truth. Eph, readier than I in an
emergency, seized the gesticulating
leg, gave a great tug at it, and pulled
it off. Then he turned it upside down
and all that was left of an eight-inch
alligator dropped, in a shapeless mass,
to the floor.

Uncle Zack's cries had subsided to
moans, but his dignity and his
omniscience had quite departed. His
poor old nerves had received a severe
shock.

When tranquillity at length was re-
stored, my uncle slowly sat up, called
for his spectacles, and tried to solve
his problem. "How did that alligator
climb up to the top of that table and
into that boot?" It was utterly con-
trary to the principle which he had so
repeatedly laid down, as a guide to our
search.

Then poor black Susannah found a
voice. "I — I tink he muss hab clomb
in when dey wuz on de floor."

"Not so ! Not so, Susannah I" re-
sponded my uncle, severely. "I still
maintain my general principle, regard-
ing the saurians ; he could not have
climbed or leaped as high as the top
of those tall boots.

"Sartin ! Shore !" exclaimed Su-
sannah, "but I 'spect he clomb in when
dey wuz a lyin' flat down. I come in,
dis mawnin', an' dey wuz a-lying flat,
like dey usually is, an' I done stood 'urn
up, jes' absent-like, in de corner. "

Enough said ! The mystery was ex-
plained. The problem in natural his-
tory was solved. The saurian species
was still true to its reputed habits ; and

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUR

the mangled remains were carried out
and buried. Uncle Zack slowly recov-
ered his equanimity, Aunt Lydia was

rescued from her perch, in her room,
and the family gradually resumed the
even tenor of its way.

The Utility of Humour

By Zitella Cocke

IN one of her books, but in which
one, I frankly confess my present
inability to remember, George
Eliot has said that there is no great-
er or more frequent cause of mis-
understanding between friends, than
a difference of taste in jokes. Who
will deny it? Surely not one who
has made a study of human nature,
or who has had any experience in
life, although that experience may
have been of the most commonplace
character. The comprehension and
appreciation of a joke, is, in too
many instances, much like ortho-
doxy and heterodoxy in the crass
opinion of the vulgar herd, which,
after all, amounts to nothing more
nor less than "my doxy" and "your
doxy," and every attempt to explain,
only becomes another fruitful
source of unlimited disputation.
There can be no doubt that the man
who gets the wrong end of the joke,
discovers, for that time at least, the
exceeding inconvenience of jesting,
and thoroughly realizes the strain
upon graciousness and ge'nerosity:

"For he who does not tremble at the sword,
Who quails not with his head upon the

block, —
Turn but a jest against him, loses heart: —
The shafts of wit slip through the stoutest

mail,
There is no man alive that can live down

The inextinguishable laughter of man-
kind.—"

and we do not need the poet's pen
to inform us of the dread which all
men feel of the rash dexterity and
conflict of wit. The knife of the
surgeon is not more feared than the
spear of the jester, or the scalpel
of the satirist, who, unlike the sur-
geon, have not the grace to offer
the alleviation of an anesthetic. The
well known lines of old Dr. Johnson
who was such a Trojan in repartee
and in every war of words : —

"Of all _the griefs that harass the dis-
tressed,
Sure the most bitter is the scornful jest."

prove that even this sturdy old
fighter was vulnerable to the jester's
attack, and we have confirmation of
this sensitivity in his speech con-
cerning the noted actor and wit,
Samuel Foote, "Indeed, if he mim-
ics or ridicules me, I will break
every bone in his body!"

Yet, whatever may be urged
against ridicule or humourous in-
vective, the wholesome effect of le-
gitimate humour and merriment can-
not be denied, and Sterne was clear-
ly in the right when he said that a
taste for humour was a gift from
heaven. It is a blessing, a very
angel of consolation, without whose

N E W ENGLAND MAGAZINE

presence the thorny, briary path in
this work-a-day world would be un-
cheered. In the legend of Pandora's
box, we are told that Hope was left
at the bottom, as a compensation for
the many ills to which poor hu-
manity is heir, but I think the most
efficient and the most ready anodyne
is a sense of Humour. Hope is in-
deed an inspiration and often a sal-
vation, yet the promise it offers is
too often broken, while Humour
presents an immediate solace, — a
real and present help in time of dis-
couragement and despondency. Let
but the unhappy victim have the
prehensibles by which to seize up-
on the proffered good, and he is as-
sured of a temporary, if not a final
reprieve. In the annals of English
Court-history, we read that a crown
was paid to one who had succeeded
in making the king, Edward II.,
laugh — a medicine which was doubt-
less more valuable and efficacious
than a dozen prescriptions from the
pharmacopeia. A hearty laugh is
medicinal and remedial and Hip-
pocrates believed and declared that
a physician should possess a ready
humour as a part of the equipment
for healing, and Galen informs us
that Esculapius, himself, wrote com-
edies and commanded them to be
read to his patients for the promo-
tion of a healthful circulation of the
blood. A noted physician of Rich-
mond, Virginia, Dr. Robert Cole-
man, whose success was eminent,
was said to have accomplished as
many cures by his wit and humour,
as by the drugs he prescribed. His
entrance into a sick chamber
brought an atmosphere of cheerful-
ness, which assisted the receptivity
of the patient and, to quote the home-
ly comparison of Mother Hubbard's
dog, many a friend who left a sick
one with the thought that nothing

more was needed but a coffin, re-
turned to find him laughing, and on
the high way to recovery. The
world is not without illustrious ex-
amples and advocates of the excel-
lence and benefit of a hearty laugh.
The emporer Titus insisted that he
had lost a day, if he had passed it
without laughing, and Chamfort
was accustomed to tell his friends
that the most utterly useless and
lost of all days, was the one upon
which he had not laughed, — "II y a
trois medechis qui ?ie se trompent
pas. La gaiete, le doiix exercise, et
le modeste repast

Yet there is nothing more difficult
than an exact definition of humour.
When Democritus was asked to
give a definition of man, he an-
swered, "It is something we see
and know;" and when Dr. Johnson
was asked to define poetry, he re-
plied : "Sir, it is easier to see what
it is not, — we all know what light
is, but it is not easy to tell what it
is." And so, it may be said of hu-
mour, and an att> nipt to define it
with explicit and logical accuracy
would be much like an experiment
to make a portrait of Proteus. The
Protean forms of humour cannot be
photographed or measured upon the
Procrustean bed of analysis. The
very elusiveness of humour, which
is its chiefest charm, defies dissec-
tion. Who could ever square the
circle of a joke, or postulate a pun? — ■
and it is almost as difficult to estab-
lish the boundary line between wit
and humour. One who spent no lit-
tle time in the undertaking, H. R.
Haweis, says : "I have lain awake
at night, trying to define the differ-
ence between wit and humour, and
there is none." Whether this be
true or not, we know that the essen-
tial features are the same in each, —
a pretended union or juxtaposi-

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUR

tion where exists customary incom-
patibility. That most accomplished
essayist, William Hazlitt, has de-
fined wit by a series of happy illus-
trations; a prism, dividing the sim-
plicity of our ideas into motley and
variegated hues; a mirror broken
into pieces, each fragment of which
reflects a new light from surround-
ing objects; or, the untwisting of
the chain of our ideas, whereby each
link is made to hook on more readi-
ly to others than when they were
all bound together by habit; but in
no comparison, perhaps, has he been
more happy than when he calls
wit the polypus power of the mind,
by which a distinct life and mean-
ing is imparted to different parts of
a sentence or object after they are
severed from each other. Yet, we
know it as we know light, when we
see it, and realize the effect not-
withstanding our inability to form-
ulate it. Humour prefers to
laugh with men, while wit laughs at
them, — one is the comedy of ignor-
ance, the other of knowledge;
one is of the heart, the other of the
intellect; one is broad, large-heart-
ed and kindly, while the other is too
often cynical and unkind; one is
apt to be indefinite, the other cold
and definite.

A more concise and thorough
definition of wit could hardly be
given, than in the famous reply
of Dr. Henneker to Lord Chat-
ham, who had asked him to de-
fine it: "My lord, wit is what a pen-
sion would be, if given by your lord-
ship to your humble servant, — a
good thing well applied." Here we
have the soul of wit, — the "mul turn
in parvo" in absolute perfection,
yet when we turn from Locke's
cumbrous and insufficient analysis
of wit to Dr. Johnson's name for it,
— a discordia concors, — a combi-

nation of dissimilar images, or a dis-
covery of occult resemblances in
things apparently unlike ;" or, to
the words of Sydney Smith, "The
pleasure arising from wit proceeds
from our surprise at suddenly dis-
covering things to be similar, in
which we did not suspect similari-
ty,"— we have an approximation, at
least, to a definition of that which
is so happily illustrated in Dr. Hen-
neker's brevity. And Humour,
which deals so largely with the im-
agination and the affections, finds
quite as much as wit, hidden analo-
gies in the midst of differences, and
if an impromptu reply is the very
touchstone of wit, so humour, which
is a more subtle essence, must be
spontaneous. Schopenhauer speaks
its most essential characteristic
when he calls it the triumph of intu-
ition over reflection, and Arnold
Ruge is equally felicitous when he
says it is the ideal, captive by the
real. To laugh heartily we must
have reality and naturalness. Sure-
ly the laughter at strained and un-
natural conceits must be that mirth
which Scripture describes as the
crackling of thorns under a pot.
Genuine humour is* too delicate to
endure the pressure of force, and
the rule of the Gospel is very apt
to be reversed, since they who seek
it, are not likely to find it.

"For every touch that wooed its stay,
Has brushed its richest hues away."

Like the lambent light of the fire,
or the play of lighting on a summer
sky, wholesome and genuine hu-
mour is natural and harmless. The
original meaning of the word hu-
mour is "moisture," and is not inapt,
for as moisture fructifies the earth,
so humour humanizes mankind.

How naturally are we attracted
to the man who laughs genuinely,
and laughs, too, in the right place!

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

His character is indexed at once :
we know where to find him, — the
honest laugh does not emanate from
the scoundrel. A man may smile
and be a villain still, and may laugh
grimly and sardonically, or, the
loud, unsympathizing, unmeaning
laugh may betray the vacant mind ;
but the laughter which rings with
genuineness and appreciation, is the
catholic note of sympathy, culture
and integrity. And what a teacher
is well timed wit, or genuine hu-
mour! How it punctures the blad-
der of conceit, pretence, and hy-
pocrisy! But, unlike those of wit,
the shafts of humour wound to
heal, and heal without leaving a
scar. There is nothing, says Sydney
Smith, of which your pompous gen-
tlemen are so much afraid as a little
humour. How often a bloated mass
of self-complacency and ignorance
is reduced to insignificance by the
genial rays of wholesome humour !
Says an eminent English author:
"I will find you twenty men who
will write you systems of metaphy-
sics over which the world shall
yawn and doze and sleep, and pro-
nounce their authors oracles of wis-
dom, for one who can trifle, like
Shakespeare, and teach the truest
philosophy when he seems to trifle
most."

Yet, the gift of wit is too often
a dangerous possession. As the
diamond is worn for display, wit,
which like that precious stone, cuts
as well as shines, is unhappily too
much employed for the satisfaction
and vanity of its possessor, rather
than for the benefit of others, and
the professional wit is as much de-
spised as dreaded. What can be
more boresome than the man who
is always trying to be funny ! Nor
is it the try, try again which ulti-
mately achieves success. Humour,

like happiness, often flees from her
pursuer, and in the mouths of these
indefatigable aspirants, we are some-
times tempted to think it has length,
breadth and thickness! But what
is more delightful than the spon-
taneity and elusiveness of genuine
humour; and we are not surprised
that Cicero and Quintilian in their
instructions upon Oratory, insisted
upon a true understanding of hu-
mour as essential to the perfection
of the actor and the orator.

That the spirit and essence of
humour thrived in the mercurial at-
mosphere of Greece, we have abun-
dant proof. In fact, a Court of Hu-
mour was held periodically at Her-
acleum, a village near Athens, which
consisted of sixty members, and
their sayings and doings were cur-
rent among the people, bearing al-
ways the stamp of the "sixty" in
order to prove their genuineness.
It would be interesting to know if
the acts and sayings of that Court
gave origin to the common parlance
of today — ''behaving like sixty !" At
any rate, Philip of Macedon es-
teemed their jokes so highly that he
asked for a written copy of them.
The Greeks undoubtedly perpetra-
ted a masterly practical joke in the
taking of Troy, and Homer repre-
sents Olympus as resounding with
laughter, on more than one occa-
sion, and the gods themselves were
not superior to practical jokes, as,
for instance, when they seduced, by
promise of fair weather, poor mor-
tals to venture upon a picnic, and
when enjoyment was at its height,
sent a sudden shower of rain upon
them, at the same time laughing up-
roariously at the ridiculous plight
of the merrymakers. Douglass Jer-
rold says that the golden chain of
Jove was nothing but a succession
of laughs, — a chromatic scale of

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUR

-7

merriment, reaching from earth to
Olympus. No less an authority
than Socrates insisted that a tragic
poet should be a comic poet also.
We commonly picture Plato and
Aristotle as solemn personages, of
dignified mien, clad in stately robes,
whereas they laughed with their
friends like other men and lived
simple, cheerful lives. We know
that Plato sent to Dionysius of Syra-
cuse, that work of Aristophanes en-
titled "The Clouds," as an answer
to the tyrant's question if Athens
was given to humour. Yet the
Athenian law forbade a judge of the
Areopagus to write a comedy, which
enactment was probably meant to
invest the office with a. severity of
dignity which would prevent con-
tempt of court !

Thersites made the Greek heroes
the subjects of the broadest and
most robust jokes, and Diogenes,
who was called "Socrates gone
mad," was not destitute of humour
when he replied to the man who
asked him what kind of wine he
liked best, "Another maris," and
to one who inquired of him the
proper hour for dining, "If you are
rich, when you will ; if you are poor,
when you can."

The humour of Alcibrades was so
proverbial in Athens, that sometimes
it became what humour and the
quality of mercy ought not to be, —
somewhat strained ; and the flog-
ging he gave the pedagogue because
the latter was without a copy of
Homer at hand, savored more of
bravado than of genuine humour.

Cicero's joke that the more Greek
a man knew the greater knave he
would prove, is well known, and
the element of satire which dis-
tinctly prevades Horatian wit has
furnished precedent for many a
satirist of later generations. Scipir>

Africanus was a good natured hu-
morist, and a strong, pronounced
vein of humour ran through the
whole Caesar family. Indeed, the
sententious alliteration uttered by
Julius Caesar, veni, vidi. via', was
claimed by his friends to have been
spoken in jest, which seems alto-
gether credible. Imagine the stal-
wart, grotesque egotism of a man
who could make that speech in ear-
nest ! Such self-inflation smacks
rather of twentieth century bombast
than of the age in which Caesar
lived! Besides, we must remember
that Caesar was not from the
Middle-West of the United States!
The reply of Augustus to the abject
flatterers who informed him that
they had erected an altar to him,
proves that a sense of humour was
common to the Caesar family: "I
thank you : how often you must
have kindled a fire on that altar ! I
saw a tree growing on it!"

General biography offers ample
testimony to the fact that a sense
of humour is a feature of great
minds ; hence Locke's argument that
wit and^humour are not ordinarily
accompanied with judgment well de-
serves the stigma put upon it by
Sterne, who says that ever since its
pronouncement it has been made the
Magna Charta of stupidity. On the
contrary, it would seem that among
the greatest minds, the sense of hu-
mour never faileth. And why should
it not be so? Since humour is the
result of an unexpected fitness or
incongruity observed either in the
world without or in association of
ideas within, acting upon a mind
qualified to appreciate this fitness
or incongruity, it is to be expected
that keen and powerful intellects
should not be wanting in this quali-
fication. That great powers of ac-
quisition and absorption can and do

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

exist without this sense is hardly
denied, but its absence is strangely
incompatible with the grasp or sen-
sitivity of genius. It is equally true,
as Amiel says, of wit, that while
humour is useful for everything, it
is sufficient for nothing. It is the
wine and good cheer of life ; not its
food or sustenance. As La Bruyere
has sententiously put it: "Wit is the
god of moments, as Genius is the
god of ages."

The word wit is of Saxon origin
and was formerly applied to sense
or intellect, and even in our time
we are accustomed to speak of
natural or inherited mentality as
mother-wit, thus furnishing ad-
ditional argument that wit in its
present signification is not necessa-
rily dissociated from judgment, and
like that gift which Burns so hearti-
ly commends, enables us to see our-
selves as others see us, thereby res-
cuing us from many a blunder and
folly. How often an author, lacking
a sense of humour, becomes not only
insipid but absorbed. Paradise
Lost, sublime as it is, might have
been saved from the absurdity of
representing the great hierarchy of
heaven as strategists and tacticians,
conducting a campaign upon the
principles and methods of European
warfare, had its author possessed
a keen appreciation of humour. The
novelist who is without this valuable
sense may startle us with impossible
situations, encyclopaedic knowledge
and cumbrous masses of erudition,
but he will never present a faithful
picture of life and will never stir
the hearts of his readers, to what-
ever degree he may awaken or stimu-
late curiosity.

And as humour inhabits the
strongest intellects of all, so too it
belongs to minds of finest quality.
The great masters of pathos have

been endowed with" the finest hu-
mour : —

"There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its cord in melancholy."
and we know that one, greater than
Hood, that unparagoned master-
mind in tragedy and comedy, and
in the sublimest poetry of all time,
dealt with the pathetic and the hu-
mourous as no author has done be-
fore or since ; and the more we study
his production the more we real-
ize that no brain could have created
Hamlet and Lady Macbeth, and no
heart could have held the woe of
King Lear and the sorrow of Ophe-
lia, but the brain and heart which
had the unquenchable elasticity of
FalstafT and Midsummer Night's
Dream and the humour which por-
trayed Polonius and Malvolio.

It was a wise and just admonition
of Lord Chesterfield that a man
should live as much within his wit
as within his income, and he who
exceeds the propriety and boundary
of wit, reveals his weakness as much
as his fault. And who is not im-
pressed with the wholesomeness and
genuineness of Shakespeare's wit!
Never does he transgress the bounds
of propriety or justice, and although
he lived in an age when the Church
and her offices seemed to invite the
shafts of wit and ridicule, he speaks
of her priests and her ministrations
with profoundest reverence, and of
womanhood with the utmost re-
spect. The famous Thomas Fuller,
who was himself a great wit and
noted for his pointed and pithy say-
ings, was horrified at the man who
dared "to jest with the two-edged
sword of God's word," and staunch
old Dr. Johnson characterized such
a mode of merriment, as that which
a good man dreads for its profane-
ness and a witty man disclaims for
its easiness and vulgarity.

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUR

Of the noble and masterly Addi-
son's sense of humour, Macaulay
says : "If a portion of the happiness
of the Seraphim and just men made
perfect be derived from an ex-
quisite perception of the ludicrous,
their mirth must surely be none
other than the mirth of Addison, —
a mirth consistent with tender com-
passion for all that is frail, and with
profound reverence for all that is
sublime." Such is true humour, and
such its real province ; not to de-
grade, but to enliven and regener-
ate,— a recreation, and, as has been
said, recreation is re-creation.

If there is but a step from the
sublime to the ridiculous — a saying
which has been attributed to both
Napoleon and Tom Paine — it is quite
as true that thoroughly gross na-
tures, ambitious to shine as "wits",
are all too eager to take that step and
too frequently mistake that for wit
which is nothing else than the
merest and coarsest profanation.
The man who looks to see the
ridiculous in the sublime, surely is
not to be envied, and he can hardly
fail to remind us of the cat so ably
chronicled in the melodies of Mother
Goose, — who went to London to see
the Queen, and saw the mouse un-
der the chair ! Poor Pussy saw what
she had the eyes to see. How often
are we disgusted by the vulgarian
in society who, in the vain effort
to render himself interesting, en-
deavors to bring into ridicule not
only that which is properly a sub-
ject for the highest art, but that
which commands our reverence and
worship ! And here, I beg leave to
say with, I trust, becoming humility,
that if there is no such word in the
English language as "vulgarian''
there ought to be; these aspirants
constitute a class, and ought to have
a denning and distinctive name !

Since these would-be-wits never
attain the coveted notoriety of hav-
ing said a really good thing, it must
have been a prostitution of greater
ability which elicited from Pascal
the notable aphorism: "Diseur de
dons mots, mauvais caractere." Yet
Pascal, himself, was a master of
irony, as his Provincial Letters
amply illustrate, and no one better
than himself knew how to wield the
weapon of wit, which fact his ad-
versaries well understood. This ut-
terance was probably directed
against the abuse rather than the
use of wit, which he handled as a
Damascene blade, since few men en-
joyed the hearty laugh of true de-
light more than Pascal. In the
same sense De Maistre made the
wise remark, "Le mechant ?iest
jamais comique" and it does not ap-
pear illogical to assume the converse
to be true, " Le vrai comique iiest
jamais mechant" It is when wit
or humour transcends its privileges
that it loses its charm and its power.
No one will deny the wit or humour
of Rabelais, who seems to have made
a business of being a jolly good fel-
low his whole life, and when he said,
"I owe much, I have nothing, and I
leave the remainder to the poor,"
he appeals at once to our sense of
humour and to our sympathy; but
when in his last illness he put on a
domino and uttered the words,
" ' Beati sunt qui moriuntur in Domi-
no" he was not witty but sacri-
legious, and merited disdain rather
than applause. Indeed, both the act
and the utterance are so cheap that
I am inclined to believe them inven-
tions, but that he said to those who
stood weeping around his death-bed,
"If I were to die ten times over, I
would never make you weep half
so much as I have made you laugh,"
seems entirely consistent with his

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

merry and sympathetic nature. The
late Bishop of Alabama, Richard
Wilmer, whose sayings were pithy
and pertinent as well as famous, pre-
served a nimble wit to the last hour
of his life, and when asked if he
felt the symptoms of approaching
death, replied : "I cannot say, I have
never had that experience."

The power, province and limita-
tions, as well as the timeliness of
wit, were fully appreciated by Eras-
mus, who sent many a stinging
arrow into the ranks of the dispu-
tants of his age, and at the same
time promoted peace and good feel-
ing by the wholesomeness of his
humour. It never lost in him its es-
sential feature of spontaneousness ;
hence every thrust or parry he made
was in itself its own excuse. It is
the malice prepense and fore-
thought, the prepared strategy and
attack of the satirist, that is most
likely to excite a resentment which
refuses to forgive, and, like most
other wicked practices, has its re-
flex influence upon the perpetrator.
As brilliant as was the wit of Sheri-
dan, it was too often the achieve-
ment of malicious and laborious
preparation, and he degenerated in-
to a mere poseur. It cannot be
argued that this was the cause of
his profligacy and worthlessness,
but that it ultimately had its part in
destroying all earnestness of pur-
pose and integrity of character, we
may safely infer.

Swift's wit, though caustic, was
natural and spontaneous ; he never
designed it beforehand or set a trap
for his enemy, but he was indiscreet
in its application and thereby lost a
much desired bishopric, because he
had grievously offended one of
Queen Anne's courtiers who was in
Her Majesty's grace. It is said that
the Dean never laughed at his own

wit, — he said it on the spur of a hot
temper and did not chuckle over it,
but Voltaire did, as we might ex-
pect: his meanness would never per-
mit another to enjoy anything in
which he had no share.

How pure, genuine and delicious
are the witticisms of Sir Thomas
More ! They have, too, a scholarly
flavor which commends them at
once to a refined taste, and a gra-
ciousness which stamps them with
spontaneity. His reply to Manners,
who had lately been made Earl of
Rutland, is inimitable and the very
flower of felicitous retort. Sir
Thomas had recently entered upon
the office of Chancellor, and the
Earl, accusing him of too much ela-
tion over his new preferment, said:
"Sir Chancellor, you verify the old
proverb — ' { Honor es mutant mores,' '
to which More replied with charac-
teristic urbanity, "No, my lord, the
pun will do better in English —
"Honors change manners" A hap-
pier retort could not be imagined.
On the day of his execution, seeing
the insecurity of the steps to the
scaffold, he showed his serenity of
mind by his merry remark : "I pray
you, master Lieutenant, see me safe
up, and for my coming down I will
shift for myself."

Shaftesbury's" reply to Charles II.
was most apt, and deserved the ap-
proving laugh it won from his sov-
ereign. "You are the greatest rogue
in all England, Shaftesbury," said
Charles. "Of a subject, I think I
am," was the well-timed answer.
And Charles was as fruitful in witty
retorts as he was in expedients
when pursued by Cromwell's sol-
diers. The famous couplet which
was written on his door by the Earl
of Rochester, representing him as
never having said a foolish thing
and never having done a wise one,

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUR

was well answered in the words:
"No wonder ! my sayings are my
own, — my doings are those of my
ministers !"

Sydney Smith's reputation as a
wit and humourist is too well
known to need comment here, and
his sayings were reinforced by the
sterling worth of his character, yet
there was sometimes an over strain
and pressure of constantly recurring
wit, which probably elicited the
criticism of Lord Brougham, that he
was too much of a Jack-pudding!
However, it cannot be gainsaid that
he was a great exponent and ex-
ample of English humour.

But what a heritage of charming,
healthy and healthful humour has
Charles Lamb bequeathed to all
English speaking peoples! How it
sparkles with personality, how it
beams with good' feeling and glows
with sympathy and kindness ! How
permeating and pervading, like the
redolence of flower-beds, or the
light and warmth of an open fire !

Thackery's humour has the charm
of subtlety and pervasiveness : it
seems to create an atmosphere, so
to speak, in which his characters
move and have their being, and un-
like that of Lamb, has the bite of
satire, although without its venom,
and the whole world has inherited
a treasure in the work of this great,
if not the greatest of England's
novelists.

The humour of Dickens is by no
means aphoristic, yet it is "sui
generis," and although many critics
characterize it as possessing the
salient features of caricature, an ac-
quaintance with the classes and per-
sonalities he portrays offers convinc-
ing testimony to his realism, not-
withstanding the opinion of Mr.
Howells. One who lives in London
for any length of time, frequents its

courts, and walks its streets, can
hardly fail to recognize his charac-
ters in individuals who look as if
they had stepped out of his pages,
so aptly do they embody his concep-
tions, and it is a remarkable fact
that very young persons — growing
boys and girls — are captivated by
the humour of this novelist and find
his books irresistible. However
valid the argument against the judg-
ment of these juvenile readers, their
predilection is strong proof of the
naturalness of the author's humour.
I cannot forget the fascination
David Copperfield had for me when
I was only thirteen, and as my moth-
er permitted me to read only a cer-
tain number of pages a day, the an-
ticipation of the promised delight
was my last thought at night and
my first in the morning. I happened
to see a lad of same age receive from
a Public Library attendant, a copy
of "Dombey and Son," with an un-
mistakable tremor of happiness, as
he exclaimed : "Oh, I was so afraid
it might be out and I couldn't get
it!" "Do you like to read Dickens?"
I asked. ^ "Oh, I just love him," he
answered, "he's so funny, he's im-
mense!" Walter Scott is hardly
read for his humour, yet whenever
the Wizard of the North offers hu-
mour to his readers, it is wholesome
and palatable, and many of us be-
lieve that both he and Dickens write
very good stories and we enjoy
them, and sometimes not without
the vague suspicion that posterity
may enjoy them when, perhaps, Mr.
Howells shall have been forgotten.
The utility of humour takes on
another phase when it appears in
the form of repartee : then it becomes
a weapon of defence, and self-pro-
tection is its justification, as has
been seen in instances already given.
Mrs. Grote's reply to Louis Na-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

poleon is unsurpassed in brevity or
delicacy, yet its quality, like the
famed blade of Damascus, pierced
through the joints of the Emperor's
armor. His Majesty had been well
acquainted with the Grotes during
his sojourn in England, while his
fortune and his hopes were preca-
rious, but when they visited Paris
after his sudden elevation to the
throne, he ignored them, which neg-
lect the great historian and his wife
thought unjustifiable. One evening
he met Mrs. Grote at a general re-
ception, and being obliged to recog-
nize her, said coldly : "Do you stay
long in Paris, Madam?" "No, do
you?" was her withering reply, and
the Emperor turned from cool to
hot, if the redness of his face was
any indication. As brilliant as had
been his coup d'etat, the lady's
shaft had gone home ! Perhaps he
took comfort in the recollection of
Sydney Smith's facetious remark,
when, on one occasion, the English
wit saw Mrs. Grote arrayed in a most
astonishing head-gear : "Now, I un-
derstand the meaning of the word
grotesque!" So Dr. Emmon's re-
ply to the infidel physician was
elicited, and apt. The physician
was boldly inveighing against all
belief in the Old Testament, and
especially against any faith in the
story of Adam and Eve and the ac-
count of the first transgression. "It
is all stuff, not a word of truth in it.
I was just as much in the garden of
Eden as Adam and Eve were!"
"Ah ! I always heard that there was
a third party present, but I did not
know it was you," quietly answered
Dr. Emmons.

The reply of a naval officer to
Louis XIV. deserves special mention
for its aptness, as well as readiness.
He had persistently presented a pe-
tition for promotion at every oppor-

tunity, until one day the King, irri-
tated by his frequent application,,
turned from him and said in a low
tone to a courtier standing near:
"This man gives more trouble than
any man in my army !" The officer
overheard the remark, and with
ready wit responded : "That, Sirer
has been said more than once by
Your Majesty's enemies!"

When Theodore Hook, brought
back from India to England on the
charge of peculation, meeting a
friend on the street in London who
asked him why he had returned,
answered : "Something wrong about
the chest," it will be gained that
he was far more witty than wise.
The reply to the question, "Is life
worth living?" — "That depends up-
on the liver." — is surely the perfec-
tion of readiness, as was the answer
to a speaker in the House of Com-
mons, who grandiloquently declared
that England ought to put her foot
down in several places at once, on
the globe. "England is not a cen-
tipede !" sternly answered a voice
in the rear of the enthusiastic orator.

The beggar's flattering speech to*
Louis XIV. well merited the coin
bestowed by the monarch: "Ton
image est partout excepte dans ma
poche" And not unfrequently, the
very vagueness or indirectness,
which is not generally a character-
istic of wit or humour, becomes a
source of both, — as when an English
statesman said of the French people,.
"They do not know what they want,
and will never be satisfied until they
get it," — or when Heine said, "It is
curious that the three greatest ene-
mies of Napoleon perished miser-
ably; Castlereagh cut his throat,
Louis XVIII. rotted on his throne,
and Professor Saalfeld is still a pro-
fessor at Gottingen !" Also, an in-
ferential sarcasm, very kindly ut-

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUK

tered by Prof. Silliman of Yale was
not bad. There was a sort of merry
war between him and one of his
colleagues, who, passing Silliman's
laboratory one day, heard him ply-
ing a hammer rather vigorously, and
opening the door suddenly, said :
"Shoeing asses, are you?" "Yes,
come in," answered Silliman with a
significant smile.

Douglas Jerrold's solemn negation
affirmed much to the discerning
mind : "There is no God, and Miss
Martineau is his prophet." Those
who are familiar with Harriet's va-
garies as well as her virtues, will
see a world of meaning in Jerrold's
wit, and also in the sententious
speech of the gentleman who went to
a Positivist Club in London where
the doctrine of Humanity was
preached, only three or four being
present. "Three persons and no
God !" said he as he walked out of
the club-room. In these instances,
we have the soul of wit, — brevity —
one blow only, but that is decisive.

No form of wit or humour has
been more criticised or depreciated
than the pun, and Erskine's reply
when he was told that a pun was the
lowest form of wit, — "Yes, and
therefore the foundation of all wit,"
— may be hardly considered logical,
nor is it exactly consistent with
fact, that only those persons de-
spise puns who cannot make them,
but it cannot be gainsaid that those
who can make them seldom leave
their ability unexercised, and how
intolerant does patience itself be-
come of the inveterate punster ! In
these days of specialists, we are al-
most tempted to wish that there
might be special treatment for this
monomania, yet a pun often justifies
itself so handsomely that we can do
nothing less than applaud it. The
totality of time and place and per-

son should be considered in this, as
in every other form of wit or hu-
mour. That a pun should be, as
Lamb says, "begotten of the occa-
sion," is absolutely essential to its
respectability. The hunted and far-
fetched pun shows a face so distort-
ed and unattractive, that we will
none of it. It is painful to dissent
from any utterance of the inimitable
Elia, but I cannot accept his dictum
that the pun is as perfect and satis-
factory as a sonnet. When, how-
ever, he insists that it is not bound
by the laws which limit nicer wit —
that it is a pistol let off at the ear —
an antic which does not stand upon
manners, and does not show less
comic for being dragged in some-
times by the head and shoulders, I
accept his pronouncement with the
proviso that there be limitations to
the distance of the dragging!

The forcefulness, copiousness and
variety of source which characterize
the English language, render it a
fruitful field for puns, and Sydney
Smith, Archbishop Whately, Sheri-
dan, Samuel Foote, Erskine, Jerrold
and scorers of others have abundantly
proven it. There can be no ques-
tion of the spontaneousness of Jer-
rold's puns, as when at the Vatican
he saw an old Roman statue of Ju-
piter which had been differentiated
into a statue of the Apostle Peter,
he exclaimed : "Oh, it is only Jew-
Peter after all !" — nor of Archbishop
Whately's, when he said upon the
spur of the moment, "Yes, Noah's
ark was made of gophir wood, but
Joan of Arc was Maid of Orleans!"

Queen Elizabeth had a keen sense
of humour and made good puns, and
England in the sixteenth, seven-
teenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, shows such an array of
these arabesques of language, as to
defy enumeration. In America,

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Franklin and John Randolph made
notable puns, those of the latter
often showing the rapier point and
thrust of satire. In Congress, upon
one occasion, Mr. Archer of Mary-
land, whose name was on roll-call
after that of Oakes Ames, voted by
mistake and voted again at the call-
ing of his own name, whereupon
someone exclaimed : "Insatiate
Archer would not one suffice?" — and
Archer instantly replied : "A better
archer would have had better aims !"
So Americans are not likely to lose
the spirit of their ancestors in pun-
making.

The parody has not the excuse of
the pun, as it is the palpable evi-
dence of malice propense, and amus-
ing as it may be, is not so useful or
admirable. It neither reproves nor
corrects, except where it takes the
form of burlesque which is broader
and farther reaching in effect. Hip-
ponax, a Greek comic poet of the
sixteenth Olympiad, is said to have
invented it and whatever may be
said in its favor, it does not hit at
one blow, and not unfrequently
proves that the hand which cannot
erect a hovel, may destroy a palace.
Our papers and books abound with
spurious humour, and, paradoxical
as it may appear, this charge cannot
be laid to the nonsense books which
constitute a real contribution to the
pleasure of nations. Ruskin pro-
nounced Edward Lear's Book of
Nonsense as most beneficent and
innocent, and I confess I do not ad-
mire the taste of the man who does
not find the lyric, entitled "The Owl
and The Pussy-Cat," delicious. The
wisest men ought to relish such
nonsense and I think they do, and
Lord Chatham uttered the words of
wisdom when he said: "Don't talk
to me about sense. I want to know
if a man can talk nonsense !" — and
to be able to write delightful non-

sense is a gift not to be despised by
any who know Lear, Gilbert and
Burnand, or have ever read "Non-
sense Botany," which humourous
production ought to cure the se-
verest attack of the dismals.

American humour lies chiefly in
exaggeration, although Mrs. Part-
ington's account of the "two buckles
on her lungs," and her views of an
"unscrupulous Providence," and
willingness to attend divine service
"anywhere the Gospel was dis-
pensed with," possess a charm quite
independent of this national charac-
teristic, as does the narration given
by Sam Patch of the "aqueous Em-
pedocles who dived for sublimity."
Some of the newspaper stories are
not without a kind of humour, as
for instance, the announcement that
a woman attempted to kindle a fire
by means of kerosene oil, and the.
editor simply added, without com-
ment, that the attendance upon the
funeral would have been larger but
for a wet day! Imagination, of
course, supplied all the details, but
much that is put forth as humour
and wit in our current publications
is a spurious article, and as Addison
says, only resembles true humour
as a monkey resembles a man.

It has been said that French hu-
mour is of the passions, German is
abstract, Italian esthetic, and Span-
ish romantic, while English humour
is of interest and social relations,
which general classification is doubt-
less correct, like rules in grammar,
with the usual number of excep-
tions. The humour of the Briton is
of such stout fibre that he is prone
to think that other nations scarcely
know how to be funny, and the
Frenchman returns the compliment
in coin of like value. I distinctly
remember an accomplished French
gentleman at Biarritz who laughed
immoderatelv at what he called the

THE UTILITY OF HUMOUR

stupidity of English jokes, and
when I asked him if he did not
think the English had a fine sense
of humour, he answered with an
eloquent shrug of the shoulders,
which put an end to further interro-
gation. Not three weeks afterward,
in a pension in Lucerne, an English-
man mentioned an incident and con-
versation in which a German and
Frenchman took part, and added his
comment: "That is their absurd
idea of humour!" The American
hesitates not to speak of the Eng-
lishman's density in apprehending
a jest, and the Englishman declares
that a Scotchman's skull requires
trepanning to let in a joke, while
the Irishman accepts nothing as
real humour which has not the
breadth and quality of his own. It
happened during a sojourn in the
moutains, that our landlord re-
marked to us at breakfast, that he
had been "much inconvenienced
lately as to milk." I could but re-
call the rule and example in Latin
grammar concerning use of dative,
and in our walk to the spring I
laughed about the landlord's way of
putting his embarrassment. A very
sensible man in the party, having
occasion to speak of me, subsequent-
ly remarked with utmost serious-
ness, "She seems an innocent kind
of person, — how she laughed be-
cause the landlord couldn't get
milk, — there is nothing funny in
that!" So true it is that a jest's
prosperity lies in the ear of him who
hears it ! But the most obdurate
national prejudice will not deny the
possession of both wit and humour
of highest degree to the English,
nor the wisdom and exquisite grace
which constitute the charm of the
best French wit. As a French phi-
losopher says, "La pointe Francaise
pique comme V aiguille pour {aire

passer le fil" — and in gracious com-
bination of sentiment and humour,
French literature abounds, as when
Sophie Arnauld says, in her sigh for
lost youth : Les heureux jours ou
fetais si malheureuse! " What a
history in that one sentence !

The charm and vitality of Spanish
humour will not be disputed by
those who are familiar with the
proverbs of the people. Don Quix-
ote could hardly have been born
of another nation, and Cervantes de-
clares that his work would have
been more humourous but for his
fear of inquisitorial investigation.
The most illustrious age of Italian
literature is illustrious with humour,
and the grave and reverend Floren-
tine seigniors did not disdain the
pastime of practical jokes, while
the repartee of a Florentine was as
celebrated as the song of a Neapoli-
tan or the art of the Venetian. The
German may reach his joke by a
more circuitous route than the
Frenchman, but he arrives, and the
pedantry of the Hollander in his
most scholarly periods did not blind
him tq__ the seductions of humour.
Even the grimness of the Puritans
sometimes relaxed, as in the pun,
"Great praises to God and little
Laud to the devil," — and, to quote
Macaulay, although they frowned
at stage-plays and amusements,
they did smile at massacres ! So
humour, l;ke the sunlight, shines for
all, and like the relief-corps in battle,
offers comfort in disastrous emer-
gency. It is said that when the
English were repulsed by the Rus-
sians at Redan, — driven helter-skel-
ter into the trenches and falling
over the wounded and dead, — they
burst into roars of laughter at their
own ridiculous plight.

There are persons born without
humour, as there are persons with-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

out sight or hearing, but, like Fal-
staff, they are the cause of humour
in others, as when the Scotchman
and his wife discussed the doctrine
of election: "And how many elect
on earth now?" "I think, Janet,
about a dizzen." "Hoot, mon, nae
so many as that." "Why, Janet, do
you think naebody to be saved but
yoursel and the minister?" "Weel.
I sometime hae my doots about the
minister," — or, when the four
Scotchmen and an Englishmen, sit-
ting together in an Edinburg hos-
telry, saw a son of Burns enter, and
the Englishman remarked : "I would
rather see the father enter this
room," — and the Scotchman re-
plied: "That is impossible, he is
dead !" Certainly these examples
might justify the keenest sa;ire of
the old lexicographer. To balance
on the other side, Coleridge tells of
a man from Yorkshire, at a dinner-
party, who sat dumb and unap-
preciative amid a flow of humourous
conversation, until a dish of apple-
dumplings was brought in, when
he laughed ecstatically and ex-
claimed : "Oh, them's the jockeys for
me !" Evidently the cat had found
the mouse under the chair!

Careful research on the part of
antiquarians informs us that the
printing of jest-books began a little
over three hundred years ago, but
the momentous undertaking of col-
lecting jokes was first assumed in
the early Christian years, by Hiero-
cles, and he showed as the harvest
of his arduous labors, only twenty-
one jokes ' That is, a joke was made
every two hundred and fifty years.
A long interregnum, and recalls the
famous telegram sent by the Gov-
ernor of one of the United States
to the Governor of another of the
United States, that it was a long
time between drinks! No doubt

some of these jokes are doing duty
still, and are fathered by many a
foster-parent of the present day.
The clever speech about the wine
being small of its age, has been
traced as far back as Haroun al
Raschid — and we all know the
gleam and subtlety of Arabian wit;
again it glitters upon the tongue of
a Greek philosopher — enlivens the
feast of a Roman senator — is as-
cribed to a dozen English wits, and
claimed by men in every part of
America ! Byron tells us of a man
who had the same joint of meat
every Sunday that he might pro-
duce the same joke, which he did
with unwavering fidelity, and it is
safe to infer that the man of one
joke is as much to be dreaded as
the man of one book.

Savages are greatly devoid of hu-
mour, possessing little, if any sense
of the incongruity or propriety of
things. The stern necessities and
rigorous demands of uncivilized life
leave no room for humour, which is
a fair flower of culture and civili-
zation. The Veddahs of Ceylon are
said by those who best know them,
to be utterly incapable of appreciat-
ing humour, and the cannibals of
Africa smile only at the torture in-
flicted upon their enemies. The
Turk rarely laughs, and when he
does, it is rather a sense of triumph
over another, than of humour. Yet
many of the Turkish proverbs are
not wanting in wit, but the kindli-
ness and sympathy of spontaneous
laughter, as well as the depths of
tenderness, are not the inheritance of
Ottoman hearts. Joy and sorrow
are strangely knit together and there
is a mystical union between smiles
and tears, and the wisdom of Solo-
mon is verified by common ex-
perience : "Even in laughter the
heart is sorrowful."

A NEW HAMPSHIRE LOG-JAM

Yet without that laughter, what
a Sahara of barrenness would life
be! Upon its journey, refreshing
wells of humour gladden and re-
new the soul, and history and biog-
raphy agree in the verdict that the
capacity for gladness is but the other
side of the capacity for pain, and
they who sorrow most are they who
laugh most heartily. A Scotch
essayist, with discriminating judg-
ment, says of the author of the
Moslem religion, "Mahomet had

that indispensable requisite of a
great man, — he could laugh." The
laugh of the author of In Memo-
riam, was thrilling and triumphant,
and he who sees no good in humour
is least likely to perceive the true
and the beautiful; nevertheless,
while humour is unfettered by
written canons, let us remember
that it is for the outer courts of
God's temples, nor should dare enter
the Holy of Holies.

A New Hampshire Log -Jam

By Walter Deane

IN the picturesque valley of the
Androscoggin River, in the town
of Shelburne, New Hampshire,
nestled at the foot of a heavily-
wooded ridge with a broad outlook
over the wide-spreading intervale
backed by the masses of Mount Mo-
riah, stands the spacious house of
the Philbrook Farm. Here we
agreed to settle for rest and pleasure
during the month of June when the
early spring plants are still linger-
ing and the resident birds are in
full song. All our anticipations
were fully realized. We were on
old and familiar ground, but we had
never been there earlier than the
month of July. The beautiful Lin-
naea borealis carpeted the woods,
the noble Pileated Woodpecker, the
wildest and grandest among its
northern New England relatives,
screamed as it flew over the high
trees, the Banded Purple ( Basil archia
arthemis) that exquisitely tinted
White Mountain butterfly, flew past,

displaying its snow-white bow as it
sailed along, while in the meadow
on a sunny day every stalk of the
Golden Ragwort (Senecio Robbinsii)
seemed to have, poised dainti-
ly on the rich yellow flowers, the
Mountain Silver-Spot (Argynnis
atlaiitis)^ Bad weather, however
prolonged, cannot entirely break up
the attractions offered by these gifts
of Nature, but on this particular
month of June the fates seemed to
vie with each other to render each
day worse than the preceding.
Dense smoke, the result of forest
fires, followed by continual rains,
gave us very few chances of seeing
the genial sun, but there is a com-
pensation in all things, and what we
lost in one way, we gained in an-
other, for we were treated to a won-
derful spectacle which fair and
sunny days would have denied us.

The Androscoggin River is the
highway along which float the logs
that form the immense drives that

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

every spring are sent down from
the wooded regions along its upper
sources. The second great drive
was in progress when we reached
Shelburne during the last week in
May, and we loved to sit on the
river bank or lean against the rail-
ing of the bridge and watch the logs
as they glided silently by either
singly or in groups. It was with a
feeling of sadness that my mind re-

LOG-JAM AT SHELBURNE BRIDGE

verted to the barren stretches
in the valleys and on the
mountain slopes, left by the
woodsman's axe. It is more
profitable, as far as immediate
gain is concerned, to strip the
forest of every tree rather
than to leave the small ones.
This I was told by one long
used to lumbering in New
Hampshire. As we gazed at these
messengers from the northern woods,
we were occasionally attracted by a
fine large relic of primeval days,
but as a rule the logs were not more
than six inches to a foot and a quar-
ter in diameter. They were cut in
the neighborhood of Lake Umbagog,
the source of the Androscoggin
River, and were on their way to

Rumford Falls on the same river in
Maine, there to be ground to pulp
for the manufacture of paper or cut
into boards, in the immense mills
of the International Paper Company,
the Rumford Falls Paper Company,
and the Dunton Lumber Company.
Each log bears the private mark of
the owner cut upon it, generally at
each end, with an axe, so that they
are readily separated into their re-
spective booms when they
reach their final destination.
During early June every-
thing proceeded quietly, most
of the logs keeping on an even
course down the stream. As
always happens, many were
stranded along the banks,
owing either to some sharp
turn in the river or to the fall

BREAKING UP THE JAM

of the water as the season advances.
These are all removed later by the
rivermen. On the night of June 12,
however, without the slightest warn-
ing, the river rose eight feet. It
had been raining for a few days pre-
viously, but no rise in the Andro-
scoggin was perceptible. In fact
long continued rains may produce
but little effect on the river. The

A NEAV HAMPSHIRE LOG-JAM

cause of this tremendous flood was
doubtless due to a cloud burst in
the valley of the Peabody River, a
tributary of the Androscoggin and
flowing into it a few miles above the
center of Shelburne, and in the val-
leys of the main streams near by.
No rise was noticeable above the
mouth of the Peabody River, but
much damage was done to the
bridges over that river. The effect
of this accession of water was re-
markable. By ten o'clock in the
evening the wide intervale before
our house was submerged, in some
places to a depth of three feet, and
though the waters receded very
rapidly in the night, their effects
were seen the next morning ,in the
tell-tale logs quietly resting here
and there over the broad meadow
far from the river bed whither the
floods had retreated. It was, how-
ever, on the immense drive of logs
in the river itself, that the storm had
shown its power. In the hands of
this mighty rush of water, the huge
logs were but as jack straws in the
hands of a child. They were tossed
up on the river banks in wild dis-
order and in places lay in great piles
along the shore, or on the small
islands. Immense log-jams were
formed both at Shelburne Bridge
and farther up stream, a short dis-
tance below Lead Mine Bridge — ■
from which one obtains that view of
the White Mountains that Starr
King has rendered famous. At Shel-
burne Bridge the logs were piled in
gigantic confusion against two of
the iron piers, extending several
hundred feet up the stream, and in
height reaching from the bed of the
river to several feet, in some places,
above the level of the bridge, mak-
ing a total elevation of at least fif-
teen feet. These are called "centre
jams" and they were estimated to

LOG-JAM BELOW LEAD MINE BRIDGE

contain a million feet of lumber.
It was here that we had our first
experience in witnessing the excit-
ing work of jam breaking. On the
very morning following the storm
we found a gang of rivermen hard
at work. They are a set of noble
fellows full of brawn, muscle and
courage, and always excelling in
courtesy as we experienced on many
occasions. Each man was armed
with his cant-dog, consisting of a
stout maple handle furnished with a
square iron point. A piece of curved
iron or "dog," as it is called, with a
sharp point at one end, is hinged to
the iron base of the handle. The ef-
ficiency of this weapon in the skilled
hands of a riverman is marvellous.
The huge logs are "canted," that is,
pushed, pulled, rolled forward
or backward, or pried out from un-
der overlying masses, and I saw one
man work a small log up perpen-
dicularly from the jam by a sort of
twisting process with his cant-dog.
The extraction of this log caused the
easier removal of others adjoining.
Indeed, it was astonishing to note
how quickly the men attacked the
important or "key" log on every oc-
casion. Of course where the jam
rests heavily on the river bottom,
it cannot be broken up by the re-
moval of any one log.

100

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

LARRY HOWARD, A TYPICAL R1VERMAN

As the men urged on their mighty
efforts, the logs rolled into the water
one after another and at times a
large section of the jam would
"haul" or settle, often with the men
on it, and frequently they were
carried down stream on the floating-
mass. Then the batteau would fol-
low and take them back. The bat-
teau is a large, long-pointed dory
worked by two rivermen with oars,
paddles or pick-poles as the occa-
sion requires. The pick-pole is a
long pole furnished with a square
iron point. This square point, both
in the cant-dog and the pick-pole,
enables one to thrust it into a log
and then pull hard without releas-
ing the weapon. A slight twist in
either case readily frees it. As in all
things, there is a knack in doing
this. The batteau is a very im-
portant adjunct to the work of a
riverman, especially when the water

is swift and deep and there are falls
in the vicinity. Often the axe must
be used wheie a refractory log re-
fuses to budge and yet must be re-
moved, and here again it was a
pleasure to see the axe wielded in
the hands of one who had used it
from boyhood and never missed his
aim.

Another point upon which the
rivermen pride themselves is their
firm footing on the unstable founda-
tion that they work upon. This is
acquired by long practice and the
use of heavily calked boots, the
sharp spikes furnishing a ready hold.
The boots are hand-made and are
sold to the men by the companies
employing them. Clad in these
they run about with perfect ease
over wet, floating logs that are often
too small to bear them up, but they
step nimbly from one sinking log
to another and rarely make a misstep,
Their skill in riding a single log is

RIVERMAN S OUTFIT

A NEW HAMPSHIRE LOG-JAM

101

very great and it was a beautiful
sight to see a man standing erect as
a statue on a log as it sped down
the current. These calked boots,
with the cant-dog, pick-pole and
axe, constitute the working outfit of
a riverman.

After breaking up one of the cen-
ter jams and a portion of the other,
a work which took but little more
than two days, the men were sent
back up stream nearer the end of
the drive where there was more
pressing need. A single riverman,
Larry (Lawrence) Howard by
name, was left to watch the bridge
and report any fresh accumulation
of logs. He was a Canadian by
birth and in every way a typical
riverman, strong, active and well-in-
formed on the leading questions of
the day. I had many interesting
talks with him and he took me over
the jam and the floating logs. The
drive consisted of the following
species: — Pine ( Pinus St rob us)
which is classified as Pine and Past-
ure Pine ; the former, the typical
tree of the woods with long, straight
branchless trunk; the latter, the
scrubby pasture form, branching
low down and hence much inferior
in quality ; Spruce {Picea rubra), the
timber spruce of the New England
mountains; Fir {Abies balsamea)\
Hemlock ( Tsuga canadensis) with
the bark always removed; Cedar or
Arbor Vitae ( Thuya occidentalis ) ;
Poplar or "Pople" {Populns grandi-
de?itata) with the bark removed as
in the case of the Hemlock. The
bulk of the logs consisted of Spruce
and "Pople."

The jam below Lead Mine Bridge
a few miles up the river, was very
extensive. At this point there are
three islands lying at intervals
across the river and making four
channels. Three of these channels

were "plugged" or completely closed
by an unbroken mass of logs that
extended far and wide in every di-
rection. It reminded one of Kip-
ling's

"Do you know the blackened timber? Do

you know that racing stream,
With the raw right-angled log-jam at the

end ?"

We walked over the logs with per-
fect freedom, enjoying this new ex-
perience, and drew close to the men
at work. Here was the greatest ac-
tivity. It was the rear of the drive
when we visited it and all the men
to the number of fifty-five were con-
centrated at this point. The pictur-

THE BATTEAU

esqueness of the scene was greatly
enhanced by the addition of eight
pairs of horses that were employed
in the shallow water in pulling out
logs where there wras little or no
current, and we often saw them
working up to their middle, a driver
on the back of one of each pair.
Chains attached to the horses are
furnished at the ends with iron dogs
which are driven into the floating
logs by a few strokes of a mallet. A
single blow of a cant-dog on a
raised projection of the dog readily
releases it.

The great jam melted away visi-
bly as we watched. There was al-
most no noise, the men needed their

102

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

strength for their work, and at it
they went tooth and nail, gathered
in groups here and there, many of
them up to their knees in water, a
boss superintending the whole. In
no undertaking is perfect unanimity
of action more important, and it was
truly thrilling to see a row of men
drive their cant-dogs into a giant
log with a precision almost military
and send it tumbling down into the
water. It is a life of continual ex-

at two o'clock. These are taken to
the men if they are at a distance
from the wangan, or camp, that no
time may be wasted. At seven
o'clock they stop work and walk
back to headquarters which, on one
occasion during our visit in Shel-
burne, were three miles off. Here
they enjoy a hearty supper and a
long rest. If any man earns his two
dollars a day, food and lodging, it
is a riverman. They work hard,

THE WANGAN

citement and the dangers attending
it are not few. Still such is the skill
of the men, and they are ever so on
the alert, that I heard of no accident
during our visit.

The working hours of these river-
men, which include Sundays as well
as week days, would stagger the
city workman. Rising at half past
four in the morning they wash,
dress, eat a hurried breakfast and
are off to their labors by five o'clock.
Lunch is served at ten and dinner

eat heartily of the best of food, and
sleep soundly. One fellow, a strong,
muscular specimen, told me that he
had worked consecutively, Sundays
included, for sixty-five days, and had
been wet above his knees during
almost the whole time, and yet was
in perfect physical condition. They
often do not stop even to dry them-
selves before turning in at night.
One man informed me that on the
evening before, as he was returning
to camp, he slipped into the water

A NEW HAMPSHIRE LOG-JAM

103

"all over," but went to bed just as he
was, slept hard and woke up "steam-
ing!"

The wangan, as the camp is al-
ways called, is moved along from
time to time to keep pace with the
men. On the occasion of our visit,
it lay in a lovely stretch of meadow
close by the cool waters of the river.
Four sleeping tents extended in a
row near the water. Within each
tent on either side for its entire
length, stretched a long heavy blank-
et lying on the fresh meadow grass,
each sleeper's place being desig-
nated by a large number on the can-
vas of the tent. These blankets were
broad enough to wrap over the men,
thus making, as it were," a huge
sleeping-bag in which twelve men
could pass the night in well-earned
slumber. A cook tent contained the
provisions, large dishes of tempting
hot custard, bread, hot biscuits, bar-
rels of crackers, cakes and dough-
nuts, and meats of various kinds.
I saw a loaf of gingerbread three
feet long. The fact that Charlie
Tidswell, well known to Maine

campers, presided over the cooking,
was sufficient guarantee for its
quality. A large vessel was steam-
ing over an open fire near the cook
tent and we saw the cook bury a
large pot of beans in a hole in the
ground and cover it over with hot
embers and burning sticks that had
been keeping the place warm for its
reception. A long table protected
by a canvas covering was used to
serve the meals upon and near by
stood a horse and wagon ready to
take the lunch and dinner to the
rivermen.

One cannot but admire the en-
durance and courage of these hardy
men whom no dangers can daunt.
Many of them spend the entire win-
ter in the woods, chopping down
trees for the spring drives and, be-
fore the ice has" left the rivers, are
at work in the chilling water driv-
ing the logs down stream. I con-
sider it a great privilege to have been
in Shelburne last June and to have
seen the noble work performed in
river driving by the bold and pictur-
esque rivermen.

Colonial School Books

By Clifton Johnson

THE text-book equipment in
our schools during the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries
was exceedingly meager. Until
toward the end of the Colonial
period the average schoolboy had
only a catechism or primer, a
Psalter, a Testament, and a Bible.
For Latin students this list would
have to be extended, but ordinarily
it comprised all the boy ever used
as long as he attended school. Still,
scattered copies were possessed of
the text-books put forth in England,
and these were not without in-
fluence on the schools and on the
attainments of the pupils. The more
popular ones began to be reprinted
here about the middle of the eight-
eenth century, but most of them
were imported.

Prior to the Revolution, text-
books by American authors were
very few. Indeed, I believe there
were none at all save for a little
Latin book by Ezekiel Cheever.
Cheever was one of the most notable
of the early schoolmasters. He
taught in New Haven and some
smaller places, but for the last thirty-
eight years of his life was master
of the Boston Latin School. He
died at his post in 1708 at the age
of ninety-four after having given
seventy years of continuous service
to the New England schools. Full
to the brim with Puritan theology
he wrote a book called The Scriptur-
al Prophesies Explained, and he was
unflagging in earnest endeavors to

help his boys to become Christian
men. The text-book of his author-
ship to which I referred was A Short
Introduction to the Latin Tongue,
generally known as "Cheever's Acci-
dence." It enjoyed for over a cen-
tury immense popularity. The first
edition appeared in 1645 and the
book was republished as late as 1838.

In the grammar schools Cheever's
was usually the first Latin book,
and after the boys had worked
their way through that they plunged
into the dreary wilderness of "Lily's
Grammar" with its twenty-five
kinds of nouns, its seven genders
and other things in proportion —
all to be wearisomely committed to
memory. The purgatory of this
grammar was early recognized, and
Cotton Mather said of it, "Persist-
ing in the use of Lily's book will
prolong the reign of the ferule."
The only copies I have seen have
been revisions of the original, yet
the one I own, dated 1766, states
that the unrevised is still printed
and for sale. The author of the
work died in 1523, and one would
think that in the two centuries and
a half since the book first appeared,
it would have been supplanted
earlier.

A more attractive book to the
Latin boys was John Amos Come-
nius's Visible World, which was
published in 1658. Aside from ABC
primers this was the first illustrated
school book ever printed. Come-

104

COLONIAL SCHOOL BOOKS

105

nius, born in 1592, was a
Moravian bishop and the
most distinguished educa-
tional reformer of his time.
He wrote a number of
books but the one that at-
tained the widest circula-
tion was this "Visible
World : or a Nomenclature,
and Pictures of the chief
things that are in the
World, and of Men's Em-
ployments therein ; in about
an 150 Copper Cuts."
Every subject treated had
its picture and below the
engraving was a medley of
explanatory little sentences
in two columns, one col-
umn in Latin, the other in
English. By such means
the pupil was supposed to
not only learn Latin, but
to absorb a large amount
of general knowledge con-
cerning the industries and
other "chief things that are
in the World." It was a
crude effort to interest the
child and was encyclopedic,
dry and verbal, having
more the character of an il-
lustrated dictionary than a
child's reading book; yet
for one hundred years this
was the most popular text-
book in Europe, and it was trans-
lated into fourteen languages.
Of the elementary Latin books
in vogue during the later Colonial
days Bailey's English and Latin
Exercises for School-Boys furnishes
a fair sample. It was made up sand-
wich fashion from cover to cover
with alternating paragraphs of Eng-
lish and Latin, one a translation of
the other. Some of the material
would hardly find place in a school
book of today, as for instance :

The Barbers Shop. LXXV. Tonftrina.

The Barber, 1.

h the Barbers- fhop, 2.

cutteth off the Hair

and the Beard

with a pair of Sizzars, 3.

or jbaveth with a Razor,

which he ta\eth out of hti

Cafe, 4.

And he waflxth one
over a Bafon, 5.
with Suds running
out of a Laver, 6.
andalfo with Sppe, 7.
andwipeth him
with a Towel, 8.
combe th him with a Comb, 9.
and curleth him
with a Crifping Iron, io.

Sometimes he cutteth a. Vein
with a Pen-knife, 11.
where theBhodfpirteth ouS3i2.

Ton/or, 1.
in Tonflrina, 2*
tondet Crines
& Barbam
Forcipc, 3.
vel radic Novaculb,
quam e Theca, 4* depromit.

Ec Iavac
fuper Ptlvim, $.
Lixivio defluence
e Gutturnio, 6,
uc & Sapone, 7.
& tergit
Linteo9 8.

pe&ic Pe8'me% 9.
crifpac
CalamiflrOy 10.

Interdum Venam fecae
Scalpello, 11.

ubi Sanguis propullulat, 12.
The

A page from Comenius's Visible World

Joan is a nasty Girl.

Ugly Witches are said to have been
black cats.

The Report of the great Portion of an
unmarried Virgin is oftentimes the Sound
of a great Lye.

Greedy Gluttons buy many dainty Bits
for their ungodly Guts.

Children drink Brimstone and Milk for
the Itch.

If we should compare the Number of
good and virtuous Persons to the Multitude
of the Wicked, it would be but very small.

Other Latin books in common use
were The Colloquies of Corderius,

106

N E W ENGLAND M AGAZINE

THE

ENGLISH

SCHOOL-MASTER.

Teaching all his Scholars , of what

age foever, the mod eafy, (hort, and perfeft or-
der of diftin& Reading, and true Writing our
Englifh-tongut 5 ihat hath ever yet been
known or publifhed bvany.

Portion of a title-page of a school book first published in 1596

Aesop and Eutropius ; and as the
boys grew older they took up
Caesar, Ovid, Virgil and Cicero. In
Greek they had the grammar, the
Testament and Homer, Thus they
fitted themselves for the University,
which made very exacting require-
ments in the dead languages, but
paid little attention to the progress
its prospective students had made
in science, mathematics or anything
else.

The beginner's book in the Colo-
nial schools was nearly always The
New England Primer,
that queer little volume
wherein the imparting of
the rudiments of knowl-
edge went hand in hand
with religious and theo-
logical instruction.
Millions of these primers
were sold and no book,
save the Bible, was read
and studied so assiduous-

iy-

The earliest spelling
book was a thin quarto of
seventy-two pages en-
titled The English School-
Master by Edward Coote.
It was first published in

1596 and it con-
tinued to be ex-
traordinarily
popular for over
a century. Ac-
cording to the
title-page "he
which hath this
Book only, need-
eth to buy no
other to make
him fit from his
Letters to the
Grammar-
School or for an
Apprentice."
Besides spelling
it contained arithmetic, history,
writing lessons, prayers, psalms, and
a short catechism, and to add to the
intricacy much of the text was
printed in old English black letter.
Another ancestral speller was
England's Perfect School-Master :
By Nathaniel Strong, London, 1676,
of which the author says in his

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.

I have sorted all the words I could think
of, and ranked them in particular Tables ;
with Rules to spell them by. By this Book
a Lad may be taught to read a Chapter

From The History of Genesis, 170S

noah's ark

COL O N I A L SCH O O L BOOKS

K>7

From The London Spelling-Bool-, \-jio

A TREE 0E KNOWLEDGE FRONTISPIECE

perfectly in the Bible in a quarter of a
years time. I have likewise added unto
this Book certain other necessary Instruc-
tions, and useful Varieties, as well for
writers as Readers. The whole I crave
God's Blessing upon.

One curious department, covering
fifteen pages, consists of "Some Ob-
servations of Words that are alike
in Sound, yet of different significa-
tion and spelling." Their use and
meaning are indicated thus :

T Saw one sent unto the Hill's ascent,
■*■ Who did assent to me before he went.
Above thy reach a S^tV^-steeple stands,
Aspire not high, thou Spyer out of
Lands.

The final paragraph in the book
is an "Advertisement" in which the
author says he has a school "where

Youth may be fitted for the Uni-
versity: Also taught to write all
manner of Fair Hands, with Arith-
metick : Likewise Boarded with a
great conveniency. My encourage-
ment when I am being as yet but
small ; If any Person can advise to
any Place or Parish wanting a
School-master ; upon assurance of a
competent livelihood, I shall soon
quit my present Concerns, and
readily accept it."

A text-book with an individuality
all its own was The History of
Genesis published in 1708. It was
made up of short narratives retold
from the first book of the Bible and

From The London Spelling -Book, 1710

AN ILLUSTRATED ALPHABET

108

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

THE

Child's Wee\$-voor\ :

O R,

A Little Book,

So nicely Suited to the

<&mtm ano Capacity

LITTLE CHILD,

Both for

Matter and Method,

That it will infallibly Allure and Lead
him on into a Way of

READING

With all the fiafe and Expedi-
tion that can bedefired.

ByCTiUiamEonftflep

LONDON,

Printed for G.Conyers and J. Rtchzrdfin,
in Lhtle Britain. 1712.

title-page of an early school book
(reduced one-third)

its attraction was enhanced by nu-
merous illustrations. Its purpose can
best be shown by an ex-
tract from the Preface.

This book of Genesis is just-
ly stiled the Epitome of all
Divinity. It is indeed a great
Blessing of God, That Child-
ren in England have liberty to
read the holy Scriptures, when
others abroad are denied it.
And yet alas ! how often do
we see Parents prefer Tom
Thumb, Guy of Warwick, or
some such foolish Book, be-
fore the Book of Life ! Let
not your Children read these
vain Books, profain Ballads,
and filthy Songs. Throw away
all fond and amorous Ro-
mances, and fabulous His-
tories of Giants, the bombast
Atchievements of Knight Er-
rantry, and the like; for these

fill the Heads of Children with vain, silly
and idle Imaginations.

The Publisher therefore of this History
of Genesis, being sensible how useful a
Work of this Nature might be for Schools,
hopes it will meet with a general Accept-
ance.

Somewhat allied to the above in
its distinctly religious character was
"The Protestant Tutor, Instructing
Youth and Others, in the compleat
method of Spelling, Reading, and
Writing, True English : Also discov-
ering to them the Notorious Errors,
Damnable Doctrines, and cruel Mas-
sacres of the bloody Papists, which
England may expect from a Popish
SUCCESSOR. Printed by and for
Tho. Norris, and sold at the Look-
ing-glass on London-bridge." The
title-page from which I have quoted
is dated 1715 but I have seen earlier
copies and the book apparently had
a considerable circulation. The les-
sons included the alphabet, a few
pages of spelling-words and easy
reading lessons, but mostly were
made up of rabid anti-Catholic
matter illustrated with dreadful pic-
tures of persecutions and of heaven,

\JDi

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bufh.
Fable XU. Of the Fijherman and the Fijh.

From Dilworth's Speller

COLONIAL SCHOOL BOOKS

109

hell, death and the judg-
ment.

Perhaps the most enter-
taining of the early elemen-
tary books was The Child's
Weeks-work, 1712, a com-
pilation of lessons for each
day of four weeks. Among
other things there were
proverbs, fables, a section
devoted to "Behavior," and
"A short Catechism fitted
for the use of Children after
they have said their
Prayers." But the oddest
feature was the insertion
here and there of conun-
drums and anecdotes, such
as —

Quest. What's that which is higher
sitting than standing.
Answ. It is a Dog.

Quest. A long Tail, a Tongue and a
Mouth
Full fifty feet above the Ground,
'Tis heard both East, West, North and
South,
A Mile or two all round.
Answ. It is a Bell in a Steeple.
Quest. I never spoke but once.
Answ. It is Balaam s Ass.

From Femiing's Speller

From Fenning's Speller, 1755

THE TRUANT BOYS

VIRTUOUS TOMMY GIVES NAUGHTY HARRY
SOME GOOD ADVICE

A Countryman being prest for a Soldier,
**■ was engaged in a Fight, and at his
return was ask'd, what Manly Acts he had
done, he answer'd, he had cut off one of the
Enemy's Legs. Oh ! said the other, you
had done much more like a stout Man, if
you had cut off his Head: Oh ! said he, that
was off before.

Of the books I have noted, only
infrequent copies wandered to our
shores and this continued to be the
case until after the publication of
Dilworth's A New Guide to the Eng-
lish Tongue in 1740. This
was the most popular speller
of the eighteenth century.
A portrait of Dilworth, with
a scholastic cap on his head
and a pen in his hand, served
for a frontispiece ; and in
truth, as the greatest school
book author of his time, he
was not unworthy of the
honor. The spelling words
were interspersed with much
religious reading and dismal
moralizing, but as an offset
to the matter there was "a
Select Number of Fables
adorned with proper
Sculptures." One of these
rude "sculptures" is here re-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

produced. It was accompanied by
the following story :

A Fisherman having cast his line into
the water presently drew up a Fish.
The little captive intreated the fisherman
that he would spare her (she being but
small) till she was grown larger; and
then she would suffer herself to be taken
by him again.

No, no, replied the fisherman, I am not
to be so served. If I let you go, I must

Frontispiece to a speller entitled The British
Instructor, London, 1763

never see you any more : I was always of
that temper that whatever I could catch I
had rather take it away than leave it be-
hind me.

THE INTERPRETATION.

Never let go a certainty for an un-
certainty.

The only speller to seriously rival
Dilworth's in circulation during the
remainder of the Colonial period,
was Fenning's published in 1755.
Besides "Tables of words" this con-
tained "Lessons both moral and di-
vine, Fables and 'pleasant Stories,
and a very easy and approved Guide
to English Grammar." There was
also some minor material including
a chronology of "the most remark-
able Occurences in sacred and pro-
fane History," that had in it items
like —

The Creation of the World B. C. 4047

Noah's Flood 2350

Walls of Jericho fell down 1454

Eleven Days Successive Snow...A.D. 1674

A very great Comet 1680

A terrible high Wind, November

26 1703

The surprising Meteor and Signs

in the Air 1719

Here is one of the "pleasant
Stories." It is related with a naive
picturesqueness that makes it well
worth reprinting in full.

THERE were several boys that used to
go into the Water, instead of being
at school ; and they sometimes staid so long
that they used to frighten their Parents
very much ; and though they were told of
it Time after Time, yet they would fre-
quently go to wash themselves. One Day
four of* them, Smith, Brown, Jones and
Robinson, took it into their Heads to play
Truant, and go into the Water. They had
not been in long before Smith was
drowned: Brown's Father followed him,
and lashed him heartily while he was naked ;
and Jones and Robinson ran Home half
dressed, which plainly told where they had
been. However, they were both sent to
Bed without any supper, and told very
plainly, that they should be well corrected
at School next Day.

By this time the news of Smith's being
drowned, had reached their Master's Ear,
and he came to know the Truth of it and
found Smith's Father and Mother in Tears,
for the Loss of him; to whom he gave
very good Advice, took his friendly Leave,
and went to see what was become of Brown,
Jones and Robinson, who all hung down

COLONIAL SCHOOL BOOKS

111

GEORGE III. by the Grace of
GOD, of Great-Britain,
France and Ireland, King,
Defender of the Faith.

their Heads upon seeing their
Master ; but more so, when
their Parents desired that he
would correct them the next
Day, which he promised he
would ; though, says he, (by
the bye) it is rather your
Duty to do it than mine, for
I cannot answer for Things
done out of the School.

Do you, therefore, take Care
to keep your Children in Order
at Home, and depend on it,
says the Master, I will keep
them in Awe of me at School :
But, says he, as they have been
naughty disobedient Boys, and
might indeed have lost their
Lives, I will certainly chas-
tise them.

Next Day, Brown, Jones
and Robinson were sent to
School, and in a short Time
were called up to their Master ;
and he first began with
Brozvn — Pray, young Gentle-
man, says he, what is the
Reason you go into the Water
without the Consent of your
Parents ? — I won't do so any
more, says Brozvn. — That is
nothing at all, says the Master,
I cannot trust you. Pray can
you swim? — No, Sir-, says
Brown. — Not swim, do you
say ! why you might have been
drowned as well as Smith.—
Take him up says the Mas-
ter.— So he was taken up and
well whipped.

Well, says he to Jones, can «_^

you swim?-A little, sir, said Does iome exalted Virtue inine ;

he. — A little! why you were ., , ._ . r

in more danger than Brown, AlKl AlblOfl S HaDDinelS We traCe,

and might have been drowned A1 ,

had you ventured much Ia every Feature of his Face*

farther. — Take him up, says he. '

Now Robinson could swim Frontispiece to Watts' Speller, 1770

very well, and thought as
Brown and Jones were whipped because
they could not swim, that he would es-
cape.— WTell, Robinson, says the Master,
can you swim? — Yes, Sir, says he, (very
boldly) any where over the River.— Pray,
Sir, says his Master, what Business had
you in the Water, when you should have
been at School ? — Take him up, says he ; so
they were all severely corrected for their
Disobedience and Folly.

In ev'ry Stroke, in ev'ry Line,

In the miscellany of the latter part
of the book are directions for mak-
ing ink that are quite suggestive of
the primitive conditions of the times.
There is a recipe for red ink as well
as black, which reads

HTAKE half a Pint of Water, and put
■*■ therein Half an Ounce of Gum

Senega ; let this dissolve in a Gallipot, and

112

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

J-Je t^x more of tV.me I'.xaUact would know, \
0»th:< thv J'GOtv !<-i him fcn r ) ! ci'ght.' bcttow. j
Dre? Qi,«ikn<. in ^ « IT H M E 1 1C A' here are i
Dtwosfixated by RCjLESfa FIam,vfo ^utJjk
jfiWy it Self rrtuft reedr. eofcicfc \\w. much, :>. "
ited ail the 2?m4< i'th' World, ycu'il imd N«8«|,
Kb*.!

HO 2) 2) £ it's
ARITHMETICS

OR, THAT

NecetfaryART

Made Moft -Eafie ;

Being explain'd in a way familiar,
to tihe Capacity of any that cte-j
fire to- learn it in a litsh Time\

By Vf

•/«ab\ Writinx-Mafter.

Wc^ebeti ant> Ctscntfet!} €Wt*88» ff*-l

nwjW, Angm'.nttd, and Him* a Jh-fi'^',
Faults Jmndid,

By William Hume, Philomath*

LONDON;

Printed for 2). MMiumter, J Bertehmrtk, s»K

P. Knafiien, T. Ungman, C. BathurjU »

Frontispiece and Titie-page of an early Arithmetic. (Reduced one-half.)

tic, and when a
master chanced to
own a copy, most
of it was likely to
be quite incompre-
hensible to the
average pupil.
One of the earliest
to attain favor was
Cocker's Arithme-
tick: "Being a
Plain and familiar
Method, suitable to
the meanest Ca-
pacity, for the un-
derstanding of that
incomparable Art."
It was first printed
in 1677. Later
came Hodder's,
and in 1743 The

then add one Pennyworth of the best Ver-
milion, stirring it well for two Days.

That stirring for two days makes
it sound like a weary process. In
some books the ink recipes were sup-
plemented by a paragraph like this :

TN hard frosty Weather, Ink will be apt
•*■ to freeze ; which if it once doth, it will
be good for nothing; it takes away all, its
Blackness and Beauty. To prevent which
put a few Drops of Brandy into it, and it
will not freeze. And to hinder its mould-
ing put a little salt therein.

The teachers usually taught arith-
metic without text-books. They
gave out to their scholars rules and
problems from manuscript sum-
books which the schoolmasters had
themselves made under their teach-
ers. It was such a sum-book that the
boy Abraham Lincoln copied while
he was learning arithmetic ; for even
at that date the old method of teach-
ing without a text-book survived
here and there. Many scholars in
the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies never saw a printed arithme-

Frontispiece to The Sch
(Reduced one-third. j

ter's Assistant.

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES

113

School-master's Assistant by Thom-
as Dilworth. Dilworth's book was
still in use to some extent at the be-
ginning of the last century. One can
judge from the fact that it makes no
allusion to decimal currency it
could not by then have been very
well adapted to American require-
ments.

The ordinary binding of all these
Colonial school books was full
leather, even when the books were
small and thin. Illustrations were
used sparingly, and the drawing and
engraving were very crude. The
volumes of English manufacture
were mostly well printed on good

paper; but the American editions
were quite inferior and they con-
tinued to make a poor appearance
as compared with the trans-Atlantic
books until after the middle of the
nineteenth century. The most
marked typographical contrasts to
the present that one observes are
the use of the long s that looks like
an f, and the insertion beneath the
final line of each page of the first
word of the page following. The
catch words and long s were em-
ployed up to 1800, but within the
first decade of the new century they
were entirely abandoned.

Neighborhood Sketches

By Henry A. Shute

VII

OUR NEIGHBORS' WIVES.

One may well understand that a
subject of this kind is one that cannot
be lightly dealt with, and we are all
well aware that a phenomenal amount
of circumspection must be used by us
in depicting any of the eccentricities
of our fair neighbors, if we are to re-
tain them as friends, or retain our
position upon their calling lists.

And yet we have so deep an admira-
tion for them, for their cheerful good
nature, their engaging qualities of
mind and heart, the many neighborly
acts of kindness which we with others
have repeatedly experienced, that we
cannot for a moment believe that thev

will be less kind in their reception of
this friendly criticism.

Having thus made our apology in
advance and invoked the aid of the
gods, we proceed to our task with the
belief that, while our reputation may
suffer as the result of this paper, our
life will indeed be safe.

One would scarcely believe from
seeing their cheerful faces, at church,
on the street, at places of entertain-
ment, always bright, animated, smil-
ing, energetic, to see them so becom-
ingly gowned and tastefully gloved,
or to see them in their homes, courte-
ous, hospitable and frank, that they
were the most abused, most tried,
most neglected and most care-bur-
dened matrons in existence.

114

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

We would not have believed it our-
self, but that an accident put us in
possession of facts that astonished
and grieved us almost beyond the
powers of expression. In fact, this
is the first time we have expressed
ourselves upon the subject, having
since that time borne alone the bur-
den of our individual unworthiness.

NEIGHBORLY GATHERINGS.

It happens that the ladies of the
neighborhood occasionally of an after-
noon invite their friends to certain
little functions at which tea flows like
water and neighborly exchange of
ideas takes place. These functions are
somewhat informal, unlike the bona
fide afternoon teas of the great, but
limited affairs, where the callers are
supposed to bring some sort of sew-
ing or fancy work, and to spend the
afternoon, either on the lawn or in
the living room, according to the
weather or the season, and there ex-
change family receipts and individual
experiences.

Great and lasting good comes from
these informal meetings. Our neigh-
bors become better acquainted with
one another, the most approved and
newest methods of managing family
affairs are exploited, as well as the
various systems of training children
to honor their fathers and mothers,
and have what children have never
since the origin of man been known to
have, respect for all other persons.

In this way the bonds of friendship
have become knitted more firmly and
family discipline has been brought to
a high state of perfection.

Our experience above mentioned
was gained one pleasant afternoon in
the fall. Our wife had bidden several

of the ladies of the neighborhood to
make her home their own for the
afternoon, and the entire quota of
married and unmarried women had
assembled on the lawn in the shadow
of the house, working and chatting as
only women can work and chat.

It happened that day that we had
been confined to the house with a
severe cold and a headache, caused, as
we alleged, by our unwearying indus-
try and application, which claim, how-
ever, was not regarded as genuine by
the hostess.

Well, never mind that, suffice it to
say, that we were comfortably sick,
and uncomfortably restless and un-
easy. It was due to this restlessness
that we did what no self-respecting
person would have done, that is, we
took a comfortable seat by a shaded
window overlooking the company,
and screened from observation by the
dense growth of a clematis vine, pre-
pared to get as much entertainment
out of the proceedings as possible.

CONFIDENTIAL.

The subject for discussion was the
cares and worries with which the ma-
jority of the company were burdened,
with particular reference to the do-
mestic traits of the male members of
the various households represented.

"Oh, dear," said one matron, "Mr.

does try me so. He is so bound

up in his business affairs that I
hardly see him from morning till
night. And if I try to get him to go
out with me to any evening enter-
tainment, he always has some busi-
ness excuse. And then he insists
upon running his household affairs
with the same business system with
which he manages his own affairs,

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES

115

and I never could understand books
and figures anyway, and Sundays he
always says he is tired and I never
can get him to go to church, and he
is so careful about the children
that I am worried to death all the
time, and/' addressing the unmarried
ladies present, and beaming with
pride in her husband, "you ought to
be thankful that you have never mar-
ried a business man."

The young ladies addressed as-
sumed at once a look that said plainly
that thev never would do such a
thing, although they had each, and all
of them had many highly advanta-
geous offers.

"Well," said another lady, "if you
had married a man who was inter-
ested in politics, I think you would
give up. It is bad enough never to
know whether or not your husband
is ever going to be present at his
meals, but to have him first in one
place and then in another, to have him
president of this, and vice-president
of that, and secretary and treasurer
of the other, and rushing around to
attend delegations here, and conven-
tions there, and committee meetings
somewhere else, and to be awakened
in the dead of night by having him
shout 'Mr. Speaker !' and T move for
a division !' and all sorts of dreadful
things, and then the effect upon his
moral character must necessarily be
dreadful, and you all ought to be so
thankful that you have never married
a professional man who has a leaning
for politics."

The ladies all looked extremely edi-
fied and truly sympathetic, particu-
larly the unmarried ladies, who looked
as if professional men with leanings

toward politics might come, and pro-
fessional men with leanings toward
politics might go, but that they would
assuredly go on forever without
them.

The wife of the professional man
with a leaning toward politics had
scarcely ended her pathetic recital
when another lady took up the
theme with great enthusiasm. "Well,"
she sighed, "I don't know but what a
man might as well be a "politician or
a business man, or follow any other
calling that takes him away a great
part of the time, as to be at home a
good deal of the time, but so buried
in books as never to act as if he knew
what was going on in the world. It
may be a brilliant and lively sort of
existence to be always working out
problems in conic sections, or digging
up Greek roots or Latin synonyms,
but after you have chased your hus-
bands down the street to have them
put on their hats or coats whenever
they went to recitations as often as I
have done, and after you have spent
as marry years as I have in following
your husbands round to see that they
didn't do some dreadful thing from
pure absent-mindedness, then I guess
you would be sorry you ever married
a teacher."

And so they ran on, first one and
then another, all detailing some par-
ticular shortcoming of their respec-
tive husbands, which caused them so
much worry and annoyance, that their
lives had become burdensome to quite
a considerable extent.

Now this was really one of the
most delightful afternoons we had
ever spent. There is always an ex-
hilarating sense of pleasure in hearing

116

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the shortcomings of your friends dis-
cussed, and in proportion as the in-
iquities of our neighbors became so
manifest, so did our own sense of
moral superiority swell and expand
and cause us the utmost compla-
cency. True, we even felt a sort of
warm-hearted compassion for our
friends, and a desire to do something
to bring them again to our level, to
reform them, in fact, to do a little
missionary work among so aban-
doned a set as they had become.

OUR TURN NEXT.

While we were ruminating thusly
in a state of moral elevation, our wife
"cut loose" and in about two minutes
we learned more about ourself than
we had ever known before. We
learned that we had absolutely no
business acumen, that the veriest tyro
in business could cheat us, and did
cheat us. That we were daily the
prey of canvassers and book agents
and subscription fiends and other sin-
ister characters. That we never cared
how we looked, and seldom cared
what we said, or where we said it.
That we had no reverence for any one
or anything and that we kept her in
constant terror by reason of our pro-
pensity to say dreadful things. That
we never by any possibility hung up
our hat or wiped our feet or brushed
our coat. That we never remembered
anything we were told to get. That
we dropped papers on the floor, — think
of it, papers right on the floor, — and
had the most dreadful people come to
our house in the evening and at all
times of night. That we laughed
when the children said or did dread-
ful things. That we encouraged our
son to box and wrestle, and just

grinned when he came home with no
buttons on his jacket. That we — "
but that is enough. Before the close
of her little essay we were the worst
used-up man in the entire neighbor-
hood.

We betook ourself and our head-
ache, which now came on with re-
doubled force, to the west side of the
house, where after profound thought
we gave up all thoughts of attempt-
ing the reformation of our sinful
brethren.

We are somewhat at a loss to un-
derstand this propensity among wo-
men. To watch them one could not
help but believing that they were the
happiest, most cheerful and contented
women in the universe. To hear
them one wonders at the load of care
and worry they bear.

We can only explain it by referring
to the bit of philosophy in the small
boy's composition, "Girls is queer fel-
lers."

VIII

OUR NEIGHBORS' CHILDREN.

THE BOYS.

There are four kinds of boys, good,
goody-good, ordinary and bad. From
a comparatively intimate acquaintance
with the boys of our neighborhood
we are glad to be able to say there are
no bad boys, and rejoice to be able to
say there are no goody-goods. Of the
two kinds we prefer the bad, because
they are frequently amusing, which
the goody-goods never are, and they
can occasionally be reformed, which
is not the case with the goody-goods.

On the other hand we cannot with
truth say that the boys of our neigh-
borhood are at all likely to take any
prizes offered for good behavior, un-

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES

117

less the prizes are offered for good
behavior covering an extremely short
period, say half to three quarters of
an hour, and not in the snowball
season.

No, the boys are a set of as healthy,
hearty, nappy youngsters as one may
find anywhere, with lungs, appetites
and mischievous tendencies abnor-
mally developed, with a wonderful
knowledge of all sorts of games, and
a wonderful talent for getting into
scrapes, and a remarkable fecundity
of excuses in getting out of the same.

They bear the usual assortments of
nicknames, some fanciful, like Tilly
Nif, Dinky and Juicy, some illustra-
tive of facial, racial, bodily or mental
qualities, as Tadpole, Bulldog, Nig-
gerlip, Potato Face, Curly or Lord
John.

They are in all things faithful im-
itations of the Academy students. In
the baseball season the little diamond
in our neighborhood sees daily games
of the most interesting nature, and the
air is vocal with "never touched him,"
and "slide, Bulldog, slide," and other
notes of encouragement of the most
high-pitched and strident nature. In
the football season the most desperate
games imaginable are played right
under our windows, and the way in
which small and grimy boys are trod-
den upon, rolled in the mud, slugged,
punched, tackled, downed and dread-
fully abused excites the greatest com-
miseration among the mothers of the
same small boys.

In the swimming season a fond
father bringing his son and heir home
by the ear for having "gone in" more
than three times in one day, is a famil-
iar and edifying spectacle, while the

young ladies never venture within five
hundred yards of the swimming hole,
upon any consideration.

In the skating season the dull thud
of small heads knocking against the
ice can be heard for a long distance,
while there is not a boy in the neigh-
borhood who is not dented all over
with the impact of the hockey block.

The fishing season claims fewer
votaries than the season of other pur-
suits, but among those few only the
most approved tackle is "good form,"
and the truly scientific way in which
countless minnows, shiners, kivers,
perch, pickerel, eels, bullfrogs and
snapping turtles are brought to book
is at once startling and instructive.

Several of the boys are expert hunt-
ers and trappers. Of trappers the
two most expert have or had formed
a co-partnership under the firm name
of "Staff & Arthur, Deelers in all
Kinds of Firs."

Now, the fur-bearing animal next
to the house cat the most abundant in
our neighborhood is the "Mephitis
Am eric anus." Staff and Arthur have
had astonishing success in trapping
healthy specimens of this beast, and
have thereby seriously impaired the
residential valuation of the neighbor-
hood real estate.

One day last fall we were sitting on
our piazza when we saw the two
young men composing the firm ap-
proaching, with a large black and
white animal slung over a pole, and
carried between them with much ap-
parent satisfaction. If we had not
seen them we should undoubtedly
have been aware of their presence,
but, as we did see them, and as they
were making a bee-line for our front

118

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

door, we thought the time for instant
and vigorous action had arrived.
Holding our nose with one hand, and
seizing the garden hose with the
other, we ordered the miscreants to
halt and the following dialogue en-
sued : —

"What are you boys bringing that
infernal thing here for?" indignantly.

"Want to show it to Dick ; it's noth-
ing but a skunk."

"Where did you get it?"

"Staff caught it in a trap by the
leg."

"How did you kill it?"

"Pasted it on the head with a
club."

"Who did?"

"We both did."

"Well, I should say so. Why didn't
you choke it to death with your hands,
or bring it home alive?"

"We can sell its skin for twenty-
five cents as soon as we skin it."

"Well, don't you ever bring such
a thing as that around here again."

And the small boys departed toward
their homes, which they had no
sooner reached than we heard vigor-
ous expletives in a masculine voice,
and a few minutes later saw two small
figures digging a hole in the field
back of the house, and depositing
therein their black and white trophy.

The next day, with hair so closely
clipped that each small head looked
as bald as a quart bowl, they were
around as fresh as ever, while two
small suits of clothes hung on the line
back of their house for the rest of the
season.

The same day our son consulted us
in regard to a point of law that had
been submitted to him as one of

three referees, who were selected by
the firm to straighten out a little dif-
ficulty as to the division of the re-
ceipts. The dispute in his own lan-
guage was something like this : —

"Well, you see, father, Staff and
Arthur caught a skunk yesterday, 'n
Staff was goin' to sell it to Old Man
Tilton for twenty-five cents, 'n Cur-
ly, I mean Arthur, 'n Bulldog, I mean
Staff, was a-goin' to go snacks, 'n Old
Man Fuller—"

"What's that !" we asked sharply.

"I mean Mr. Fuller told Arth that
he'd give him a quarter if he'd bury
it, 'n B— Staff 'n Arth buried it, 'n
Arthur won't give Staff half, 'n Staff
says he had oughter have half, 'cause
it was his trap, 'n he found the hole,
and got the most smell on him when
he hit it, 'n so Staff 'n Arth left it
to me 'n Tilly Nif, I mean Dick 'n
Ned."

"What do they say?" we queried.

"Well, Dick 'n I, we said that
Staff had oughter have half, 'n Ned
said Staff oughter give Arth a poke
in the jaw, 'n Old Man McK — I mean
Ned's father — said we had oughter
ask some lawyer, 'cause lawyers was
great on skins, 'n so me 'n Dick said
to ask you."

"Well, I guess you are right, al-
though it is a very strong case for
both sides and for the neighborhood
as well. But how about speaking of
gentlemen as 'Old Man' this and 'Old
Man' that; is that the way you boys
do?"

"Yes, sir, sometimes," somewhat
sheepishly.

"What do the boys say when they
speak of your father?" we questioned,
somewhat anxiously.

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES

119

"Old Man Shute," was the reluc-
tant reply.

"Well, don't you let me hear any
more of it, or there will be trouble,"
we answered with dignity, and closed
the session wondering at our suddenly
acquired years and infirmities.

We learned later that the difficulty
was satisfactorily adjusted, but owing
to the nature of the commodities in
which the firm dealt, a family council
had been called and stern parental
commands given for the dissolution
of the partnership, and so the firm of
"Staff & Arthur, Deelers in all Kinds
of Firs," is but a fragrant memory.

Like most boys, these youngsters
are all ardent admirers and believers
in the absolute prowess ' of their re-
spective fathers, and each and all of
them never lose an opportunity to
vaunt the pugilistic ability of these
peace-loving gentlemen, and we were
greatly astonished at hearing ourself
described by our son, at one of the
daily meetings in the back yard, as a
perfect terror in the way of sparring
abilities, long reach and a ring expe-
rience of years.

And we were equally astonished at
hearing from Staff how easily we
would be done up, knocked silly, and
fought to a standstill by Staff's father,
if he only once got at us. We never
knew before what a narrow escape
that gentleman had of wearing the
diamond belt.

And we were likewise surprised
when we learned from Dick and Ned
that their father, for whom we had
always entertained the utmost respect
and friendship, was only waiting his
chance to "do us both up dead
easy, see !" and we were deeply

grieved to find that it was only a mat-
ter of time when Arthur's father, with
whom we had enjoyed about twenty
years of uninterrupted friendship and
professional intimacy, was liable to
break out any day and lick the en-
tire neighborhood of "old men" with-
out half trying.

And as each youngster bragged and
swelled himself, amid the scornful "aw
nows" of his companions, it looked as
if the whole neighborhood were likely
to become embroiled, when suddenly
the meeting was adjourned for a con-
certed assault on "Lord John," who is
an older brother of Ned and Dick, and
who, on account of a difference of
about two years in age, regards the
other boys as "kids" and suffers great
annoyance from them jointly, but
mauls them soundly when singly or in
pairs.

An entire volume might well be
devoted to the pranks of these boys,
their work, their play, their various
interests, but the recital would be that
of the boys of every town, every city
and every neighborhood in the
country.

It is well for us if as we grow older
and more care laden, we can still re-
member that we were once boys, and
keep our hearts open to such thoughts,
that we may once again, through our
children, taste the pleasures of our
boyhood, that come in full measure
but once in life.

THE GIRLS.

From our earliest years we have
had an intense admiration for girls.
As far as we can recollect, from a
dispassionate review of the events
of the past forty years, we are forced

120

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to admit the converse is not true.
For the rebuffs, slights and mortifi-
cations that we have sustained from
them as a boy, as an awkward, un-
gainly and bashful youth, and as an
equally awkward, ungainly and
bashful man, are legion.

Why we remember that, — but
never mind, our allegiance has
never in the least wavered, despite
our manifest tribulations.

And parents are generally more
solicitous about the welfare of their
daughters than that of their sons.
One is apt to think that the boys
will stumble through life much
as they stumble through their les-
sons , catching the shafts of mis-
fortune everywhere but in a vital
spot, and with that cheerful disre-
gard of consequences, that is or
should be the heritage of every liv£
boy.

In the case of girls one feels dif-
ferently, and we well remember the
day we first saw one of the oldest
children in the neighborhood, then
a tiny baby girl of the mature age
of three weeks, and we call to mind
the fond mother's anxious remarks :

"Oh, dear, it will not be very long
before I shall be worrying about
her going to dances, and what she
shall wear, and with whom she shall
dance, and how late she should stay,
and all such things, and oh, dear me,
I don't know just what to think."

We recollect that we ventured to
remind her that there was no need
for immediate worry, but as we
think of it now, we feel that she
"builded better than she knew," and
we can but acknowledge that, al-
though this took place fifteen year^
ago, the time has passed like a
breath.

The child in question has not yet
attended any dances, but the time
is close at hand when she will, and
we have no fears for her success, as
her mother had years ago.

The girls of our neighborhood are
as pretty and well bred as anyone
could wish, and their lively dispo-
sitions and occasionally wild spirits
do not detract in the least from their
engaging qualities. They are ath-
letic and fond of outdoor sports, and
in some respects quite outdo the
boys. For instance, Nell can easily
outrun any boy in the neighborhood,
not excepting her big brother, while
Margaret and the two Dicks can
never satisfactorily decide which of
the three can beat, although they
daily run themselves into an almost
apoplectic condition.

The girls are talented too, for, al-
though Constance, on account of her
robust proportions, is not a marked
success as a runner or climber, she
has shown the value of literary
heredity by her phenomenal success
in winning prizes for poems and
literary essays; and Nell's drawings
have already been accepted by juve-
nile magazines, while Margaret's
and Mary's musical abilities are the
pride of the neighborhood, and the
little tots are coining on, too.

Besides this we heard yesterday
from the most reliable source, that
the facts detailed in our article of
last week on the "Mephitis" episode
had been previously written up by
Elsie as a school composition, and
as we were informed and readily be-
lieve, in much more readable style
than our own.

These girls have business ability
of a high order, and one of the great-
est property losses the neighborhood

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES

121

ever sustained was the burning of
the clubhouse, erected by the boys
and a lease of which had been se-
cured by the girls with great busi-
ness acumen.

This clubhouse had been erected
by the joint efforts of the entire ju-
venile male population of the neigh-
borhood, and after an amount of
exertion greatly disproportionate to
their size. It was made of dis-
mantled dry goods boxes, shingled
and made fair to look upon.

For several months subsequent to
its erection it was used by the boys
as a general stamping ground, in
which they dressed fish, skinned eels
and other vermin, and stretched and
dried peltries. On account of these
practices the clubhouse became a
gruesome place, to be avoided by
anyone who had a delicate stomach
or a proper amount of sense of smell,
and finally the boys became tired of
it as boys frequently do.

It then occurred to the girls that
their opportunity for club life had
arrived, and after several days of
anxious conference a lease was
drawn up by the combined legal and
scholastic ability of our friend the
lawyer, who evidently had warmed
to his subjects and poured the entire
wealth of his vast legal attainment,
into the draft of this instrument, a
copy of which lies before me.

LEASE.

This indenture witnesseth that we,
John McKey, Dick McKey, Ned
McKey, Stafford Francis, Arthur
Fuller, George Fuller, Kenneth "Ful-
ler and Dick Shute, commoners and
sturdy yeomen, in consideration of
the payment of five cents in the law-
ful current coin of the United States
to us the said commoners and sturdy
yeomen as aforesaid and above
named, on the part of Nell McKey,

Margaret Fuller, Constance Fuller,
Elsie Fuller, Faith Fuller, Mary
Frances and Nathalie Shute, all
spinsters of the Borough Corporate
of Exeter, the receipt whereof we do
hereby in our collective and individ-
ual capacities acknowledge, do con-
vey, confirm, alien, enfeoff, shove
up, spout, hock, put in soak and
lease to and unto said spinsters
hereinbefore mentioned, a certain
piece or parcel of land with the ap-
purtenances thereunto appertaining,
together with all corporeal and in-
corporeal hereditaments appendant
or in gross, and all rights of firebote,
ploughbote and steambote, with
common of estovers, of piscary, tur-
bary, strawbary, blackbary and
goosebary, said premises bounded
and described as follows : to wit,
namely, viz. scilicet, videlicet, that
is to say : commencing at a certain
empty tomato can on the land of one
E. H. Gilman, thence running north
25 degrees east five feet, eight inch-
es, to a large pigweed, thence west
14 degrees 20 minutes south thirteen
feet, five inches, to a dead cat,
thence south parallel to said first
mentioned line six feet, one inch to
a last year's woodchuck hole, thence
in a straight line to the tomato can
aforementioned.

And the said spinsters on their
part covenant that they will well
and truly pay unto the said com-
moners and sturdy yeomen as afore-
said, the afore mentioned sum of
five cents of the lawful coin of the
realm, for each and every week en-
suing the date hereof that they, the
said spinsters, their associates and
assigns may occupy the same.

And the said commoners and stur-
dy yeomen aforementioned do re-
serve unto themselves the right,
should the said spinsters fail to keep
all and singular their said covenants

122

N E W ENGL A N D M A G A Z I N E

as aforesaid, to enter said premises
vi et armis, and molliter manus im-
ponere, and expel, banish, exile,
eject, exclude and fire out all and
singular said spinsters so aforemen-
tioned.

In witness whereof the said com-
moners and sturdy yeomen, and said
spinsters so described and set forth
as aforesaid have set their hands
and affixed their seal this steenth
day of fty, 1899.

John McKey. Nell McKey.

Dick McKey. Margaret Fuller.

Ned McKey. Constance Fuller.

Stafford Francis. Elsie Fuller.

Arthur Fuller. Mary Francis.
Dick Shute. her

hjg Faith x Fuller.
George x Fuller. mark

mark her

hjs Nathalie x Shute.
Kenneth x Fuller.
mark

mark

Upon entering into possession of
the leased premises the girls at once
set to work to secure the removal of
one of the monuments of boundary,
to wit, the deceased cat, which they
effected by an appeal to the lessors,
who promptly acted in the following
manner.

Staff picked it up by the tail and
threw it at Dick, who received it on
the back of his neck. Quickly re-
covering, he threw it at Arthur, who
in turn chased Staff to the woods
and hit him twice over the head
with it before it came to pieces.

This preliminary having been sat-
isfactorily adjusted, an entire after-
noon was spent in thoroughly purg-
ing the floor, and the rest of the
week was occupied in the mural
decorations and the introduction of
tasteful and elegant furniture. The
walls wTere neatly paved with peb-
bles and oyster shells, flowers plant-
ed at the sides thereof, and a hand-

some marole slab, discarded for the
modern wooden mantle, did duty as
a doorstep.

Nor did they depend entirely up-
on their own exertions for the re-
habilitation of their property, for
one of our neighbors, a kind hearted
man, spent one of his infrequent
afternoons of leisure, clad in a dis-
reputable hat and baggy and illfit-
ting overalls, and presenting a hide-
ous appearance, in whitewashing
the outside walls of the castle.

And how these girls did enjoy
themselves. What teas, what din-
ners, what receptions they held
there. What a wealth of china,
crockery, tin spoons, lead forks and
pewter knives were displayed.
What marvels of housekeeping were
there performed.

But alas, this happiness was not
to endure, a cloud on the horizon,
now a mere speck, was rapidly in-
creasing. One afternoon while the
older girls were at home reading or
practising, and the boys were at the
swimming hole, two small figures
were seen to make their way toward
a pile of rubbish just behind the
clubhouse. They were very tiny
and very innocent, but they had in
some way become possessed of a
bunch of matches.

Now the combination of a small
boy and a bunch of matches is ordi-
narily productive of but one result,
and in this case that one result fol-
lowed as a matter of course, and in
a few minutes two small figures
were flying toward home as fast as
their short pudgy legs could carry
them, screaming "muvver" at the
top of their shrill voices, while dense
volumes of smoke as big as a poke
bonnet were seen pouring from the
clubhouse.

Instantly the entire neighborhood
was alarmed, and the air was vi-

NEIGHBORHOOD SKETCHES

123

brant with swishing skirts and agi-
tated pigtails as the entire female
portion of the neighborhood, old and
young, armed with brooms, mops,
pails, cups, garden hose and tin dip-
pers, rushed to the rescue, amid a
clatter of tongues that almost
drowned the roar and crackle of the
flames.

The children shrieked and skipped
about like corn in a popper, the
women heroically beat with brooms,
poured water from cups and dippers,
gave frantic orders in a high key,
and vainly endeavored to stretch
fifty feet of garden hose to four hun-
dred feet. By this time the edifice
was a mass of flames, the grass was
on fire in half a dozen places, and
the outlook was very unfavorable
for the fire fighters, when with shrill
yells and bulging eyeballs the boys,
aroused from their paddling by the
unusual noise, came charging up the
path from the swimming hole like a
regiment of small maniacs, clad
some in one garment, some in two,
and some in little more than the
golden summer sunshine.

Under the vigorous measures of
these experienced fire fighters, the
grass fires were speedily extin-
guished, but the clubhouse was
doomed. At precisely four minutes
and thirty seconds after four o'clock
the roof fell in with a crash, send-
ing a shower of sparks to a height
of at least seven feet and six inches.
All danger to the neighboring es-
tates being thus happily averted,
the gentlemen present, suddenly
realizing the somewhat informal
condition of their toilets, discreetly
retired behind trees, while the la-
dies, gathering their pans, dippers,
brooms and mops, betook them-
selve to a vigorous beating up of the
neighboring coverts in search of the
diminutive incendiaries, that Just-

ice, the blind goddess, the inexor-
able, might be appeased.

The club house has never been re-
built, the neighbors wisely conclud-
ing that the social advantages of the
institution, although great, did not
counterbalance the element of dan-
ger to the neighboring real estate.

NOTE.

In closing these papers we think
it fair to state that we have been fre-
quently asked, how far our imagina-
tion is responsible for the facts
therein detailed. These occurrences
are authentic in every case. We ac-
knowledge that we have drawn to
some extent upon our imagination
for the prismatic coloring, for we re-
gard an imagination as we regard a
bank account, useless unless drawn
upon.

The sketch in which we have
drawn the least upon our imagina-
tion, and have endeavored to repre-
sent with absolute fidelity to the
facts and coloring, namely the
"Boys," is the very one in which our
imagination is popularly supposed
to have been taxed to its uttermost,
while on the other hand, until the
publication of the "Beef Trust" and
the subsequent voluntary confession
of a host of victims, we had no idea
that our description embraced so
wide a territory.

We have been asked to continue
these sketches, but we feel that we
have exhausted the subject. Like a
good dinner, the flavor is lost by too
great an indulgence. We only hope
we have stopped in time.

We have written about this neigh-
borhood because we live here. We
have no doubt that in any other
neighborhood we would meet with
the same kindness, the same cour-
tesy, and with equally interesting
experiences as in the "Greek Quarter."

To Goodman Simpkins, of Boston Town
From far and near came ^reat renown

Of "Press Colonial Day."
His heart so true, did warmly burn
To do a philanthropic turn.
In a good old-fashioned way

So Goodman Simpkins wandered in
Where dames in silk were said to spin, j

On this Colonial Day.
But the yarns they told - beat those they spui
From early morn to set of sun.
In the same old-fashioned way

He next fell in with the Salem Witches,
Who possessed themselves of half his riches.

On this Colonial Day
They gaily laughed as he hastened past
Toward the modest girls with eyes downcast
Who were dressed in old-fashioned grey

But the Quaker girls were more than his match,
As they set themselves his gold to catch,

On this Colonial Day.
On the meek little man.they unloaded their table
Telling him many a head-turning fable, '
In the good old-fashioned way

Then he toddled away, with a sickly
Meekly scratching his weak little chin,

On this Colonial Day.
His collar and courage began to wilt.
As he saw before him an Autograph Quilt
Made in the old-fashioned way

So Simpkins wandered from bower to bower,
Twas sweetmeats in one, in tother a flower

On this Colonial Day
A moment he sat in the fisherman's hut,
With mouth wide open-and eyes tight shut,
In the good old-fashioned way

He fell in the hands of a lady fair,
Who coaxed him into trying a "share"

On this Colonial Day
She told him in accents as sweet as honey
He must lay down his life-or give up his money,
In the good old-fashioned way

\l:

While the poor man slept, he dreamed of a place
Where money was plenty-but never atrace

Of this Colonial Day
A? he woke- he was sure, at sight of the souaws, I
They were after his scalp, to help on the cause,[
In the good old-fashioned way

But the Goodman escaped with his scalp and his life.
His pocket book flat- and so was his wife,

After Colonial Day.
For the cause she had worked, spending time,

strength and pelf,
Till nervous prostration asserted itself,

In the good old-fashioned way. .

124

A Girl of Maine

By Gertrude Robinson

ELISABETH made a vivid pic-
ture as she ran down the path
between two straight rows of
young orchard trees to the spring-
in the south meadow, swinging a
large wooden pail in either hand.
The noon sun made her brown hair
bronze and brought out the deep
flush of excitement in her face. She
was singing broken bits of the only
gay song her Puritan ears had ever
heard. Yet it is safe to say that
Elisabeth's heart was the only light
one in the village of Newichawan-
nock, this twelfth of September, in
the year of our Lord sixteen hun-
dred and seventy-five. There had
been rumors of an uprising among
the Canibas and Sokosis tribes and
even of attacks upon places so near
as Falmouth and Saco.

In fact, that very morning Cap-
tain Wincoln, with the fighting men
of Newichawannock, had started
forth to carry aid down the Pre-
sumpscot. Captain Wincoln was the
Miles Standish of Maine, trusty,
brave, vainglorious, and wont to re-
quire faith in his valor, and to exact
confidence in his opinions. So it
is small wonder that his parting
Words satisfied Elisabeth that there
was no great danger; for the girl
had never known anything of which
she was afraid.

"An' forsooth," he cried, "what is
it but a forest fire and the words of
a lying redskin who thought by them
to get a supper an' a drink from

125

Purchas' Well?" And Elisabeth,
who had been sorry to see her father
and, truth to tell, much more sorry
to see her second cousin, Hadrach
Wakely, go hunting Indians, felt
mightily relieved.

"They will likely enough come to
no harm," she reasoned, "an' if Had-
rach pleases the Captain, perhaps
he'll come back Lieutenant in place
of poor Jacob, whom the log crushed
last winter."

So a very gay little maid set her
pails where the clear water from the
spring could filter into them and
smiled happily at the familiar land-
scape. To the south of the big
meadow lay the cornfields. The
stalks, swaying heavily beneath
loads- of filled out ears, parted
enough to show hundreds of fat yel-
low pumpkins. Below the cornfields
sloped a hill, and encircling the hill
were the houses of Newichawan-
nock. John Tosier, Elisabeth's fath-
er, had built his house upon the very
summit of the hill, and had fortified
it strongly, that it might serve as a
fort if the French or Indians ever
came down upon them from Canada.
Yet, up to this time, these settlers
in the south-western part of Maine
had felt little fear of the Indians,
either of the near or of the more
barbarous northern tribes.

Elisabeth was aroused from her
dream ings by the sound of water
dripping over the sides of her pails
upon the stones of the shallow basin.

126

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

She stooped to lift the pails. As she
straightened up, her attention was
drawn toward the cattle in the ad-
joining pasture. They were crowd-
ing together, and staring at the
fence which separated the meadow
and the pasture from the cornfield.
"Old Whiteface is telling them how
good green corn is," she thought.
Then she noticed more carefully the
attitudes of the cows. They were
standing stiffly, with tails stretched
straight out and heads raised.

A swift intuition came to Elisa-
beth. She knew, as definitely as
though she could see the skulking
forms, that there were Indians hid-
ing in the cornfield. Nevertheless
she poured a little of the water from
the pails, that she might not spill
any on her dress, and went slowly
up the path with her burden, with-
out a change of color or a tremor
of a muscle. Captain Wincoln used
to say he would willingly give half
of his army of sixteen men for one
man with the nerve of Elisabeth
Tosier.

Before two hours had passed
Elisabeth had warned every family
in the village. White-faced women,
carrying curious, clumsy weapons
in one arm and sleeping babies in
the other, a few tottering old men,
and frightened children came silent-
ly through the woods on the north
side of the hill, up to "Tosier's fort."
Elisabeth let them in through a little
secret entrance at the north side of
the house. A simple cupboard in
the wall had an opening into a tunnel
which ended, after a winding jour-
ney of some ten or twelve feet, in a
tangle of wild blackberry vines.
Nobody in Newichawannock had
known of the existence of this en-
trance before this day.

The big south door was already
barred and chained. Elisabeth set

the women at work closing the
heavy shutters of the windows and
fastening them with the iron bars
her grandfather had brought from
England. She had not dared close
the shutters before the women ar-
rived lest the Indians observe the
act and know they were discovered.

In each side of the upper part of
the house were two windows, mere
loopholes. Elisabeth selected seven
women who seemed less nervous
than the others and stationed one
of them, with a rifle, at each window,
save the one which commanded a
view of the cornfield. This she took
herself. Aside from the continued
strange behavior of the cattle, noth-
ing was to be seen all the afternoon.

The women accepted Elisabeth's
command meekly. Those stationed
upon the projecting portion, which,
after the manner of the early fort-
like houses, ran around the four
sides of the house, kept watch like
trained soldiers. The women be-
low got some supper and ate it, as
Elfeabeth ordered, though with such
trembling and quaking that Mistress
Tosier's sanded floor received an un-
due proportion of the savory por-
ridge. The old men, however, sat
rebelliously in a corner and refused
to eat. They had expected to as-
sume command.

Elisabeth's aunt, who kept the
house, climbed up the steps to the
girl, and carried her some porridge.
She was a frail, nervous woman
whose abhorrence of dirt was only
equalled by her dread of savages.
She had sat for the last hour in the
chimney-corner, sighing over her
ruined floor and wringing her long
hands until they were sore and red.
Now she watched Elisabeth drink
the porridge, wonderingly. Elisa-
beth made a wry face as she handed
back the bowl. There was sugar

A GIRL OF MAINE

127

in the porridge and Elisabeth did
not like sweetened things. The
trembling aunt went down the steps
to the lower part comforted. She
felt that there could be but little
danger else Elisabeth would not
mind so small a thing as sugar.

At dusk, shadowy forms came
creeping up over the south meadow.
At the same time flames shot out
from Phillips Mill, half a mile down
the river. The savages came on
boldly. They knew there was not
a fighting man left in the village.
They did not know that the pluckiest
girl in the Maine woods was made
ready to outfight them.

Elisabeth waited until the dark
swarm of savages were within a few
rods of the south side of the house.
Then she fired. Her first shot hit
the foremost, her second the hind-
most, Indian. The redskins drew
back, spread out, and began to en-
circle the house. Elisabeth had in-
structed the others what to do in
such a case. Each woman, watch-
ing from her loophole, fired at the
first groveling shadow she saw.
The women below handed up loaded
muskets and rifles as fast as they
could : the women above fired con-
tinually. The house was stifling
with smoke and sulphur. All the
women but Elisabeth prayed. She
had more faith in her wits than in
her piety.

After some time, nobody could tell
just how long, the Indians retreated
to the shelter of the barn. The be-
sieged women, who, at first, had
been nervous and frightened, were
now calm and hopeful. They were
beginning to see the results of Elisa-
beth's management. By comparing
observations they judged that at the
beginning of the fight there could
not have been more than fifty sav-
ages. There were many less now.

An hour passed in quiet. After
some time, however, a dark mass ap-
peared to be moving up from the
barn. It proved to be a cart, loaded
with brush and timber. A short dis-
tance away, the Indians, who were
pushing it from behind, set it afire:
then came shoving it on with horrid
screeches. A turn in the path, how-
ever, exposed those behind the cart
to the firing from the two south win-
dows. In the confusion, the cart
was upset. The savages, maddened
at this destruction of their plans,
seized the blazing timbers and
rushed at the door with them. Once
under the shelter of the overhang-
ing cornice, they were safe from the
shots from above. The thundering
blov/s from stout cudgels and sharp
hatchets began to tell, even upon the
staunch door. It strained at the
hinges and one of the bars was al-
ready bending. It was plainly about
to give way. Elisabeth rushed to
the door and threw herself against
it with all her might. Yet she knew
well how powerless would be the
combined exertions of every human
being in the house against the force
without.

"Run," she cried, "to the tunnel.
Close the slide after you and stay
in the tunnel till you hear an uproar
in the house. Then run to Bender's
cave and don't stop to breathe until
you get there."

The first bar fell from the door
just as the last form went through
the opening in the wall. Elisabeth
stopped pressing against the re-
maining bar when she saw the white
panel again in its place, beside the
similar ones with which the room
was ceiled. A second later the door
fell in.

Elisabeth stood, defiantly, to meet
the inrushing horde. The Indians
bound her hand and foot, tossed her

128

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

one side, and proceeded to search
the house. Their amazement at find-
ing the house empty was sweet to
Elisabeth. She sat and laughed,
wild hysterical peals which echoed
above the clamor of the plundering
Indians. Elisabeth used to say, in
after life, that that fit of insane
laughter was the only thing of
which she was really ashamed.
Nevertheless, that very laughter
saved her life. The savages list-
ened to it fearfully. They retired
to the farthest corner of the room
and talked together in low tones.
Elisabeth understood enough to
know that they thought her a witch.
They thought that she alone had
rained down upon them that volley
of shot which had wellnigh driven
them back in hopeless defeat. The
idea was so amusing to her strained
sensibilities that she burst into an-
other fit of shrill, discordant laugh-

ter. That settled the matter. The
Indians departed down through the
cornfields, as they had come, leaving,
as a propitiatory offering, two child-
ren whom they had taken captive at
Saco.

The next day, at noon, Captain
Wincoln came back, boiling with
rage because the Indians had not
done as he had predicted they would
do. He had left two men stretched
upon the meadow before Saco and
had saved but a miserable handful
of women and children.

"An' forsooth, Elisabeth," he
cried, when "he heard the story of her
generalship, — "you have done more
with your band of white-handed
women and babes than I with my
army of sixteen men."

And Elisabeth, since Hadrach
Wakely agreed with the Captain,
was well content.

All Things are Thine

By Mabel Cornelia Matson

Thirsteth thy soul for beauty? Look upon
God's marvelous world of light

And shadow till thine eyes no more can bear
The glory of that sight.

Dost long for power? Lo, it is thine own,-

The might to rule thy life
Wisely and well, to keep it pure and sweet,

Unmoved by petty strife.

Art hungering for love ? This, too, is thine,

For God himself holds thee
In his unchanging heart of perfect love,

Through all eternity.

130

New England Magazine

Volume XXX

April, 1904

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Number 2

The Massachusetts Model School
m Georgia

By Mary Applewhite Bacon

THE free school system of the
Southern States is barely
thirty years old. Before the
Civil War, the South had schools,
some of them excellent, but no sys-
tem of education designed to meet
the needs of all her people. /This
was in part owing to the presence
of slavery; in part to the scattered
condition of the population. To the
lonely dweller in the mountains or
the wiregrass, miles away from his
nearest neighbor, and beyond the
reach of railroads or newspapers,
schools were impossible, and the
knowledge of anything outside his
isolated environment practically un-
attainable.

Thus the close of the great con-
flict found the South with nearly
five millions of Negroes entirely il-
literate, and with twenty per cent
of her white population also unable
to read and write. To the more
thoughtful minds it was evident
that some system of free education
which should meet the needs of all
classes and of both races was im-
perative. But the means for es-

131

tablishing such a system were piti-
fully inadequate. In no State could
there be made provision for a school
term of more than three months in
the year, and the pay for each pupil
was only five cents per day of his
actual attendance. Nor was there
at that time in the South a single
Normal School, nor a common
schoolhouse that was the property
of the State. The whole system had
to be built from flat nothingness.
From such small beginnings the
good work has advanced steadily if
slowly. Progress of any sort must
be based on economic independence,
and that the South is still strug-
gling to attain.

For the Negroes, Northern philan-
thropy began at once its work.
They shared also, as of course was
entirely right, in the State appro-
priations. The Peabody Fund, that
blessed benefaction to the white
South in the hour of her extremity,
founded the Peabody Normal Col-
lege at Nashville and provided a
limited number of scholarships for
each Southern State. By degrees

132

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

every State established one or more
normal schools of its own, although
the number is still inadequate to
the need. The public schools of the
larger towns and even of the villages
have advanced constantly in ef-
ficiency, and in the better class
country communities, schools are
usually open seven months of the
year. It is in the thinly settled
districts, districts in which the en-

seven in Massachusetts, and ninety-
nine in Rhode Island. No wonder
to these scattered little ones, these
babes in the woods, the good school-
house and the good teacher have
been long in coming.

But public attention has been
drawn to the needs of these rural
schools in the last few years, and
governors of States, university presi-
dents, business men, and elect

THE MASSACHUSETTS MODEL SCHOOL IN BARTOW COUNTY, GEORGIA. A FESTAL DAY.
MANY FRIENDS OF THE SCHOOL ARE PRESENT

tire population of both races is
sometimes less than fifteen persons
to the square mile, that conditions
remain bad. Eighty per cent of the
Southern population is rural ; yet the
number of white children of school
age in Georgia is only seven to the
square mile, in Alabama six, and in
Mississippi five; as against ninety-

women, not a few are engaging
actively in their behalf. The lack
of material resources is still a hind-
rance to a degree hard for an out-
sider to estimate. The last census
gave to Massachusetts a taxable
property of more than $1,419.00 to
each man, woman and child in the
commonwealth. Georgia's was but

MASSACHUSETTS MODEL SCHOOL

133

$205.00; Louisiana's $155.00; Mis-
sissippi's $143.00. And yet there
are in the eleven Southern States
more than three and one-half million
people unable to read ! It is need-
ful that the wisdom and the con-
science of the nation be roused in
their behalf.

One evidence of the growing in-
terest in rural education in the South
has been the establishment here and
there, for both races, of what is

The Massachusetts-Georgia
Model School, in Bartow County,
Ga., founded by Mrs. Granger of
Cartersville, and maintained by the
Federation of Women's Clubs in
Massachusetts, has completed its
first year's work, and in that time
given full proof of its value. The
neighborhood in which it is located
was once peopled by families of re-
finement and culture. Some of their
descendants remain, but most of the

THE LARGE SCHOOLROOM IS PLAI NLY BUT SUITABLY FURNISHED

known as Model Schools. The
purpose of these is in some cases to
give aid to a backward community,
in others to set some standard of
excellence for adjacent schools.
These enterprises, few in number
as yet, owe their origin as a rule to
women's Clubs, or to the activity of
some school superintendent. One
of them is unique in that it was pro-
jected by a woman and owes its fi-
nancial support to the club women
of a distant State.

scattered families belong to the
tenant class, those sad nomads of
our modern rural civilization ; own-
ing no land of their own, and mov-
ing year after year to rented farms
without much bettering their own
condition or that of the soil they cul-
tivate. The children of these fami-
lies stand greatly in need of just the
help that the Model Schools are
designed to give.

The schoolhouse, a neat frame
building painted white with green

134

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

A CORNER OF THE WORKROOM

blinds — certainly a great step be-
yond the rude log house so often
seen in the poorer rural communi-
ties— was built by the neighbor-
hood in proof of its interest in the
enterprise. It stands on a low hill
covered with a scattered growth of
trees and shrubs. The steeple now
bears a United States flag, the gift of
the Youth's Companion. The large
front room is plainly but suitably
furnished; has maps, blackboards,
an excellent globe, and a small case
of books ; the two last the gift of
individual members of the Federa-

tion. The photographs
of these far away friends
hang on the walls, with
a number of other pic-
tures, and the benevo-
lent face of Mr. Robert
Ogden, much beloved in
the Sonth, smiles down
upon teacher and pupils.
The room in the rear,
16 by 20 feet, is used
only for manual work,
and is much too small
for the purpose it must
serve. There is a good
cooking stove in it and
the other necessary fur-
nishings of a kitchen
and pantry. A home-
made table of pine
serves for meals on days
when cooking lessons
are given, and at other
times is a work table for
the classes in handiwork.
A set of shelves con-
tains an outfit of tools
for the simpler forms of
woodwork, and another
set is filled with the ma-
terials for plain sewing,
jbasketry, and hat mak-
ing. The two windows
are screened by lambre-
quins ingeniously constructed of
short joints of Indian corn, a deco-
ration pleasingly in keeping with
the rest of the interior.

The pupils are what Southern
country children are everywhere ;
happy-hearted, unsophisticated, af-
fectionate,— delightful material to
work upon. Their physical and
mental appetites are alike unjaded;
and, while not disciplined to ac-
curacy or continuance, they are
usually quick to learn, very obedient
and respectful, and responsive to
every good thing which the school

MASSACHUSETTS MODEL SCHOOL

135

can offer them. Most of them do
well in their books ; but all, with-
out exception, are delighted with the
manual work. To those who possess
no intellectual inheritance, and to
whom even the rudiments of learn-
ing are a formidable affair, — -some
of them, poor things, have come un-
able at the age of seventeen to read

in the neighborhood are used in the
cooking lessons and in all the forms
of handiwork; this being, in itself,
one of the most important lessons
the children could learn. Raffia is
used for some of the baskets, but
other very pretty ones are woven
of the common grasses growing
within a few rods of the scliool-

A COOKING LESSON IN THE SMALL WORKROOM

and write— the different handicrafts
appeal with telling effect. The
training in these simple industries
and in the ordinary domestic arts
not only quickens their dulled facul-
ties, but has a direct practical value
in their poor and crowded homes.
As far as possible, materials grown

house; and the hats made of white
corn shucks are really artistic and
charming.

The worth of this industrial train-
ing has become evident to even the
most unlettered of the patrons of
the school, and has enlisted their
interest and cooperation to an extent

136

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

THE EQUIPMENT FOR THE WOODWORK

beyond what the best of mere book
teaching could have done. On
Saturdays a cooking-class is held
for the mothers of the neighbor-
hood, a much needed help in homes
where the cooking often sins
against every law of hygiene and
sometimes of economy as well. In-
deed, in all the work of the school
the homes are sharers in. the general
benefit. Around the firesides at
night, where there is such pitiful
lack of fresh subjects of thought,
the children repeat what has been
studied or talked of at school ; an
older brother or sister, at work all
day in the field, copies the knitting
or sewing or basket-making which
a younger child has done under the
teacher's eye ; and it is safe to say
that the books brought home from
the school library are read with
even acuter interest by the parents
than by the children themselves.

The prime favorite in the little
collection is Robinson Crusoe, and
it is a touching proof of how little
reading matter the children have
had that the second-hand school
readers and primers with colored
pictures come next in popularity.
A few of the books in the small
library are for older readers, and

there are some pupils far enough
advanced to enjoy them. The li-
brary is also found useful in the
Sunday School, which, in the
absence of any church building, is
held in the schoolhouse on Sunday
afternoons, men and boys being
largely in the majority in atten-
dance. The teacher, a Georgia
woman and trained in the State
Normal at Athens, finds enough
work to engage their energies each of
the seven days of the week.

A few hundred yards from the
schoolhouse stands a low frame
dwelling in a grassy yard. Its four
small rooms are entirely neat, but
their furnishing is of the plainest.
The rag carpet in the best room is
the wife's own work ; the collecting
and weaving of the materials for
it seem to have been the one satisfy-
ing achievement of her twenty years
of married life. Her manners are
gentle, her voice sweet; but her face
has in it that indescribable pathos
which comes only from a lifetime of
intellectual and social starvation.
"Oh, I hope the school is going to
be a settled thing," she says, "it
means so much to the neighborhood.
And tlien," with a heightening color

A HOME IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY
OF THE SCHOOL

THE HUMAN HEART

137

in her gentle face, "it means so
much to me. The teacher boards
with me, and it is so good to have
her around."

Not far from this house is an-
other, the temporary abode of a
tenant family. The house is of
rough logs, set close to the roadside
on a slope of red clay. There is but
one room, unceiled overhead or on
the sides; the floor of rough boards
loosely laid; the wide fireplace at
one end, but not a window ! The
one room is bedroom, kitchen, and
parlor for the parents and their
eight children. The woman says,
bitterly, that last year she lived in a
larger house and could "run" four
beds and so have one for company;
now she "runs" only three. The
three are all in the windowless
room, together with a family of
kittens, a few cooking utensils, the
eating table, several home-made
chairs, and sundry trunks and boxes,
to say nothing of five mournful
family portraits, crayons in wide
gilt frames, which the ubiquitous
Chicago agent has imposed on un-

suspecting ignorance at the rate of
six dollars apiece. The woman is
barefooted and untidy, but she has
really strong features, and had life
been kinder to her, she would have
made a woman of influence in any
community. Six boys and girls are
with her husband at work in the
fields ; the two younger children she
is going to send to the school as
soon as she can get them "fixed
up." When she does, a new in-
fluence will begin its silent work in
this home where as yet, through the
long years, only poverty and igno-
rance have held their sway.

This Model School is blessing the
individual lives that have come un-
der its gracious ministry; but it is
perhaps . accomplishing an even
greater result in bringing together
in a common cause the women of
two widely distant States. Surely
the men and women of the South
merit warmest sympathy as they
struggle in the face of so much dif-
ficulty to build up the waste places
and to give the children of both
races their rightful heritage.

The Human Heart

By Mabel Cornelia Matson

I know you love me, dear, I know, and yet-
Oh, say it often lest my heart forget, —
My foolish heart that needeth love so sore,
My hungry heart that ever pleads for more.

Viareggio - Lucca - Rome

By Maud Howe

Viareggio, October 15, 1898.
HE long mole runs far out into
the sea, the light-house stands
at the extreme end ; here we
watch the fishing boats come in
every evening, the sailors polling
them along the mole to their har-
borage in the river. They build
boats at Viareggio. The real interest
of the town, quite apart from the
watering place life, centres in the
weatherbeaten sailors, the cumbrous
craft, with their rich colored sails,
the smell of tar, oakum and fish.
This morning we watched a pair of
old salts caulking the seams of a
dory ; they had a fire and a pot full
of black bubbling stuff, "pitch and
pine, and turpentine". It is late in
the season for sea-bathing; this
morning we were the only people
who braved the pleasant cool water.
There is a fine beach with a gradual
slope and, as far as I have discov-
ered, no undertow. Last night we
walked in the pi?ieta, the wonderful
old pine forest that embraces Via-
reggio, spreading out in a half circle,
sheltering it from the north winds
and leaving it open to the kindly in-
fluences of the sea.

Viareggio is full of memories of
Shelley; we saw the place where his
body was washed ashore, where
Trelawney found and burned it in
the old classic Greek fashion. We
heard the question discussed wheth-
er the yacht Don Juan was lost by
accident (she was a crank boat), or
if she had been run down by a feluc-
ca, whose piratical sailors believed

Lord Byron to be on board with a
chest of treasure. I huppose we shall
never know the truth, so I shall go
on believing it was an accident.

It is strange to find ourselves
again on the high road of travel, af-
ter the loneliness of the Abruzzi.
Since the days of the Phoenicians,
palmers, pilgrims, and their descen-
dants,— tourists and tramps, have
patrolled every step of the road we
are now travelling.

We drove from Viareggio to Luc-
ca, two and a half hours, through
the beautiful Tuscan country in its
rich harvest colors. Every farm a
glory, with heaped barrels of grapes
waiting to be trodden into wine,
strings of yellow, yellow Indian
corn and scarlet peppers hanging
over the fronts of the houses. We
drove through an olive grove : all
about us were twisty witch trees, a
misty gray wood in which one
looked right and left, for Merlin and
Vivian. Then came a chestnut for-
est, the great bursting burs filled
with big shiny Italian chestnuts.
We stopped at the house of a vine
grower known to our driver, and
asked leave to visit the vineyard.
The proprietor, a tall lean man, with
a touch of the faun about him (J.
wants to paint him as the god Pan)
welcomed us cordially. The large
Tuscan speech strikes sweetly on
our ears after the clipped Italian of
the Abruzzi. Even the common peo-
ple in Tuscany have a certain ele-
gance in turning a phrase which
Southern Italians of far greater cul-

138

VIAREGGIO-LUCCA-ROME

139

ture lack. Nothing could be more
up to date than this Tuscan vine-
yard, almost as tidy and progressive
as the German vineyards. That, af-
ter all, is the great thing about trav-
elling; you visit not only different
countries, but different ages. A
thousand years lie between my
friend "Pitzbourgo's" Etruscan
method of ploughing at Pietro Anzi-
eri, and the system on which this
neat thrifty Tuscan vineyard is run.

"Those look like American Isabel-
la grapes !" we exclaimed.

"They are what they appear to
be," said the vignajuolo, "behold an
experiment ! Many of my best vines
were destroyed by the phylloxera,
an obnoxious insect which girdles
the roots so that the vines die ! Do
you think I would allow myself to
be vanquished by a mere insect? I
send to North America for these
hardy vines, which have so bitter a
root that the vile insect touches
them not. I graft the native Italian
grape upon the American vine and
wait. Meanwhile, until I am sure of
my grafting, not to lose all profit, I
allow the American vines to bear
grapes from which I make wine of
some sort. I tell you in confidence,
it is only fit for the contadini, I
would not offend you by offering it
to you. Ma, pazienza! by and by,
I shall cut back the vine to the graft-
ing, and the native vine will flourish
upon the American root ! Then I
shall have a wine worthy to offer
vostra signoria!"

Here is progress for you : here is a
man not satisfied to do as his fathers
did; here is a country of today, a
people with a future !

Having made the giro of the vine-
yard, we came back to the large
stucco farmhouse originally painted
pink, now softened by sun, rain,
and time to a rich indescribable tint.

Our host threw open the door, with
a gracious gesture, and stood smil-
ing in the sun, the matchless human
sunshine of Italy in his dark shy
face. When he talked about his
vines he was all animation ; the cere-
mony of inviting a lady into his
house was rather irksome to him.
"The signori will do me the honor of
entering my poor house?" He
showed us into an apartment only a
shade less forbidding than the wait-
ing room of a convent. It was
clean, cold, and of a frightful bare-
ness. We fancied there must be an
enchanting kitchen somewhere in
the offing, where our handsome Pan
takes his ease.

"The signori will do me the honor
to try a glass of my wine?"

J. asked if he had any wine of Chi-
ante. He laughed.

"Eccelenza, shall I tell you the
truth ? I have tuns of wine which I
shall sell for Chiante. All you for-
estieri know that name and demand
that wine. The real wine of Chian-
te would not supply the town of
_Lucca. Chiante is a small paese; its
wine is good, who shall deny it? but
not so good as that which you will
honor me by trying !"

I held out for a glass of the "Ame-
ricano" ; it tastes rather like the un-
fermented grape juice we have at
home.

Lucca at last ! a dear, queer, de-
lightful old town with ramparts and
fortifications in fine preservation. It
has a delicious slumberous quality:
its glorious days are in the past; its
mediaeval walls effectually shut out
the rustle and bustle of today. My
earliest childish impressions con-
cerning Lucca centre about certain
long thin glass bottles bearing the
words "Sublime Oil of Lucca", al-
ways in evidence when there was to
be a dinner party. Cross German

CHURCH OF SAN GIUSTO, LUCCA

Mary, the swarthy culinery goddess
of our youth, used to hold one of
those deceitful bottles gingerly in a
clawlike hand, letting the sublime
liquid trickle drop by drop into the
yellow mixing bowl wherein she
compounded salad dressing such as
I have not since tasted. Later in
life I was once delayed by a crowd
on State street, Chicago, outside a
wholesale warehouse on which was
written in large letters "Cotton Seed

Oil". I had to wait for a moment
while a crate full of spic and span
new empty bottles, with fresh gold]
labels bearing the familiar legend
"Sublime Oil of Lucca" was carried
into the warehouse !

During our first dinner in Lucca,
1 inevitably demanded "un poco di
guest' olio sublime"

" ' Ecco lo qua Signora" (behold it
here, lady,) said the fat waiter, offer-
ing a familiar straw covered flask of

140

VIAREGGIO-LUCCA-ROME

141

oil, just like those we have in Rome.
Sublime oil of Lucca in long thin de-
ceitful bottles is not to be had in
Lucca !

My second impression of the place
is connected with another cook, the
excellent Pompilia : she was born
here and first went out to service
with a great lady who lived in Flor-
ence in the winter, and at Bagni di
Lucca in the summer. I have often
been made to feel my inferiority to
that lady and enjoyed a certain re-
venge in refusing to drive out to see
Bagni di Lucca whose fine hotels
and bath establishment do not tempt
us. We prefer Lucca, and the "Uni-
verse," a queer old caravansary,
whose peculiarities we endure in
that transcendental spirit with
which Margaret Fuller accepted the
universe. The hotel has been a pal-
ace of some importance : our bed
room is of the size and character of
the stage of Covent Garden Theatre,
when set for the last act of Othello.
The gloomy majesty of the furni-
ture is quite appalling; the two stu-
pendous beds could easily accommo-
date the whole family of children at
Orton House.

The first day we drove out into
the country, where we found the
same joyous harvest atmosphere we
left in the Abruzzi. The town of
Lucca is mellow with another har-
vest, the great art harvest of the
renaissance. Pictures and marbles
that strike us fresh and strong from
the dead hands that made them, not
too familiar like the more famous
works of Florence and Venice. We
never before knew much of Matteo
Civitalis, the statuary; he is now
our loving friend for life. Fra
Bartolomeo, the Lucca painter, we
already knew, though not so inti-
mately as now. We have put in
some days of hard sight seeing.

Did T say hard? no, splendid, soul
inspiring. I feel as if I had put my
lips to the fountain of life, and
drawn deep draughts of inspiration.
There are great churches, grim St.
Romano and San Michele, the ca-
thedral with its precious jewel, the
the tomb of Illaria Carretto, one of
the most lovely monuments of the
renaissance. As we lingered near
the tomb the old sacristan ap-
proached : he eyed us anxiously be-
fore speaking.

"The signori are interested in
sculpture?" We said that we were.
"If their excellencies have time, I
will gladly show them what the
church contains of interest to the
amateur."

How often he must have been
snubbed and hurried !

"A thousand thanks. We have
come to Lucca partly to see the ca-
thedral of St. Martino ; figure to
yourself if we have time?"

The withered old face broke up
into the tenderest smile ; it went to
one's heart that he should offer so
timidly a service so precious. We
^pent the morning mousing about
the church seeing all its treasures in
the mellow glow of the old man's
enthusiasm.

"The illustrious ones have heard
perhaps of a certain English writer,
who calls himself Ruskino?"

We said that we knew Ruskin's
books. He flushed with pleasure.
"He was my friend; more than thir-
ty times he visited Lucca, and he
never came without making a sketch
of the tomb of Ilaria."

We go into the cathedral every
day to look at the tomb of Ilaria,
where she sleeps in marble effigy,
flower crowned, immortally young
and lovely, just as Jacobo della
Quercia, the sculptor, saw, or
imagined her, nearly five centuries

142

VIAREGGIO-LUCCA-ROME

MRS. ELLIOTT ON THE TERRACE OF THE
PALAZZO RUSTICCUCI

ago. The tombs of Lucca, remind
one of the memorial tablets of the
Street of Tombs in Athens. It is
hard to say just where the resem-
blance lies ; in form and manner
there is little in common, the resem-
blance is of the subtler, deeper sort;
a spiritual, not a material likeness !

Palazzo Rusticcuci, Rome,
October, 16, 1898.

We found our dear old palace
very much as we had left it, save
that Ignazio, the gardner, had sud-
denly, and without orders, added
one hundred plots of flowers to the
terrace. The difficulty and fatigue
of watering this hanging garden of
Babylon sometimes seems more
than J. and I and Pompilia can man-
age. Yet I cannot regret the addi-
tion which promises many new de-
lights; chrysanthemums among
them. Pompilia asked many ques-
tions about what we had seen in our
wanderings : she cannot forgive us
for not having driven out to Bagni
di Lucca ! She tells me that she too
is a great traveller.

"Sa, Signora mia, ho viaggiata per
tutto il mondo. Da Lucca a Fiirenze,
da Firenze a Lucca, da Lucca a Firenze,
epoi a Roma!" "Know mistress, that

I have travelled all over the world,
from Lucca to Florence" (the dis-
tance is about 50 miles), ''from
Florence to Lucca, etc."

Our first visitor, after our return,
was Sora Giulia, the dark eyed
Jewess who keeps an antiquarian's
shop in the Borgo Nuovo, a few
doors away.

"Welcome home, Signora. I have
brought you a few occasione (bar-
gains) ; a piece of lace, well, wait till
you see it, un ojetto unicoI"

Nena took Sora Giulia's baby,
while she untied her green damask
bundle of old lace and linen.

"Behold, Signora mia, this price-
less flounce. How well it would be-
come you on a vesture of ceremony."

She spread out with a carressing
touch a deep lace flounce of Milan
point. It was indeed "an unique
object." The sacred letters IHS,
and all the emblems of the Passion,
were wrought with wonderful free-
dom of design ; the ladder, the cross,
the mallet, and so on. It had evi-
dently belonged to an ecclesiastic.

"It is truly a splendid piece of
lace, Sora Giulia, but is it not known
to you that such a flounce may only
be worn by a sacerdotef

" I preti sono poverif"

"Not all priests are poor. Show it
to Don Marcello."

"Ma che — , he buys no longer, he
has to sell. But you, signora, you
are not like these others; Eh dica,
lei e veramente Christiana?" (Say,
are you really a Christian?)

"I cannot buy this flounce, I could
not wear it if I did."

" Per .carita, then look at this reti-
cella" (Literally "small net," a
coarse white netting with designs
worked in by hand.) The for-
estieri are mad about reticella, they
are buying it all up to make table
cloths and pillow covers. Soon it

VIAREGGIO-LUCCA-ROME

143

will be impossible to find. I never
saw a better piece, you shall have it
at your own price. In confidence,
the padro?ie di casa says if he has
not his rent to day, he will turn us
out. What a bad season we have
had ! No travellers since June.
Those Florentine antiquarians put
lies in the papers about there being
plague or cholera, or some such por-
cheria in Rome, to keep the voyagers
away. We make nothing; but we
must eat and pay our rent all the
same! The padrone .... '

"With respect, he is an infamous
beast; they all are, Madonna mia!"
Nena broke in. Nena is the staunch,
little old witch of a woman- we call
the footman. When she took Sora
Giulia's part, I knew that the anti-
quarian was really in straits. We
bought the reticella for the sum due
the landlord, and Nena went down-
stairs to the baker's shop to change
the bill.

"Sora Nena will tell you that I
speak the truth. That brute of a
padrone extorted her rent yester-
day, took her last centissimo. What
is the consequence? I tell you, this
morning Nena's daughter had noth-
ing to eat for her breakfast but one
raw lemon. The child at the breast
has colic, which is not strange."

"What about the child's father?"

"He is a muratore (mason), but
he gets no work. Sora Nena gives
him to eat as well as his *wife."

Nena is a Venetian, and she takes
snuff. She has other faults but I
hear of these oftenest. Before we
went to Roccaraso I asked her if
she had ever owned a silk dress. She
laughed at the question, "silks were
not for the likes of her, etc." In
parting I gave her a cast off black
satin, with rather peculiar wide
stripes. The first Sunday after
our return, Pompilia went to mass

in the satin dress, and poor pathetic
little Nena, in her old snuff-stained
cotton gown. When I asked an ex-
planation, she said that she had sold
the satin to the cook : "Pompilia can
afford to wear silk ; I ask you, who
has she in the world belonging to
her? Some cousins, who send her a
basket of flowers on her festa ! She
puts every soldo she can scrape to-
gether on her back. Well, let that
console her for being a zitellaV (old
maid). Nena has seven grand-
children.

"When the forestieri come, you
will recommend me to them?" said
Sora Giulia in parting. I can do so
with a good conscience. If she
guarantees a candle stick to be sil-
ver, you may be sure it is not merely
plated. If a bargain is struck she
will keep her side of it; as much
cannot be said of all her Christian
confreres.

It is strange how the antichita
mania attacks people in Italy.
Everyone we know collects some
manner of junk. A friend who goes
in for old coins, was lately driving
near Girgente in Sicily through the
wildest most primitive country. A
peasant digging in a field offered
him a handful of coins, moist with
mud, just turned up with the spade.

They were all Ancient Roman
coins, copper or silver, familiar and
not particularly valuable, with the
exception of one rare Greek gold
piece which he bought for a large
price. Afraid of being robbed, he
took the next boat for Naples,
pushed on to Rome where he had
been passing the winter, showed his
treasure trove to an expert, learned
that there were but three others
known to be in existence ; one in
Berlin, another in the British Mu-
seum, a third in a private collection.
When he reached London, he

144

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

showed his coin to the gentle-
man in charge of the collection at
the British Museum. They corn-
compared it with the specimen in
the case. The Girgente coin
seemed as good a specimen ; as a last
test it was put under a powerful
lens, which showed it to be a brand
new imitation ! The Muse of Via
Gregoriana, J. C, has a catholic
taste and buys all manner of things,
from empire furniture to silver
lamps. Her last craze is for peasant
jewelry. She "acquires" — one does
not buy antiquita — every piece she
can lay her hands on. Some of the
designs are excellent; the jewels are
mostly flat rose diamonds, garnets
and misshapen pearls set in silver.
Out of half a dozen odd earrings she
will construct you a charming orna-
ment, necklace, pin, what not, and
sell it to you at a small profit; which
she devotes to helping young Roman
musicians, several of whom owe
their education to her. I call that
a pleasant combination, to make
your hobby carry your charity.

I believe Rome is the best place
in Europe to buy jewels: because
princes as well as peasants are con-
tinually throwing them on the mar-
ket. One day our jeweller, Signor
Poce, (he lives in a little shop in
the Corso near the Piazza del Po-
polo) showed us a set of the finest
emeralds I have seen in years. Pie
said they belonged to some great
lady who was obliged to part with
them. That night we met those
emeralds at a ball ! they were in the
shop again the next morning!
Don't be too sorry for the lady : she
is a sensible English woman; and
we happened to hear that she has
lately redeemed a long neglected
estate belonging to her Roman hus-
band, and is putting in modern im-
provements in the way of oil and

wine presses. It is the same with the
poorer people. What you read
about the peasants parting with
their precious possessions, furni-
ture, laces, jewels, is true, but it is
only part of the truth ; they are sell-
ing them to buy health and educa
tion! When you read about the
heavy taxes, remember what they
pay for ! What Italy has done since
1870 is as wonderful as what France
did in paying off the war debt to
Germany out of the farmer's stock-
ings. Reading and writing are
better than pearl earrings. The
Tiber embankment, alone, cost the
Romans a pretty penny. It spoiled
the picturesqueness of the river —
the sloping banks covered with

THE SANTO BAMBINO

VIAREGGIO-LUCCA-ROME

145

trees and flowers must have been
wonderful — and did away with the
Roman fever! The river used to
overflow its banks every spring, and
flood whole districts of the city. J.
remembers boats rowed by sailors,
going about the Piazza Rotonda
and along the Via Ripette, carrying
bread to the people in the sub-
merged houses. When the river re-
ceded, "came the famine, came the'
fever." When I was in Rome that
first time, as a girl, I had a bad case
of old-fashioned Roman fever.
Since my return, I have seen Suora
Gabriella, the dear nun who nursed
me so faithfully (she really saved
my life) through that long dreadful
illness. In speaking of the character
of the work done by the nursing sis-
terhood to which she belongs, she
said, "Since there is no more fever,
the character of our work has
changed somewhat; we now take
surgical cases !" Doctors and hotel
keepers claim that Rome is the
second healthiest city in Europe,
having the lowest death rate after
London. If this is true, we owe it
to Garibaldi, for he it was who urged
the Romans to build the Tiber em-
bankment, their best monument to
his memory.

October 25TH, 1898.

This morning, Maria, the porter's
wife, was announced. She had come
on an " " ambasciata' from the wife of
the wine merchant opposite. "You
remember the poor little Gobbetto,
(hunchback) Signora? the one who
has brought you so much luck, since
that day when you rubbed his
hump ?"

"I remember him, yes, what of
him?"

"He is very ill; he suffers much,
cannot sleep, cannot eat: one sees
all his bones! His mother, poor
woman, prays that you will ask the

American Marchesa, who lives at the
Palazzo Giraud Torlonia, to lend her
carriage for the transportation of the
Santo Bambino (the holy child)
from the church of Santa Maria in
Aracoeii, to her house."

"But why does she want the Santo
Bambino at her house?"

"After that blessed image visits
his bedside, the poor Gobbetto will
either recover, or find repose in
death. It is too terrible to see him
suffer !"'

"Is this thing which you tell me,
true?"

"It is most true as you will see."
I knew the poor crippled child, had
one day taken him up in my arms ;
Maria, seeing me, had supposed I
knew the superstition that it is
lucky to touch the back of a Gobbo.
"Will it be permitted to bring the
Bambino to the house?"

"If a carriage can be sent of the
proper style — there must be one ser-
vant on the box, and one to walk be-
side, there must be two horses; an
ordinary hired carriage from the
piazza will not do."

"If the Marchesa consents?"

"The Bambino, attended by two
priests, will be brought to the Gob-
betto's bedside. Then the thing will
soon be over for the poor child — one
way or the other!"

I went on the errand to my neigh-
bor, Mrs. Haywood (the Haywoods
have a title from the Vatican, she
is called Marchesa by the poor peo-
ple of our quarter, but among her
American friends she remains Mrs.
Haywood.) She is a kind woman
and an excellent neighbor. I found
her at home in that splendid old
Palazzo Giraud built in 1503 (some
say by the great architect Bra-
mante), occupied by Cardinal Wol-
sey when he was papal legate. J's
studio, by the way, is in one

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

wing of this palace. Mrs. Hay-
wood gave me tea in the library, one
of the finest rooms in Rome. It has
a balcony running around it, filled
with rare books and MSS, for Mr.
Haywood is a great bibliophile.

I told her my ambasciata . '
Though sne was kindly sympathetic,
she said "no" firmly, then explained.
The Haywoods are the only people
in the Borgo (outside the Vatican)
who keep a carriage. When they
first came to live here, they began
by lending it whenever it was asked
for, to bring the Santo Bambino to
the sick. They soon found that, if
they ever wished to use their car-

riage themselves, they must make a
hard and fast rule to refuse all such
requests. Knowing this, Maria and
the Gobbetto s mother induced me
to make the petition, on the chance
that the Marchesa might grant to a
compatriot what she would deny
them. When it was found that my
mission had failed, Maria, of the
kind heart, opened a subscription to
pay for the hire of a suitable carri-
age. Every member of our house-
hold, including Nena, has con-
tributed to the fund. " Bisogna vivere
a Roma coi costumi di Roma" says
the Italian proverb, "When you are
in Rome do as Rome does !"

■'ft': if Tj ,^*^v

y c- \ v ■ . \ rT in, m/ /■■>.>*

A Complex Enchantment

A Humoresque

By Nathan Haskell Dole

ON opposite corners of one of
the busiest cities of this busy
country are two great shops :
one is devoted to gentlemen's fur-
nishings of every sort and kind. A
man with a well filled purse, or with
proper credit, however unfashion-
ably attired on arriving, would
emerge thence accoutred with ha-
biliments for every function of life.
The other is devoted to the requi-
sites of the feminine toilette-gowns,
laces, hosiery, lingerie, corsets and
bodices, shirt-waists and head-gear,
cloaks and wraps.

The passing throng not many
months ago was privileged to be-
hold in the principal window of the
one, a waxen Gentleman of most ar-
tistic form; in the other, a waxen
Lady of- seraphic beauty. Words
would fail to describe the grace of
the waxen Gentleman's pose, his
noble brow, his hyacinthine locks,
his ruddy cheeks expressive of ab-
solute health, his curled mustachios,
his fine nostrils, his well-poised
ears, his smiling mouth; all this
beauty enhanced by immaculate
clothes : — a frock coat without a
wrinkle, trowsers religiously
creased, or rather irreligiously
creased, since there was no sign of
bagging about the knees, cravat
with glittering pin, tall silk hat
shining like his shoes with an inner
radiancy as it were, and in his gen-
teel, shapely waxen hand a beautiful
cane — he was in fact (to all seem-

147

ing) a universally perfect gentle-
man.

Words would fail to describe the
lady, the waxen Gentleman's vis-
a-vis: bright blue eyes contrasted
with her exquisitely enamelled
cheeks, large liquid eyes veiled with
long curling lashes, a low gracious
forehead, piquant nose, "tip-tilted
like the petal of a flower," soft rosy
lips parted as it were with a sigh of
aspiration, shell-like ears calcu-
lated to hear only the sounds of har-
mony and love, perfectly modelled
shoulders and a swelling bosom,
where Venus's doves might nest,
artistically-rounded arms and tiny
hands with taper fingers delicately
gloved; and she was dressed in a
shimmering gown which had cost
hours upon hours of industrious la-
bor beginning with the patient silk
worm out of whose humble vitals
the magic fabric had at last been
evolved and combining laces and
embroideries and wonderful touches
of human art, — "A perfect Cre-
ation" as the newspaper reporters
delight in describing such indescrib-
able masterpieces.

There they stood through the
long garish day, exposed to the en-
vious stares of loiterers and the en-
raptured remarks of those that won-
dered at the perfection of a post-
Phidian art combining the genius
of Sculpture with the refinement of
modern culture; there they stood
gazing only at each other. What

*"■

148

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

messages of love flashed from those
"cerulean orbs," as the poets say,
to the worshipping eyes of the waxen
Gentleman ! What vows mutely
and mutually reiterated, of never
dying constancy. What pathetic
hopes forever disappointed they
each conceived of sometime unit-
ing their perfections, of retiring
from that cruel publicity which they
had come to hate ! For they were
made for each other : made of simi-
lar flesh and bone — or more prop-
erly wax and wood — with identical
ideals in life, each eager to rise
above the sordid purpose of their
publicity. What prayers went up
constantly from those two faithful
hearts to the waxen God that regu-
lates the affairs of statues and
modiste's models !

Alas for the tragedy of those two
destinies separated by two thick
panes of the costliest French plate
glass; glass so transparent as to
seem air itself and yet more ruth-
lessly dividing lovers than years or
oceans ! Nevertheless, true to their
duties, he in his model suit and she
m her pattern gown stood there,
showing the world what every gen-
tleman and every lady should
wear and silently exerting the im-
ponderable influence of example on
the city and on all strangers passing
through the citv.
II.

Each day another and perhaps a
deeper heart-tragedy was enacted
tn that busy corner of the big city.
Twice each day there passed by
these palaces of trade two persons,
humble and insignificant, poor and
nnromantic in appearance; yet in
the heart of each raged the same or
a like unrequited affection. In the
morning, when the shadows of the
buildings leaned against the build-
ings themselves like immaterial

buttresses, each of them, on the way
to their daily labors, he a piano
tuner, she an assistant in a doll's
hospital, paused on the side-walk in
front of the great plate-glass win-
dow and gazed with hopeless adora-
tion at their respective flames. At
night when the street was brilliant-
ly lighted with electric lamps and
the waxen Gentleman and waxen
Lady stood in all the splendor of
evening dress, the polished desert
of white shirt front relieved by two
pearl oases of studs, and white lawn
tie, the decollete gown showing a
pair of ravishing shoulders and a
roseate bosom gleaming under a
rope of gems — artificial, to be sure,
but none the less exquisite in bril-
liancy and size; this humble pair,
each unconscious of the other and
of the sentiments reigning in the
other's breast, lingered for a brief
while, in patient adoration.

Verily it was the old story of
Pygmalion and Galatea in inverse
ratio.

The piano-tuner was a German
named Hans. Hans Julius Maxi-
milian von Bulow was his full com-
plement of names and though he
may have been entitled to claim kin-
ship with the German chancellor or
with the irascible pianist Meiningen,
he quietly acquiesced in his humble
station in life by spelling it Below,
while yet retaining the little particle
"von" so significant to Germans. He
was most German in appearance
with round cheeks and reddish
whiskers and a rather stout and
apoplectic nose. But like a true
Teuton, he had a heart as sentimen-
tal as ever beat beneath a ragged or
a velvet coat. Deprived of those
chances for developing his soft and
romantic nature which he sorely
craved, engaged all day long in
equalizing the chromatic irregula-

A COMPLEX ENCHANTM E N T

149

rities of the key-board, rolling up
as it were, the Sisyphean stone of
harmony only to have it roll back
again, like the torment of Hades, he
found a genuine solace in the con-
templation of the waxen Lady; his
day's monotonous labor and nervous
strain were alleviated by the recol-
lection of her calm and seraphic
loveliness. She had blue eyes; blue
was his favorite color, as he proved
by tieing a large blue cravat around
his collar on Sunday mornings. She
had gradually come to represent his
ideal : if he could only find some
such woman on earth to be his com-
panion! But he had never found
one; he scanned the maidens of his
acquaintance — they were not many
— but it was in vain ; he had been
on tumultuous Sunday picnics of
his expatriated countrymen and
wandered disconsolate among the
groups made up of portly papas and
their still portlier Hausfraus with
buxom lassies giving promise of be-
coming as portly as their parents,
but nowhere among these flaxen-
haired Madchen did he find one that
corresponded even remotely to the
svelte grace and exquisite com-
plexion of his waxen Lady.

The assistant in the Dolls' Hospi-
tal was a French girl. She had ex-
pressive turquoise eyes — her one
pretty feature — and a large mouth
which in no respect belied its pro-
verbial index of generosity. She
was far from slender and her heart
beat with full throbs of motherli-
ness. At her own humble home, no
disabled cat or dog was ever al-
lowed to go unattended ; animals
instinctively came to her for com-
fort and assistance. As a child she
had been passionately fond of
dolls: — this was only a symptom
that if ever she should marry and
have children, she would make

them a most devoted and affection-
ate mother.

She spent her days in an upper
room in a large building, engaged
in performing the most delicate sur-
gical operations. Behind her on the
wall hung strips of pink legs and
arms, looking from a little distance
like uncooked sausages ; in boxes
on the shelf near her were as many
scalps as ever adorned the teepee of
a Comanche chieftain. So when
beautiful French dolls came to her,
suffering from apparently mortal
accidents, she would calmly and
lovingly replace dislocated and frac-
tured limbs, she would show all the
skill of a trained surgeon in tre-
phining broken skulls or removing
the vermiform appendix and the
poor little unfortunate creature roll-
ing up its smiling eyes and uttering
its attenuated squeak of helplessness
would, after a few days of convales-
cence, be returned to its owner —
perhaps at the Holiday season —
with a renewed complexion, with a
fresh growth of straw-colomi curls
as good as new or better, and with
all the possibilities of social ad-
vancement.

Marie, for of course her name was
Marie, was extraordinarily deft
with her fingers and she earned
good wages, but she had a sick
father so that she had little money
to spend on her own toilette, though
what she wore was always neat and
she was gifted with that peculiar
chic natural to her nation and tribe
which made her cheap and shabby
clothes look well-fitting.

There was something that had
wonderfully captivated her in the
waxen Gentleman. She liked well-
fitting raiment whether worn by
man or woman, and the waxen
Gentleman was faultless in that re-
spect and, moreover, the modeler

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

who had created his form and face
had by one supreme effort of the
genius given the features a remark-
able air of distinction; an aristo-
cratic hauteur blended with the
finer qualities of intellectuality: at
least so she imagined. In her own
romantic and sentimental manner
she haloed him with noble lineage,
pretended that he was a French
count, called him M. le comte Hya-
cinthe Beletage de Mont Lepelle-
tier de Richepin and ardently
wished that some pitying divinity
would endue him with life, would
enable those shapely limbs of his to
move, that Cupid's bow of a mouth
of his to open and utter in her ear
the words which she burned to hear.
She idealized her waxen count,
thought of him as the only son of
a rich old widow dwelling on their
ancestral estate just near enough to
dear Paris to run in and out as
easily as she passed to and from her
suburban home. She knew that if
he would only stoop to her, she
would atone for the mesalliance by
such devotion as never woman had
shown before ; she would endure
all the snubs that the haughty belle-
mere might put upon her, would
heap coals of fire on her head by
unremitting attentions while the old
lady should be sick and finally quite
win her heart, especially after she
should present her lord and master
with such a beautiful heir as the
whole French republic or the old
French empire had never seen.

So there would she stand with
hands tightly clasped and exclaim
under her breath in her soft be-
witching voice, in her daintiest
French accent: "Oh mon adorable
comte Hyacinthe!" And then she
would go to her work, her heart
filled with dreams of what might be
and what might never be. And she

gave to her sick and dislocated,
maimed and battered dolls all the
care that she would have given to
her own children. Thus her
motherly heart found expression.

III.

If there was any one fierce and
rebellious feeling in Marie's gentle
breast it was hatred of the Ger-
mans. She could never forgive
them for having robbed her dear
France of Alsace and Lorraine.
She had read Daudet's "Derniere
Classe" and the pathetic story of
the old Alsatian school-master had
filled her eyes with tears and her
heart with indignation.

As for Hans, he never dreamed
of a French woman; the whole sex,
as far as that portion went that
called itself Francaise, did not exist
for him. He would stand in front
of his waxen ideal, softly repeating
his "Ach ! wie schen ! kolossal I"
She was the ideal of a German
spirit dwelling in a lovely form.

So weeks rolled by: dozens of
pianos came to Hans discordant,
jangled, inharmonious, like insane
patients and went forth from his
patient touch sane, and musical.
Hundreds of dilapidated dolls em-
erged from the hospital clothed and
in their right wigs, with new fresh
legs and arms and all their saw-
dust vitals in good working order.

Meantime Marie's father died and
she was left alone and after she had
paid the expenses of his funeral and
most of the back debts to the doctor
and apothecary and the patient
dealers in coal and groceries, she
was enabled to make a little im-
provement in her own wardrobe.
She had a new dark suit that was
very becoming and though saddened
by her recent bereavement, as she
was now relieved of the night care

A COMPLEX ENCHANTMENT

151

of the old man she was growing
steadily better in color; a new light
was beginning to grow in her lovely
eyes, and her cheeks had a soft
flush in them, rendered more per-
ceptible by the very becoming hat
she wore.

Still Hans worshipped at the
plate glass shrine; his waxen Lady
had changed her gown; the Spring
styles had come out and his beati-
fic Madchen had put on a dainty
robe of soft pearl gray and on her
head she had a glorious bonnet — in
every sense of the word the toque
of the town — and over her shoulder
she wore a violet sunshade : "Ach !
if only she could schtep down from
her heights into the schtreet I
vould follow her to the ends of the
earth," murmured Hans's suscepti-
ble heart.

Across the way, the waxen Gen-
tleman had also donned a spring
suit with a light drab top coat; in
one hand he carried his gloves, and
Marie admired the aristocratic
nails, the plump roundness of the
taper fingers : " Mon Dieu ! que belles
mains que celles de mon bon comie-
Hy acini he\" she would murmur.

But Count Hyacinthe had eyes
only for his sweet marquise who
as faithfully as ever waited for the
magic word that would make her
his and him hers forever!

One beautiful Spring afternoon,
the hapless adorers, Marie and
Hans met face to face on the cross-
ing. How many hundred times
they had passed each other no one
can tell. But this time the god or
the goddess of Love, the influence
of their approaching planets, Fate
or whatever it was, resolved to take
a hand in the quadruple comico-
tragedy. Hans tried to turn out for
Marie, Marie for Hans; and while
they stood rather awkwardly en-

deavoring to dodge each other, a
pair of handsome horses came up
with reckless speed and Hans with
more gallantry than is common
among the men of his nationality,
seeing that the young lady was in
imminent danger, suddenly seized
her in his strong arms and lifting
her from her feet set her down
gently on the, side-walk. She ap-
preciated his courtesy and flashed
upon him a look of gratitude; her
lovely cerulean eyes beamed upon
him; a broad smile suddenly
showed her firm white teeth and
her "Thank you, sair" was spoken
in tones that made his heart strings
vibrate.

They parted and made their way
to their daily labors but each had
something unusual to think about.
Trifles change the whole current of
a person's life! Marie felt as if she
had been delivered from sudden
death or at least as if her new gown
had been saved. And Hans remem-
bered that exquisitely modulated
voice and the heavenly blue of those
two large eyes.

After that they met every day and
nodded to each other; gradually
their greetings became more inti-
mate and then at last they stopped
and spoke. He had no resentment
that she was French, she had the
eyes of his waxen ideal; but to her
it was a bitter disappointment that
the hero of whom she had dreamed
more than once, dreamed of his res-
cuing her from greater perils, —
about whom, in spite of his prosaic
appearance, and his appalling con-
trast in dress, in height, in face, in
everything to her waxen count, she
had woven a net work of romantic
thoughts, — should be a German.
Still he had been her rescuer; she
was grateful to him and at last she
let him walk home with her one

15-2

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

afternoon and another afternoon and
another time she allowed him to take
her to the park and insensibly with-
out knowing how or why she began
to look forward to seeing him.

Several times she accused him vi-
vaciously of having helped rob her
of the two provinces that she felt
so keenly ought to be restored. But
he, instead of arguing that they had
been German before ever they were
French and that their recovery by
Germany was only an act of long
delayed justice, looked guilty and
humble and said so honestly "Ach !
Mein Gott, if I only could, I vould
giff them back to you" ; and withal
he was so honest and so good ; and
he tuned her old piano and kept it
in tune and he liked the music of
Massenet and Chaminade and
Augusta Holmes and he sang in his
high tenor voice such beautiful
songs that he almost made her for-
get her first love — the oblivious
waxen count.

As for Hans the presence of living
flesh and blood, the vague evane-
scent perfume that floated around
Marie, the touch of her sympathetic
hand, her piquante ways, her vi-
vacity, her gay laugh, her contrast
to anything he had ever seen be-
fore in his life, made him now look
almost scornfully on the beauteous
effigy about which he had erstwhile
so vainly and passionately dreamed.

One Sunday, Hans and Marie
were strolling in the park. It was
a perfect day in the early summer.
A wood-thrush was uttering his
clear bell tones from the top of a
tall elm ; down in the meadow the
bobolinks were pouring out their
gurgling notes; the shadows of soft
Avhite clouds chased one another
across the long slopes. Hans and
Marie sat down on the bank of a
little brook that came joyously out
into the open air and ran tumultu-

ously down the hillside. Marie's
hand lay temptingly near ; there
was no one in sight. He timidly
took it and raised it to his honest
lips. Marie, with transparent
coquetry seemed suddenly absorbed
in watching a flock of crows that
were circling around a pine tree.
She did not draw her hand away.
She knew what was coming and she
had already made up her mind.

But when poor Hans, embar-
rassed and stammering and blush-
ing, said : "Fraulein Marie, I luff
you," she looked at him out of the
corner of her eyes ; the sense of the
ludicrous suddenly asserted itself.
The thought that she should be
listening to an awkward declara-
tion of love from one of that de-
tested German race was too much
for her; she laughed a ringing
laugh, exclaiming "Don't call me
Fraulein — it is horrible" ! Then
with a sudden impulse patted Hans
on the cheek. He did not know
what to make of her mood and he
said in a sort of aggrieved tone:
"Vy do you laugh at me, Fraulein
Marie : I dell you I luff you."

"I will not be called Fraulein
Marie, I have told you so," she re-
peated, affecting a great show of in-
dignation and, in her soft musical
clear voice, she went on : "Why,
meester von Belowr how can you
have ze audace to tell me zet you
luff me ?"

"But I do" he asserted, gathering
courage.

"What have I ever done" she
asked "to make you sink zat I
would leesten to such a declara-
tion? Besides," she added with a
happy inspiration of her native
coquetry, "I have promised myself
to marry ze Comte Hyacinthe
de ."

"Who is he?" demanded Hans

A COMPLEX ENCHANTMENT

153

with a great access of jealousy, fall-
ing into the trap which Marie had
so deftly prepared.

"Oh! he is so handsome!" ex-
claimed Marie ecstatically clasping
her plump hands.

"Denn I go home" said Hans, a
tragic look causing a shadow to
cloud his honest face.

"Wait a leetle meenute" cried
Marie laying her hand on his sleeve.

"My ravissa?it Comte Hya-
cinthe — did I tell you his whole
name? — iss made all of wax" and
Marie again laughed with that de-
lectable laugh which was as musi-
cal as the song of the scarlet tanager
in the neighboring bush.

Then she prettily confessed her
hapless passion for the waxen
Gentleman; and Hans might have
himself made a like confession but
something restrained him and he
kept it to himself, for while her con-
fession was a sort of idyl, his yearn-
ing for the waxen Lady seemed to
him a sacrilege, now that he had
found its living, breathing, gracious
substitute. So he held his peace.

He still felt awkward and abashed
but he had the wit to get hold of
her hand again and, as she did not
take it away, he said: —

"You know I luff you and you
have known it a long time and I
want you to marry me."

"What! I marry a German?
Nevair!"

"Denn, let me marry you!" he
said, recognizing perhaps in her
overdramatic accent that she was
not quite serious.

"Zis iss zey new siege of Paris"
she exclaimed at last and with a
deep sigh, "I suppose it iss ze Fate
of poor France to give up to ze
horrid Germans !"

He boldly took Marie into his
arms and gave her a resounding

German smack. Such an unusual
noise scared a frog into the water:
it disappeared with a splash and
doubtless told all its neighbors and
friends of the queer ways of a man
with a maid.

Marie could not help herself.
The soft loveliness of the day; the
balmy air, full of the fragrance of
Summer flowers, the songs of the
mating birds, the passionate long-
ings of her own heart, the eager
wooing of her ardent lover, so genu-
ine, so honest, so wholesome, so
naif, so comical and at the same
time so satisfying, made all oppo-
sition melt as a snow flake melts
in a sun beam.

She suddenly tore herself away
from the circling pressure of his
strong arms, jumped to her feet and
exclaimed : —

"E/i, Bien ! I will marry you but
come let us walk and remember zis :
you are nevair to call me Fraulein
Marie !"

"Why should I — now?" asked
Hans innocently.

"And I shall nevair call you Hans.
You shall always be to me Maxi-
riiilien — my Max, my dear good
Max!" and she gave his hand such
a thrilling pressure that Hans went
up to the seventh heaven!

IV.

The hot Summer weather was pe-
culiarly trying to the Waxen Gen-
tleman and Waxen Lady. There
were awnings over the big plate-
glass windows but the heat pene-
trated ; it was reflected from the
wide side-walks starred with glit-
tering bulls-eyes; it came in
through the open doors. The light
garb they wore failed to mitigate its
torment. The jaunty straw hat
which Comte Hyacinthe had donned
was a burden to his clustering

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

curls; the violet parasol which la
Marquise carried over her rosy-
shoulder could not keep the sun's
glaring rays from reflecting into her
eyes. It seemed to them both as
if they must escape from the city.
As he looked across at his beauti-
ful vis-a-vis he could see how waxen
tears were starting from her blue
eyes and running down her cheeks,
now growing pallid under the stifl-
ing confinement. Tears, sympa-
thetic tears began to roll down his
cheeks, rolled and then set, as
waxen tears will. Two teary
models were no help to trade.
They themselves felt that they were
derelict to their duty but they
could not help it.

At last one day the proprietors
of the two shops received a visit
from a Hebrew dealer in second-
hand clothing.

"Mei?i Gott i?i Himmel, vot for
gut is they to you? Deir golor is
all gerunnen unt deir cheeks mit
schpots gedaubt. I vill gif you zwei
taler for him."

For the Marquise he offered the
same sum and he secured them both.

They were indeed reduced from
their former grandeur. What
clothes they now wore were not so
immaculate, were not by any
means a la mode; but now they
were together, now they were side
by side. She sat all day in a rock-
ing-chair, never more graceful. Her
tears were carefully scraped away

and her color was restored. He
stood so near to her that he could
touch her hand ; he could look down
into her face; when no one was
lookng he could whisper sweet
words into her shell like ear. But
oh the heat! One hot wave suc-
ceeded another and they were meant
for a different station, for a more
equable climate.

" Mein Gott in Himmel, I vos
made von bad bargain !" exclaimed
Isaac Scharfenstein, as he ruefully
noted how his waxen figures had
languished under the pitiless tem-
perature. The waxen perspiration
had absolutely ruined their com-
plexions. They were no longer fit
to display Herr Scharfenstein's ex-
traordinary bargains in second-hand
raiment. He sold them for old
wax.

The most pathetic passage in
Dante is where Paolo and Fran-
cesca are carried on the wind of
passion through the Second Circle
of the Inferno, arm in arm, breast
to breast, never resting. Those two
hapless mortals suffered the penalty
for their guilty happiness but it was
mitigated by suffering forever to-
gether.

One implacable day in August,
when there was no comfort in the
air, when life even to the optimistic
was a burden, the two waxen figures
were cast into the melting kettle.

Like Paolo and Francesca they
were united, never again to be
parted.

Boston as an Art Centre

By William Howe Downes

WHEN, in the summer of 1903,
thirty-six thousand school
teachers from all parts of the
United States held a convention in
Boston, many complimentary re-
marks were made as to the hospi-
tality of the Bostonians, their cour-
tesy to strangers, and the great num-
ber of interesting, historic and ar-
tistic things to be seen in and about
the city. If the Bostonians were
much interested in the delegates,
and desirous to have them enjoy
their visit, they on their part seemed
to be both astonished and pleased
to find that the Bostonians were so
human. They had been told, it ap-
pears, that Boston people were cold,
distant, and snobbish; and their
evident delight on finding that this
reputation was unjust was almost
pathetic. At the close of the con-
vention, one of the newspapers
printed almost three columns of in-
terviews with the teachers, and
among the amiable expressions of
opinion about Boston we find this:
"Dr. Frank M. McMurray of New
York, one of the professors at Co-
lumbia University, says he has al-
ways considered Boston the real art
centre of the country." Only four
months before this episode, Mr.
Herbert Croly had written, in the
Architectural Record, the statement
that "Boston had almost ceased to
be, not only a literary but an art
centre." It becomes an interesting
question, then, which of these gen-
tlemen is right? Is Boston an art
centre? Before we can answer that

155

question satisfactorily, we shall have
to define the true meaning of the
phrase.

What constitutes an art centre?
May it not be fairly defined as a city
in which a large body of professional
artists have their homes; a city
which possesses important art mu-
seums, art schools, art societies, art
collections; a city which has within
its confines notable monuments of
art; a community that has the ad-
vantage of artistic traditions, mani-
fests a marked degree of interest in
artistic matters, holds many art ex-
hibitions, spends much money for
works of art, has a definite public
policy as to civic art embodied in
legislation with respect to monu-
ments, parks, architecture, advertis-
ing abuses, and public improve-
ments? These, with other particu-
lars, are germane to the question.
And if Boston's title to the distinc-
tion of being an art centre rests upon
the evidence on such points, let us
examine the evidence candidly. We
shall be convinced that neither Mr.
McMurray nor Mr. Croly is wholly
right. Boston is not the real art
centre of the country; but it is an
art centre of importance, and shows
no signs of ceasing to be such.

Although Boston people have the
reputation of being somewhat com-
placent with regard to their city, as
a matter of fact a great majority of
them are not so proud of the city as
they ought to be. One is far more
likely to hear the praise of Boston
from the mouths of strangers than

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

from Bostonians. The most en-
thusiastic admirer of Boston that I
have met is a literary and artistic
personage whose home is in Wash-
ington,— unquestionably the least
ugly city in America, — and who is
perfectly familiar with Paris. It is
conceivable that those who have
lived all their lives in Boston are
scarcely able to realize all the parti-
culars in which it excels other cities,
since they have not had the opportu-
nity for comparison ; but let them
go away and dwell in other Ameri-
can cities, and it is noticeable that
they are not long in feeling the dif-
ference; this, we may presume,
is the reason why former residents
of Boston are among her most ar-
dent partisans ; the phenomenon
is only a parallel to the passionate
patriotism of the exile. Again,
though not much is said nowadays
on the subject, there has been, we
are aware, enough of the spirit of
local pride in the breasts of the older
generation — the solid men of Bos-
ton— to make them willing to take
some pains and make some real
sacrifices in order that their city
should cut a presentable figure in
the eyes of mankind ; and it is to be
hoped that this old-time spirit has
not entirely died out even in our day.
Ridicule, like death, loves a shin-
ing mark. Boston, which has ever
been a target for satire, takes it in
good part, and, if the jest be fresh
enough — for I will venture to para-
phrase Shakespeare and say that a
jest's prosperity lies in its freshness
— is ready to join in the laugh. This
freedom from undue sensitiveness
under the imputations of pedantry,
priggishness, egotism, and other un-
lovely traits lent to them in the ex-
travagant anecdotes, goes far to
make it clear that the Bostonians
are not troubled in their consciences,

and I am inclined to believe that
their indifference to gibes of the sort
alluded to is quite unassumed. It
is true enough that Boston is the
home and headquarters for all kinds
of strange fads, but let it be remem-
bered that her chief fad from the
beginning has been philanthropy,
and that wherever tyranny, wrong,,
and cruelty exist in the world, there
Boston is most heartily hated. But,.
a nos moutons.

Although Boston is the home of
an army of professional artists, a
fact that will not be questioned by
any one who is familiar with the
city, precise and trustworthy statis-
tics are curiously difficult to obtain.
The most numerous class of artists-
are the musicians. In the business
directory for 1903 I find the names
of more than eight hundred teach-
ers of music, which is perhaps the-
best clue to the total number of per-
sons whose livelihood is music in
one form or another. Of painters
I have made a little census of my
own, and I find that there are over-
five hundred, possibly as many as
six hundred, in Greater Boston. The
architects number about three hun-
dred and fifty. Literary artists and1
actors do not exist as distinct
classes in any directories, and I am
at a loss to make even a good guess-
as to their numbers. There are
twelve theatres, but the player-
folk are so constantly on the road
under our system that it would be
hard to name the domiciles of most
actors. 1 may note that there are
nearly one hundred picture dealers ;.
over a hundred engravers ; and that
the number of sculptors is insigni-
ficant. It is therefore obvious that
any attempt to make an exact local
census of artists is, in the nature of
the case, futile. But indirect evi-
dence that bears on the question we-

BOSTON AS AX A R T C E N T R E

157

are considering is supplied in abun-
dance by other data than statistics.

There is significance in the facts
that the Boston Society of Archi-
tects is the oldest organization of
members of this important profes-
sion in the United States; that the
Copley Society's loan exhibition of
John Singer Sargent's pictures in
1899 was the most notable art ex-
hibition ever held in America; that
mural painting in this country had
its origin in Boston ; and that Bos-
ton was the first American city to
establish a municipal Art Commis-
sion. I shall be able to adduce
many other pertinent facts bearing
on the question at issue, but at this
point I wish to say a few words
about monuments.

No other American city is so rich
as Boston in its monuments, using
that term in its wider sense, as in-
cluding historic buildings, rather
than in the restricted sense of me-
morials only. The Public Library,
Trinity Church, and the Bulfinch
State-House are monuments, as well
as Bunker Hill's granite obelisk, Au-
gustus St. Gaudens's incomparable
Shaw high-relief bronze, and French
and Potter's spirited equestrian
statue of General Hooker. When
we read in Shakespeare of "our
bruised arms hung up for monu-
ments," we are reminded that we
have our Massachusetts battle-
flags, tattered and worn, among our
proudest monuments. The Old
North and the Old South meeting-
houses are historic monuments ; in
truth, at every turn, in old Boston,
the stranger meets with inspiring
relics of the history of the country,
which are held in reverence and
piously preserved. At this hour the
city is constructing a bridge across
the Charles River which will be a
most imposing and artistic monu-

ment. The place is full of what we
often hear called monuments to the
public spirit of the community : I
will mention only the Marine Park
at City Point, and the scores of play-
grounds for the poor which are pro-
vided in every quarter of the city
with a liberality and wisdom that
are recognized everywhere as excep-
tional. These are among the things
of which Bostonians ought to be
proud.

As to artistic institutions, Greater
Boston has four art museums, name-
ly: the Museum of Fine Arts, the
Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in
the Fenway, the William Hayes
Fogg Art Museum (Harvard Uni-
versity), and the Germanic Mu-
seum of Harvard University. I
doubt if any city of its size in the
world can equal this quartette of
art museums. Not even the citi-
zens of Boston appreciate the im-
portance, the riches, the unique feat-
ures of these four institutions. I
need not dwell long on the collec-
tions, but it is pertinent to point out
a few of the respects in which they
lead. The Museum of Fine Arts,
although only a little more than
thirty years old, has reached a po-
sition of primacy as to several of
its departments, and I think it may
be said to have only one rival in the
United States. It is quite generally
known that its Japanese department,
with its more than three thousand
paintings, its eighty-eight hundred
prints, its fifty-three hundred pieces
of pottery, its fourteen hundred
specimens of metal work, its four
hundred lacquers, and its rich array
of netsuke, wood carvings, embroid-
eries, etc., is the finest in the world.
It is not so widely known that its
department of classical antiquities,
with its thirteen hundred Greek
vases, its thousand specimens of

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

terra-cottas, its two hundred objects
in marble or stone, its three hun-
dred and sixty-six bronzes, its one
hundred and seventy-one gems, its
six hundred coins, its three hundred
pieces of glass, its one hundred and
fifty-five examples of jewelry and
ornaments, etc., is, far and away,
the richest in America. Nor is it
generally realized that the print de-
partment, with its seventy-four
thousand engravings, etchings, litho-
graphs, etc., has no equal elsewhere
pn this continent.

The Museum of Fine Arts is in
strong hands, and its future is in no
way doubtful. It is about to build
for its collections a new home,
which will have plenty of room for
progressive expansion, with abun-
dance of light and air; and if this
edifice shall be commensurate with
the treasures it is to contain, as it
probably will be, it must take an
advanced place among the great
public museums of the world.

Near by stands the lately estab-
lished wonder-house of Mrs. Gard-
ner, Fenway Court, with its mag-
nificent collections of old Italian
sculptures and paintings, its artistic
and historic furniture and furnish-
ings, unequalled in America, and of
particular interest as the accumula-
tions of a singularly gifted and ener-
getic collector whose personal taste
is reflected in each item of the enor-
mous collections, installed in a Goth-
ic residence of royal character and
proportions. The artistic intention
and scheme of the whole establish-
ment is organic, including the struc-
ture of the shell as well as its con-
tents. Mrs. Gardner's three paint-
ings by Raphael, two paintings by
Titian, four paintings by Rem-
brandt, two paintings by Holbein,
two paintings by Botticelli, with
her examples of Veronese, Tinto-

retto, Correggio, Tiepolo, Giorgione,
Mantegna, Giotto, Fra Angelico,
Fra Filippo Lippi, Fiorenzo di Lo-
renzo, Carlo Crivelli, Bronzino,
Agnolo Gaddi, Francesco Squar-
cione, Pinturicchio, Velasquez, Ru-
bens, Van Dyck, Diirer, Sir Anthony
More, TerBorch, Van der Meer of
Delft, Clouet, Romney, Pourbus,
and other masters, form a priceless
collection, in which the examples
are, with practically no exceptions,
of a high order of quality, but the
pictures are only a part of her col-
lections, and they are no more won-
derful than her sculptures by Ben-
venuto Cellini, Luca and Andrea
della Robbia, Mino da Fiesole, An-
tonio Rossellino, Benedetto da Ma-
jano, and a host of anonymous
artists of the Italian Renaissance.
Indeed, a lengthy article would be
required, — an article, do I say? Yes,
a volume, — to do any sort of justice
to the Gardner Museum.

The two museums of art apper-
taining to Harvard University are
relatively small, being still in their
early stages of development. The
William Hayes Fogg Art Museum
possesses the valuable Gray collec-
tion of engravings, which was be-
queathed to Harvard College, with
provision for its increase and main-
tenance, by the Hon. Francis C.
Gray, LL. D., of the class of 1809.
It also possesses the Randall col-
lection of engravings, containing
about twenty thousand prints and
drawings, which was bequeathed
to Harvard College by Dr. John
Witt Randall, of the class of 1834.
Among the antique sculptures are : a
Greek marble statue of Aphrodite,,
a Greek marble statue of Meleager,
a Graeco-Roman sarcophagus relief
in marble representing a Battle of
Amazons, and a head of Aphrodite
in marble ; and among the ancient

BOSTON AS AN ART CENTRE

159

paintings are: a Florentine taberna-
colo of the fifteenth century in
tempera, an "Adoration of the Magi"
of the school of Ferrara, fifteenth
century, a portrait of a Procurator
of St. Mark, a Venetian oil painting
of the sixteenth century having the
characteristics of the work of Tin-
toretto, and several other important
works.

The Germanic Museum has a most
interesting collection, unique out-
side of Germany, of copies after an-
tique and mediaeval German sculp-
tures, for the most part the generous
donation of the German Emperor
in 1903. Here are to be seen such
marvels of old plastic art as the
Golden Gate of the cathedral of
Freiburg; the great bronze doors of
the Hildesheim cathedral; the small
portal of the Liebfrauenkirche at
Trier ; the bishop's throne from Ulm
cathedral, the work of George
Syrlin; the bronze sepulchre of
Hans Sebald by Peter Visscher in
the Sebaldskirche at Nuremburg;
Gottfried Schadow's equestrian stat-
ue of Frederick the Great at Stettin ;
the wonderful sculptures in the ca-~
thedral of Naumburg, comprising
the series of reliefs illustrating the
Passion, and the portrait statues of
the Founders; the figures symboliz-
ing the Church and the Synagogue
at the south portal of the Stras-
bourg cathedral; the series of heads
of dying warriors by Andreas
Schluter in the arsenal at Berlin;
several statues from the Bamberg
cathedral; the choir screen from the
cathedral of St. Michael in Hilde-
sheim ; the bronze baptismal font of
the twelfth century from Hilde-
sheim; and the Bernward column
from Hildesheim, twelfth century,
with its high reliefs illustrating the
life of Jesus, running in a spiral
from top to bottom, after the

manner of the Column of Trajan.
And nowhere else in America may
these magnificent and touching
monuments of Teutonic genius be
seen. The German Emperor
showed his good judgment as well
as his good will in this princely gift
to Harvard. It is a highly impres-
sive and interesting collection, and
should before long be housed in a
building worthy of it.

Mural painting in America, as I
have said, had its origin in Boston.
The elaborate system of interior
decoration in Trinity Church, de-
vised by John LaFarge, was the
first important work of the kind in
the United States. In the neighbor-
ing building, on the other side of
Copley square, the Public Library,
are the more recent and more fa-
mous mural paintings by Pu'vis de
Chavannes, John S. Sargent and Ed-
win A. Abbey. In the Massachu-
setts State-House, on Beacon Hill,
are mural works, five in number, by
Henry Oliver Walker, Edward Sim-
mons and Robert Reid, depicting
pivotal events in the history of the
Commonwealth. As the Trinity
Church mural decorations were the
earliest in America, so the Public
Library mural decorations are the
most famous ; for the endless stream
of sight-seers which flows up and
down the great stairway of the Pub-
lic Library every day in the year
carries the renown of the institution
and its contents to the four corners
of the earth. How much of the in-
terest is due to the architecture,
how much to the mural paintings,
and how much to the collection of
books, second only in size to that
of the Library of Congress, so far
as American libraries are concerned,
it is impossible to determine; but
we may be certain that in its noble
architecture, rich decorations, and

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

great collection of books, the Bos-
ton Public Library is entirely
worthy of all its international celeb-
rity.

But in addition to its institutional
assets, its living and producing
artists, and its existing monuments,
a city entitled to consideration as an
art centre must have its history, tra-
ditions, and atmosphere ; and if Bos-
ton does not possess these, where
will you look for them on this side
of the Atlantic? The very nomen-
clature of the place reminds us that
great painters, architects, landscape
architects, poets, philosophers, his-
torians, divines, and scholars have
lived in Boston and are nor forgot-
ten. Not content with naming a
whole quarter of the city (the east-
ern portion of ward twenty-five)
for Allston, we have besides an Alls-
ton street, Allston square, Allston
place, Allston heights, Allston ter-
race, and a Washington Allston
school. Copley is honored in the
name of the most conspicuous square
in the city and in the name of an
important and influential artistic
society. Gilbert Stuart's name has
been given to a public school and to
a street. The most eminent of the
early architects is commemorated in
the popular and significant cogno-
men of the Bulfinch State-House.
A beautiful park is named for
Frederick Law Olmsted. We have
also Longfellow Park, Longfellow
street, Lowell Park, Lowell street,
Philips Brooks House, Emerson
Hall, Holmes Field, Holmes avenue,
Channing Hall, Whittier street,
Parker street, Hawthorne street,
Palfrey street, Dana street, Trum-
bull street. We are reminded by
such names of the fact that Boston
lias been the cradle of arts in
America as well as of political lib-
erty. Because the greatest of her

poets are dead in no degree lessens
either their glory or hers. Their
works do live after them, and are
neither forgot nor neglected. Poets
and other artists do not cease to
exert their civilizing influence after
they have passed away ; on the con-
trary their influence is often more
potent, more vital, after they have
left us, than before. Nor are the
influence and fame of Copley, Stuart,
Allston, Trumbull, Bulfinch and
Olmsted, Longfellow, Lowell, Emer-
son, Holmes, and the rest confined
to Boston, to New England, or even
to America. No complete account
of the artistic, intellectual and moral
movements of the nineteenth cen-
tury in the New World can be
written without giving a conspicu-
ous place to the names of these
leaders of thought and action who
have made deep and lasting marks
upon the history of their time.
Were Boston ever to become indif-
ferent to the lustre shed upon the
whole nation by such sons of hers
as these, it would indeed be her day
of shame.

Perhaps the greatest service ren-
dered to mankind by any of them
are those of him who has but lately
passed away, full of years and
honors, — the supreme artist in his
glorious field of work, chief of all
landscape architects. When we re-
member what has been accom-
plished, not only in Boston, but in
almost every large American city
as well, during the last half century,
under the direct inspiration of this
peerless artist; when we recall
what a magic transformation has
taken place, how beauty has been
made to supplant ugliness, order to
take the place of chaos, and the
noblest of all scenes and prospects
called into being where there was
nothing but squalor and dreary

BOSTON AS AN ART CENTRE

1()1

wastes; when we contemplate this
apparent miracle of constructive
genius, we are amazed and awed by
the mighty work of Frederick Law
Olmsted, and our gratitude and ad-
miration can hardly be too great.
Like all great artists, his concep-
tions and methods were simple in
the extreme, and he obtained his
most impressive results by conform-
ing loyally to the laws of nature.
His views concerning his own art
were so sagacious, his motives were
so pure and generous, his purposes
so beneficent and humane, that I am
inclined to believe he will go down
in history as the most useful if not
the greatest of nineteenth century
American artists.

In his "Notes on the Plan of
Franklin Park and related matters,"
published by the Department of
Parks, Boston, 1886, he wrote as fol-
lows : "A man's eyes cannot be
as much occupied as they are in large
cities by artificial things, or by
natural things seen under obvious-
ly artificial conditions, without a
harmful effect; first on his mental
and nervous system, and ultimately-
on his entire constitutional organi-
zation. That relief from this evil is
to be obtained through recreation is
often said, 'without sufficient dis-
crimination as to the nature of the
recreation required. The several
varieties of recreation to be obtained
in churches, newspapers, theatres,
picture galleries, billiard rooms,
base ball- grounds, trotting courses,
and flower gardens, may each serve
to supply a mitigating influence.
An influence is desirable, however,
that, acting through the eye, shall
be more than mitigative, that shall
be antithetical, reversive, and anti-
dotal. Such an influence is found
in-'.-. . the enjoyment of pleasing
rural scenery. . . . Given sufficient

space, scenery of much simpler ele-
ments than are found in the site of
Franklin Park may possess the
soothing ' charm which lies in the
qualities' of breadth, distance, depth,
intricacy, atmospheric perspective,
and mystery. It may have pictur-
esque passages, (that is to say, more
than picturesque objects or pictur-
esque 'bits'). It may have passages,
indeed, of an aspect approaching
grandeur and sublimity.. . . As a
seat of learning and an 'Academy',
Boston is yet the most metropolitan
of American cities. . . The Park, if
designed, formed and conducted dis-
creetly to that end, will be an im-
portant addition to the Advantages
possessed by the city in the Athe-
naeum, in the Museum of Art, in
the examples of art presented in
some recent structures and their em-
bellishments, and in the societies
and clubs through which students
are brought into community with
men of knowledge, broad views, and
sound sentiment in art. To see
something of its value in this re-
spect, imagine a ground as near the
centre of exchange of the city as the
Agassiz Museum or the Cambridge
Observatory, in which, for years,
care has been taken to cherish
broad passages of scenery, formed
by hills, dales, rocks, woods, and
humbler growths natural to the cir-
cumstances, without effort to obtain
effects in the least of a 'bric-a-brac',
'Jappy,' or in any way exotic or
highly seasoned quality. What
would be the value of such a piece
of property as an adjunct of a school
of art ? The words of a great literary
artist may suggest the answer : 'You
will never love art till you love what
she mirrors better'."

Such were the thoughts of the
author of the park system of Boston,
that metropolitan park system which

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

is the crowning glory of the city and
the state, in which kindly nature has
been intelligently seconded by art
in the development of a vast and un-
surpassed chain of pleasure grounds,
from the Blue Hills of Milton to
the Middlesex Fells, and from the
shores of Revere and Nantasket to
the remotest banks of the Charles,
the Mystic and the Neponset, — a
scheme as remarkable for its organic
unity as for its endless variety, the
extent of which stirs the imagina-
tion by its boldness, and the de-
tails of which are marked by every
conceivable kind of landscape charm
and picturesque beauty preserved
for all time ; as extraordinary a
monument to the farsighted public
spirit of the Commonwealth as it is
to the genius of Olmsted.

Yet the central and unique fea-
ture, still to come, which, after
years of determined opposition, has
at length been secured by the legis-
lation of 1903, — the Charles River
Basin improvement — means more
for Boston, as a direct investment
in civic order, cleanliness, dignity
and beauty, than any other part of
the development of the park sys-
tem ; will go farther towards making
Boston in certain of its aspects the
noblest American city than any pre-
vious step in the planning and build-
ing of the city ; and, as a hopeful
experiment in the direction of utiliz-
ing intelligently the banks of a river
flowing through a densely popu-
lous quarter, has the most vital
interest for all cities similarly situ-
ated which have not already de-
stroyed all their opportunities of
profiting by their riparian privileges.
The history of the inception, de-
velopment, and final success of the
Charles River Basin improvement
project, with its essential adjunct of
a dam and lock occupying substan-

tially the site of the present Craigie
bridge, for the purpose of holding
back all tides and of maintaining, in
the basin above the dam, a substan-
tially permanent water level not less
than eight feet above Boston base,
thus doing away with the noisome
mud flats which now render the ad-
jacent territory almost uninhabitable
in the summer, and infinitely better-
ing the appearance as well as the
sanitary condition of the river banks,
is an interesting and instructive
chapter in artistic and hygienic legis-
lation for cities. How the three
principal elements of opposition
were overcome by a policy of tact,
conciliation and opportunism, so
that Chapter 465 of the Acts and
Resolves of 1903 stands on the
statute books of the Commonwealth
today, we either know or can
shrewdly guess. The hostility of
the influential residents on the
"water side" of Beacon street was
eliminated or neutralized by a ma-
terial concession to their interests;
that is to say, by striking out the
clause in the original plan which
called for the filling-in of a strip of
land wide enough to permit the
building of an additional row of
houses ow ..the Boston side of the
Basin, and substituting a relatively
inoffensive provision for a strip just
wide enough for an esplanade, with
drives, walks, trees and shrubbery,
between the existing houses on the
"water side" of Beacon street and
the embankment. By reading be-
tween the lines of the act as it
stands, it is perceived that section
11 must have had its teeth drawn,
so far as the Beacon street people
are concerned. Section 11 runs
thus : "The board of park commis-
sioners of the city of Boston may,
with the approval of the mayor,
build a wall or embankment on the

BOSTON AS AN ART CENTRE

163

Boston side of the Charles River
beginning at a point in the south-
west corner of the stone wall of the
Charlesbank, thence running
southerly by a straight or curved
line to a point in Charles River not
more than three hundred feet distant
westerly from the Harbor Commis-
sioners' line, measuring on a line
perpendicular to the said commis-
sioners' line at its intersection with
the southerly line of Mount Vernon
street, but in no place more than
three hundred feet westerly from
said commissioners' line ; thence
continuing southerly and westerly
by a curved line to a point one hun-
dred feet or less from the wall in
the rear of Beacon street ; thence by
a line substantially parallel with
said wall to the easterly line of the
Back Bay Fens, extended to inter-
sect said parallel line."

1 Of course, the ideal water park
at this point would be immeasurably
improved in appearance by having
the houses along its banks face the
Basin instead of turning their backs
upon it ; but when one can not get all
that one wants, the part of wisdom
is to take what one can get; there-
fore I find it good policy on the part
of the promoters of the project —
the original bill was drawn by a
joint board consisting of the State
Board of Health and the Metropoli-
tan Park Commissioners, and it was
a favorite project of the lamented
Charles Eliot, — to yield a minor
point in order to attain success for
the larger purpose in view.

Then there was the stout oppo-
sition of the Land and Harbor
Commissioners of Boston to be met.
This board held, and brought expert
witnesses to testify, that the dam-
ming of the Charles so near its
mouth would result in serious injury
to the channel of Boston harbor, by

removing or modifying the scouring
of the currents ; but this theory was
so thoroughly and convincingly
traversed by eminent expert wit-
nesses on the other side that, after a
long series of hearings, and much
evidence pro and con, the weight of
the testimony seemed to rest with
the advocates of the project; at all
events, the opposition from this par-
ticular quarter was seriously weak-
ened.

There remained, finally, the hos-
tility of the United States War De-
partment, whose consistent and
habitual policy of resistance to all
attempts to close or impede the
navigation of rivers is well known.
In order to overcome its opposition
to the construction of the dam, a
huge lock, not less than three hun-
dred and fifty feet in length between
the gates, forty feet in width, and
thirteen feet in depth below Boston
base, was provided for, and it was
shown that the commerce of the
Charles above the site of Craigie
bridge was insignificant, consisting
merely of fuel and building ma-
terials in comparatively small quan-
tities ; further, that this commerce
was diminishing rather than increas-
ing, owing to two factors, — first, the
superior facilities offered by the rail-
roads ; and, second, the progressive
removal of manufactories and coal-
yards from the shores of the river
because of the successive seizures
of those shores for park purposes
by the Metropolitan Park Commis-
sioners. Thus, by shrewd argument,
timely concessions, and cogent dem-
onstrations of the positive advan-
tages to be gained, the cause was
won, after a pretty fight, in which
both sides were represented by
weighty and sagacious advocates ;
and, unless such men as the mem-
bers of the Massachusetts Board of

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Health and the Metropolitan Park
Commission, backed by President
Eliot, former Mayor Matthews, and
President Pritchett of the Institute
of Technology, are gravely mis-
taken, Greater Boston has now en-
tered-upon a policy with regard to
the Charles River and its Basin
which is destined to have far-reach-
ing effects on the future develop-
ment of this important and beauti-
ful portion of its domain ; effects
which may be decisive in turning
the central metropolitan region
toward an architectural and monu-
mental ideal more ambitious and
more majestic than anything yet at-
tempted in America on so great a
scale, with the single exception of
the New Washington planned by
the recent report of the McKim-
Burnham commission.

In naming and grouping the
several characteristics of an art
centre, I alluded to a definite pub-
lic policy as to civic art, and I had
in mind especially four subjects up-
on which Massachusetts, acting for
Boston, has taken what may be con-
sidered advanced ground. The
metropolitan park system we have
already glanced at in speaking of
Olmsted and the Charles River
Basin improvement, and that we
need not revert to except to say that
the taking of something over four-
teen thousand acres of land for pur-
poses of recreation in the metropoli-
tan district, and the expenditure of
something oyer twelve.- millions for
the municipal park system, proves
that the million people of Greater
Boston fully realize the opportuni-
ties and obligations in this matter
of a great metropolitan community,
are confident of the future growth
and prosperity of the district, and
of the ability of the population to

take care of the financial burden in-
volved in such a vast enterprise.

The other three questions upon
which the Commonwealth has taken
enlightened action in behalf of the
city are the establishment of the
Boston Art Commission, the regula-
tion of the height of buildings, and
prohibition of advertising abuses on
the borders of parks and parkways.
While New York is still allowing
the erection of scores of Babylonic
sky-scrapers, edifices which, for the
most part, are at once inartistic
monstrosities and immoral impo-
sitions, since they rob whole neigh-
borhoods of sunlight and air, besides
imperilling the entire city by their
liability to start unmanageable con-
flagations, Boston enjoys the bene-
fit of a law which makes it impos-
sible to build beyond the height of
one hundred and twenty-five feet
from the ground, — a restriction
which is not as radical as it should
be, doubtless, but which, on the
other hand, is so much more radical
than the restrictions of any other
large city in the United States, that
it marks the extreme point to which
legislation on this subject has been
pushed in a country where individu-
al freedom to create public nuisances
is so zealously guarded. One hun-
dred and twenty-five feet is too
much, but it is not so bad as two
hundred and fifty feet, for instance.
Eleven stories is the virtual limit
of height under the Boston law, and
that, in these days, relative to the
New York standard, is not so very
high. Better, far better, is the
Parisian building law, which, by fix-
ing the extreme limit of height at
about sixty-six feet (twenty metres),
makes it practically impossible to put
up a building higher than six stories.
Such a regulation as this takes into
account three important things : —

BOSTON AS AN ART CENTRE

165

the safety of the city, its general
appearance with reference to archi-
tectural symmetry and proportion,
and the right of the inhabitants to
enjoy each his or her due share of
air and daylight. Until an Ameri-
can city shows, by official action, an
equal consideration for the rights
of its people, its architectural ap-
pearance, and its safety, we must
be contented to remain the conscious
inferiors of the Parisians in some
of the most fundamental essentials
of civilization.

Boston was the first American
city to create a municipal art com-
mission for the purpose of control-
ling the erection and location of
statues, fountains, ornamental
arches and gateways, monuments
and memorials of any kind, and to
give its advice, at the request of the
mayor, aldermen or common council,
as to the suitability of the design
for any public building, bridge, or
other structure. Two valuable pre-
cedents with respect to the disposal
of undesirable public monuments
have been afforded in recent years
by the action of the municipal
authorities. The Coggswell foun-
tain, a paltry and lamentable com-
position, which had been placed in
a particularly conspicuous part of
the Common, was summarily re-
moved, and has neither been seen
nor heard of since, — a municipal
coup de main which almost justifies
the existence of the Board of Alder-
men. The portrait statue of Colonel
Thomas N. Cass, of the Ninth Regi-
ment,— a small granite figure, which,
by general consent, was not calcu-
lated to reflect honor either on the
gallant soldier himself or on the
community that sanctioned such a
memorial, — was removed from its lo-
cation in the Public Garden, and an
excellent bronze statue by Richard

Brooks was set up in its place. Two
delicate problems were thus solved.
The Coggswell fountain deserved
no consideration, and no considera-
tion was given to it ; the Cass statue
was, with all its shortcomings, a
well-meant memorial to a brave of-
ficer and a useful regiment, there-
fore it was removed only to be sup-
planted by a worthier successor.
Of the two measures cited, the
latter is the wiser in most cases, and
provides a precedent which may be
commended to other cities which
have accepted, not wisely, but too
courteously, such impossible gifts
as the Bolivar equestrian statue in
New York, which has been taken
from its pedestal, but not replaced,,
as it should be, by a better statue.
The establishment of the Boston Art
Commission was not a day too early,
and it was followed by the creation
of a similar board in New York, ft
may be taken for granted that no
more Coggswell fountains nor Boli-
vars will rise to vex the citizens of
these two cities. We shall still see
more or less mediocre monuments
built, but it is not possible today
for absurd and hopeless travesties
upon art to be dumped in our public
grounds as they once were without
let or hindrance.

It remains to mention the recently
enacted law against advertising
abuses. This act, passed in 1903,
simply provides that the Metropoli-
tan Park Commission and the officer
or officers having charge of public
parks and parkways in any city or
town may make "such reasonable
rules and regulations respecting the
display of signs, posters or adver-
tisements in, or near to, and visible
from public parks and parkways en-
trusted to their care, as they may
deem necessary for preserving the
objects for which such parks and

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

parkways are established and main-
tained." Under the authority of
this act, the Board of Park Commis-
sioners of the City of Boston issued
a notice on July 7, 1903, to the effect
that within five hundred feet of a
parkway or boundary road of any
park "no person shall display . . . any
sign, poster or advertisement, except
such as relates only to the business
conducted on the premises, . . . and
none shall be so displayed on the
outside of a building, except signs
on stone, metal, wood, or glass, not
exceeding fifteen inches in width,
and these shall be displayed only
on windows, one on each side of
any entrance, and one in one other
place . . . provided, however, that
signs, posters or advertisements not
exceeding in size three feet by four
feet and relating only to the selling
or letting of premises may be dis-
played as aforesaid on such prem-
ises ; and providing further that no
sign, poster or advertisement shall
be displayed as aforesaid on or
above a roof or by painting on a
building, wall, or fence."

At this writing, the above-named
rules and regulations are not obeyed,
and it is evidently the purpose of
those whose interests are affected
by them to test the constitutionality
of the rules, and possibly also the
act itself, in the courts. It will
soon be made clear, therefore,
whether the Commonwealth and the
Boston Park Commissioners have
gone beyond their legitimate powers
in attempting to regulate in a mild
degree this admitted and arrogant
evil ; if it shall turn out that they
have done so, we may presume that
the fault lies in the form rather than
in the intention of the regulations,
which are assuredly for the public

good, and are supported by public
sentiment, so far as it has made
itself heard. In fact, if one may
judge from the emphatic and fre-
quent remarks of travellers on
trains, steam-boats, trolley-cars, and
other public conveyances, it appears
probable that more sweeping re-
strictive measures, such as those
recently inaugurated in some Ger-
man cities, would meet with general
approval if a legal way could be
found to reach the advertising nui-
sance without infringing on vested
rights.

If I have not cited better reasons
for conceding to Boston some right
to "look down on the mob of cities"
than those brought forward by the
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, I
will ask the gentle reader to agree
with Mr. Herbert Croly, that Bos-
ton has "almost" ceased to be an art
centre. I do not understand what
Dr. Holmes means when he says
that the real offence of Boston is
that it "drains a large water-shed
of its intellect, and will not itself
be drained." On the contrary, it
seems to me that all art, and es-
pecially all literary art, is, in the
very nature of things, a perpetual
out-giving, and can no more be lo-
calized, pent up, monopolized, than
the winds of heaven. I can under-
stand, however, the mood in which
Emerson addressed Boston as :

"Thou darling town of ours !"

For I have had the privilege of
seeing the great city, on several oc-
casions, when it was aroused and
thrilled by a generous enthusiasm,
when one could feel that it was a
fine thing to be a Bostonian, when
one might truly say, that it was well
to be a citizen of no mean city.

An Old Town by the Sea

By Hayes Robbins

Part-author of "Outlines of Political Science" and "Outlines of Social Economics.

4 6t 1 7HOEVER shall shoot off
a gun at any game what-
soever, except at an Indian
or a wolf, shall forfeit 5s. for such
default." So decreed the Scituate
forefathers away back in 1675, when
ammunition happened to be more
scarce than usual.

It was the ill-fated Indian who
had roamed these stony beaches,
trailed through the dank woods,
threaded the broad marshlands,
greeted the sunrise from the cliffs,
paddled along the "cold brook," and
from it given the region its name,
Satuit; watched in amazement the
coming of the white intruder but
fifty years before, had resented it,
done savage deeds, and now found
himself and his new friend, the
wolf, the only two kinds of "game"
upon which it was impossible to
spend too much powder and ball.
Puritan theology, after the first few
failures to dislodge his Great Spirit
and Happy Hunting Grounds from
the red man's recesses of faith, de-
cided that a soul within a red man
was impossible anyway. Thence-
forth let him be a wolf to ajl men.
Very well, then ; if wolf he must
be, wolf he would be, wolf he was :
and he went the way of the wolf
in the long, hard, cruel days and
years that crushed the outer doings
of his untutored mind, of his em-
bittered heart,- of his wild, uncom-
prehended instincts, under the heel
of a civilization that deserved to
167

come but, alas ! was only in its own
rough forming through it all.

Those were the days of eld.
There is little to recall them in the
quaint and varying charm of this
rugged seacoast today. In his role
of lawful game our Indian has no
successor, — unless, world-wise sus-
picion within the newcomer dares
to whisper, unless it be the summer
boarder, — but perish the thought !
Elsewhere, perhaps, but here, never !
His fitness for the part has not yet
been grasped, and that is one reason
why it is well to come here when
other refuge fails. No : the marsh-
birds are the only game that re-
ceives much attention now ; and
judging from the morn-till-night
"crack" here and "crack" there of
the sportsmen's rifles it would seem
that no such heroic measures are
needed as the Scituate forefathers
provided, for the common defence,
no doubt, in the enactment that
"Every householder shall kill and
bring in six blackbirds yearly, be-
tween the 1 2th and the last day of
May, on the penalty of forfeiting for
the town's use 6d, for every bird
short of that number."

Modern pilgrims to Plymouth,
embark in modern Mayflowers on
no more hazardous a cruise than an
excursion from Boston, readily
make out four bold promontories
about half way down the south
shore. These are the sea bulwarks
of Scituate ; sloping up gently from

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

inshore and reaching a height of
perhaps 75 to 100 feet where the
edges break in sheer descent to the
surf-harassed beach below. After
the slow attrition of ages, these four
cliffs are still the most conspicuous
landmarks on the coast, but every
season shown fresh inroads, and in
the process of the years line after
line of summer cottages, especially
on Third Cliff, must needs retreat
from the brink, if indeed Neptune,
does not snatch them before they

was "the fence at the north end of
the Third Cliffe."

Those were the days of stern be-
liefs. Scituate, at one time, became
the stronghold of the Quakers, but
it had its share in the earliest per-
secutions. Woe to the swain who
took to himself a wife, Quaker
fashion : his fine was more than he
need have paid for an orderly ortho-
dox ceremony. One too aggressive
Quaker was fined and publicly
whipped for enticing "young per-

STRAIGHTAWAY TO ENGLAND FROM THIRD CLIFF

have time. It is of record that the
Third Cliff has wasted fully one-
half since the white man first
climbed its broad back.

That must have been soon after
the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plym-
outh, twenty miles below; but the
earliest record of actual settlement
in Scituate is for 1628. Evidently
the cliffs were a favorite tract from
the first; this early record being a
conveyance from one Henry Merritt
to Nathaniel Tilden of a parcel of
land, whereof one of the boundaries

sons to come and hear their false
teachers." Another offender was
fined and whipped for "railing on"
a prominent exponent of orthodoxy
and calling him a "false prophet."
But with the accession of Charles
II., whose ban on these proceed-
ings coincided with a gradual change
of sentiment in the colonies them-
selves, the persecutions died out,
and one of the leading local perse-
cutors, Edward Wanton, became a
convert to the Quaker faith and the
first preacher of the Friends' society

AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

169

in Scituate. Whatever of soften-
ing influence these kindly folk may
have diffused throughout the com-
munity is not of record, but certain
it is that when the insanity of witch
persecution swept through the
eastern colonies, Scituate refrained.
Two supposed "witches" from Scitu-
ate were indeed tried in Plymouth
county, but neither was convicted.
In one case, the principal accuser
was herself sentenced to be whipped
for bearing false witness, — the chief
item, in which, was her declaration
that she had seen a "beare" in the
path and believed it to be William
Holmes' wife (the accused), prowl-
ing about in the form of a beast.

Stern patriotism was here also.
Scituate sent its quota of loyal sons
to the revolutionary army, and sup-
plied one of the first — perhaps the
first — application of the boycott
that found its way into colonial his-
tory. There were two shopkeepers
who, in 1775, "publickly declined to
recognize" the "Continental Asso-
ciation," and it was decided that
"The inhabitants of this Town do
hereby resolve to break off all deal-
ing whatsoever with said refractory
shopkeepers, until they shall give
publick and absolute satisfaction
touching their open refractoriness
relative to said salutary association."
Later, in the second war with Eng-
land, the daughters of the Scituate
lighthouse keeper, Rebecca and Abi-
gail Bates, on the night of an at-
tempted invasion, marched up and
down the rocky beach, performing
so furiously on fife and drum that
the enemy believed a powerful
American force must be in waiting
for them and gave up the effort to
land. This is the story, at any rate,
and the local inhabitant assures you
it has "been put in the history
books" and hence must be true.

It was somewhere off this coast —
no living being knows where — that
the ill-fated "Portland" met her
doom in the terrific storm of Novem-
ber 27th, 1898. This tempest is the
calendar-point from which many
things date in recent Scituate an-
nals. It was then that a mile of
natural sea-wall between Third and
Fourth Cliffs was shattered like a
pasteboard dike, thousands of tons
of stone being swept inshore and
turned sidewise, like the opening of
a ponderous gate. The waters
flooded the marshes for miles, and
left a broad, deep connecting chan-
nel to the sea which has permanent-
ly cut off all communication between
Third and Fourth Cliffs, and made
access to Fourth Cliff a matter of
several miles of roundabout detour
by way of Greenbush and Marsh-
field.

The same storm brought ashore a
small sailing vessel, of about 100
feet length and 21 feet beam, the
pilot boat "Columbia," hurling it
high and dry on the "Sand Hills"
just north of First Cliff. There
were five men in the crew, and all
were lost. Without so much as by-
your-leave, the boat plowed its way
through a group of small cottages
nearest the beach, turned partly
over, and came to its last anchor
with the upper story of one of the
cottages perched on the deck. Ca-
lamity has brought it more fame,
however, than a humdrum old age
in sea service could have promised.
Behold now, on Scituate beach, an
ectype of the Peggotty boat on
Yarmouth Beach, immortalized in
"David Copperfield !" A door has
been cut through, and a series of
little rooms fitted up inside; one of
them, in the stern, a dainty repro-
duction of David's tiny bedroom,
"the completest and most desirable

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

bedroom ever seen." Quotations in
pyrography, descriptive of the origi-
nal Peggotty boat, appear in all the
rooms, but if you were not thus as-
sured to the contrary you would
be quite as likely to identify the place
with another creation of the same
fertile brain, — the Old Curiosity
Shop. Odd paraphernalia abounds ;
old sea relics, ancient volumes of

But Scituate has other titles to
literary respectability than the Peg-
gotty boat (and a Peggotty beach,
at the harbor) afford. Classic
literature, indeed, finds no more con-
spicuous association than the "Nulli
Secundus" blazing forth on both
sides of a huge station barge, — but,
lest this be resented as a slander, I
hasten to add that the literature of

PILOT BOAT COLUMBIA AFTER COMING ASHORE IN THE GREAT STORM OF NOV. 27, I<

sea life, uncouth firearms and sal-
vage from wrecks, — in the latter
class, a heavy glass bottle containing
a scrap of torn manila bearing the
grewsome message, supposed to be
genuine but not positively known
to be : "Nov. 27, '98. On board
SS. Portland. We two are alive yet
but expect to die soon. J. C. Rad-
•cliffe. Off Hid. Eight."

the heart has heard one of its altars
at which, in imagination, more
millions have paid homage than ever
turned a classic page. In quiet old
Greenbush, just south of Scituate
Center, are the veritable well-sweep
and fondly remembered surround-
ings of the old oaken bucket. The
bucket itself is supposed to be in a
Boston museum, but everything

AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

171

else remains. "The orchard, the
meadow, the deep-tangled wild-
wood" are still here, not to forget
the "wide-spreading pond and the
mill that stood by it," as picturesque
as ever, and as rich, no doubt, in
the qualities that endeared them to
the heart of the youthful Wood-
worth. This much in general. In
particular, it must be confessed that

tion. This prosaic white box is too
practical, too cheerful. Moreover,
the substituted bucket, in decent re-
spect for its illustrious predecessor,
ought to be old, and moss-covered,
and iron-bound, but it is not. The
quality of the water, however, is the
one thing that enables you to re-
flect with proper sadness of spirit
on the changes time has wrought

PILOT BOAT COLUMBIA AS SHE NOW IS

the well-curb does not quite fulfill
romantic expectations ; it is a plain,
wooden affair, built fast against the
side of the house, the whole look-
ing painfully trim and modern in
its smart coat of white paint. Some-
how, the curb once graced by the old
oaken bucket ought to be of rude,
moss-covered stones, and in a gen-
eral state of melancholy dilapida-

since the thirsty lad of long ago
"found it the source of an exquisite
pleasure." The pond is not so very
wide, and apparently does not
spread any more than ordinary
ponds, but it is a picturesque bit in
this fine old landscape, nevertheless.
The mill is just a plain old mill,
and not an oil painting on a brass
easel. It is quite barren of the over-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

running vines and lowering over-
shot wheel one would naturally sup-
pose must have commended it to
the poet's affections. But then, —
it isn't everybody who can have as
suitable a mill to cherish in the
vistas of auld lang syne.

Art hath its votaries in Scituate.
An old barn has been fitted up for
a summer home and studio by a
company of artists, who are never
in want of fresh material in the
ever-varying aspects of earth, sea

erally drawn upon in the bestowal
of local names ; whereof witness,
Jericho Beach, the Jerusalem road,
Lake Galilee, a section to the west
known as Sodom and Gomorrah,
and a village of Egypt to the north,
large, flanked with flower beds and
close-cropped greensward and in fair
way in one or two more seasons to
be overrun with vines. There is a
carriage-horse stable, stallion stable,
stable for farm horses, riding aca-
Here in Egypt is situated the

THE ORCHARD, THE MEADOW, THE DEEP-
TANGLED WILD- WOOD

and sky: — the whitening lines of
surf roaring along the cliffs ; the
mile of inturned stone ridge below
Third Cliff, often half-matted over
with the tide-wash of curious sea-
weed and Irish moss, and command-
ing the double prospect of inrolling
Atlantic to the east and broad
marshes to the west, threaded by
silvery channels, dotted with gun-
ners' huts, and enlivened by the
flight of sea fowl overhead ; or the
thick hedges, wild vines of grape,
bushes of elderberry, sumach, teem-
ing orchards and stately elms of
the inland roadways ; or, seen from
a cliff road, the harvest moon,
emerging in tranquil majesty from
the black watery waste and trans-
figuring it with a glory not of earth.
The Hebrew Scriptures were lib-

AND E EN THE OLD BUCKET THAT
HUNG IN THE WELL

country home, model farm and stock
ranges of Thomas W . Lawson, mil-
lionaire, yacht builder, and fancy
stock breeder. This estate — Dream-
wold — centres around a group of ar-
tistic buildings; some of them very
demy, hospital, foaling and three
broodmare stables, besides the main
stable, 800 feet in length. For other
stock, — cattle, dogs, poultry and
pigeons, spacious quarters are pro-
vided and equipped with elaborate
care. A water tower with chimes,

AN OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

173

residences of manager and employees,
a post-office, business office with
circulating library, and Mr. Law-
son's private residence ; all are in-
cluded in this interesting commu-
nity, and all repeat, with variety of
design, a controlling architectural
motive. Near the private residence
is a wild garden, seven acres in ex-
tent, of old-fashioned flowers,
shrubbery and small fruits. A
racing track, and within that a
training track, surround a nine-acre

from across the marshes and
meadows to the northwest.

In the attractive principal school
building, on the main street be-
tween the Center and the Harbor,
there is little to suggest the educa-
tional privations of earlier days.
Meagre as the resources were, the
Scituate forefathers gave what heed
they could to health of mind, — and,
for that matter, to health of body
also ; although their concern for the
letter does not appear on record in
any startling fashion until
less than a century ago. It
was in 1816 that the town
pledged its fortunes in be-
half of universal vaccination,
voting to have all the inhabi-
tants vaccinated at the
princely fee to the surgeon
of six cents each. This bo-
nus might not stimulate the

THE WIDE SPREADING POND

polo field. Macadamized
roads connect all parts of the
estate; which includes 600
acres, employs from 130 to
225 men according to the
season, and cares for 300
horses, 50 cows, about 100
dogs and 3000 hens. The
water tower belongs to the
village, but Mr. Lawson, by
permission, has remodeled it
on artistic lines and equipped it with
a set of chimes which are played
every evening, from 7 to 8. Few
Scituate experiences are more de-
lightful than a summer evening in a
comfortable porch chair, just within
sound of the rhythmic rise and fall
of the surf to the east, and of the
sweet-toned measures of such old
airs as "Robin Adair," "Auld Lang
Syne," or the "Old Oaken Bucket,"

THE MILL THAT STOOD BY IT

cupidity of a latter-day practitioner,
making his morning round in a
motor vehicle of late design, but it
was sufficient in those lean times to
attract a three-fold competition.
"There was a pretty general vacci-
nation," saith the record, "effected
by Doctors Otis, James and Foster."
Interest in health of mind dates
back much farther. Early in the
17th Century it was arranged with

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"Dea. David Jacob" to keep a
school, one third of the year at each
end of the town and one third in
the middle : and for this he was al-
lowed the lavish compensation of
£20 for his services and £20 for
the school building ; which he was
supposed to supply among the other
pedagogical requisites of the po-
sition. Whether the heroic Deacon
was expected to build his hundred-
dollar Hall of Wisdom on rollers,
so that he could hitch a team to it,
bestride the gable, and drive off mer-
rily to the other end of the town
every four months, does not appear.
At all events, seven years later it was
ordered that the school be kept in
the middle of the town only ; but
the respective ends, once accustomed
to the nearer mien of migratory
Learning, must have risen in rebel-
lion against this bold monopoly,
since in the following year, 1711, it
was voted to maintain an additional
school at each extremity of Scitu-
ate, an expense of £16 per school,
that in the middle to have £32.

The coast fisheries in those days
were a much more important source
of revenue than now, relatively at
any rate. It is still an important
item, supplemented by truck farm-
ing, fruit raising, and mossing,— the
latter a somewhat unique industry
of growing value. The Irish moss,
found on the rocks along the south
shore, is of good quality and exten-
sively used as one of the raw ma-
terials in certain manufacturing
processes, chiefly in the making of
blanc mange, into which it is readily
converted and with small waste.
The homes of most of the "mossers"

are cliff cottages, which they rent
during the summer, and occupy
small huts built on the sands, while
the season lasts. When first gath-
ered, the moss is almost black; it is
sun-cured on the hot sands until it
bleaches, first purple, then almost
white, ready for the market; and in
this shore work the wives of the
mossers are efficient helpers. As
much as $1000 is sometimes made by
a single family during the season.

The summer resident and summer
boarder interest is, of course, a
source of income supplementary to
all the others, directly or indirectly.
Scituate is more hospitable to the
would-be guest of to-day than in the
early years when the town's prudent
conservators in solemn conclave de-
creed that "If any person shall en-
tertayn any stranger, after being ad-
monished by a committee chosen
for such purpose, he shall forfeit
and pay 10s. for each week."
The accompanying apology for this
law says that by reason of enter-
taining too many strangers the town
was "coming to be burdened."

The wayfarer is not so regarded
now, nor have his kind arrived in
sufficient numbers, as yet, to be a
burden to each other. In brief, the
summer resort role has not been
overdone to the point of destroying
Scituate's rural charm and the true
salt flavor of seacoast life ; somewhat
modified, indeed, but unspoiled by
gimcrack amusements and huge dis-
figurements of nature. This is not
the least of the reasons why a so-
journ among these quiet hamlets in
their picturesque setting is still so
well worth while.

The Armenian Monastery in Venice

By Mary Mills Patrick, Ph. D.

President of the American College, Constantinople

THE fall of the Campanile in the
Piazza at Venice in 1902
attracted the eyes of all the
world to that unique romantic old
city. Yet few of the visitors to
Venice find their way to the Monas-
tery of St. Lazare.

This monastery consists of an im-
posing pile of buildings of a red
brick color, situated on the isle of
St. Lazare in the Lagoon of Venice.
It was founded by Mekhitar, an Ar-
menian priest, in 1740, and forms
at the present time the most im-
portant center of Armenian learn-
ing outside of the Turkish Empire.

To visit the monastery of St.
Lazare, one embarks in a gondola
near the site of the old Campanile,
and sails off over the still water of
the Lagoon, that is not like any other
in the world, and after a trip of half
or three-quarters of an hour, accord-
ing to the speed of the gondolier,
lands at the very door of the mon-
astery, to which marble stairs lead
from the water's edge. As the visi-
tor steps out of the gondola, he is
met by one of the monks clad in a
long black robe such as eastern
ecclesiastics always wear, bound by
a leather belt, but not wearing the
long hair that characterizes the
monks of the Orthodox Greek
church.

The atrium, or small garden, is
beautifully kept, and adorned with
many varieties of tropical trees and
shrubs, prominent among which are

175

the scarlet pomegranate blossoms.
In a retired corner of the garden is
a small vineyard that furnishes a
white wine used for sacramental
purposes, and dignified by the name
of "Wine of Ararat." The arcades
of the cloisters shut the garden in
from the sea, and broad stairs lead
to the corridors, and over all tran-
quility reigns, for in this secluded
island there is no noise of traffic or
social intercourse, and the silence
is only broken by the sighing of the
wind among the few Cypress trees,
and the beating of the gentle waves
against the stone embankment.

The entrance hall at St. Lazare
is very fine, and gives the visitor the
impression of a far greater degree
of elegance and taste than Ar-
menians have been able to attain
in their public buildings in the
Turkish Empire.

The monks are very proud of
their church, which is of Gothic
architecture, and was remodeled
from the remains of an old edifice
dating back to the twelfth century.
The vaulted roof is sustained by
columns of red marble and there are
five altars. At the foot of the high
altar lies the tomb of Mekhitar the
founder, the marble slab which cov-
ers it bearing an inscription in Ar-
menian. One of the chief paintings
in the church is the picture of St.
Mesrob, the constructor of the Ar-
menian alphabet, and on each side
of the door are inscriptions in Latin

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

and Armenian commemorating a
visit of Pope Pius VII. to the mon-
astery in 1800.

All the services conducted here
are in ancient Armenian, as is the
case in all Armenian, or Gregorian
churches, but the sermons are in
the spoken language. The only dif-
ference to be noticed between these
services, and those in other Ar-
menian churches is that the name of
the Pope is mentioned instead of

through the kindness of Armenian
ladies in Constantinople. The
music of the service consists of the
intoning of the sacred anthems of
the old Christian poets of Armenia,
some of which were composed as
early as the fifth century A. D.
These chants are monotonous, and
somewhat nasal, but have neverthe-
less a peculiar beauty of their own.
On all great occasions at the mon-
astery, an Ottoman banner, pre-

CORRIDOR OF THE MONASTERY, AND TWO OF THE MONKS

that of the Catholicos of Etchmiad-
zin, which is a vast monastery built
on the site of the ancient capital of
Armenia, and is the residence of the
supreme Patriarch, the head of all
Gregorian churches. The ritual at
St. Lazare is very imposing on great
fete days when the church dignita-
ries are clad in gorgeous costumes
of various brilliant shades of color,
and embroidered in pearls and silk,

sented by Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid,
floats from a high mast on the shore
of the island.

To the student the most interest-
ing rooms in the monastery are the
library and manuscript room, as here
are collected all treasures of his-
toric and literary interest. The li-
brary, the ceiling of which is
adorned by medallions of various
saints of the Roman and Gregorian

THE ARMENIAN MONASTERY IN VENICE

177

churches, contains thirty thousand
volumes, principally books on re-
ligious and scientific subjects,
among which are some choice
editions of literary treasures. Be-
sides books the library contains a
valuable numismatic collection, and
some of the coins which belonged
to the old kingdom of Armenia, as
well as the medals of Armenia, are
very attractive to the numismatist.
On a stand in the library rests a
bust of Mekhitar, executed by the
Chevalier Fabris, a distinguished
pupil of Canova.

The greatest wealth of the mon-
astery is found in the manuscript
room. Here is the most valuable
collection of Armenian manu-
scripts in Europe, although there is
a finer one in Etchmiadzin.

The printing establishment of the
monastery merits particular atten-
tion, for from the time of Mekhitar
until the present, the presses of St.
Lazare have produced a consider-
able number of books annually,
which are circulated not only among
Armenians in Turkey, but are also
sent to many other parts of the.
world. The monks of St. Lazare
have received five prizes of the first
class for excellence in printing, and
to this monastery the world owes
valuable editions of the Armenian
classics.

Mekhitar was a patriotic and de-
voted priest, whose name signifies
"Consoler." He was born in Sivas
in Asia Minor, and was educated in
the church. His ideas did not, how-
ever, entirely coincide with those
taught in his national religion, and
he left Sivas for Constantinople
when quite a young man, and began
preaching in Galata near the bridge
across the Golden Horn. The re-
sult of his preaching was that he
was charged with holding free ideas,

and suffered so much persecution
from his own nation that he was
obliged to leave the country. He
turned to the Republic of Venice
for encouragement, as he wished to
find circumstances advantageous for
the printing of books and the estab-
lishment of a literary center. Morea
then belonged to Venice and he
founded a monastery at Modon in
Morea. Twelve years later, how-
ever, Morea was invaded by
enemies of Venice, and the Ar-
menian monastery was burned. It
was then that Mekhitar turned to
the city of Venice, and on the eighth
of September, 1717, the senate of
the then powerful Republic ceded
to the Armenian community the isle
of St. Lazare.

To the Mekhitarists is due the re-
vival of Armenian literature in the
eighteenth century, and the result
has been a development that is re-
markable in the absence of national
unity. Progress in Indo European
philology has demanded the study
of the Armenian language, and con-
sequently the monastery of St.
Lazare has been of benefit not only
to the Armenian nation, but to the
world at large. The language is of
special importance because of the
antiquity of the nation, the found-
ing of which is attributed, by tra-
dition, to Haig, the fifth descendant
from Noah. It is an offshoot of the
Iranian branch of the Indo Ger-
manic family of languages, and its
earliest stage was represented in
cuneiform inscriptions, such as
those now found in Van in Asia
Minor. Armenian did not become
a written language, however, until
after the nation accepted Christian-
ity, which was in the fourth century,
under the preaching of Gregory, the
Illuminator, from whom the church
received the name Gregorian, or as

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

it is called in Armenian, the "Illumi-
nated." The Gregorian church has
been an independent organization
since the council of Chalcedon in the
fifth century A. D., shortly after
which it separated from the other
branches of the eastern church, on
account of a disagreement in regard
to some minor doctrines in the
church.

Early in the fifth century the
monk Mesrob, to whom reference
has already been made, invented an
alphabet of thirty-eight characters.
This unwieldly and difficult expres-
sion of a rather guttural language
is still in use, and an illustration of
it is given here consisting of a se-
lection from the Gospel of Matthew,
written by the Armenian queen,
Mulchas, in the ninth century A.
D.

The queen says : "This is the Gospel
which I, Mulchas, queen of Armenia, write
with my own hands at my own expense
for my benefit, and that of my husband,
and for the benefit of his children. Who-
ever reads it will remember us in prayer
before the Mother of God, and God the
merciful will have pity on us. Remember
also in Christ, the priests Andreas and
George, into whose hands I intrust this
Gospel."

Most of the oldest Armenian
literature is of a religious character.
The Bible was translated early in
the fifth century A. D. St. Isaac,
who was then Patriarch of the Ar-
menian church, translated the Old
Testament from the Septuagint, and
Mesrob himself translated the New
Testament. This translation is still
in use in the Gregorian church. The
oldest Armenian historian was
Moses of Khoren, who lived in the
sixth century A. D. We find in his
books the traditional and historical
songs of the early ages of develop-
ment of the nation, and important
quotations from well known Greek

authors, in addition to his original
work as a historian. The only pas-
sages now extant of the tragedy of
the Peliades by Euripides, and of
the book of Philo of Alexandria on
Providence, are found in a rhetoric
written by Moses of Khoren. In
general very few of the works in
ancient Armenian literature are
original, and their value consists in
their frequent reference to contem-
poraneous literature and history.

After the conquest of Italy by Na-
poleon the Mekhitarists founded a
national Academy in imitation of
the French, and to this body Lord

ARMENIAN QUEEN S WRITING

Byron and Sylvester de Lacy for-
merly belonged. It contains also at
the present time some learned
foreigners who are devoted to the
study of Armenian. This Academy
edits certain works which are pub-
lished annually, and issues a month-
ly journal, called the Polyhistor.

One of the curiosities of the mon-
astery of St. Lazare is the visitors'
book, where the humble name of
the ordinary visitor stands side by
side with the names of kings and
distinguished scholars. Lord
Byron's name is one of the first of
this remarkable list, for it is not
only in Greece that he is regarded al-
most as a national hero, but his in-
terest was awakened also by the
people of Armenia.

THE ARMENIAN MONASTERY IN VENICE

179

Lord Byron arrived in Venice in
1816 in search of a new mental ex-
perience, as was often his turn of
mind. He wrote to a friend that he
wished something craggy to break
his mind upon, and the Armenian
language was the most difficult thing
that he could find in Venice for
amusement. This coincides with
the usual opinion of foreigners, for
it is said that in 1812 the French in-
stituted an Armenian professorship
in St. Lazare, and Monday twenty
pupils presented themselves. • They
began full of vigor, and persevered
with a courage worthy of the nation
and of universal conquest, until
Thursday, when fifteen of the num-
ber succumbed to the twenty-sixth
letter of the alphabet. Lord Byron
himself called the Armenian alpha-
bet a "Waterloo of an alphabet."
At the time of Lord Byron's visit
there were ninety monks, and they
did their utmost to entertain him.
Copies of exercises which he wrote
are still preserved, and he assisted
in preparing a large dictionary

which is used until the present
time in learning the language.

The present Patriarch of the Ar-
menian nation, Monseigneur Ma-
lachia Ormanian, who resides in
Constantinople, studied at one time
in the monastery of the Mekhita-
rists, and often speaks of his ex-
periences there with pleasure.

The monastery of St. Lazare now
contains about sixty monks ; it is
governed by an Abbot who bears
the title of Archbishop of Sinik, and
this position is filled at the present
time by Monseigneur George Hur-
muz. The Abbot is assisted by a
council of six members, nominated
by the Chapter of the Order.

Thus Venice, through this monas-
tery in the still waters of the La-
goon, keeps in touch with the Orient,
and although her ships of war are
no longer seen, as of old, in eastern
waters, yet her academic influence
over the literature of an important
eastern nation, reminds us of the
closer union of the past centuries.

Lisbeth

By Emilia Elliott

£*T DON'T understand," Lisbeth
J_ said, a troubled look in her
eyes.

She and her companion were sit-
ting on a pile of lumber in the kitch-
en of the new, unfinished house.
Lisbeth was forty-five, tall and bent,
with lined, patient face and deep-set
dark eyes, that were sad, almost
tragic. The lines about the mouth
told of suffering bravely borne. It
was the face of a working, not a
thinking, woman — for twenty years
Lisbeth had had no need to think —
Brother Pelton had preferred doing
it all for her — "Likewise ye wives
be in subjection to your own hus-
bands" was his household motto.

The younger woman — young
enough to have been Lisbeth's
daughter, was rather pretty, and
much cleverer in a superficial way —
not unkindly disposed towards this
other wife. They had been inmates
of the same house for three years —
not inharmonious years, consider-
ing all things. Lucy — she had been
born in the Mormon church and
named after Lucy Smith, the mother
of the prophet Joseph — possessed
the knack of getting her own way in
a childish, rather winning fashion;
she could wheedle and manage
Brother Pelton in a manner that
made Lisbeth open her eyes in won-
der.

"You mean — ?" Lucy asked now,
twisting a shaving curl over her
fingers. Her hands were far whiter
and softer than Lisbeth's, there
were rings on them.

"All this fuss 'bout Brother
Davis," Lisbeth exclaimed.

"It's simple enough — they're try-
ing to prove he's breaking the law —
having more than one wife, you
know."

"But of course he's got more than
one. So's Brother Morrow and
Brother Parks. Why here's you an'
me — both Brother Pelton's wives."

"Well it's against the law now
for a man to have more than one,"
Lucy said shortly.

"Not 'gainst the teachin's of the
Church though. It can't be wrong,
it can't — I know it must seem so to
folks who don't understand. It
didn't seem right to me — at first."
Lisbeth flushed, remembering those
far off days of doubt and suffering.
"You see I was the second wife —
my cousin Nannie was the first —
she and Brother Pelton was mar-
ried back in England, just before
leavin' home, I was in their company
comin' out. Neither of them had
any thought of his ever takin' more'n
one wife then, but by'n'by the head
man wouldn't let him be — so at
last he had to give in — an' he come
to me. 'You and Nannie are close
friends, Lisbeth,' he said, 'an' you'll
be good to her.' I fought hard for
a while — it was so dreadful, even to
think of — but I had to give in too,
same's he had. I was good to Nan-
nie— she wasn't ever strong, an'
that awful journey 'cross the plains
had nearly killed her. I wasn't
ever anything to Brother Pelton
like she was, but after she died he
seemed to get fonder of me. Nannie
was glad to go — it hadn't been easy
for either of us — that five years.
'If it'd been any one else, I

1 80

LISBETH

181

couldn't've borne it,' she said to me,
the day she died. 'You'll be first
now, Lisbeth, an' Blake'll be kind to
you.' She was the only one of his
wives that called him Blake — but
she'd known him at home, before
they was either of them Mormons."

Lucy rose, yawning impatiently :
she had heard it all so often — Nan-
nie had been dead so many years.
There was a little faded picture of
her in the parlor, at home. Once she
had found Brother Pelton standing
looking up at it, a different look on
his placid, well content face from
any she had ever seen before — or
since.

"Brother Pelton ought to be home
in a few days," she said — he was
away on business. In Lucy's pock-
et was a letter from him, he had not
written to Lisbeth. Lucy's eyes
sparkled, as she thought of those
few crisp sentences.

Those were the troublous days,
following President Woodruff's
manifesto of 1890. Days of struggle
and rebellion; of hot jealousy and
still harder heart-breaking among
the women of the church — days,
when from among two or more
wives a man must make his choice —
if, as in the case of Brother Pelton,
the first, and, in the eyes of the law,
legal wife were dead.

"Lucy," Lisbeth looked anxious-
ly up into the fresh face. "I can't
get it out of my thoughts — what you
said 'bout Brother Davis."

"I reckon you ain't the only one
interested in it," Lucy said careless-

iy.

"It ain't just in'trest — it's — Lucy,
you don't think they'll get after
Brother Pelton?"

Lucy traced a pattern with one
foot, in the sawdust covering the
floor. "I reckon — Brother Pelton'll
manage things — so they won't

bother him any."

"You think so?" the relief in Lis-
beth's voice sent a feeling of pity
through Lucy — the older woman's
next words changed pity into anger.

"I don't like upsettings. We get
on pretty well and it'd be dreadful
for you, Lucy."

"For me I"

If he had to decide between us —
I'm first you know — I've been faith-
ful to him for twenty years — I've
worked hard for him." There was
no doubt in Lisbeth's voice.

"What makes you so sure he'd
choose you?"

"There wouldn't be any question
of choosing." There was real digni-
ty in Lisbeth's straightening of her
bent figure — she was standing too
now, looking down, not up, at
Lucy's face — flushed with angen
"Of course I'm first — I've been his
wife so long — through the hard
years and in his time of trouble —
besides, if there wasn't any other
reason, there's the children."

"All that don't always count with
a man," Lucy said significantly.

"Brother Pelton ain't like those
others — he's good and just — if he is
kind of hard speakin' at times."

"I ain't found him very hard
speaking," Lucy laughed self-con-
sciously.

"You're but a child — no one could
be hard with you," Lisbeth said,
laying a hand, work roughened but
still gentle in its touch, on Lucy's
arm. "That's why I hate the
thought of any change — it'd come-
so heavy on you. But the Lord'll
provide — don't you worry, child."

"I'm not worrying," Lucy turned
away.

"I can't see what started it all.
What's been right so many years
can't be wrong now." Lisbeth's^
voice rose into what was almost a.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

cry of entreaty. "It can't be wrong
— I don't understand."

"Let's go through the house, be-
fore going home," Lucy suggested,
to change the subject.

Lisbeth assented promptly. The
new house — she could understand
that. It was the pride of all three;
Lisbeth rejoicing in its many con-
veniences; Lucy in its air of smart
modernness; while Brother Pelton
prided himself on the fact that it
was going to be the finest house of
its size in the neighborhood.

"We'll go upstairs and work
down," Lisbeth said.

It was a two story and a half
house built on rising ground; from
the front window high up in the
point, one looked out over the city
and open valley beyond, to where
rose the encircling mountains —
their bare sides showing here and
there through the snow — the highest
peaks white and pure — and for
background the bluest of cloudless
skies.

It was a view Lisbeth was never
tired of. "I think I'll take this room
for mine," she said, glancing around
the little room with its low sloping
ceiling. "You'll like the front one
below, Lucy. I'll put the children
in the one next to this."

At the back the windows looked
out to the low irregular foothills,
beyond which lay City Creek Can-
yon— the bare hills seemed very
near.

"There ain't many houses goin'
up in this part of town yet," Lisbeth
said. "We'll get breathin' room
here—."

"It'll be dreadfully lonesome,"
Lucy said fretfully — she had been
anxious for a lot further in town,
the daily increasing value of land
in this part of the town in no wise
appealing to her; but for once, at

least, her coaxing had been of no
avail — where business matters were
concerned Brother Pelton was ada-
mant.

"Oh you'll get used to it," Lisbeth
said cheerfully.

"Come on." Lucy led the way
down to the next floor.

"My, but these rooms are pretty,"
Lisbeth declared. "Brother Pelton
has certainly behaved handsome in
the matter of closets — I do love lots
of closet room."

On the main floor Lucy turned
towards the parlors. "I mean to
have rugs instead of carpets — they're
ever so much more stylish. Brother
Pelton must have these floors
stained. I think he might have had
hard wood floors, like I asked him."

"I could stain them for you."
Lisbeth sat down on a low saw-
horse to consider the matter. "I like
carpets myself, but maybe you
know best."

Wide sliding doors connected
the back parlor with the dining
room, which took in the width of
the house. The East side of the
room was nearly all given up to a
deep bay window. Lisbeth planned
to fill it with house plants when
winter came.

"Just think what a lot of com-
forts there are," she said, as their
tour of inspection brought them
back to the kitchen. "Why the work
won't be worth talkin' about. No
water to bring in, neither — I'll get
the good of that, come winter."

"Lisbeth — " there was a curious
searching look in Lucy's eyes —
"Lisbeth, are you — do you — like
Brother Pelton — very much?"

Lisbeth closed the cupboard door
in surprise. "Why Lucy — what
ever do you mean?"

LIS BETH

183

"You know what I mean — do you,
Lisbeth ?"

It was a new, strange, thought to
Lisbeth. She stood quite still in
the center of the little quiet kitch-
en— the workmen had gone early
that Saturday afternoon; all in and
about the place was the soft bright
stillness of the springtime. A far-
away look crept into Lisbeth's sunk-
en brown eyes — those eyes so full of
pain, and the burden of a life, hard
and filled with many a bitter humilia-
ting memory. Her thoughts went
back to the day, long ago, when
Brother Pelton had first made
known to her the will of the Church.
She was young and enthusiastic,
full of zeal for her adopted religion.
To do — to bear — had been the cry
of her heart: the cross, when it
came — how she had shrunk from it.
Nor altogether for her own sake —
large in her sympathies, part of that
passionate drawing back had been
on her cousin Nannie's account.
Nannie was proud of her position as
Blake Pelton's wife. In the end Lis-
beth had been coerced into yield-
ing, wrought up by clever appeals
to her religious nature. Once the
plural wife of Brother Pelton she
had bent herself resolutely to the
fulfilling of her duty — as she had
been taught to see it. Brother Pel-
ton, a self-opinionated, arbitrary in-
dividual, had not been unkind to
her, from his point of view — nor,
in fact, from hers. She had always
looked up to him in a blind sort of
way, that he found most gratify-
ing. She had obeyed him; jealously
upheld his authority — but — love
him? had he ever asked for — needed
—that?

And slowly, on that fair spring
afternoon, with only the twittering
of the busy sparrows breaking the
silence, with Lucy's blue eyes fixed

intently upon her, there crept into
Lisbeth's heart the conviction that
she had missed something precious
out of life — that the long weary
years had been longer, more weari-
some, because of its absence.
Missed not alone the having, but —
what was even more to a nature
like hers — the giving.

"Lisbeth, tell me — " Lucy broke
the silence, insistently.

"Lucy don't — what's the use of
askin' such questions. Brother Pel-
ton's made me as good a husband
as most — we've got used to each
other — leastways I've got used to
him. I couldn't imagine livin' with-
out him — and I guess he feels that
way 'bout me — I understand his
ways so well, you see."

A half scornful, half amused
light, showed for a moment in
Lucy's eyes, then she said slowly,
"Lisbeth, I don't think you and I
have had a fair chance." There was
a deeper note than usual in Lucy's
voice — a deeper look on her childish
face. She too had grown suddenly
wiser, during those few moments —
the knowledge gained made her rest-
less, vaguely unhappy.

"Lucy, you musn't talk so — we're
leadin' the life of the Lord's
choosin'."

"It seems to me more like Brother
Pelton's — well if I can't have the
best — I'll have the best I can get —
I'm not good like you Lisbeth."

She ran on ahead down the slop-
ing plank to the ground. "Those
men are outrageously slow — I'm
sick of the old house — I want to get
into my own home."

The note of personal possession
roused Lisbeth from her troubled
reverie over Lucy's outburst of defi-
ance.

" We ought to be in by the end of

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

next month." Unconsciously Lis-
beth accentuated that we.

When they reached the low 'dobe
house on First South, Brother Pel-
ton was waiting on the porch. Lis-
beth gave an exclamation of dismay
and hurried indoors to see if Zina,
the eldest girl, had started supper.
Lucy lingered outside. "We didn't
look for you before Monday, Broth-
er Pelton," she said.

When they all met at the supper
table, Lucy glanced about her with
a shrug of discontent. "It looks
dingier than ever. Brother Pelton,
you didn't build a day too soon — I
should die, if I had to live here
much longer."

"No you wouldn't," Brother Pel-
ton said, but he smiled at her across
the table — in her crimson waist,
with the vivid bow in her fluffy hair,
she made the one bright spot in the
room. Zina and Beulah, quiet,
thoughtful like their mother, like
her were soberly clad. Brother Pel-
ton's principles, as to a woman's go-
ing gaily dressed, having as yet re-
laxed in only one direction.

"I guess we're all anxious to get
in the new house," Lisbeth said —
wondering why Brother Pelton
glanced sharply towards her, a
strange expression in his eyes — it
disturbed her a little, at the time.

There was not much more talk.
Brother Pelton was even more si-
lent than usual, both that night and
the next morning. Nor did he walk
with his family to the weekly ser-
vice in the ward meeting house —
he would join them there, he said.

He was one of the speakers that
morning; it was always a proud
moment for him, when he rose to
address the congregation gathered
in the old meeting house. Lisbeth
thought there was no one quite
equal to him at the speaking. To

her untutored mind, weakened and
dulled by long years of silent un-
questioning submission, Brother Pel-
ton's ponderous sentences — his
wornout platitudes and dreamy long-
windedness were wonderful, awe in-
spiring. To see Lucy fidget, and
cast furtively impatient glances at
the stolid pompous speaker, never
ceased to shock Lisbeth — Lucy's
lack of reverence was a sincere grief
to her.

To-day, Brother Pelton spoke
with great unction, exceeding all
former efforts. He referred to the
sad condition of the times — to the
need of self-denying heroism on the
part of both men and women. Now
was the opportunity for them to
show their faith — their courage and
endurance — their child-like obedi-
ence to those in authority. Again
and again Brother Pelton dwelt up-
on this particular point.

"It's my belief he can't stop,"
Lucy whispered to Lisbeth, "he's
just wound up, like a machine."

Lisbeth shook her head rebuking-
ly. "He's lookin' right at us."

"At you — he knows better than
to think I'm listening — it's too stu-
pid."

Lisbeth's heart glowed — Brother
Pelton was sure of one sympathetic
listener then ; and when coming out
of meeting, he walked beside her,
letting Lucy go on ahead with some
companions, her face shone with
pride.

"You spoke beautiful this morn-
in'," she ventured to say.

"I confess I felt like one in-
spired," Brother Pelton answered.

"Folks ought to be better after
such a discourse."

"If I succeed in reaching one heart
— if my words will influence one
hearer — I shall be content." Again
he looked at her in that strange fash-

L I S B E T H

185

ion, rousing again that half-defined
fear in Lisbeth's mind.

She was out in the garden that
afternoon — the garden Nannie had
planted, and she had tended, part-
ly for Nannie's sake.

In his first pride as a householder,
Brother Pelton had laid out the
deep wide back lot with considerable
skill and taste. There was an arbor
down the center walk; from the end
near the house, long trailing ropes
of creeper had been carried to the
broad porch — the whole house was
covered with vine by now, the win-
dows set in frameworks of green.
The flowers were the simple old
English favorites, renewing them-
selves year by year. Later, and on
through the long dry summer, Lis-
beth's garden would be a tangled
mass of color and sweet spicy frag-
rance— now only the earlier Spring
blossoms were in bloom. The rob-
ins were nesting in the old cherry
tree near the stone wall, where Lis-
beth stood. She was looking
thoughtfully back at the low house :
it had been a tiny two room cottage,
when Brother Pelton brought his
first wife home ; at Lisbeth's coming
another room had been added —
twice in the next five years other
rooms had been built on, for similar
reasons.

Both these other wives were dead
— they and their children ; for some
years, until Lucy's coming, Lisbeth
had — not reigned, rather labored,
alone.

Lucy's coming had been a sharp
blow; but, after all, Lucy had been
easy to get along with, taking life
as lightly as might be.

Lisbeth stooped to gather a clus-
ter of the violets, that grew so thick
beside the wall. Every Spring, by
some magical charm, they carried
her back afresh to her girlhood, in

the pretty village at home. Her
hands were filled with the little
purple flowers, when she heard a
step on the path, leading through
the arbor.

Brother Pelton was coming slow-
ly toward her, his hands clasped be-
hind him, a frown wrinkling his
broad white forehead.

"The garden's coming on well this
year," he said. Even Lisbeth was
quick to detect the forced lightness
of his tone.

"It lies so to the South, you see,"
she answered. Some of the violets
dropped unheeded from her fingers.

"Lisbeth—"

"Yes, Brother Pelton."

"You heard my talk this morn-
ing— at the meeting?"

She nodded.

"And comprehended it?"

"I — ain't sure — it sounded fine —
I'm not certain I got the full mean-
ing."

"These are troublous times, Lis-
beth."

Again she nodded — perplexed,
half afraid.

"The head of the Church — Presi-
dent Woodruff — you know his latest
proclamation."

A frightened look came into Lis-
beth's eyes. Her woman's intuition,
more quick to act than her slow
brain, sounded a faint warning.
But no — that could not be true.
She could not answer, save to lift
her eyes, with their look of terror
and supplication. Before it, Brother
Pelton's own gaze fell.

He cleared his throat. "Lisbeth —
I — I regret it exceedingly — but obe-
dience is one of the chief requisites
of a good Mormon. You would not
have me fail in my duty. The
Church, as you know, has decided
that a man must have only one
wife."

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"You think it wrong to have
more'n one, Brother Pelton?"

'The Church, Lisbeth— "

"You think it wrong-?" she re-
peated, with new doggedness.

"I think it wrong not to obey the
Church's orders," he parried.

"You're givin' in without any
fight?"

"I am a man of peace, Lisbeth —
and — well, I confess, I have come to
see the wisdom of this decision."

Still Lisbeth did not, would not,
fully understand. "It'll come hard
on Lucy," she said; "she ain't
lookin' for any such turnin' out.
You'll provide for her, Brother Pel-
ton? Luckily she ain't got any little
ones hangin' to her skirts, like a
good many — "

"Lucy!" Brother Pelton braced
himself for a final effort. "I've de-
cided to keep Lucy — she's young
and inclined to be frivolous — it
would be hard for her to be left to
her own resources; besides she needs
the guiding hand. It's very differ-
ent with you, Lisbeth; you've had
experience. I've no doubt that
you'll manage finely."

Lisbeth stared at him in mute re-
proach— condemnation. For the
first time in her life, she dared weigh
his motives — dared find them want-
ing; but after twenty years of si-
lence, words were not easy.

"I ought to be able to work," she
said at last, simply, as if voicing a
self-evident fact. "I'm sure I've had
practice enough. Then you don't
mean to provide for me'n our girls,
Brother Pelton?"

"I may be able to do a little, later.
I've been under heavy expenses
lately — the new house, and — "

The new house — a sudden sob
rose in Lisbeth's throat. She saw
the bright little kitchen, snug, com-
plete, in all the many contrivances

for lessening the work of the house.
It had meant so much to her that
Brother Pelton should have planned
them for her comfort. But not a
single one had been arranged with a
view to her — they were all for Lucy.
She was to have no share in the new
house — not even the humblest.

"This has been in my mind for
some time," she heard Brother Pel-
ton saying. "I am not acting hasti-
ly— I have taken counsel — prayed
over it. I delayed telling you, think-
ing it wiser to make the one break-
ing -up."

Lisbeth glanced up dully, in her
eyes the inexpressible suffering of
some dumb beast.

Brother Pelton congratulated
himself on the quiet sensible way
in which she was taking it. It was
a heavy shock, without doubt. She
was a faithful honest creature — not
a companion, of course, but a good
worker — he could ill have done
without her all these years. He pat-
ted her kindly on the arm. "I shall
always take an interest in you and
the girls, remember. Zina's seven-
teen now, old enough to look out for
herself — I dare say she'll be setting
up a home of her own before long.
That'll leave only Beulah for you.
Heber, (Heber was Nannie's boy)
is out doing excellently — you
trained him well, Lisbeth."

"We are to stay on here?" Lis-
beth asked wearily.

Brother Pelton shook his head.
"I have disposed of the land; the
house will be torn down — it's in
pretty bad condition. It will be bet-
ter for you to find something small-
er."

Lisbeth looked silently up at the
vine-covered house. It would have
been bad enough — being left in the
shabby familiar place — the wrench
would have been fearful; but to be

INSIGHT

187

•denied all place in both new and
old, to be driven forth, to start
afresh ! She felt a sudden sense of
pity for the poor old house, as if it
were human. She and it, their work
done, both tossed aside ! The
thought choked her.

Brother Pelton turned away. He
was as truly sorry for her as it was
in his nature to feel for any one.
There was real regret in his heart,
as he walked slowly up the path,
under the arbor, where the sunlight
fell in broken shafts, and the light
breeze stirred softly in the young
leaves overhead.

Lucy stood waiting on the porch
— she had just come back from the
afternoon service at the Tabernacle.
"Have you told her?" she cried in
an eager whisper, as he reached her.

"I have."

"Did she make a fuss?"

"No."

Lucy drew a quick breath, glanc-

ing down at the bowed figure by
the wall below. "Poor Lisbeth !
Come round front, Brother Pelton,
I want to talk to you, and I don't
want to be where I can see her —
poor Lisbeth."

A few minutes later there were
sounds of quick steps on the garden
path. "Mother," Zina called,
"please, won't you take us to see
the new house?"

"Please, mother!" Beulah added.

Lisbeth stirred slowly; from her
hands fell the bunch of violets —
crushed and stained.

Zina and Beulah stared wonder-
ingly. "Mother, what has hap-
pened? Oh, mother dear — don't,
please don't!"

For Lisbeth had dropped down
beside the violets, her face hidden
in her scarred, work-worn hands —
her whole being racked, convulsed,
by deep heart-rending sobs.

Insight

By Maurice Baldwin

Why do I tremble when thine eyes
Meet mine, or when thy tender voice
Doth bid my longing heart rejoice,

Or when thy soft hand in mine lies?

It is because through the strange wall
That keeps all human lives apart

Thy love hath pierced, and knoweth all
The hidden secrets of my heart.

Whaling in Hudson Bay

By P. T. McGrath

A QUESTION of serious im-
port to Great Britain and the
United States has been raised
of late by the action of Canada in
despatching, last August, to Hudson
Bay an armed expedition in the
Newfoundland sealing steamer
"Neptune" to expel New Bedford
Whalers now fishing in that area,
and regarded by Canada as poachers,
unlawfully operating in waters
where they possess no rights. This
cruiser has been wintering there
and will remain north until Novem-
ber next, making annual visits
thereafter efficiently to guard the
region. Canada claims that Hud-
son Bay is a closed sea and por-
tion of her heritage, France having
ceded the whole region to Britain
by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713 ;
the United States having acquiesced
therein by the Treaty of Washing-
ton, in 1818, and Britain having
transferred all Arctic America to
Canada in 1870. This would make
out a conclusive case but that
Canada has, until now, failed to as-
sert her sovereignty in an efficient
manner, the American whalemen
having prosecuted their industry
there without interruption for over
seventy years, so that they consider
themselves entitled to continue fish-
ing there, in spite of Canada's con-
tentions to the contrary. To dis-
lodge them will probably require a
resort to force, and this may bring
about a clash between the two
Anglo-Saxon peoples, which would
be deplorable on every account.
But that Canada is determined to

assert her position is evidenced by
the fact that she has commissioned
as "Governor of Hudson Bay,"
Major Moodie of the North West
Mounted Police, who has gone in
command of the efficient force
carried, and he has a detachment of
that corps under his command so as
to be able to deal with the whalers
when the spring opens.

Canada's action is influenced very
largely by the fear that if she fails
to assert her contention that she
alone possesses jurisdiction over
this great northern inlet, her ac-
quiescence in the presence of
United States whalers there will be
construed into an abandonment by
her of the right she claims, and will
elicit a demand from them of con-
current fishing and trading privi-
leges there which may bring about
another international entanglement
like the Alaskan boundary dispute.
It illustrates, moreover, Canada's
unpreparedness for the task of en-
forcing her position in these remote
waters, that she had no ship of her
own to undertake the duty, but had
to go to St. John's, the capital of
the independent Colony of New-
foundland— which is not a part of
Canada at all — in order to secure a
steamer capable of contending with
ice and therefore suitable for the
navigation of sub-arctic seas, while
her Captain and crew are also New-
foundlanders, Canadians knowing
nothing of the handling of such
ships, or the difficulties of travers-
ing such areas as she will cruise in,
while the Newfoundlanders are the

188

WHALING IN HUDSON BAY

189

most experienced ice-navigators in
the world.

From New Bedford and neighbor-
ing ports, United States whalers
have long prosecuted their hazard-
ous calling in every sea and clime,
pursuing the cachalot, or sperm
whale, in his tropical habitat, and
the bowhead, or baleen whale, in
the frozen northern zone. The
Greenland waters, Baffin Bay, Davis
Strait, Cumberland Gulf, and Hud-
son Strait and Bay have all been the
scene of their daring activities,
while their prowess and adventures
have formed the theme of many a
volume, and the inspiration for
countless daring deeds upon the
ocean.

Owing to the competition of
British, Norse and Danish whalers
the mighty cetaceans have been al-
most exterminated in all of these
areas now except Hudson Bay, and
only a squadron of but seven ships
survives of all the once enormous
whaling fleet that sailed from the
British Isles. The American fleet
has been reduced very considerably
also, but of late years is experienc-
ing a revival owing to the enhanced
value of whale products through
their scarcity, so that a small fare
is now a paying venture when it
would have fallen short of a profita-
ble speculation ten years ago.
Canada's project therefore means, if
it is carried into effect, the expulsion
of these modern Yankee Vikings
from their last industrial stronghold
on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Whale hunting in Hudson Bay is
an enterprise that calls for resolute
and daring men, the class that en-
ters into Arctic exploration, for to
this the whale fishery is somewhat
akin. The ships sail from New Bed-
ford in June or July so as to enter
Hudson Strait as soon as it is free

of ice, or comparatively so; as to
venture among the ice which is often
fifty feet thick, would be to invite
disaster. This, indeed, has befallen
the whalers at times. The "Isa-
bella" was one of the unfortunates,
and the "Pioneer" another. Both
were crushed by the floe while
making their way through the Strait.
Forty years ago, in the summer of
1863, the barque "George Henry"
met such a fate, and her crew of
thirty-four men, adrift in the floe,
were rescued by the "Active" an-
other of the fleet. On safely enter-
ing the Bay the ships start
whaling near Southampton Island,
the land mass which blocks the inlet,
and they fish in the neighboring
waters until the end of September
compels them to go into winter
quarters. They must do this so
early because such a vapor or steam
rushes off the water that they can
get no observations and can see
nothing; they would get blown off
by the equinoctials and owing to the
"dip" of the compass could not tell
where they were. They winter in
Chesterfield Inlet, a fiord running
north, and begin the chase of the
whales in the spring, the bowheads
being believed to enter the bay
then, and after cruising there all
summer, they return to the Atlantic
in the autumn, before Hudson Strait
becomes blocked with ice, as the
whale, being a mammal, requires a
clear area in order to come to the
surface to breathe every ten minutes
or so.

It is impossible for a ship to make
a successful cruise in one season-
She rarely gets in before late in July
or early in August, and would have
to leave within a month to escape
being frozen fast all winter. There-
fore, each cruise is planned for one
or two seasons, some vessels being

190

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

out twenty-seven months at times.
The crews of the whalers no longer
live on the ships during the winter,
but ashore with the Eskimos, using
the same food — seal, walrus, and
whale meat, with venison, bear
meat, sea birds and fish to
vary it. Salt food is absolutely
barred. It produces scurvy very
soon, the condition accelerated
all too often by the indulgence in
alcohol, common to sailors. Scores
of graves in every harbor attest the
fell work that was done in the
past in foul-smelling, ill-ventilated
cabins, with little or no exercise
taken for months. But now the na-
tive mode of life is adopted and the
mortality is very slight.

The whales enter the Bay by way
of Hudson Strait; years ago con-
siderable whaling was done off Reso-
lution Island, the Atlantic entrance
to the Strait, in May, as the creat-
ures passed in on their annual mi-
gration. They make for Roe's
Welcome, on the north-west side of
the Bay, which gives access to an-
other fiord called Repulse Inlet.
The ships begin their deadly forays
at the mouth of the Welcome early
in May and proceed north to Re-
pulse Inlet as the ice is discharged
and the way made free for them.
This is the best whaling season and
ground, and it is to avail themselves
of it that they winter in the north.
If they could get to it early enough
they would not remain all the year,
but as the Bay is open in the early
spring, while the Strait is blocked
until midsummer, they have to
spend many idle months near the
whaling ground.

The whalers formerly wintered
at Marble Island, off Chesterfield In-
let, but they do so no longer. It
was too remote from the whaling
grounds, and it was also impossible

to get fresh meat as there were no>
natives about and no deer on the
Island. This compelled the crews
to use salt meat, which induced
scurvy and caused appalling mor-
tality. The anchorage, too, was
none the best; on one occasion some
years ago three vessels parted their
chains there and drove ashore, and
the crews were reduced to the verge
of starvation. Now the winter har-
bors are at Depot Island, or Fuller-
ton Point, and the natives are en-
gaged to supply the crews with
fresh meat during the winter.
There are plenty of deer in Repulse
Bay, and occasionally a bear is got;
musk oxen can always be obtained
in the unexplored wilds back of the
Wager River. Sometimes the Amer-
ican skippers make long hunting
trips into the country with natives
as guides, and some tribes of the
latter have at times exhibited gold-
bearing quartz which leads to the
belief that there is a second Klon-
dike in the far off stretches of the
Franklin District — as Canada lias-
named this vast arctic archipelago.
These hunting trips are taken with
Kometiks (sledges) and dogs; and
big bags of deer are frequently
made.

The actual pursuit of the whale
is as dangerous a vocation as writers
and artists have represented it.
During recent years no fewer than
four ships have been lost in the
Welcome, the last being the "Fran-
cis Allyn" which was burned by her
try-works taking fire. Her crew
made their way to Fullerton, after
enduring great hardships, and were
conveyed home by the "Era," an-
other ship. "The Polar Star" drove-
on a reef and went to pieces, in 1896.
The big fish are hunted with boats
and harpoons, in the fashion so often
described, and among the most

WHALING IN HUDSON BAY

191

perilous aspects of it is that of the
boats being dashed against the
floes and the crew drowned, as the
frightened brutes race madly
through the ice-cumbered ocean
when impaled with the murderous
harpoon, which is the lethal weapon
used. Whaling in other seas is at-
tended by many dangers, but here
it has its series of special perils to
encounter — ice-floes, unknown
rocks and reefs, variable currents,
unreliable charts and the compass
subject to such deviations that it
cannot be depended upon. These
drawbacks constitute a serious men-
ace to ships and crews, and if the
records of the industry could be set
forth they would reveal some of the
most extraordinary adventures in
marine annals — of daring boat-
voyages, of struggles with hunger
and cold, of heroic endurance and
gallant rescue.

Among these instances of hard-
ship and suffering a noteworthy one
was that of the "Pavilon," which
was wrecked on Crow Head, near
Roe's Welcome in 1873. Her crew
of thirty, in three boats, made their
way along the coast and out of the
Strait, a distance of 700 miles, to
Resolution Island, and in crossing
from there to Cape Chidley, on
Labrador, one boat was lost with
all hands. The other two worked
their way south along Labrador, to
Cape Mugford, a journey of 200
miles further. Here they found a
Hudson Bay Company's ship, a
chartered vessel which had been
forced ashore by the pressure of the
ice-floe driving in on the land.
They got her off and made their way
in her to St. John's, Newfoundland.
Their boat and vessel voyage repre-
sented an undertaking that would
appall the stoutest heart. It in-
volved weeks of wearying toil, of

nerve-racking danger, of imminent
starvation. They subsisted as best
they could on shell-fish, seals and
kelp, when the scanty supply of
stores saved from their wrecked
ship was exhausted, and at times
they were so devoid of hope that it
seemed to them only wasted effort
to continue. But they persevered,
and after striking the Labrador
Coast, obtained supplies from the
Moravian Missionaries, laboring
there.

Scarcely less remarkable was the
experience of the crew of the "Isa-
bella" in 1885, which had been
crushed in the floe about twenty-
five miles off Spicer's Harbor. They
had contrived to land over the ice
on foot, having lost their boats, and
they were thus unable to carry any
but the scantiest supply of food to
the harbor where they had to re-
main on short commons until the
"Era" called there at the end of Au-
gust, and took them on board. Tn
effecting the embarkation she was
delayed by adverse winds for quite
a period, and this caused her to be
late in reaching Gummiute, a sta-
tion in Davis Strait, where she had
to call in the autumn. She did not
get there until October, and while
loading bone and oil, the arctic
pack closed in on the shore and
shut her up until August seventh of
the next year, with two crews on
board and supplies for but one, and
with a most unfavorable season for
hunting in the vicinity, the situation
of the ship was anything but envia-
ble. The men almost starved dur-
ing the winter, and by the time the
"Era" reached St. John's, New-
foundland, in September, 1886, they
were on almost their last allowance
of bread and water.

In individual adventure it would
be difficult to outdo Walter Hoxie,

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

second mate of the "Francis Allyn,"
whose destruction by fire has al-
ready been mentioned. She sailed
from New Bedford on July second,
1901, to fish for whales in Hudson
Bay, with a crew of thirteen, all told.
Entering the Strait and Bay, she
wintered at Depot Island, and dur-
ing the voyage there was friction
between the Captain and Hoxie, so
that when on June first, 1902, the
former suggested that Hoxie "had
better go home," he started with two
others, King and Carroll — in one of
the whaleboats, carrying three
weeks' provisions. They voyaged
470 miles south clown Hudson Bay
to York House, a Hudson Bay Com-
pany Post, the trip occupying till
July fifteenth. Half way their pro-
visions ran out and for the rest of
the journey they had to subsist on
what little game they could kill.
After reaching York House, King
and Carroll took the Hudson Bay
Company's steamer for England but
Hoxie engaged himself to the factor
and killed six white whales. In. re-
turn he was given transportation to
Winnipeg overland, with a train of
ten Indians carrying furs. They had
provisions for five days, but the trip
to Oxford House — another post —
occupied nineteen, and for two
weeks they lived on the fish they
caught and the berries they picked.
From this they took five days more
food to reach Norway House, but
as the journey lasted nine days they
were obliged to beg food from wan-
dering Indians they met. A steamer
took them to Winnipeg from there.
The "Francis Allyn's" crew suffered
worse than he did, however, as one
man died from exposure and the
others were badly frostbitten before
they were picked up by the sister
ship.

The arctic whale — variously de-

scribed as the right, black, northern,
or Greenland whale, is known to the
crews who chase it, as the "bow-
head," from the peculiar arched
structure of its frontal formation.
This is what produces the extreme
length of its "whalebone," or baleen,
the flexible substance which fills its
mouth instead of teeth and is so im-
portant in modern arts and manu-
factures. Like the ivory of the ele-
phant, the whalebone of the bow-
head is becoming so scarce that deal-
ers fear that its speedy exhaustion
is imminent. It varies in length
from nine to fifteen feet and former-
ly sold for about $9,000 a ton, but
latterly has reached the amazing
figure of $15,000. This creature, de-
spite its enormous size, sometimes
reaching sixty to seventy feet in
length and weighing as many tons,
is amongst the most timid known,
and has to be chased by boats whose
oars are muffled. Only that one
forms such a prize, it is doubtful
if they would be hunted at all, but
an adult bowhead yields nearly a
ton of bone, and about fourteen tons
of oil, worth about $2,000 more. It
will thus be readily seen what a
gamble the industry is and how one
successful trip means a small for-
tune for those who embark in it. In
1893 the United States Whaling
Fleet — Atlantic and Pacific — killed
394 of these monsters, so the possi-
bilities of the enterprise are really
staggering.

It is rather a remarkable circum-
stance that while the American
whalers have invaded Hudson Bay
and exploited it for about seventy
years, the British whalers should
have refrained almost wholly from
participation in that fishery and con-
fined themselves to the Atlantic
waters east of Hudson Strait. Quite
recently, however, they have estab-

WHALING IN HUDSON BAY

193

lished a sedentary whaling station
on Nottingham Island, one of the
group at the outlet of the Bay, but
formerly they operated exclusively
from Cumberland Gulf. As long ago
as 1820, Capt. Penney, who after-
wards commanded one of the Frank-
lin relief expeditions, established the
first permanent whaling station
there, and it may be mentioned in
passing, that Capt. Buddington of
the whaler "George Henry," wrecked

to employ. The Scotch in 1902 made
their first essay into Hudson Bay,
the steamer "Active" landing a
party there to remain and hunt
whales for five years, putting ashore
a wooden house, built in sections,
for them, and all needed equipment.
They hired five boats' crews of
Eskimos for the actual whaling.
This sedentary whaling is not pos-
sible in Hudson Bay itself because
of the vast area over which the

WHALER IN HUDSON BAY

in 1863, was afterwards master of
the "Polaris" which conveyed Dr.
Hall to the north in 1871. The
Americans gradually imitated their
British competitors in setting up
these sedentary stations in Cumber-
land Gulf, but of late have aban-
doned them, selling out to the
Scotch who are able to manage them
more economically, by a process
which only Scotchmen seem able

cetaceans are found, but in narrow
waters, as in Cumberland Gulf, the
eastern end of Hudson Strait, at
Resolution Island and its western
extremity at Nottingham Island,
where the quarry passes in sight of
the shore, it forms a convenient
adjunct to the major industry.

The Scotch whaling enterprise in
Cumberland Gulf is prosecuted from
two shore stations, ships not being

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N EW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

employed at all, except to visit the
posts annually and unload stores
there, taking away the products in
exchange. These stations are at
Harbors called Blackhead and
Kekerton, and are owned by Messrs.
Noble of Aberdeen, who have main-
tained them for upwards of forty
years.

Each station has a Scotch man-
ager, all the rest of the employees
being Eskimos, a tribe of these,
about one hundred and fifty souls,
being settled around each station.
Mr. Milne, the chief factor in charge
at Blackhead, has been living there
for more than thirty years, and has
made only one trip to Scotland in
the whole period. Mr. Mutch, a
younger man, is factor at Kekerton.

Each post has a substantial dwell-
ing and stores for the chief, and is
supplied with six first class whale-
boats, with the finest modern out-
fits, everything being kept in the
best order. The Eskimos are very
teachable, and have no vices, and
are a complete contrast to the crews
of the whaling vessels. At both
Blackhead and Kekerton similar es-
tablishments were maintained by
the Americans until 1894, when they
sold out to the Scotch, after having
operated there continually for over
thirty years.

In Cumberland Gulf whales are
got off the edge of the ice in spring,
when they are on their way north,
and feed for some time off the mouth
of the inlet, on the animalculae
which abound there. They are
again found there in the autumn,
as they come south from the higher
latitudes.

The sedentary whaling stations
now all employ the Eskimos for
their crews. These natives make
first class boatmen and expert har-
pooners, and are honest and earnest.

They transfer their whole tribe,
with their paraphernalia, to the vi-
cinity of a whaling post, and sign
on to help the crew for a weekly ra-
tion of four pounds of ship's biscuit,
one-fourth pound of coffee, two
pounds of molasses, and four plugs
of tobacco. Other articles they pro-
cure by trading therefor musk-ox, or
caribou, or sealskins, or walrus or
narwhal ivory.

The Eskimos have lost their
ancient arts of chasing these
creatures with arrow, or, harpoon,
and are no longer proficient in the
fashion or use of the crude weapons
of former years. They have come
to rely upon the white man's weap-
ons, the rifle especially, and they
handle these proficiently, but with-
out a grasp of the principles under-
lying them, so that if the whalers
were to be driven away, and the
Eskimos deprived of the opportu-
nity of replenishing their stores of
weapons, ammunition, and minor
necessities, they would soon be re-
duced to the most desperate straits.

At Gummiute, in 1898, Peter
Jensen, who was then manager of a
station there, had a most amazing
experience, amputating his own
toes, which had got frostbitten
while he was away from home on
a- Christmas- deer-hunt. He and his
Eskimo aids were caught in a snow-
storm and compelled to take shelter
under the lee of a cliff until it abated.
While thus inactive, with the ther-
mometer away below zero, the in-
tense cold seized upon his extremi-
ties, which had become heated from
the exertions, but now were trans-
formed into ice-cold masses as the
frost struck them. When he
reached the station he found that it
was impossible to restore the circu-
lation to the affected parts. Gan-
grene set in, and his life was threat-

WHALING IN HUDSON BAY

195

ened if he could not get rid of the
seared flesh. He had no white man
with him, the Eskimos knew noth-
ing of the treatment of such a case,
and he lacked any surgical instru-
ments. He stripped the dead flesh
from the bones with a sharp pen-
knife, but the removal of the bones
themselves was a more difficult mat-
ter. Ultimately, after several ex-
periments, he contrived to fabricate
a saw out of the fine steel main-

vived and is now walking on arti-
ficial limbs provided by a kindly
visitor to the coast.

Neither the nomadic or sedentary
whalers could maintain themselves
in these regions but for the presence
of the Eskimos who provide them
with fresh meat and aid them in
their actual fishing operations. In
addition to the bowheads, the
whalers also hunt the walrus, nar-
whal and seal. The former is taken

WHITE WHALES, HUDSON BAY

spring of his watch, and by means
of this he performed the rough-and-
ready surgical operation necessary
to rid himself of these useless ap-
pendages. He survived the experi-
ment safely, dressing the wound
himself daily. On Labrador, three
winters ago, a fisherman's baby girl
got out in midwinter and had both
feet frozen. The father, to save its
life, as both limbs were gangrened,
chopped them off with an ax, and,
marvellous to relate, the child sur-

for the hide, which is made into belt-
ing, and the tusk, which forms a
good-class ivory. The long twisted
horn of the narwhal is also a valu-
able commodity, and his skin is in
equal demand with that of the wal-
rus. The seal is one of the indus-
trial mainstays of the seaboard
from Newfoundland northward.
The Newfoundland seal fishery
yields about 300,000 skins annually,
worth about $800,000. The hunt for
seals by the whalers, being only a

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

secondary pursuit, brings compara-
tively few, but still it usually serves
to ensure the financial success of the
whole voyage. To the Eskimos, of
course, the seal is all-important.
It is to the Eskimo what the
buffalo once was to the Indians
of the plains. Without the buf-
falo, in by-gone days, there would
have been no Indians ; and with-
out the seal there would be no
Eskimos, for no savages, less well
fed on oleaginous foods, could pos-
sibly resist and face, as necessity
compels them to, the intense cold
of an arctic winter. They inhabit
sealskin tents in summer and turf
huts or snow-houses in winter. The
seal supplies everything — its flesh
affords them food ; its fat gives them
light and heat ; its skin provides
them with clothing, tents, imple-
ments of the chase, material for
their canoes, and harness for their
dogs.

The remoter tribes of these Eski-
mos are the only remaining aborigi-
nal people on the continent, who, if
the white man of today were to be
swept away, would still be self-sup-
porting and wholly independent of
outside aid. With rude tools they
fashion perfect carvings from bone
and ivory ; they make their own
spears, lances and harpoons ; their
boats are composed of skins sewn
watertight with needles of bone and
threads of sinew, and they are uner-
ring in the employment of the frail
but effectual weapons they use, of
their own making. While the white
man's firearms have enabled them
to kill their game from a greater
distance, it often sinks before they
can reach it and their native weap-
ons are undoubtedly more valuable.
But civilizing agencies are always
making themselves felt even here,
and the Eskimo is steadily becoming

more and more dependent on the
goods the white man brings him.
He dresses himself and his family
in fabrics instead of skins; he seeks
firearms and firewater, and he has
become inoculated with the worst
vices of southern climes.

The Eskimos in the southern and
more frequented sections have be-
come christianized; those in the
northern and remote areas are still
pagans. While their honesty is be-
yond question they are opportunists
in other respects, notably that of
providing for the survival of the
fittest. It was this that induced a
band of them, in January, 1870, to
commit the greatest crime known in
these regions. The Hudson Bay
Company's barque "Kitty" had left
London in June, 1869, for the Bay,
with supplies, but was caught in the
ice and crushed on September fifth
off Saddle Rock Island. The crew
left her in two boats and made their
way to the land, whence, after a
rest, and strengthening the boats,
they attempted to cross Hudson
Strait and work their way down the
Labrador Coast. Sixty days later
one of them reached Raman, the
northernmost of the Moravian Mis-
sion stations on that Peninsula. The
other boat, with the Cap tain" and ten
men, landed on Akpatok Island.
Here they were at first hospitably
received by the Eskimos, but as
food grew scarce and the whole ag-
gregation was threatened with star-
vation, they were all murdered one
night while asleep in their tents. It
is said that the Eskimos who perpe-
trated this outrage all died on the
Islands, and the other natives all
deserted it, as they believed it to be
haunted, and it was not till quite
recently that they could be induced
to re-establish themselves there.

The financial importance of the

WHALING IN HUDSON BAY

197

Hudson Bay whale fishery was at-
tested some years ago by a bulletin
of the United States Fish Commis-
sion, which showed that the value
of this industry during eleven years
was $1,371,000, for fifty voyages, or
$7,430 a voyage. The Canadian feel-
ing on the subject of holding Hud-
son Bay as a mare clausum and de-
veloping its resources for the bene-
fit of Canada alone is illustrated by
a recent letter in a Toronto paper

numerous, and of great commercial value.
They may be briefly stated as follows :
the right whale, the white whale, the
narwhal, the porpoise, the walrus, seals
of several varieties, the polar bear, the
reindeer, the musk-ox, the wolf, the wol-
verine, and foxes, — white, red and black;
also salmon, whitefish and trout, of the
finest description. Besides these fish and
animals, nearly all of the richest minerals
have been found in the region. As to the
occurrence and abundance of these re-
sources, I can bear personal testimony — hav-
ing crossed the bay no less than five times,
and spent three seasons upon its shores.

ESKIMO FAMILY, HUDSON BAY

from Mr. Tyrrell, a Geological Sur-
veyor of the Canadian Government,
who has travelled extensively in
that region, and who says :

"Outside and entirely independent of the
question of navigating Hudson Strait, there
exist other urgent reasons for sending
an expedition to Hudson Bay. Our fish-
eries and our fur trade in that region are
sadly in need of protection. Our coast-
lines and our harbors require to be cor-
rectly located and charted, and our min-
eral resources demand attention. The re-
sources of the Hudson Bay district are

"I have seen the surface of the water
as far as the eye could reach from the
deck of a ship appear as an undulating
plunging mass of white because of the
presence of great schools of white whales.
I have observed the islands and shores in
many localities swarming with walruses,
and I have witnessed such sights of rein-
deer, as only photographs can describe.
These, as well as the other products men-
tioned, have a high commercial value, but
I will not further dwell upon this subject,
excepting to speak briefly of the whale
fisheries, through which alone Canada has
already lost many millions of dollars. I
might quote figures to prove this state-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ment, as I have them before me, but it
will be sufficient to state that the assertion
is not made without ample information
upon which to base it. An average right
whale, in bone and oil, is valued at from
ten to twenty thousand dollars, and, as
three or four whales are commonly cap-
tured by one vessel in a season, it is readily
seen what are the possibilities of a single
whaling voyage. It is, of course, a well
known fact that foreign whalers have for
years been lishing in Hudson Bay and the
adjacent waters to the north and east.

"I have seen as many as four vessels in
one season myself, so that, although, by

the Treaty of Utrecht, the sovereignty of
Hudson Bay was ceded to Great Britain,
it is just possible, that, through long con-
tinued acquiescence, these foreigners may
be establishing rights whilst ours are be-
ing allowed to lapse. It is certainly high
time that the Government should take
steps to assert Canadian jurisdiction in our
North Sea, and this cannot be better done

than through an expedition

Such an expedition on board the whaling
steamer Neptune in charge of Commander
Lowe is now wintering in Hudson Bay,
and it is greatly to be hoped that through
his actions our rights may be respected."

The Mexican Hacienda

Its Place and Its People

By George F. Paul

IT is not necessary to go far south
of the Rio Grande before the sig-
nificance of the hacienda in Mexi-
can life becomes apparent. The
term is capable of two applications,
meaning either a large estate made
up of several important parts, such
as plantations, ranches and mills, or
the central group of buildings on
the estate. Before describing at
some length some of the represen-
tative haciendas, it may be well to
speak of the real place this institu-
tion occupies in the national life.

It must be remembered that
Mexico has not always been a
country where property or even
lives could escape the raids of law-
less bands. And so for purposes of
defense a centralized and unified
group of buildings rose castle-like
with cannon for defense and but few
entrances to be guarded. That such
an institution should gain a foot-
hold and flourish in Mexico is not
at all surprising when the nature of

the native population is considered.
Generally speaking, the peon popu-
lation is much better fitted to exe-
cute than to plan ; they can follow
when others lead the way; they
have but little thought for the mor-
row, being satisfied if they have suf-
ficient for the day. After the Con-
quest, numerous haciendas were es-
tablished that to a considerable de-
gree served the same ends as the
feudal castles of the Middle Ages.
They gathered to themselves family
after family in the vast agricultural
districts, promising to exercise a
paternal and protecting authority
over their servants. In the sparse-
ly peopled regions, such a union
of interests, as indicated before,
was imperative. The hacienda
formed an outpost of civilization,
a nucleus around which the interests
of the community quickly centered.
The traveller regarded, and still re-
gards, them as public houses where
food and shelter, and if need be, pro-

THE MEXICAN HACIENDA

199

tection. could be obtained. For these
reasons the main structure was built
on an elaborate scale. Especially
can this be said of the undertakings
of the various religious Orders
whose funds were ample and whose
plans and purposes were many.

As what is written about the
labor system on these estates is
sometimes confused, it may be well
to quote the words of one who has

becomes part and parcel of the establish-
ment. If he happens to be indebted to
another hacienda, and, for his own reasons,
is changing employers, his debt being a
recommendation, large amounts will be ad-
vanced to buy the debt and allow the peon
a cash balance. His contract obliges him
to work for the hacienda until his debt is
cancelled. On the other hand, his preroga-
tives are such as no other laborer in the
world enjoys. Each week, he receives ra-
tions sufficient for his maintenance and
that of his family. Each year, he and his
family receive an ample supply of cloth-

Photo by C.B. Watte,

GENERAL VIEW OF MEXICAN HACIENDA

seen the system in all its various
workings. Discussing this subject,
Prince A. de Iturbide says :

"The peon is of the Indian or mixed
races. He :is bound by debt to the ha-
cienda on which he works, and, regard-
less of color, he may rise, along the scale
of promotion, to the highest employments
on the place. The indebtedness is one of
the essential features of the peon system,
and is contracted by the peons, either di-
rectly or by voluntary inheritance. In the
former case, a peon presents himself to
the Administrator, or manager, and asks
for an enganche, that is, a retainer, the
amount of which varies between ten and
thirty dollars. If the applicant be accep-
table, the retainer is paid, and the peon

ing. Medical services are furnished them
free of charge, and the sums of money
required for baptism, confirmations, mar-
riages, or burials are advanced. Most ha-
ciendas have schools to which the peon
man— and often must — send his children.
He is furnished space, of course, and ma-
terial for the construction of his hut, and
is entitled to the use of a fair measure
of ground, which he cultivates for his
own benefit, with the hacienda's stock,
implements, and seed. Finally, there are
two days in the year on each of which the
peon receives extra wages amounting to
several dollars. And when, through age
or accident, the peon is no longer able to
work, he becomes a charge of the ha-
cienda.

"There, then, is a numerous class of hu-
man beings who are born, not in poverty,
but hi debt, and heirs by natural law to

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

all the misery of the proletariat — to which
they would be a prey, if the peon system
were not there to solve their problem of
life. As it is, from his cradle to his grave
the peon will never lack food, raiment or
shelter. His wife and children will never
know the pinch of hunger. If he has the
capacity to rise above his class, he may
do so. If he goes through life an insolvent
debtor, still at the hacienda he will have
an open credit. In a word, he will be

that the fortress-like structure al-
ways carries with it the air of mag-
nificence. It is an institution with
which the tattered peon likes to
identify his interests. He can point
with pride to the imposing pile
where he has his home, and so he is
wide-awake to its welfare and ap-
pearance.

Photo by C. B. Waite.

CHURCH ON HACIENDA DE ATEQUIZA, MEXICO

above the lowest laboring class, and that
through no charity of his employer."

Such, according to Prince Itur-
bide, are some of the distinctive
features of the peon system which
prevails throughout the greater part
of Mexico. One other considera-
tion that probably draws the peons
to the great haciendas is the fact

On entering through the wide
portals, the visitor finds himself in
an ample court and sees round
about him a miniature town that the
long walls have hitherto hid from
view. The butcher, the baker, the
candlestick maker, are all repre-
sented. And they must be, for the
number of inhabitants of a preten-

THE MEXICAN HACIENDA

201

tious hacienda very often aggregates
more than a thousand. In some
parts of the country, the cottages
of the laborers are built in long
rows some distance from the main
buildings. A single room fifteen
feet square is usually considered
sufficient for each family. Chimneys
and windows are regarded as super-
fluities, the light coming in where
the smoke goes out — by the door.
Of course there are no spare bed-
rooms or even private ones in such
a house, mats spread on the floor

he often receives credit for con-
siderable extra work that the women
of his family have done.

The Administrator and other
high functionaries are, of course,
better housed than the common
herd and farther removed from the
braying of the donkeys and the
grunting of the porkers. Ample
living quarters are provided in the
main structure where are also to be
found the offices of the estate, pro-
tected store-rooms for various pur-
poses, a large number of spare rooms,

Photo by C. B. Waite.

NATIVE HOUSES — UBERO PLANTATION

serving as beds. As the family live
for the most part in the open air,
the furniture is also hard to find,
but quick to dust. It should be re-
membered that in most parts of
Mexico the change of seasons af-
fects but little the working of the
fields. It is not uncommon to see
in the same section corn in several
stages; ready to husk, knee-high, or
being planted. The women are very
industrious, and never fail to help
in any work they can do. At the
end of each day, when the amount
of each peon's work is determined,

as well as stables for choice saddlers
and drivers. It is interesting to
make the rounds of the buildings
and read the quaint entablatures
over the entrances. The principal
one at the Tepenacasco hacienda in
the state of Hidalgo confidently de-
clares ■:. "En aqueste destierro y sole-
dad disfruto del tesoro del paz."
(In this retirement and solitude I
enjoy the treasure of peace.) The
hopes of the builder never saw ful-
fillment, for during the Wars of In-
dependence the whole region was a
stamping ground for marauders.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Ph oto by C. B. Waite.

IN A QUIET CORNER OF THE MAIN BUILD-
ING MEXICAN HACIENDA

Many wealthy planters with their
hundreds of thousands of dollars in-
vested in lands and refineries, go ex-
tensively into the production of
sugar where the region is well
adapted to cane raising. The rich
man produces the refined white
sugar, as well as the various grades
of brown sugar, known in Mexico
as "Piloncillo," "Panocha," and
"Panela," such as the poor renter
turns out with his wooden rolls and
copper kettle. The sugar industry
may be taken up with a limited
capital and additions made gradual-
ly. A few more acres can be culti-
vated each year, another "Trapiche''
put in, and a kettle or two added to
the plant, until the production war-
rants an investment in refining ma-
chinery to produce the better grades.
Within the walls of a sugar ha-
cienda the scene always contains
plenty of life. The area is strewn
with crushed stalks. Long sway-
ing lines of burros are constantly
streaming in from the fields, bear-
ing fresh cane to be crushed. Men
stripped to the waist, the perspira-

tion trickling down their dark
backs, drag the cane from the bur-
ros, bind it to swinging derricks that
convey it to the crushers, or heap
the carts high with refuse. No one
lounges around. The black-eyed
boys lash the mules and hiss at
them, apparently deriving their un-
wonted energy from the incessant
whirring of the mill machinery.
Down from the crusher pours a
steady stream of sweet sap that
creeps down the trough to the boil-
ing vats ; clouds of steam rise from
the boilers ; round and round whirl
the big centrifugals, plastering the
walls with molasses ; the melted
sugar is hurried to the moulds that
cast conical loaves of twenty-five
pounds each ; these are then taken
to the great drying rooms where
they are stood in rows like beehives;
and finally they reach the shipping
room where the results are most
evident and gratifying.

To inspect such an establishment
an old suit of clothes should be
worn, for after groping about in
dark passages, slipping on sticky
floors, sprinkled by the centrifugals,
one emerges dazed with the din and
saturated with the sweetness.
What with the overpowering air
and the sweetness that come along
unbidden, the craving for sugar is
satisfied for at least a month to
come.

And the power behind the throne,
or the mill in this instance, is one
man ; his presence makes the mule
carts go racing off hub to hub in one
direction and the little burros in an-
other; his presence makes the over-
seers shout and the barefooted
peons scoot around, the wheels
grind, the presses stream, and the
big loaves form. High in a filthy
sort of coop that commands a view
of the vard sits Salvador Fernandez,

THE MEXICAN HACIENDA

203

a burly frame of sixty, and around
him, hat in hand, stand a group of
muchachos ready to do his bidding
at the slightest movement of his
stout forefinger. The dogs of the
estate like to congregate here,
though trampled on by the hurry-
ing feet of messengers. The office
furniture does not include such
luxuries as a roll-top desk and a re-

during the day, and how much has
been shipped. His searching eye
takes in every thing with a glance;
business is dispatched quickly, me-
thodically, and with but few words.
The most numerous attendants of
Don Fernandez are the flies; they
outnumber the hairs on his half-
bald head, and they leave their
slimy trail everywhere. Overgorged

Photo by C. B. Waite.

BRINGING THE SUGAR TO THE MILL — MEXICAN HACIENDA

volving chair; a little deal table and
a rough stool suffice. The bulky
inkstand is the most important
thing on the table. From this emi-
nence he overlooks the whole mov-
ing panorama. Hourly reports
•come to him from all parts of the
plant; thus he knows the amount
•of cane brought in from the fields,
what the yield of sugar is, how
many pounds have been produced

and sickened with sweets, many of
them seek relief in the depths of
the ink bottle. Others find com-
fort in pouncing with sanguinary
intent on the ears of the laziest dogs
in the office, where glutted at
length they drift away to Nirvana.
They delight in peppering the Don's
broad back with their insignificant
selves, peeping down his hairy neck
and scampering over his bald spot.

204

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Day afted day finds him at his post ;
day after day finds his buzzing reti-
nue faithfully hovering about him.
The donkeys, the dogs, and the flies
recognize in him a patient com-
patriot, and know not that he is one
of the richest men in the Republic,
and has more dollars, even, than he
has flies.

The maguey haciendas in the im-

within a short time after fermenta-
tion, as forty-eight hours later it is
slop. Humboldt mentions an old
Indian woman of Cholula who died
during his stay there, about a hun-
dred years ago, and left her heirs
a maguey plantation valued at $80,-
000. In the little state of Hidalgo,
the maguey haciendas are worth
eight millions. The maguey, like

Photo by C. B. Waite.

EXERCISING THE BIRDS

mediate neighborhood of Mexico
City remunerative investments. One
hundred thousand pints of pulque,
the fermented sap of the maguey,
are consumed in that city daily.
The railroads entering the metropo-
lis now receive forty thousand dol-
lars a week in freights on pulque
alone. The drink must be used

the bamboo, can be used in almost
countless ways, so the by-products
are of the greatest importance. The
different species provide the peon
with shingles for his hut, with a
needle and thread with which to
mend his rags, and with a rope that
may be useful if he wants to get
awav from his rags forever.

205

206

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

No more picturesque hacienda
can probably be found in all Mexico
than that of Don Felix Quero at
Mitla in the state of Oaxaca. This
hacienda is about thirty miles from
the terminus of the Mexican South-
ern railroad, and near the famous
ruins of Mitla that make archaeol-
ogists scratch their heads long and
thoughtfully. Because of the bleak
and rough nature of the surround-
ing country, it has retained many of
the characteristics of the early ha-
ciendas. Evening is sure to find
Don Felix and his sleepy-eyed son
behind the counter. Groups of
Indians hang about the two broad
doorways, coming from time to time
to invest in two cents' worth of
mescal. This is carefully poured
out to them in a glass with a thick
bottom — the purchaser invariably
offers the powerful liquor to his el-
bow friend first, and between them
with great gasps of satisfaction
they slowly down the fiery drink.
Now and then a woman creeps in,
mutely obtains a handful of dried
shrimps or a few long-tapered can-
dles, and creeps out again. How
quiet they are for so many ! With
what mute wonder do they watch
their pennies disappear down the
slot in the thick counter! Grand
specimens of humanity these, with
hair and eyebrows that almost meet,

with no higher desires than to eat
and sleep, and sleep and eat — with
drink ad libitum. And after their
pennies have all fallen into the
Don's bottomless pit, with a grim-
ace and a last look, they slink off
like hounds to their resting place
on the cobblestones without.

Viewed from a distance, the scene
is vivid and striking, — above, a strip
of stars and a strip of black clouds;
to the left, a strange, wierd blaze is
kindled that sets a dog to howling
as if his collar would break. Now
of the crowd that huddles under the
long portals, all are not besotted
fathers and weak-eyed mothers;
pairs of young lovers sit cooing and
laughing. A match shows for an
instant three dark faces held close
together around it, all eager to get
a whiff at their cigarettes. Then
comes a great rustling and murmur-
ing of innumerable leaves in the
towering fig trees, and clouds of
dust sweep swirling down the road.
Mysterious figures with packs on
their backs trudge wearily up to the
hacienda's portal, drop on the cob-
ble-stones, and fall fast asleep.
Then the wind lulls, the watch-dog
forgets his fears, the chirp of the
cricket and the croak of the frog
tick off the still hours, and the great
hacienda is at rest, rest where a
capitol has stood, rest where a na-
tion lies buried.

The Undoing of Charity Randall

By Eleanor H. Porter

HEN old Peter Randall died,
Plainville saw little change in
"the store." The crackers
were as convenient to a covetous
hand, and the cheese on the end of
the counter was as generously ac-
cessible as ever. Moreover, the bar-
rels and boxes grouped around the
stove still invited to a social chat.

The tall, spare figure of Peter
Randall was, indeed, no longer
present ; but the form of a woman — ■
nearly as tall and quite as spare —
stood in its place. She was Charity
Randall, the daughter of the house —
a Peter Randall in petticoats. The
men of Plainville found that femi-
nine hands could tie up parcels and
cut tobacco with deft swiftness, and
the women were glad to discuss
cooking and calicoes with one of
their own sex.

Charity's daily life was simple
and open to the knowledge of all.
She arose, ate, worked, and went to
bed. The entire village was wel-
come to know what she ate and how
she cooked it, and she made no se-
cret of her occasional new gowns
nor of what they cost. She asked
but one thing in return — an equal
open-heartedness on the part of her
neighbors.

It was just here that Charity was
disappointed. The people of Plain-
ville did not propose to open their
closets and bring forth the family
skeleton that Charity might enjoy
the rattling of its bones ; and though
a dinner or a dress was not always
a skeleton, yet the principle was the

207

same in their eyes, and they stoutly
r eb e 1 1 e d — sometimes ineffectually,
however, so disarming in its kind-
heartedness was her frankly dis-
played interest, as Charity, for all
her love of gossip, was never ma-
licious. She was ready to laugh or
cry as the case demanded — that she
might have the opportunity to do
one or the other was all she asked.

The fact that Charity kept the
village store and ran the post office
was that much to her advantage ; the
magic circle of barrels and boxes
around the old stove — whether
summer or winter — being a wonder-
ful source of information, to say
nothing of the tales told by the very
fatness or the leanness of the letters
that passed through her interested
fingers.

It was one of the plump sort of
letters — plump even to double pos-
tage— that Charity put into Grace
Carlton's hands late one warm June
afternoon.

"Bigger'n ever, Grade," she
chuckled. "Been comin' pretty
often, too!"

The young girl bit her lips and
flushed scarlet, but she did not
answer.

"You needn't color up, so, child —
though I must say it makes ye look
prettier'n ever," observed Charity.

Grace laughed in spite of herself.
It was by just such skillful turns
that Charity blunted her shafts of
inquisitiveness and rendered them
less liable to give offense.

The woman noted the laugh and

208

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the pleased look that danced in the
girl's eyes. She deemed it a fitting
time to ask a certain question that
had long trembled on her lips.

"Oh, Grade," she coaxed, as the
girl turned away, "everyone asks
me when the wedding will be, and
I never know what to say. What
shall I tell 'em?"

"Tell them you do not know !"
retorted the girl, looking her tor-
mentor straight in the eye, then
swiftly leaving the store.

"Well, I never — but she is a cute
one!" chuckled Miss Randall turn-
ing to a woman who had been stand-
ing by, a silent witness to her dis-
comfiture. "Now, Mirindy, I'll
leave it to you — would ye think
she'd be so secret about a little thing
like that?"

"Well, I don't know," began Mrs.
Durgin cautiously, but the other in-
terrupted.

"Why, Mirindy, if I was engaged
and goin' to be married — don't ye
think I'd tell of it?"

Mrs. Durgin looked across the
counter with a quizzical smile in
her eyes that Charity did not in the
least appreciate.

"Yes, Charity, I am sure you
would — very sure !" she repeated
with a slow nod of her head.

"Well, then, I ain't askin' anythin'
tut what I'm willin' to give," as-
serted Charity, triumphantly.
"Now, really, where is the use of
bein' so awful secret about things?
Why, only to-day I asked Molly
Sargent a simple little question
about that girl who came there last
week so mysterious like — she's been
there ever since, ye know — but I
couldn't find out a thing. Let's
see — was it tea ye wanted — beside
the sugar? — quarter of a pound?"

Mrs. Durgin nodded; she had long
ago learned to resort to wordless

gestures when Charity was in this
mood.

"Well, as I was sayin'," continued
the store-keeper, squinting carefully
at the quarter-of-a-pound notch on
the scales and dropping the last nec-
essary bit of tea, leaf by leaf, from
her fingers, "as I was sayin', I don't
ask more than I am perfectly will-
in' to give, and that seems fair to
me."

"But, Charity, don't you see? — -
some people have things in their
families that they'd rather people
didn't know about," remonstrated
Mrs. Durgin, breaking for once her
rule of silence.

"Well, they hadn't oughter have !"
remarked Charity, whisking the tea
into a tiny bag and binding it with
a string.

"Perhaps not — but sometimes
they can't help it."

"But it don't do no good to keep
secret about it," Charity insisted.
"Why, if I was rich, or poor, or sick,
or well, or had a dozen beaus — what
difference would it make to me
whether folks knew it or not? —
Anythin' else to-day, Mirindy?"

"No ; I guess that'll do for now,"
replied Mrs. Durgin, gathering her
packages into her bag and turning
away. She hesitated a moment,
then looked back and said : "I hap-
pen to know that that girl at Molly
Sargent's is a poor relation that
they've taken in ; they ain't very
proud of her, so you'd better not
ask any more questions in that
quarter, Charity."

"Land sakes ! — why didn't ye say
so before? What — " the door closed
sharply and Charity was left to her-
self.

"Well, I never!" she murmured,
as she went about her preparations
for the night.

Charity's tiny cottage was next

to the store. She lived there in in-
dependent solitude — splitting her
own kindling wood, building her
own fires, and shoveling her own
paths in winter; the one concession
she made to her sex being a nightly
search under her bed for burglars.

For thirty-odd years she had per-
formed this act — religiously, auto-
matically; first with trepidation,
then with the calm assurance born
of long years of comforting vacancy
in the searched quarters.

To-night, after Mrs. Durgin's de-
parture, Charity closed the store,
locked it carefully, and crossed the
garden to the cottage. Her bread-
and-milk supper she ate on the back
porch; and it was there, too, that
she sat reading the weekly journal
until the twilight of the long day
made the type invisible.

On the stroke of nine she started
for bed. Lighting a small brass
chamber lamp, she locked the doors,
tried the windows, and climbed the
stairs to her room. She set the
lamp on a chair where it would best
suit her purpose, and turned to her
first duty — the bed.

Carelessly, and as a matter of
course, she bent her back and
lowered her head, lifting the spot-
lessly white valance around the bed-
stead as she did so. A moment
later, her body stiffened and her
eyes almost started from their sock-
ets. .

That was not all shadow in the
farther corner ! Moreover, the
heavy sole of a boot lay flatly to-
wards her — unmistakably the boot
of a man. She could dimly see the
outline of his body as he lay on his
back towards her. Very softly
Charity dropped the valance and
stood upright.

A danger hidden was a terror to
her, but let that danger be once re-

vealed, and she gloried in it.
Swiftly crossing the room she
opened her bureau drawer and took
out a small revolver — the most
modern thing the room contained ;
then she established herself com-
fortably in a chair facing the bed,
and cocked the weapon in her hands.

"You may come out from under
that, now, sir," she said slowly and
distinctly.

There was no reply.

"Come out, I say — come out !" re-
iterated the woman a little louder.
"You can't play that game — I've
seen ye and I know yer there. Now
come !"

There was a muffled stir under the
bed and the sound of a large body
dragging itself along a narrow way.

"Well, By Jingo, you're a rum
one, an' no mistake !" murmured the
man, making a frantic clutch at the
valance and peering out into the
room.

His eyes blinked at the light and
at a shining" something in the wo-
man's hand. Suddenly he realized
what that something was and
ducked back under the bed with a
howl of terror.

"Confound ye — put up that shoot-
in'-iron !" he snarled.

"Mebbe yer 'fraid," suggested the
woman, calmly. "It won't go off
unless I let it."

"Afraid!" groaned the hiding
man ; "who wouldn't be afraid with
that thing in a woman's hands? If
it was in a man's, now, I'd stand
some show — he'd know what he was
about ; but a woman — good lord !
Come — put it up, an' I'll come out!"

He could scarcely have made a
worse mistake. It was not upon
"womanliness" that Charity prided
herself. To taunt her with inca-
pacity, and that because she was a
woman, was to commit the un-

210

NEW E N G L A N D M AGAZINE

pardonable sin in her eyes. An
angry flush rose to her cheeks and
her thin lips tightened.

"Very well then, you can stay
where you are. I am comfortable,
at any rate," she returned with a
suggestive emphasis on the "I".

There was noise, which was a
cross between a snarl and a growl,
from under the bed, and then a half-
smothered curse.

"Now see here," warned Charity,
"you stop that swearing right away
or I'll let this thing ofl at a venture.
What do ye mean by such actions?
What are ye there for, anyhow?"

"Because I don't dare to come out,
I tell ye," retorted the man.

A grim smile covered Miss Ran-
dall's lips.

"Well yer brave, I must say,
whatever else ye are!" she ejacu-
lated scornfully.

"See here, Charity, put down yer
gun — I want to come out!" The
words and the voice were in sharp
command, and the fact that he had
called her by her name blanched
Charity's cheek.

"Why — who — who are you?" she
faltered.

"I'm Mark Randall — do ye want
to shoot yer own brother?"

"I — I don't believe it!" she pro-
tested feebly, trying to steady her
voice.

There was a half-stifled chuckle
from under the bed.

"Well, I hain't got a strawb'ry
mark on my left arm, Charity, but
I reckon I can tell ye some stories
of Marshfield, and Bob, and Daisy,
and Star-face that'll convince ye all
right. Come! Quit yer nonsense
and drop that gun. It's confounded
hot and stuffy here !"

Marshfield ! — her home until she
was sixteen; Bob — the dog; Daisy —
the cat; Star-face — the dear little

colt she had loved so well ! Her
fingers loosened and the revolver
fell to the floor with a clatter. The
man heard, and crawled painfully
out where the light from the little
brass lamp showed his big red face
and bleary eyes in all their hideous-
ness. He stretched his cramped
limbs luxuriously, then turned to the
woman who sat regarding him in
dismayed horror.

"Well, you ain't over cordial in
yer welcome, it strikes me," he ob-
served.

Charity swallowed to moisten her
dry throat, but the words refused to
come.

"Mebbe you ain't glad to see me,"
he hazarded. "Mebbe yer friends
here don't know anythin' about yer
good-fer-nothin' brother what ye
hain't seen for most thirty years —
eh ?"

Charity shook her head weakly.

"I — I thought you was dead," she
whispered.

"Well, I ain't — an' I'm hungry!
Got anythin' ter eat?"

Charity rose unsteadily to her feet,
picked up the lamp, and started
down the stairs motioning to her
visitor to follow. She moved in a
kind of daze, scarcely knowing what
she did ; yet her first care when she
entered the kitchen was to see that
the shades of all the windows were
pulled down to the sills — a position
in which Charity Randall's kitchen
curtains had never been before.

She set the best the little house
afforded on the table, then watched
him in growing despair as he
shoveled the food into his mouth
with his knife.

After he had eaten, he talked.
The story of crime and misery that
he told sickened and frightened her.
He said that he had reached his last
penny, now, and that he thought his

THE UNDOING OF CHARITY RANDALL

211

sister had ought to give him a "lift."

They talked until far into the
night, in the end coming to a con-
clusion that sent Charity to bed
with a heavy heart, but also with the
consciousness that she had done the
best she could do under the circum-
stances.

One thing was insisted upon from
the first — he should not be known as
her brother. His name should be
Mark Smith and he should be her
"hired man" at the store. He would
sleep in the store, also, though his
meals he would take with her. She
sped with guilty swiftness through
the dew-wet garden that very night
and showed the man to the little
room back of the store where was
an old couch used by her father on
occasional nights years before.
With a promise to see that more
was done in the morning for his
comfort, Charity left the man in the
tiny room and hastened back to the
house, and to a sleepless night of
weary tossing to-and-fro on her pil-
low.

The village wTas plainly astounded
at the sudden appearance of the-
"new hand" at Randall's. Indeed,
for three days Charity had a mar-
velous trade — nearly every man,
woman, and child in the place either
collectively or separately making
some sort of a purchase. Charity
suddenly found herself without a
pin in the store, for — as a thrifty
farmer's wife observed — "pins is al-
ways handy," and all who could
think of nothing else to buy had in-
vested in a paper of pins.

Mrs. Durgin had been among the
first to appear. Mark was leisurely
dusting the shelves in the back of
the store when she came in. She
glanced at his great red face and
awkward movements disapproving-

ly, then she turned to Charity who
had promptly advanced.

"I want some coffee, please, — a
pound," said Mrs. Durgin.

Charity raised her eyebrows.

"I mean — er — tea," blundered
Mrs. Durgin, growing strangely em-
barrassed.

"Tea? Certainly — of course — the
same kind ye bought yesterday?"

"Huh? Why, sure enough — I did
get some yesterday, didn't I! What
am I thinking of!" muttered Mrs,
Durgin, her face a mottled red. "It
was pins I wanted — a paper of 'em,
and — er— a pound of yer fancy
cookies, please," she finished with
resolute conviction.

Charity busied herself behind the
counter in unusual silence, and Mrs.
Durgin glanced furtively over her
shoulder at the strange clerk.

"Got a new man — eh?" she ven-
tured.

"Yes ; needed him to help — beea
so busy," Charity returned shortly^

"Um — nm ; kinder sudden, waVi
it?"

A slow red crept into Miss Ran-
dall's cheeks and she snapped the
string of the cracker bag viciously
in her fingers.

"Oh, mebbe — kinder. Any thin'
else, Mis' Durgin?"

"No, I don't know as there is.
Er — he don't look over handy,
Charity. You didn't take him with-
out good recommendations, now, did
ye?" persisted the customer in a
subdued voice.

A loud cough from the man made
the two women jump nervously. He
choked and gasped for some time
before he seemed to catch his breath
and when he did regain it, his face
was a deeper red than ever.

"He ain't healthy, neither," con-
tinued Mrs. Durgin. "He's con-
sumptive or apoplectic or something

I should think," she added with a
keen glance at Charity.

Miss Randall did not seem to hear.
She was hastily turning over a pile
of ginghams on the counter.

"Say, Mirindy," she began in
plainly forced eagerness, "I want ye
to see this dress pattern. There !
Now ain't that pretty as a picture?"
she demanded, holding up to the
light a green and black check.

"Urn — um — er — yes, rather," con-
ceded the other. "You've got lots
of 'em, too. Trade been kinder
dull?" she asked, setting a trap for
Charity's unwary feet.

"Yes, terrible dull," acquiesced
Charity, falling headlong and be-
coming hopelessly entangled at
once. "Spring trade's been pretty
slim," — there was another choking
cough from the new clerk, but the
women did not notice. "But these
are all new goods, Mirindy — -I
wouldn't show ye nothin' else. Now
I think this green and black would
fust*suit you, Mirindy, you can wear
them tryin' shades. There ain't
many what can You really oughter
have it," she urged.

ivirs. Dm gin shook her head and
turned toward the door. As she
passed down the street, she mut-
tered under her breath :

"There's somethin' wrong there;
she needed him to 'help,' yet trade's
been 'slim' and 'dull' — there surely
is something wrong!"

The Avhole town echoed this ver-
dict before the week was out. The
coughing clerk must have instructed
Charity on one point, for she was
not again guilty of complaining of
dull trade in the next breath after
explaining his presence as being
necessary to "help" ; but she made
many remarks equally illogical. In-
deed as time passed, Plainville peo-
ple became very much exercised

over the affair, and it assumed an
importance in their eyes all out of
proportion to its real worth.

At first the town was inclined to
think that Charity was being im-
posed upon, and they sympathized
accordingly. The man Smith was
known to have shirked his duties,
and he was frowned upon as being
lazy. Some even went so far as to
remonstrate with Charity and sug-
gest his dismissal. To these Charity
always doggedly replied*: "I am per-
fectly satisfied ; I shall make no
change." This retort did not please
Plainville and it speedily stanched
the flow of sympathy.

One day Mrs. Durgin entered the
store with a very determined face.
She had witnessed Smith's depart-
ure some time before with a basket
of goods, and she found Charity
alone as she had hoped she would.

"Charity, who is this man?" she
began aggressively.

Miss Randall steeled he-**-' for
the battle she knew was com ag.

"What man ?" she temporized.

"You know very well who I mean
— this Smith."

"Well, his name is Mark, and he
is my clerk," Charity replied, with
a smooth sweetness quite foreign to
her usual manner.

"Humph ! But who is he? — where
did he come from? — who are his
folks?"

Miss Randall's face became a sick-
ly gray.

"His folks? Why, Mirindy — how
should I know? Do ye s'pose I in-
quired into his family tree?" she re-
turned flippantly.

Mrs. Durgin looked sharply into
Charity's face, then changed the
subject with peculiar abruptness.

"That girl at Sargent's has gone
away."

"Is that so !" exclaimed Charity

THE UNDOING OF CHARITY RANDALL

213

with some show of interest, and a
greater relief in her voice than the
subject would seem to demand.

"Yes;" affirmed Mrs. Durgin.
"They've been awful secret about
her. For my part, I don't see why."

"Mebbe there's somethin' they
don't want folks to know," — Chari-
ty's voice was very faint.

Mrs. Durgin's eyelids quivered,
and she looked at Charity through
half-shut eyes.

"But there hadn't oughter be !"
she persisted.

"Mebbe they couldn't help it," be-
gan Charity weakly, but the other
interrupted.

"Why, Charity Randall! You
said yourself not a month ago that
it didn't do no good to keep things
so secret — seems to me you've
changed your tune !"

At that moment Mark Smith en-
tered the door, and for the first time
since he came to her, Charity re-
joiced in his presence. Mrs. Durgin
bought a spool of thread and silent-
ly left the store.

Matters went from bad to worse ;
wild rumors, like birds of ill-omen,
hovered over the town. Something
was certainly wrong at Randall's.
Added to tales of Charity's unac-
countable partisanship of Smith
came the report that he had been
overheard to call her by her given
name. Moreover, he had been seen
skulking in the dead of night
through the garden path that led
from the house to the store. The
curtains at Charity's cottage win-
dows became unfailing signs of
wrongdoing, so frequently were they
pulled close down to the sill.

Then sidelong glances began to be
cast at Charity on the street. The
women came less and less frequently

trading in a silent dignity that was
almost an accusation.

Charity was so miserable with her
own thoughts that she scarcely
noticed these changes. Her con-
science pricked painfully at the de-
ception she was practicing, and she
attended church twice every Sunday
now in a vain attempt to find peace.

Smith was a sore trouble to her.
Besides being lazy and insolent, he
drank ! and so ruled her absolutely
with his threat of drink whenever
his will crossed hers. Many a mid-
night luncheon he enjoyed in Char-
ity's kitchen, simply because she
dared not refuse to get him the food
lest he steep himself in whiskey and
make her life yet more of a burden
to her.

It was at the sewing society that
the storm broke. Charity had been
absent the last few times, and the
neighbors did not expect her that
afternoon. Charity herself had not
at first intended to be there, but she
was heart-sick and weary, and short-
ly after the hour of assembling, she
suddenly determined to go, think-
ing the change might take her out
of herself for the time.

No one saw her enter the hall and
go up stairs to remove her bonnet;
the other ladies had all arrived and
were in the parlor — needles gleam-
ing, and tongues wagging.

Charity's footsteps made no sound
as she slowly descended the stairs,
but at the foot of the flight she was
brought to a sudden stop by the de-
risive speaking of her name from the
parlor just beyond.

Drop by drop the blood faded
from her cheek and seemed to clog
and stiffen in her heart as her limbs
became cold and rigid at what she
heard. Then the full meaning of the
cruel words and sneering innuendoes

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

blood back to her face in surging
waves of crimson.

With a long stride she covered the
distance between her and the open
door. Her spare form towered to its
greatest height as she appeared in
all the majesty of a righteous wrath
before the cowering women.

"When you have quite finished,"
she began in a slow, distinct voice,
"I should like to say a word myself.
The man you are discussing so free-
ly is my brother, Mark Randall, who
ran away from home when I was
sixteen — before I moved here. He
came to me poor, without a friend in
the world, and I have done what I
could for him. I" — her voice trem-
bled and almost broke — "I wa'n't
proud of him and — I changed his
name. It wa'n't right, and I know
it. But" — with renewed wrath — -
"before you tear a woman's reputa-
tion to rags and tatters next time —
be sure that the man ain't — ain't her
brother!" she finished weakly.

Another moment and the doorway
was empty, while Charity's gaunt
figure — all bonnetless as it was — -
hurried down the walk and past the
windows.

For a minute the assembled wo-
men were speechless with terror and
loss of breath, and even when their
tongues were loosened, the words
came with a halting inarticulateness
that plainly testified to the shock of
Charity's revelation. For long days
afterward they spoke of that day

and of that speech with bated breath.

Plainville supposed that its meas-
ure of sensation was full, but some-
thing yet more disquieting occurred
before the week was out. Certain
blue-coated, brass-buttoned guardi-
ans of the peace descended from a
neighboring city and arrested Chari-
ty's clerk. It then transpired that
the man was not Mark Randall, nor
yet was he Mark Smith. His real
name was buried under so long a list
of aliases that it was almost impos-
sible to resurrect it from the obli-
vion of disuse.

He had known the real Mark Ran-
dall— long since dead — and had
learned from him the stories of the
family life at Marshfield, with which
stories he had won so easy a living
from the too credulous Charity. He
was arrested for a long list of crimes
in which theft and forgery played a
prominent part; and his comet-like
career in the sky of Plainville was
the talk of the town for months.

Very gradually things settled
back into the old ruts, and "Ran-
dall's" became once more the center
of social chat. Charity only was
changed. Her blue eyes lost their
questioning look, and her lips sel-
dom asked for news. One might
produce one's family skeleton and
cause it to dance a fandango before
Charity, now, and scarcely an eyelid
would quiver. If she saw — she
made no sign.

Thomas B . Reed

An Appreciation

By Enoch Knight

BEGINNING with the campaign
of 1856 the State of Maine be-
came a great factor in national
politics. It was in the early sum-
mer of that year that the Republican
State Convention, in the quiet old
city of Portland, ratified the nomi-
nation of Fremont and Dayton and-
inaugurated the first national cam-
paign of that party. It was a re-
markable gathering. All the old po-
litical leaders who were to range
themselves upon the new party
alignment were there, the Fessen-
dens, the Morrills, the Washburns
and many more, — the most notable
of all being Hannibal Hamlin, just
resigned as a Democratic Senator,
and who appeared at the head of
three hundred red-shirted Penob-
scot river drivers, bearing a banner
with the legend : "The Jam's Broke."
The city went wild that night ; bon-
fires blazed, orators harangued and
the young men sang Whittier's
lines :

"Rise up, Fremont, and go before,
The hour must have its man,
Put on the hunting shirt once more,
And lead in Freedom's van."

To the political fruitage of that
time was added the rich flowering
of the new birth of oratory and
poetry in New England, which set
a high standard of thinking and al-
most made a new political atmos-
phere. Besides, Maine spoke first
of all the northern states, and every
fall, under the old regime, saw a

battle royal participated in by the
leading orators of the land. It was
in this high company and stirred by
its mighty voices and the terrible
earnestness of the times, that Thom-
as B. Reed grew from boyhood to
become the giant of this race of
strong men, in the fullness of his
time. Reed was born to be great,
and like most men of his class, had
a consciousness of what he was able
to do and become. Always strik-
ing in size, gait, and speech, he was
a man everybody looked at. He did
not "blaze in a crowd," as the
Englishman said of Blaine, but in
a way all his own he towered above
the crowd and nobody ever cared
for the details. He was so big, so
slow of speech and motion, that he
seemed to mature late ; but he did
not lose by it, for he had read and
remembered as few boys and young
men do, and when he finally came
into the arena of work it was with
full equipment and with a brain that
had neither been overworked nor
underfed. It was felt by his col-
lege and other friends that he pos-
sessed unusual promise and yet it
was not easy to define it. He was
essentially a student, and curiously
conservative, albeit the very atmos-
phere of the time was full of re-
forms. Fie held to a few lines of
study and never scattered. At bot-
tom was the intensity of belief in
human rights and individualism
that never weakened or brooked

215

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

challenge. This was a passion with
him, from the time when he laughed
to scorn the dogmatism of Jonathan
Edwards, in the face of pastor,
people and family, down to his latest
utterance on our new colonial policy.
Reed was a believer in woman
suffrage but he could never be per-
suaded by its advocates to take any
part in advocating it. And so with
many questions that engaged the
attention of others of his personal
and party friends. His political
creed was very simple — the business
of honestly and safely carrying on
the government. He believed that
his party stood for the only worthy
and safe policy and so he was an
intense partisan. He never wavered
or wearied in its support nor al-
lowed others to, without rebuke.
What he did not approve he kept
to himself, at least he did not give
aid and comfort to the other side,
for whose claims to rule he had only
open scorn, and did not mind say-
ing that "individual Democrats
have principles, but the party has
none." It was the almost terrible
seriousness of his idea of political
duty, joined with his great personal
force, that made him, from the first,
a leader in any time of stress. He
had made up his mind on certain
main lines of policy, and nothing
less and nothing else could be al-
lowed to get in the way. He did
not seem to care for controversy
for controversy'? sake, but was so
confident and so tenacious of
opinion, that surroundings never
seemed to change or affect his
views. He did not claim that his
party fellows were saints, but, as
he humorously expressed it, he felt
himself "doing the Lord's business"
when he could help his side con-
fuse the Democrats, and in every

who, as Blaine once said of himself,
"shot to hit and hit to kill," when
his blood was up.

In a certain sense Reed was not
popular, and yet from the very first
he was a notable and familiar figure
at Washington, and easily won the
Speakership of the 51st Congress
over seniors in service and su-
periors in political skill, — for tact
he had none. The first contest
proved him to be a man who dared
to do what he declared ought to be
done. He knew how precious is
time and how wasteful is loose de-
bating when vital legislation waits.
He had even deplored the custom
of week-day memorial addresses, and
early adjournments, when such ser-
vices were more appropriately held
on the Sabbath ; a practice, by the
way, that appears to have been just
now adopted.

The Speaker wanted things done,
and little by little it had come to
depend upon him whether or riot
they were to be done. At last he
brought the House leaders and the
Committee on Rules to the support
of his purpose, to count in the roll
call members present. He declared
that he could not bear to see his
party the victims and the sport of
a noisy, defiant and mocking mi-
nority. It seems that he had thought
it all out, even to the end, what he
should do if his plan was not
adopted, and he declared to a
friend, not long before his death,
that it is easy to do a thing when
every contingency has been pro-
vided for, and that it is only when
one is taken by surprise that one is
really worried. At any rate, Reed
Avas in complacent mood when he
summoned McMillan, of the mi-
nority of the Committee on Rules,

THOMAS B. REED— AN APPRECIATION

217

Speaker, Mr. Cannon and Mr. Mc-
Kinley of the majority, in the
Speaker's room, to hear the an-
nouncement of the new rule — as to
counting the members at roll call.
The story goes that Reed, who had
the habit of familiarly calling fellow
members by their first names,
called out to McMillan when he ap-
peared : "Mac, I sent for you that
you might know the outrage that
Joe and I and Bill have put up on
you and Jim," (Blount of Georgia),
and read to him the proposed special
order.

"When do you propose to under-
take to enforce this?"

"Now," answered Reed; and at
that instant his messenger an-
nounced, "It is 12 o'clock, Mr.
Speaker." Reed lumbered along to
his desk and after the journal had
been read, took a survey of the
House. His party was behind him,
as he expected them to be. He had
said that very morning to Hicks, of
Pennsylvania, with his significant,
inimitable drawl : "Hicks, you were
not at school yesterday. Did you
bring an excuse from your mother?"

The story of the curious and me-
morable scene that followed the
order to the clerk to enter and count
the names of the members of the
minority present, need not be told
again.

"I deny the right of the Speaker
to count me present," shouted Mc-
Creary of Kentucky, above the din.

With a twinkle in his eye and a
little note of triumph in his voice,
Reed replied: "The Chair simply
stated the fact that the gentleman
from Kentucky appears to be pres-
ent; does he deny it?"

That settled the logic of the
situation and twenty minutes more
settled the whole question ; and the

ever enacted at the Capitol was
closed. There were criticism and
opposition to this proceeding, and
Mr. Blaine, the best parliamentarian
of his time, thought it worth his
while to write a magazine article in
disapproval. But the people at large
approved. They thought that, if
members could be brought in by the
Sergeant-at-arms and compelled to
be present, it meant, if it meant any-
thing, that they should be compelled
to act, — to do their duty; and that
silence was denial of that obligation
and a defeat of legislation.

It does not appear that in this
whole business Reed was moved by
any considerations but those of duty.
He determined to do this, had
schooled himself to take the conse-
quences and he held his party to
it with a grip that never for an
instant relaxed. He simply could
not bear the humility of the old
situation, and had often scouted the
loose methods of the Senate, of
which body he once said : "The
Senate is a nice, quiet sort of place
where good Representatives go
when they die." No other party
leader would have dared to propose
so bold a change in parliamentary
methods, and no other man could
have held his party in line. But
this man did it, did it without
bluster and without one unneces-
sary maneuver, or useless word.

One is reminded of the similarity
of conduct and temper between
Reed and Jackson, the only man
with whom he can be compared in
these characteristics. While Reed
was a learned man, as Jackson was
furtherest from it, like the latter
he had that high pride and courage
that did not shrink from what
seemed to be duty. Finesse and
indirection were impossible to him.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

against nullification at a party coun-
cil in the privacy of his own house,
scorning to feel the public pulse first,
so Reed scorned to filter his plan
and purpose through the minds of
calculating friends or the newspaper
gossip of the day. He bore himself,
too, apparently unruffled in the
sorest straits, too proud to let an
enemy know the pain he felt. Even
as Jackson walked from the field of
the deadly duel with Dickinson, as
if unscathed, though sharply smit-
ten by a bullet wound in his own
breast, lest his antagonist should
have the satisfaction of knowing
that he was hurt, so Reed, at the
closing moments of the 51st Con-
gress, when he laid down the gavel
and turned away from the Speaker's
desk without the customary compli-
mentary vote, upon motion of the
opposition — the Democrats sitting
in sullen silence — bore himself as if
wholly unmoved through the trying
scene. Though his party cheered
and personal friends pressed and
thronged around him, he took
no man's hand, looked into no
man's eyes, but strode, in the same
old deliberate way to his room,
closed the door with its spring lock
behind him, threw himself into a
chair by the long table, bowed his
head upon it, and one newspaper
correspondent who was perhaps
nearer to him than any other man
in Washington, declared — how tru-
ly no one else now knows — that
great tears ran down his cheeks ;
for, curiously enough, there are
times when tears alone can keep the
nerves of the strongest men from
snapping.

Perhaps if Reed could have seen
ahead of the dark days of 1892 that
put his party out of power, and sup-
planted him as Speaker, could have
seen ahead to the six years of future

rule and his complete vindication, he
would have borne the heat and bur-
den of those days with a somewhat
lighter heart, for the opposition paid
off some old scores albeit they also
paid him the sincere flattery of imi-
tating his methods, though in a mod-
ified form. More than ever before,
his party relied upon him as House
leader in almost blind obedience, for
he had taken and held the fore-
most place in the very front rank,
as only a man of uncommon force
can do. This prominence placed up-
on him some burdens as well as easy
honors and made him an occasional
victim of the opposition's wrath ; as
when, for a rather mild infraction of
the rules, Speaker Crisp ordered
"The Gentleman from Maine" to his
seat, in charge of the Sergeant-at-
arms. Reed had lingered at the
Clerk's desk to keep tab on an excit-
ing roll-call and did not at first com-
ply with the order, but rather
seemed inclined to argue the point.
He soon yielded, however, and went
slowly to his seat with his head
half turned backward all the while,
much as a huge, sullen animal
might do when taken back to his
cage. But the affair was not with-
out its helpful side. If it was not
quite justifiable, it helped to square
some old accounts, and it was often
observed thereafter that the Demo-
crats had conceived a liking for
Reed, who was so open and so brave
a fighter ; something that was amply
shown when he finally left the
Speaker's chair, and Bailey, now of
the Senate, in moving a vote of
thanks, made an address replete
with grace and tact, to which Reed
responded with the deepest feeling.
Another incident in Mr. Reed's
life about this time, better than any-
thing else that ever happened,
showed some peculiar qualities of
the man. He had a really exalted

THOMAS B. REED— AN APPRECIATION

219

sense of what a man must do who
would at once stand for his party
and also be faithful to his friends
and the public. His definition of a
statesman as "a politician who is
dead," meant also that a live poli-
tician could and should be a states-
man. Not only did he ever strive
to hold himself and his party to a
high standard of political honesty
and open dealing, but he was wholly
and absolutely without the arts sup-
posed to be necessary to advance
one's personal and political interests.
It may be new to some readers that
Mr. Reed might have made himself
an important factor in the Presi-
dential contest of 1892, if only he
had possessed the strategic skill and
the desire to play a part at the Min-
neapolis convention. It was gen-
erally feared by the party leaders
that Harrison could not be re-
elected. Times were getting bad,
the McKinley tariff of '90 was not
everywhere popular, the treasury
was swamped with unusable silver
which had been paid for from the
dwindling hoard of gold, and,
worse than all, labor troubles were
breaking out, notably at Homestead
where bloody scenes were daily en-
acted. Blaine, who had broken with
the Administration and left the
Cabinet, had finally allowed his
name to be used after the most
urgent demands of his old friends,
who not only believed that he de-
served the Presidency, but was the
only man who could possibly win
it. The writer of this was present
at a conference of some gentlemen
sojourning in Southern California,
who sent out a telegram to Blaine,
framed by Mr. Medill of the Chi-
cago Tribune, and which read :
"Stand for the nomination unless
you feel that it will kill you."

At length the embittered forces

of Harrison and Blaine met at Min-
neapolis. On one side a powerful
administration force, with perfect
organization, and on the other, the
doubters and the open enemies who
demanded that justice be done the
man who was the best beloved of
his party, and who, they declared,
but for the unexampled show of
patronage and promise, would be the
choice of any Republican conven-
tion. It was a pathetic, pitiful
struggle on the part of the followers
of Blaine, who knew his bodily in-
firmity but loved him all the more,
and who, bent on winning with him,
or breaking the slate, were many
of them secretly hoping for some
diversion to another candidate, fear-
ful lest their first show of strength
might disclose a fatal lack of votes.
It was at the moment when both
sides were holding off and the strain
was at its worst, that Tom Reed was
discovered on the rear of the plat-
form. He was not a delegate, he
was not a worker for either side,
nor was he in any wise in the reck-
oning, much less in the running.
In an instant the entire convention
was on its feet, and in the next it
was upon the seats and tables. It
was the first time Reed had been
seen at any great gathering since
the country had begun to resound
with the accounts of his great par-
liamentary triumph, which the party
everywhere regarded as one of their
newest claims upon public confi-
dence. One correspondent declared
that the great ovation to the ex-
Speaker was the "sole spontaneous
act of the convention, the single
tribute that bore no scent of pur-
chase or pledge." Minutes passed
but the din did not cease. The band
tried to drown the uproar, but it
broke out stronger than ever the
instant the music ceased. Shouts

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

for "Reed," — "Tom Reed," drowned
everything else. Perhaps the Blaine
followers had a purpose in encourag-
ing it all, and it may be true, as was
said at the time, that the Harrison
forces were partly surprised into
their insistent shouts and calls; but
there was only one thing for the
Chairman to do, and that was to
drag Reed to the front, which he
at last did. Never was a bashful
schoolboy more at a loss what to
do or say. A lady friend had tried
to speak to him as he stood at her
side, but he could not trust himself
to answer her. His hands hung
helpless at his side, his face had
no color and his eyes were full of
tears. But at last he managed to
say a few words, the duty and mis-
sion of the Republican party, and
then he — escaped.

What might not a man who was
the hero and the idol of the hour,
whose congressional triumph had
been made a party boast and battle-
cry, have done at such a moment,
if only he had possessed the ambi-
tion and the cunning to turn to
some selfish account that "crowded
hour of glorious life?" — something
that never comes but once, if ever,
to a mortal ! But Reed was incapa-
ble of taking any part, or of turning
to the account of himself or any
friend, the advantage born of such
an incident, even if the whole pos-
sibilities of the situation had oc-
curred to him. Not for one instant
was he capable of making himself
a possible factor in a convention
where he was not accredited and
required to take an open part. I
doubt if there was a man of his
time, or of any time, who more
genuinely discredited and despised
political conniving, or even indirec-
tion, or who had less love for popu-

Four years later Reed became an
avowed candidate, but his nomina-
tion was impossible. First of all,
his state was neither pivotal nor
important, for as there was no un-
certainty as to its vote, there was
no interest to be catered to. Be-
sides, Mr. Reed's views on the deli-
cate interests to be consulted were
so well known that he could not
have been available, in the conven-
tional sense. If there was any dis-
appointment there was no sulking
or shirking on Reed's part in the
absorbing campaign of 1896. He
was the sturdiest of all the cham-
pions of sound money and spoke in
nearly all the great centres, ending
with a brilliant series of meetings
in the principal cities of the Pacific
Coast. Probably there never before
was aroused a higher pitch of po-
litical enthusiasm in California than
during these "Tom Reed days."

Many strong men of his party
have never ceased to regret that he
could not have had further honors
and opportunities, but under our
popular plan it can rarely, if ever,
happen that a man of his inflexible
will and dominating habit can go to
the head. Under the parliamentary
system he would have become pri-
mate, for there was no other man
of his time who, in all the elements
that go to make up individual force
in leadership, was any match
for him. In British politics he
would have been an overmastering
spirit, for he had the intellectual
grasp, the quickness of wit, the
power of sarcasm — often so effec-
tive— that have been found com-
bined in very few public men. He
had the sturdiness and the stub-
bornness of Salisbury, the broad
scholarship — classics and all — of
Roseberry, and the wit and sarcasm

large and best sense, strong with the
people.

Passing more nearly to a study
of the man himself, it can be said
that Mr. Cannon's estimate of his
intellectual strength and uncompro-
mising honesty was shared by every
friend and acquaintance, old and
new. These qualities made a part
of his unique personality, even as
did his manner of speech. He was
a bashful man who shunned the
places where he would be looked at
by the curious, and hated conven-
tional functions and parade. He
had the usual desire for approval
and applause, but he avoided all oc-
casions where there was no legiti-
mate part to enact, and rarely could
be beguiled into lecturing or occa-
sional miscellaneous addresses and
talks/ as, if, somehow,' he held these
to have a cheapening effect. He
wrote for the magazines, and on
rare occasions made addresses up-
on topics outside of politics. There
were also some social functions like
the dinners on Forefathers Day and
the jinks of the Gridiron and Clover
Clubs which he delighted to attend,
red-letter affairs that were the very
breath of life to him. He loved
tilts between brilliant men and
laughed loudest and longest of all
at the good things said. His own
wit was as peculiar as his manner
of speech. His bright sayings came
of his mood and the occasion. He
never was a "funny" man. He
knew, as well as Mr. Blaine knew,
and lived up to his light, that the
story-teller of the cloak room al-
ways comes a little short of being
a really great man, and that, from
the discourses of Epictetus down
to the last word on the subject, it
has ever been said that wit and
humor too often are pitfalls and
perils to men who would be taken

seriously. Reed knew jokes and
good stories but he never carried
a stock. His fun was always his
own, and it came just as naturally
as did his bits of philosophy or his
facts of history. Often his wit
hurt, though it was generally the
delicate sword play whose basis
was fun and good fellowship. In
later years, wit — especially the
bludgeon blow — was less and less
indulged in, and humor, the expres-
sion of gentler moods, was the new-
er phase of his fun. He was
softened too, in many ways, as his
friends and neighbors saw and felt,
during the last long vacation spent
in his old home that last summer
and early fall, where the writer
met him day after day for weeks,
and went over many things, new
and old, .with him... He .was quite
out of all political strife, and there
were no traces of bitterness left.
His law practice was profitable, and
he had added to his income by wise
ventures, till he had no worry over
the future. Indeed he had the air
of a man who had just begun to
grow old and was doing it very
gracefully, having worn off or put
away the wiry and warring mien
that always attaches to a man in
the midst of strife. He deserved
rest and he seemed to have found
real repose in it. I think he felt
especially gratified at the honor of
being chosen out of a great company
of distinguished alumni of the old
college to deliver the oration on its
centennial, the old college that had
been the scene of some severe early
struggles. Old Home Week, too,
had found and left him in pleasant
mood and he was a glad participant
in a celebration in his old district.
All these things had at once soft-
ened and broadened him and es-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

pecially added to the charm and
freedom of his companionship.

Perhaps the best remembered of
all those late summer happenings
was President Roosevelt's day's
stay in Portland. Not only had the
President spoken in significant
praise of Mr. Reed in his forenoon
address to the great throng in the
city square, but he had called upon
him at his house. Both there and
in the large company at the old
Cumberland Club, where awaited a
notable feast and welcome, both
men were at their best. Only those
who were in the far east at the
pinch of the coal famine can quite
understand how trusts, tariff, and
the labor situation, overshadowed
all other questions, and how inevi-
table it was that the President's un-
usual attitude had made these sub-
jects the main topics of conversa-
tion everywhere. Reed unreserved-
ly talked of these things, always
with kindly respect for the Presi-
dent's position, but with very de-
cided views of his own, views ex-
pressed in fragmentary talk over the
morning's news, in a more elaborate
way during leisurely afternoons,
and in little snatches along with the
evening cowboy pool. His direct-
ness and crispness of comment
showed the old simplicity of style.
As to the labor question he held
what, to him, was the logic of the
situation, the remorseless logic he
was always invoking and from
which he was incapable of escaping.
He declared against the position of
the labor unions as illogical and
mischievous. "The striker," said
he, "claims the right to leave his
place and yet to control it." Surely
a straight and simple way to put it.
The trust he thought could not long
work injustice, or even, in the long
run, succeed against the genius of

individualism and the inevitable
kinship between capital and con-
tented labor. Live and let live must
be the next motto, for the capitalist
can never take himself away from
the element of safe, reliable labor,
represented by the great armies of
workers. These must be interested
partakers of the fruits of labor, else
labor cannot be depended upon to
hold up any industrial fabric. Capi-
tal that builds without this support,
builds in the air. Nor can one trust
long maintain itself against a com-
petitor whose business is not along
the lines of natural and just meth-
ods. "All combinations will smash
if they do not deserve to live," was
the refrain throughout.

As to the tariff he thought noth-
ing should be disturbed, for any
tariff is a compromise of jealous in-
terests, and must be, or seem to be
unjust in some particular. But
when a tariff bill is fairly debated
and agreed to, it should stand so
long as the general policy upon
which it is based stands. "It is
safer to trust business to adapt it-
self to schedules, than to tinker at
schedules to try to fit them to real
or fancied needs of trade." He de-
clared that even a tariff injustice,
if not a glaring one, is better borne
than made the occasion of "theo-
retical meddling," which upsets sta-
bility, since "prosperity never
perches upon an uncertainty." For
the doctrine that "Reciprocity is
the handmaid of Protection," he had
small respect. He declared that it
is rather a break that endangers the
whole bulwark of protection. He
instanced many experiments that
really meant giving up a great na-
tion's trade for the possible trade of
a lesser one. He thought these con-
cessions weak and based on a false
sentiment, and said he would like

THOMAS B. REED— AN APPRECIATION

223

to be told, for instance, what good
the letting in sugar free from
Hawaii had done American citizens.
"It has put two millions, probably,
into the pocket of a private interest
instead of the national treasury, and
without benefit to the people."

When I read Reed's magazine
article in December, on Protection,
I found it to be, in substance, the
talks of last vacation time. He
seemed so sure of his ground on the
few single lines of his political
creed, that he never appeared to
question the foundations of his be-
lief. Any question that he had
settled in his own mind, was to him
practically a settled question.
Alone against a thousand strong
men, he would be unmoved, unless
possibly made a little more strenu-
ous. Yet with all his positiveness
he was a man almost wholly with-
out fads or hobbies. Only a few
things he cared about, but these he
would die for. There was little
pride of opinion, nor was he, in
manner, controversial ; but he was
not to be stirred from the beliefs
that were dear to him.

On the Philippine question he had
lost his bitterness of attack but
nothing of his disapproval. He de-
clared that we had taken on "the
last colonial curse of Spain" and in
defiance of every tradition of our
people. "It was a policy no Repub-
lican ought to excuse, much less
adopt." In one conversation it was
suggested that the Filipinos had
been given a great many civil
rights. "No rights at all," declared
Reed, "only privileges, something
given to those who have lost their
rights." And so on, through the
whole discussion, which in some
form or other was often raised, Reed
defended his views with the same
pitiless logic. It has been said of

him that in this Expansion business
he "lacked moral enthusiasm."
Perhaps he did, perhaps he was
wrong; but no one could fail to be
impressed with the tremendous
earnestness of the man. He did not
provoke or seek to prolong discus-
sion of this latter problem, and
seemed only to deplore what was
done, and that so many years of
cost and uncertainty must intervene
before any settlement would be in
sight. Pie expressed no bitterness
in any discussion of the subject,
nor did he seek to prolong it. In-
deed the very last time the matter
was talked over, Reed dismissed it
with the good-natured remark that
when he was a young man he sup-
posed talk was not only safe but
valuable; but now he thought there
were abnormal conditions when one
should keep still, citing the sad
fate of the Kansas pup that impu-
dently barked at the cyclone. "Face
the breeze, but close your jaw," he
declared must be the rule with pru-
dent folks, when things go wild.

The last few months of Mr.
Reed's life showed more sharply
and more clearly than ever, to his
friends, how faithfully and devout-
ly he had worked out the main lines
of his political faith. He had never
wasted, never scattered, but
strengthened his equipment for the
work at hand, and had no ambition
but to be strong there. He never
roamed in any domain where there
was no crop to be grown, nor
troubled himself or others over
mere speculations, or side issues.
His mind was active and his range
of reading and observation wide ;
but he pulled along the main high-
way, carrying his own load without
waste or worry, as a big-brained
man may do, saying what he had to
say in phrase so simple that his

statement was half an argument;
and his sincerity and the occasional
epigram did the rest.

Mr. Reed left public life, which
he loved, for the sake of the interests
of home and family that were so
much dearer to him, for his devo-
tion to these was without stint or
flaw. His private life, in all its re-
lations, was as blameless as his pub-
lic career was honorable. And thus
he lived and died, a man who had
incurred the passing animosities of
some of his fellows, because of his
imperious will, but one whom
calumny could not touch, whom
envy could not belittle, whom fame
and flattery could not sway, nor
money buy or bend.

Shocking as was the sudden tak-
ing off of one who had been to the
country and to his life-long friends
what Tom Reed had been, there re-
mains to the living the gratification

of remembering him to the last in
the full strength of his manhood.
How keen this loss was felt to be,
and how vividly he was remembered
by the great public, has been shown
on every hand; not the least of the
honors to his memory being the
action of Congress in adjourning
on the day his body was borne
away from the Capitol, an honor
only twice bestowed on like occa-
sions, these being the deaths of Clay
and Blaine.

Such a loss not only brings anew
before us the tremendous mystery
of existence here, but it seems to
open a little wider than common the
gate of that other sphere, and we
try to catch something of the vision
that lies beyond, and to gain some
further and fuller meaning and
measure of that richest of all God's
gifts to earth ; the brave, strong,
helpful, human life.

Perplexity

By Clarence H. Urner

The Humming Bird, a bold but fitful lover,

Was made to tease and break the royal Rose's heart
So, o'er the soul the wings of Fancy hover,

Then flitting off, perplex the Dreamer's utmost art.

An Ordeal by Fire

By F. M. Coates

Author of "The Honourable Tom"

JACK WILLOUGHBY stood on
the verandah outside his door,
and looked straight in front of
him, with an air of contented pro-
prietorship. The prospect was well
worth looking at, and from the
boards of the verandah beneath his
feet to the sharp line of frontier
bush two miles away, it was all his
own, and the successful work of his
hands.

The mysterious languid beauty of
the Indian summer lay upon it all ;
upon the little patch of fenced gar-
den, upon the open space where the
fowls pecked and clucked round the
diminished wood pile, upon the half
circle of buildings — stable, granary,
and wagon house — upon the golden
stubble of his gathered crop gilding
the broad prairie beyond.

The great arch of sky was clear,
but over the distant line of trees,
directly in Willoughby's line of
vision, there hung one soft greyish
cloud. As his eye rested upon it, it
broke suddenly, and a second puffed
up below it; and Willoughby turned
his head towards the open door be-
hind him.

"Another bush fire, Kitty," he
said. "That's the third this week.
There must be some tinder knock-
ing about there. I guess I'd better
plough up the stubble round the
farm to-morrow."

"I dare say," answered his wife
listlessly, and Willoughby frowned.
Surely, after only four months of

225

marriage, it was soon to be listless.
He stood still for a moment, then
shook his shoulders impatiently, and
went into the kitchen.

"I'll have to go into town to see
Nelson about those steers," he an-
nounced rather shortly. "I can be
out again by supper time."

His wife was standing by the
table, kneading a great mass of
dough. She was very young, very
pretty, and very tired. Her face
was hard, but her eyes were full of
tears, as she answered quickly —

"Oh, stay and have supper with
Nelson ! — and talk about steers all
evening. He may not be as weary
of them as I am !"

Her husband turned and looked
at her, and saw the hard lines that
matched the hard voice ; but the
tear-dimmed eyes were lowered, and
he did not see them. It did not
strike him that he failed to under-
stand the tired girl who wanted
more than details of the farm to
flavour her days of work. He loved
her so dearly and unquestionably
that he never realized that few
women can take a man's love for
grafted, especially when that love
is all that makes long days of drudg-
ery worth the doing. He forgot
that Kitty was only twenty, and
that her summer of labour had not,
like his, been lived in the broad sun-
shine, but in the unkinder heat of a
stifling kitchen. He only knew that
he did not mean to quarrel, so he

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

said, "I'll be home by seven, any-
way, whether you want me or not,"
and went out to put the horse in.

He thought he was wise in leav-
ing Kitty to get over it, and the fact
that it gave him a very bad heart-
ache, did not have the effect of mak-
ing him any wiser. He drove off
with the frown which so often ac-
companies the ache, and gave his
willing little mare a strenuous hour
of it. And the only thing in life
that was at all clear to him was the
belief that Kitty was tired of the
farm and of him.

The town trail led straight away
from the back of the house due
north for eight lonely miles, his own
farm being the most outlying in the
district. He drove the whole way
without a backward look, found
Nelson, settled the business of the
steers, and was conscious all the
time of Kitty's sweet face with the
new hard lines upon it. It had been
such a soft little face when he had
kissed it first.

He stood in one of the stores with
some other men, and tried to display
his usual interest in the threshing
results, and the price of corn, while
his mind slowly grasped the fact
that he had been a fool to leave
Kitty until he had learned conclu-
sively whether she still loved him
or not. It dawned upon him clearly
that the steers did not matter.

He was trying to listen to the
drawled opinion of a veteran upon
the year's harvest, when a man
standing near the doorway broke in
on the important utterance.

"Here's Tom Bryan coming along
the sidewalk 's if he was a day or
two late. What's hunting you,
Tom ?"

Bryan stopped breathless at the
store door and looked in.

"You fellows will be gassing

when the second deluge comes
along," he said politely. "There's a
big fire down south and — Good
Lord, Jack, is that you? Come here,

man !"

He caught Willoughby's arm and
dragged him out and along the side-
walk to a corner of the street from
which they could see the long lines
of the prairie rolling away south-
ward. The sun was near its setting,
and the sky was splendid with its
glories, but the fiery glow marked
more than the red track of the sun.
A line of angry, flame-pierced
smoke leaped and flickered along the
southern horizon ; the bush fire had
broken loose upon the sun-dried
prairie, and Willoughby's farm lay
right in its track.

In two minutes the town and its
noisy voices were left behind, and
the buggy whirling along the fa-
miliar home trail. Young Bryan
swung himself in as it started, and
presently he put Willoughby's
thoughts into words.

"There's only the plough team on
the farm, isn't there?" he asked, and,
as Willoughby nodded without
speaking— "That's all right. She
could not get off on one of them.
We'll meet her, I guess. Wasn't
there any sign of it when you left?"

"A puff of smoke in the bush;
there has been some nearly every
day for a week. I meant to have
ploughed up an acre or two to-mor-
row."

Willoughby ended with some-
thing like a groan, and looked des-
perately along the endless straight
trail. There was no speck to break
its weary line. The sunshine lay
round and on them, soft and un-
caring; the larks dropped to their
nests in the brown grass; the go-
phers peered out of their holes with
cautious, unsympathetic eyes.

AN ORDEAL BY FIRE

227

With voice and whip Willoughby
urged on the brave mare, and the
hoof beats grew thunderous in his
ears. He spoke no more during that
mad hour, and soon young Bryan
ceased his efforts at consolation.
For there was no sign of the team
or Kitty, even when they were so
near that the little patch of farm
buildings stood out black against
the background of fire.

"It's not got round anyway/'
Bryan said under his breath, but
Willoughby did not heed. The
reek of the smoke was in his eyes;
the hideous crackling of the fire was
magnified in his ears; he only
tightened his grasp on the reins.
Foam flecked from the mare's nos-
trils and her eyes grew wild, but the
iron grip held her to the trail, and
she dashed on into the far-reaching
line of smoke. The sun was sombre
and terrible behind the clouds of
vapour, and the big outline of barn
and stable rose black for a moment
against a frightful curtain of lurid
flame : then the smoke swept over
buildings and homestead, burying
all.

Willoughby brought . the whip
across the mare's streaming shoul-
ders, and, quivering, she plunged
forward. Suddenly the great billow
of smoke parted, and beyond the
buildings, a moving object was
silhouetted sharply for a moment
against the fire. Bryan sprang to his
feet with a shout —

"My God, Willoughby, she's
ploughing \ Oh, well done, well
done !"

The terrified mare swerved fran-
tically, put her head down, and
dashed into the heart of the stifling
smoke, past the house and across to
the stable, where the flying sparks
were running to and fro amongst
the loose straw by the door, whilst

the cattle were bellowing frantically
in their corral. Willoughby flung
the reins away, sprang out, and ran
past the gable of the barn.

Stretching away from his feet, a
hundred yards before him and to
right and left, the ploughed ground
lay dark and moist, circled by lick-
ing, baffled flames. Away to the
right, half hidden by the smoke,
Kitty drove the great ploughing
team into the very face of the wall
of fire. Blackened, scorched and
blinded, she forced the maddened
horses to their work by sheer force
of desperate will and the power in
her rigid aching arms. From her
torn hands, round which the reins
were twisted, the blood dropped
slowly, but the swerving plunging
horses were held to their furrow till
the fire leaped in their red eyes and
in the splashes of foam on their
shoulders. She had not heard the
buggy wheels through the roar of
the flames and the deeper roaring in
her ears : Willoughby was close be-
side her before she saw him.

"Kitty, Kitty, it's all right!" he
cried. "You've done it, my dar-
ling !" — and she reeled sideways and
fell into his outstretched arms.

He untwisted the reins, and the
freed horses, with a frantic swerve,
flung the gang-plough on its side,
and, snorting with terror, dragged it
into the farm-yard, where Bryan
caught and held them.

"Lenox and Burnaby have come
over with Lenox's plough, they're
working at the back !" he shouted,
as Willoughby passed. And, with
a sudden softening, apparent even
in a voice calculated to drown the
sounds of fire and terrified beasts, —
"Is — she hurt?"

Willoughby shook his head and
went on. He carried her into the
kitchen, where the cloth was laid

228

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

for his supper, and the kettle boiled
unheeded on the stove. He laid her
down on the couch, brought oil and
tenderly dressed her scorched lips,
and, when she opened her eyes,
bent down and kissed her burnt and
blistered hands.

"Why didn't you get away on one
of the horses?" he asked, with his
face down.

"I wanted to save the farm — for
you," she whispered hoarsely.

The distant roar of the fire seemed
very far away, the kitchen was si-
lent save for the cheerful voice of
the kettle. Willoughby raised his
head, and looked down into the face
disfigured in his service.

"Did you think it was worth more
to me than you are?" he asked with
a sudden break in his voice.

She did not answer at once, but
presently tears welled up into her
eyes.

"Isn't it?" she asked very wistful-
ly, and a fuller understanding of a
woman's heart came suddenly to
Jack Willoughby. And with his
new-learned wisdom he answered,
his face against his wife's scorched
cheek,

"I love you better than all the
buildings and all the corn in
Canada."

Beauty

By M. C. Allen

Once at the threshold of a House of Art

I chanced when round it stood a sceptic crowd,

Who rudely threw the Gothic doors apart,

And asked where Beauty was, in voices loud.

No answer stirred the sacred twilight there,

And with discordant sneers the senseless rout

Tramped past the marvels of impassioned care,

Whose secrets shrank the insult of their doubt.

I questioned also at this House of Art,
And reverently waited for reply ;

When suddenly, from out my deepest heart,

A soft voice shyly answered : "Here am I !'

The Funeral of John Brown

By Rev. Joshua Young, D. D. .

Editor's Note : — The author of the following article, the venerable Dr. Joshua
Young, died at an advanced age, at his home in Winchester, Massachusetts, a week
or two after submitting the MS to the New England Magazine. The publishers feel
that they have been especially fortunate in securing for publication the last piece
of literary work executed by Dr. Young ; one, too, of such unusual and intrinsic
interest as this story of John Brown's funeral from the pen of the very clergyman
who performed the burial service on that memorable occasion.

IT happened to the writer of
this paper, on the 8th of Decem-
ber, 1859, to stand in the shadow
of a great solitary rock in the wil-
derness of the Adirondack Moun-
tains, and see committed to the
grave, with the usual rites of honor-
able burial, the body of one who
but six days before, beneath the dis-
tant skies of Virginia, was swinging
on a gibbet; convicted by the court
that tried him with indecent haste,
of treason, of conspiring with slaves
to rebel, and of murder in the first
degree. It was a scene of touching
pathos, of unutterable emotion.
Across the wintry sky clouds were
sailing like the swift ships. All
around stood the deep primeval for-
est bending to the western winds,
while in the near distance, capped
with snow, loomed the everlasting
hills, grand and solemn, mingling
the sublimity of nature with the
moral grandeur of an immortal deed.
It was the old, old story of the
prophet's fate :

"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong

forever on the throne;
But the scaffold sways the throne,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God, beyond the shadow, keep-
ing
Watch above His own."

In less than two years thereafter,
the name of John Brown became a
229

nation's epic and gave to an army
song with little merit in itself either
of sentiment or expression an in-
fluence for patriotism in the mighty
struggle that ensued for the nation's
life, hardly inferior to that which
was exerted, during the French
Revolution, by the famous Marseil-
laise. His heroic embrace of death
in behalf of a despised and op-
pressed race, roused from fatal
slumber a nation's conscience,
thrilled all liberty loving hearts the
whole world over, and inaugurated
on this western continent a revolu-
tion of such magnitude as the world
never saw before. It struck the
death knell to chattel slavery with-
in the Union, and swept from the
face of the earth the crudest oppres-
sion that ever revealed the pitiless
contempt of the strong for the weak.

What is familiarly known as John
Brown's Raid at Harper's Ferry,
had, if we may believe the martyr's
own word — and that is not for a
moment to be doubted — a two-fold
object; first to run off slaves, flee
with them to the fastnesses of the
near wooded heights, and thence to
Canada; second, to strike terror to
the hearts of the Slave-holding
States.

Of its disastrous failure, of the
fierce conflict that ensued in which

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

nearly all of the little band of in-
vaders were either killed or wounded,
and the leader himself captured,
blood flowing- from six ghastly
wounds, and thought to be dying,
and his two sons lying dead by his
side — of this the astonishing story
may be read in any one of the several
lives of John Brown to be found in
every town library. The object of
this paper is to complete the won-
derful story, to follow the dead body
of the hero to its last resting place in
the heart of the Adirondacks, de-
scribe the scenes that occurred on
its five days' passage from Harper's
Ferry to North Elba, and thus to
contribute to history an authentic
account of the burial of John Brown ;
and, incidentally, to submit an ex-
planation of the humble part taken
by the writer in the solemn rites
that closed one of the most re-
markable chapters in American his-
tory.

But first, to remove a suspicion
that seems to lurk in the minds of
some who ask why or how it was
that Brown's habitation was so far
removed from what may be called
the theatre of his public life, as if
at that time he were in hiding like
a guilty thing — a simple statement
will not only answer this question
but will increase our admiration of
this remarkable man.

Gerrit Smith, a noted New York
abolitionist and philanthropist,
to whom that territory belonged,
had set apart a certain portion of it
for the benefit of such colored per-
sons, especially fugitive slaves, as
would go there and establish homes.
John Brown bought a farm near by,
and thereon erected a small one
story and a half cottage — unfinished
at the time of the raid — that he
might give to these untrained colo-
nists the benefit of his experience

and counsel as a pioneer farmer and
keeper of herds.

The second day of December, 1859
dawned in New England in cold and
darkness. All day black clouds
drifted before the wind. From
morning to night a dismal drizzling
rain was falling. But in the lull of
the storm was heard the funeral
knell. Men met and passed, sad and
silent, or, if they stopped to speak,
the one topic on the street was the
tragedy at Charlestown. In many of
the principal towns of the North-
ern states, services of a religious
character were held, — in New Bed-
ford, Worcester, Providence, Plym-
outh, Portland, Concord. In New
York a prayer meeting was held in
Dr. Cheever's church ; while a great
meeting in Philadelphia, at which
Dr. Furness offered prayer, and
Lucretia Mott, Edna Cheney and
other noble women spoke, often in-
terrupted with hisses, was almost
broken up by a "respectable" mob.
In Washington the tolling of the
historic bell cast in Paul Revere's
foundry was stopped by orders
from the White House. In Boston,
where only a fortnight before, a vast
assembly had filled Tremont Temple
(the walls of which were covered
with mottoes — sayings of Washing-
ton, Lafayette and John Brown)
and speeches, voicing the almost uni-
versal sorrow and indignation, were
made by John A. Andrew, the Rev.
J. M. Manning of the Old South
Church, Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Wendell Phillips, tokens of intense
feeling were everywhere visible,
flags displayed at half mast, bells
tolled, and religious meetings held
in several churches.

The stores of the colored citizens
on Brattle Street were closed and
draped. Nor did this groundswell
of public 'agitation stop here. It

THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BROWN

231

struck the shores of England and
France, and called forth from that
exiled patriot and prophet-poet in
his island home, Victor Hugo, an
impassioned appeal to the American
people.

terrible than Cain slaying Abel ; it is Wash-
ington slaying Spartacus !"

In Virginia the sun rose clear and
bright on the second of December.
A haze that presently veiled it, soon
disappeared, and before the hour ap-

"I fall upon my knees weeping before
the great star-spangled banner of the New
World, and with clasped hands and with
profound and filial respect, I implore the
illustrious American Republic to see to the
safety of the universal Moral Law, to save
John Brown. Oh ! let America know and
ponder on it well, there is something more

pointed for the hero's death, not a
cloud was to be seen. The tempera-
ture was so mild and genial that un-
til late in the afternoon the windows
of all the houses were open, while
the glittering blades and bayonets

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of regiments of soldiers on foot and
on horse, called out to guard
against an attempt to rescue the
doomed man — such was the conster-
nation of the people — would have
suggested to a casual observer, but
for the absence of the usual crowd
of spectators, the going on of an im-
pressive military parade.

Examined and pronounced dead
by the physicians in attendance, the
body was cut down and placed in
a coffin. The Cavalry, wheeling
aside, closed in around the wagon
into which it was lifted, and
marched back to the jail. Later in
the afternoon, at about four o'clock,
as the clouds of an approaching
storm began to gather in the sky,
as if nature herself were touched
with the great sorrow, the body was
conveyed to the railroad station and
thence to Harper's Ferry, under a
strong military escort, and delivered
to the weeping wife and friends
to be taken North.

The next morning the mournful
journey began ; and strange is the
story to be told of its passage
through shuddering cities to the
distant wilderness.

The papers having announced
that the body of John Brown would
arrive at Philadelphia on Saturday
at noon, a large crowd assembled at
the station on Broad and Price
Streets, most of whom were colored
people, and in such numbers pressed
into the building, interrupting the
business of the place, that the offi-
cers had to exclude them. Tender
and sensitive they bore this with
difficulty.

A committee of fifty men ap-
pointed at a meeting in Shiloh
colored church, arrived at the depot
about twelve o'clock, and not being
able to get admittance to the build-
ing stationed themselves on the op-

posite side of the street. They were
dressed in black and had come to
serve as an escort or company of
pall bearers while the body was be-
ing taken to its temporary resting
place in the city.

On the arrival of the train, the ex-
citement outside the station in-
creased and persons pushed their
way through the fence to get if but
a peep at the coffin-box. Mrs.
Brown, accompanied by Mr. Hector
Tyndale, walked quietly through
the crowd without being recognized,
and took passage in the Eleventh
Street car for the house of a friend.
The party having charge of the
body had telegraphed from Balti-
more to have a wagon at the station
for the purpose of conveying it to
an undertaker's where it was to be
embalmed, placed in another coffin,
and kept until Monday morning.

Immediately on the arrival of the
train the Mayor, attended by several
policemen appeared upon the scene,
entered the car and objected to this
proceeding, insisting that the body
should be taken directly through the
city. The committee, of which Dr.
Furness was one, remonstrated; it
was an amazing exercise of au-
thority. Mrs. Brown was sick and
required rest. Still the Mayor in-
sisted, and, calling their attention to
the increased excitement and the
divided state of public opinion, in-
formed the committee that the peace
of the city was more important than
the accommodation they asked for.
He would hold himself responsible
to have the body carefully taken
across the city to the New York
station at two o'clock.

The time was short, and there
was great danger of a painful scene.
The Mayor, to quiet the tumult of
the people and still the clamor of

JOHN BROWN S FOLLOWERS

233

234

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the outside crowd, resorted to
strategy.

There was in the car a long tool
box. This he took and wrapped
around it a deerskin, also found in
the car, so as to make it look like a
coffin. The crowd in the station
was then forced back and this box
was conveyed carefully to a wagon
on the shoulders of six policemen.

"Silent, like men in solemn haste"
they marched ; the wagon left the
yard and was driven in the direction
of the Anti-slavery office, where it
was said the body would lie in state ;
followed by the colored crowd al-
most in a state of frenzy. The sta-
tion thus cleared of people, another
wagon backed up to the side door,
into which was put a plain pine box
containing the body. It was then
driven out of the station by the
northern gate and down to Walnut
Street wharf, where it was lifted in-<
to one of the baggage crates, an<p-
again placed in charge of Mr. J. M.
McKim, who immediately proceeded
with it to New York, there to await
the coming of Mrs. Brown on Mon-
day.

With all/rthe precaution possible
to avoid publicity and save a repe-
tition of a similar scene, the coffin
was taken to an undertaker's room
on the Bowery. All day Sunday the
newspaper reporters were sorely
puzzled to ascertain the where-
abouts of the body. It was mid-
night before they were able "to light
upon it," nevertheless the gentle-
men of the press insisted that the
party having it in charge should get
up and "show them the elephant."
Remonstrance was in vain; they
were admitted to where the body
lay; the coffin and its contents
thereupon underwent a close and
critical examination, and the result
was spread out in full in the morn-

ing papers, which called forth from
one of the more respectable journals
the remark : "Henceforth let no one
say the Vampyre is a fiction."

The next stage in the mournful
journey was Troy. The little cort-
ege guarding the precious body
reached that city at two o'clock on
Monday afternoon, and stopped at
the American House. The Ameri-
can House was a temperance hotel
and had been Capt. Brown's usual
stopping place when in that city, he
himself being a total abstainer from
all intoxicating drinks, and also
from tobacco in any form. It may
likewise be said of him, in this con-
nection, that he was never heard to
use a profane word, nor did he al-
low it to be used by any of his
company. Like Joan of Arc he
made all his soldiers leave off swear-
ing and go to praying. His youth-
ful ambition was to enter the min-
istry. His general appearance was
that of a clergyman. He was a re-
markable example of personal neat-
ness and natural refinement.

At ten o'clock the next morning,
Tuesday, the party had reached
Vergennes in the state of Vermont,
having spent the night in Rutland,
where they received much attention.
The news of their arrival spread
like wildfire and soon the hotel was
crowded with the leading citizens
of the place to express their respect
and sympathy.

Carriages were provided in which
to convey the body and the party
accompanying it to the lake shore,
a procession was formed in front of
the hotel and when the hour came
to start all moved forward amid the
tolling of solemn bells.

At the lake shore — Lake Cham-
plain — a boat was in readiness,
which, turning from its usual course,
landed them by the town of West-

THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BROWN

235

port, and thus accelerated them on
their mournful journey. Mrs.
Brown was now among the friends
and familiar acquaintances of her
husband, and every kindness which
the occasion called for was freely
bestowed.

At this point properly enters the
story of the writer's personal con-
nection with the ceremonies of John
Brown's burial, which many friends
have persistently urged him to tell.

his face nor heard his voice save as
it was in the air in those days of
anti-slavery struggle. I only knew
him as a mighty man of valor in de-
fence of endangered liberty, the
liberator of Kansas, "John Brown
of Ossawatomie," a man fired with
a great passion of humanity, an
abolitionist from his youth up, the
son of an abolitionist, a lineal de-
scendant, too, of Peter Brown, the
carpenter who came over in the

\:A

JOHN BROWNS HOUSE, CORNER GRAY S COURT AND FERRY STREET,
SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

My hesitation to do so is over-
come only by the fact that in this
way, as can be done in no other so
well, I can transport my readers
back a whole generation, reproduce
the past as in a picture, and show
them the times of my story as they
were.

I am entitled to no merit for the
humble part I took. I did not seek
it, neither could I decline it.

I had no personal acquaintance
with John Brown, had never seen

Mayflower; and as such I honored
and admired the man more than I
can tell. Bred, myself, in the Gar-
risonian school of Abolitionists,
with an experience not accorded to
all, being a member of the Vigilance
Committee in Boston (organized
for the protection of fugitive slaves
upon the passage of the infamous
Fugitive Slave Bill), an eye-witness
of the rendition of Anthony Burns,
a station-keeper on the "under-
ground railroad ;" when the blow at

236

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Harper's Ferry shook the whole na-
tion like an earthquake, and all the
world wondered, and men turned
and looked at one another, it was
easy for an enthusiastic young man
of only thirty-six years of age to be
imprudent and to do what so many
told me afterwards was very impru-
dent. "You have ruined," they
said, "all your professional pros-
pects."

I was then pastor, in the seventh
year of my ministry of the Unita-
rian Church in Burlington, Ver-
mont, a city beautifully situated on
the shore of Lake Champlain,
across which you see in the distance
the misty peaks of the Adirondacks
(John Brown's mountain home), a
daily spectacle of beauty and
grandeur.

For spme days conflicting state-
ments were made as to the route
by which the hero's body would be
taken to its last resting place.

On Wednesday, just after dinner,
I met on the street my parishioner
and warm personal friend, an aboli-
tionist like myself, only more
ardent, Mr. Lucius G. Bigelow, who
at once said to me : "It is now known
that the body of John Brown will
cross the lake at Vergennes. I want
exceedingly to go to his funeral.
Only say you will go with me as
my companion and my guest, and
we will take the next train." To
whom I replied : "I will meet you
at the station at four o'clock."

When we arrived at Vergennes
the threatening storm (it had been
drizzling all day) had begun. It
was pouring hard, with every pros-
pect of a "North-Easter." To our
inquiries, the answer came that the
funeral procession had crossed the
lake the evening before and must
now be near its destination.

Confident that we could overtake

it before it reached North Elba, or
at any rate get there in season for
the funeral services, we lost no time
in hiring a driver to take us to the
ferry in the township of Panton,.
six miles distant. We at once made
known to the ferryman our object,,
and our great desire to be landed
as soon as possible, on the further
shore, Baber's Point. He shook his
head at our request and at once gave
us to understand that his license as
a ferryman did not require him to
cross the lake at so late an hour and
in such a storm ; and, moreover, that,
in his opinion, John Brown deserved
the fate which had befallen him.

"Why," said one of us, "do you
know any evil of him?"

"No, but a great deal of good. I
knew John Brown well ; he has
crossed this ferry with me a hun-
dred times, .and a more honest, up-
right, fair man does not exist; we
all like him, but he had no business,
meddling with other peoples' nig-
gers."

Our hearts sank like lead. Oh I
how we did plead with that man to
convert him. One hour went byr
and two and three and yet there was
no softening of that rock, no relent-
ing. Suddenly there was a bright-
ness outside the window of the dim-
ly lighted room ; and, on going to
the door, lo ! the wind had veered to
the West, the clouds had broken up,
and all around the darkness was
disappearing. Surprised and ex-
cited I rushed back, exclaiming:
' 'The stars in their courses fought
against Sisera.' See Mr. Ferryman I
God's full-orbed moon has thrown
a bridge of silver across the lake; he
bids us go, and who shall hinder?"
To my unutterable joy as well as
amazement, he said, "Well, I will
call my man and if he will get up
and help me we will see what we

THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BROWN

237

•can do." In a few minutes we were
at the shore. It was growing very
cold and beginning to freeze.

The ferry-boat was a large scow
with a mast on one side. The wet
sail had already become as stiff as
sheet-iron, and it was with much
difficulty that we hoisted it to its
place on the creaking mast. Before
a strong wind we made the passage

at once a young man, all dressed,
as if he were expecting some one,
appeared.

We were brief and to the point.
"John Brown's funeral. We want
some one to take us to Elizabeth-
town, if no further."

"I will,
plied.
Father

if father is willing," he re-

ANOTHER HOME OF JOHN BROWN AT 31 FRANKLIN
STREET, SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

of three miles in good time, and at
once the boat put back, leaving us,
cold and more or less drenched with
the flying spray, on an utterly un-
known shore.

We climbed the bank. It was past
midnight — what next? At a little
•distance we saw a glimmering light.
We hailed it as a bright propitious
star, and such it proved. In re-
sponse to our knock at the door,

was willing ; and in less
time than I can repeat the
pious sentiment that came
to my mind — "The Lord
will provide" — we were
putting the ten miles to
Elizabethtown behind us
with as rapid pace as the
roads would permit. We
reached there about two
o'clock in the morning.
But we were yet far be-
hind, probably the body
had already reached its
destination ; there was no
time to lose. W^e waited
only long enough to
change horses ; meanwhile
we learned that, on the ar-
rival of the party at
Elizabethtown, which is
the seat of justice for Es-
sex County, New York,
the court house was at
once offered as a place in
which to deposit the body
for the night. In a few
minutes, raining as it was,
a respectable procession
was formed and the body borne
thither. Six young men took it up-
on themselves to sit up all night in
the court house as a guard of honor,
while another volunteered to start
off on a swift horse to notify the
anxious family of the party's ap-
proach.

Our next stage on this strange
ride was the valley of Keene where
we entered a region of the grandest

238

NEW ENGLAND MAG A Z.INE

and most majestic scenery to be
found any where in the Adirondack
country. We had come to what is
known as "Indian Pass/' a ravine
or gorge, formed by close and paral-
lel walls of nearly perpendicular
cliffs, fully 200 feet in height and
almost black in color. Through this
gorge and past the untamed forests

mer travel had not then begun to
move into these regions.

Oh ! what a night was that ! On
such an errand ! The great moun-
tains, the deep woods, the awful si-
lences, the scudding clouds and the
rolling moon with intervals of
shadow, weird and spectral !

The day was breaking cold and

Photograph used by permission of Miss Katharine E. McClellan

REV. JOSHUA YOUNG, D. Dv PRONOUNCING THE BENEDICTION AT THE FUNERAL OF
JOHN BROWN'S MEN AT NORTH ELBA, AUGUST 30, 1 899

that clothed the slopes beyond we
made our way along a mere cart-
road, over rocks, over stumps, cling-
ing hard to our seats, lest the sway-
ing of the wagon from side to side,
pitching like a ship in a heavy sea,
or its frequent plunge from a sur-
mounted stump should throw us
out — for the ereat current of sum-

clear when we came out on a broad

table-land across
ing winds swept
once more a pace
ing was possible.

which the pierc-
unhindered ; and
faster than walk-
Soon we crossed

a bridge spanning a brawling
stream, worked our way up the long
sandy road cut through the over-
hanging bluff, turned to the left,

THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BROWN

239

entered another long stretch of
sombre forest, and finally emerged
into an opening, a mere clearing in
the woods, where, right before us
in the near distance, stood the hum-
ble home of the heroic martyr, soli-
tary amidst the "solitude that had
taught him how to die."

We entered the house stiff in
every limb, I might say, half frozen,
and gla^d enough to feel the genial
heat of the small stove around which
we found ourselves part of a very
considerable company of people,
mostly friends and neighbors, who
had personally known and admired
the man who had gone forth from
them a simple shepherd, and now
was brought back dead with a fame
gone out into all the world.

Presently Mr. Wendell Phillips
came into the room; a few words
were exchanged, and then retiring
for a few minutes, he returned and
said to me : "Mr. Young you are a
minister; admiration for this dead
hero and sympathy with this be-
reaved family must have brought
you here journeying all night
through the cold rain and over the
dismal mountains to reach this place.
It would give Mrs. Brown and the
other widows great satisfaction if
you would perform the usual ser-
vice of a clergyman on this occa-
sion." Of course there was but one
answer to make to such a request, —
from that moment I knew why God
had sent me there. For it must be
remembered that five households
and four families of North Elba
were striken by that blow at Har-
per's Ferry.

The funeral took place at one
o'clock. The services bagan with a
hymn which had been a favorite
with Mr. Brown and with which he
had successively sung all his child-
ren to sleep.

"Blow ye the trumpet, blow !
The gladly solemn sound.
Let all the nations know
To earth's remotest bound,
The year of jubilee has come."

Sung to the good old tune of
Lenox it was at once recognized by
all who knew anything about the
old fashioned music, and all who
could sing joined in; while, heard
above all the rest, were the plaintive
voices of the deeply moved negroes
who, most of them fugitive slaves,
constituted quite one half of the
company. After the hymn fol-
lowed the prayer. It was a spon-
taneous offering, so the papers said
at the time, and remarkably con-
sonant with the spirit of the occa-
sion. It was reported in full in the
New York Tribune. I only know I
prayed. Then followed one of Wen-
dell Phillips' matchless speeches.
Never were his lips of music wore
eloquent with tenderness and sym-
pathy; and when, from addressing
the weeping widows and fatherless
children, he rose on the very wings
of inspiration, into sublime passages
of description and prophecy, every
hearer saw a great vision, — one
never to be forgotten. For this was
more than a Mark Anthony speak-
ing over more than a Caesar's dead
body.

Another hymn was then sung, dur-
ing which the coffin was placed on
a table before the door with the head
exposed so that all could see it. It
was almost as natural as life. There
was a flush on the face, resulting
probably from the peculiar mode of
his death, and nothing of the pallor
that is usual when life is extinct.
Then followed the short procession
from the house to the grave which
was dug at the base of a great pic-
turesque rock about fifty feet from
the house, by the side of which al-
ready reposed, removed from their

240

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

original resting-place in Connecti-
cut, the remains of his grandfather,
Capt. John Brown, a revolutionary
soldier who died from exhaustion
in active service.

The procession was in the follow-
ing order: the coffin borne by six
voungf men, residents of the little

the body was lowered into the grave
the first gush of grief, apparently
beyond control, burst from the
family. Then it was that there
came to my lips the triumphant
words of Paul, when, according to
tradition, he was brought before
Nero just beiore his death: —

Photograph used by -permission of Katharine E. McCJtellan

Rev. MacKay Smith
Hon. Whitelaw Reid Rev. E. A. Beaman

Rev. Joshua Young, D. D. Col. R. J. Hinton Right Reverend Bishop Potter S. H. Stevens

THE NOTABLE GROUP AT THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BROWN'S MEN

hamlet; Mrs. John Brown, sup-
ported by Mr. Phillips ; the widow
of Oliver, leaning on the arm of Mr.
McKim, who, in the other hand
held that of little Ellen Brown; next
the widow of Watson Brown sup-
ported by myself, followed by the
widow of William Thompson on the
arm of my friend, Mr. Bigelow. As

"I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness which the righteous
;udge shall give me at that day, and not to
me only, but unto all them also that lovt
his appearing."

For which utterance at the grave
of a "felon" I received again and
again "the deserved rebuke of one
who had spoken blasphemy."

THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BROWN

241

Nothing more was added. The
words seemed, to fall like balm on
all who heard them. The sobs were
hushed, and soon the family retired
from the grave leaving their dead
with God.

It was now three o'clock and im-
mediate preparations to return were
necessary that we might reach the
nearest inn before the night was far
advanced. As we drove away we
were powerfully impressed with the
beauty and grandeur o'f the sur-
rounding country, and remarked
that there was a peculiar fitness be-
tween the strong and original
character of the man and the region
he had chosen for his final home
and long resting place.

North Elba was then, and is still,
aside from its great summer hotels,
but a plantation in the wilderness;
a small hamlet of a hundred souls
or so. The little cottage which has
become historic and is now a much
frequented shrine for hero-worship,
stands on an elevated plain, faces
the east and overlooks a magnificent
prospect of wild grandeur, of rug-
ged mountains and a vast primeval
forest, awful in its solitude and
silence, just the country for the he-
roic soul of John Brown and a prop-
er place to be the receptacle of his
ashes.

Wendell Phillips once said that
Massachusetts will eventually claim
John Brown's remains for interment
within her own soil. May it never
be ! Let them stay beside the great
boulder, itself a relic of the ancient
glacial age, bearing on its longest
slope, in letters a foot long, the in-
scription :

JOHN BROWN

DEC. 2ND, 1859

Here Nature's own hand has*
built for his lasting monument,

"The great watchtowers of the mountains :
And they lift their heads far into the sky
And gaze ever upward and around
To see if the judge of the world come
not."

When I got back to Burlington
I had been gone just two days.
The next day was Saturday, the next
Sunday.

How vividly I recall that Sunday,
my text, my sermon, my subject,
Christ's example of lowly service,
washing his disciples' feet, the
symbol of willingness to serve for
love's, sake. I remarked the appear-
ance of the congregation, many new
faces seldom or never seen there be-
fore; many familiar ones con-
spicuous by their absence ; and, in
the atmosphere, a certain unmis-
takable indication that things were
different. But nothing visible oc-
curred; only a sort of sea-turn had
set in and a chilling mist hung on
the air.

The next day I learned what had
happened. Six of the wealthiest
families of my parish had taken an
oath and gone over to a neighbor-
ing church ; others, not a few, of the
class that follow in the train of the
rich, were equally disaffected. On
all sides the arrows of public rebuke
began to fly. On the street I ob-
served that old friends seeing me
coming, suddenly remembered that
they had forgotten something and
turned back, or, crossing over,
passed by on the other side. And
when the next issue of the Burling-
ton Sentinel appeared — a "pro-
slavery sheet — it opened its bat-
teries upon me with a full broadside.
Even women stepped in to serve at
the guns, and their shots were
sharper than the men's. My mo-
tives, my life-aims, my principles
were made the target of insinuation,
misrepresentation, ridicule and

242

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

abuse. I was called all manner of
names. I was an "anarchist," a
"traitor to my country." I was an
"infidel," a "blasphemer," and a "vile
associate of Garrison and Phillips."

In the course of a day or two there
appeared on the street a copy of the
New York Illustrated News, and
what merriment there was, with
many a gibe and jeer, in shop and
store, wherever men met together,
over the pictures which the paper
contained : the funeral scenes, the
family and the participants in the
ceremonies of the occasion ! Of
course, the officiating clergyman
was not left out, but was there with
the usual exaggeration of caricature.
To some of my friends who had up
to this time half stood by me, it
then seemed, no doubt, as if my face
had been put into the rogues'
gallery ; that I had not only brought
odium upon myself, but shame and
confusion of face to them ; and to
the church of which I was pastor,
grevious reproach.

It was indeed a melancholy state
of affairs, be it confessed, but it was
of a piece of a whole disordered
condition of the country. The
times were stormy ; we were on a
vexed and tossing sea, and every-
body was dizzy.

No one who did not live and move
among those eventful times which
tried men's souls, certainly no one
born since the Civil War, can have
any adequate conception of the then
existing political and social con-
dition of the country, and of the
fierce divisions of the public mind.

Going to the burial of John
Brown, I left Burlington a respected
and beloved pastor. I returned to
find myself in disgrace, an exile in
the place of my residence, and little
better than a social outcast. Honor-
able men there were who suggested

that it would be a spectacle not for
tears, to see me dangling at the end
of a rope from the highest tree on
the common, swinging and twisting
in the wind.

;|< sjs •% ^ •%. >|<

As I come to the conclusion of my
story, I feel almost ashamed of this
personal detail in connection with
an instance of moral greatness which
properly disposes to silence and
meditation.

Let me take my leave by remind-
ing the reader that all advances in
justice, in morality, in liberty, have
been imposed upon, or forced from
society by some noble violence.
"Sacrifice is the passion of great
souls." That crusade at Harper's
Ferry was under God's eye. Vir-
ginia, "the mother of presidents,"
where the blow was struck, was a
slave-breeding State, and as such
had "incorporated licentiousness in-
to a commercial system and prosti-
tuted half her women." Brown's
enterprise against slavery was not a
piece of spite or revenge for the ter-
rible wrongs which he and his sons
had suffered in Kansas, but the
keeping of a vow made to heaven
in his early youth.

When a mere lad, seeing a slave
boy about his own age, cruelly ill-
treated, John Brown wrote in his
diary : "I swear eternal enmity
against slavery." Become a man, he
is writing letters to his brothers la-
menting the sluggish conscience of
the church and discussing peaceful
methods for the abolishment of the
barbarous institution. Then again
we see him calling his sons together
to pledge them, kneeling in prayer,
to give their lives to anti-slavery
work.

"Brown with a hunger for right-
eousness, his soul was kindled with
the purest and most passionate love

THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BRO W N

243

of liberty, and, under the shaping
and controlling* severity of this idea,
he lived all his life. It pressed all
his powers into the spirit and end-
less pursuit of freedom." This ob-
ject was the head-waters of his
whole career from his youth up, and
explains all.

Would we therefore be fair, would
we be just, would -we judge right-
eous judgment and measure the
moral bulk and stature of this man,
we must see with the eye of the
spirit that the majesty of his under-
taking is not in what he did ; that is,
in the ill-starred invasion of Vir-
ginia; but in the purpose for which
he sacrificed his life — in its last
analysis, that this great continent
might be free !

In the eloquent words of Frederick
Douglas ; in whose veins mingled
the blood of both races,

"it stands out in the annals of history with
peculiar originality. In it human and di-
vine sympathy crashed through like a bolt
from the sky, and broke down all sug-
gestions of human prudence.

"All down the ages men had been known
to die in defence of their own liberty, and
for that of their friends, and all the world
had applauded such examples. But the
example of John Brown is as far as heaven
is from earth, above such examples. It
is lifted above self, family, friend, race.
No chains had bound his ankle. No yoke
had galled his neck. It was not for his
own freedom, or the freedom of a family,
or the freedom of a class that he laid down
his life. It was not Caucasian for Cau-
casian ; not white man for white man ; not
rich man for rich man, but it was Cau-
casian for Ethiopian, rich man for poor
man, white man for black man ; the man
admired and respected for the man despised
and rejected."

O, story of divinest love, of splen-
did fate ! Outside of the New Tes-
tament it has no parallel in human
history. His was one of those
deaths which gave life unto the
world, which compress into a single
hour the purposes of a century.
His name shall never perish out of
the memory and the wonder of men.

"He lived, he died to be forever known
And make each age to come his own."

The Worth of Life

By Katharine Lee Bates

"If thou tastest a crust of bread,

Thou tastest the stars and the skies."
So Paracelsus said,

Paracelsus the wise.

For the least of beauty that comes
To the convict watching a cloud,

The least of love in those homes
Too poor for cradle or shroud,

Is Beauty transcending dust,

Is Love that rebukes the beast.

Let us say a grace for the crust

That falls from the infinite feast.

The Convention of 1 787

And Its Purpose

By Hon. George S. Boutwell

WITHIN the last twenty years,
and with increased energy
during the last five years, the
question of State Rights, as it was
presented to the country during
General Jackson's administration,
has been revived, and opinions have
been expressed through printed pub-
lications by Henry Cabot Lodge,
Gov. D. H. Chamberlain, Prof. Gold-
win Smith and Charles Francis
Adams in his two papers published
recently under the respective titles:
"The Constitutional Ethics of Se-
cession,'' and "War is Hell," and not
unlikely by many other persons
whose writings have not fallen un-
der my eye.

Mr. Lodge in his Life of Webster
expressed the opinion that Mr.
Webster erred in his argument in
his reply to Hayne. That opinion
as expressed by Mr. Lodge was not
accepted by the mass of the people
in the North when the great debate
took place, nor has there been any
period since 1830 when the public
opinion of the North did not fully
sustain Mr. Webster in that debate.
For the time being the controversy
was suspended, and by many it was
thought that it had ended by the
establishment of the doctrine that
the nation was supreme and that the
asserted right of a state to secede
upon its own motion had been
abandoned. It was true, however,
that in the South the doctrine of
the right of a state to secede was
taught in all the schools, in all the
families, and in all the communities,

whether the view of Mr. Calhoun
or the more moderate opinion of
such men as Alexander H. Stephens
was accepted as the controlling
force of society. In the debate that
has risen during the last twenty
years, suggestions have been made
or opinions have been expressed,
within the limits of the extreme
views of the North and the South,
which may be summarized thus,
viz. : that the convention of 1787 did
not as a body entertain any view
as to the legal character of the in-
strument which they had created
and submitted to the country, or
that, having an opinion, they
thought it wise to conceal it. Pass-
ing from the convention to the in-
strument itself, there have been ad-
vocates of several views of which
I mention the following: (1) that
there was a reservation of State
Rights which justified the South in
its ordinances of secession of i860
and 1861 ; (2) that the government
created and organized was a con-
solidated union and that each of the
states that had assented thereto was
bound to continue in it without re-
gard to its own opinion as to the
policy which the government as a
whole might enter upon and en-
force ; (3) that from the instrument
itself it was impossible to deduce
a legal conclusion, and that those
who believed it to be a consolidated
union, and those who believe it to
be a compact from which a state
might retire at its pleasures, were

244

THE CONVENTION OF 1787

245

equally in the right. As a final ex-
pression of the latter opinion, I
quote from Mr. Charles Francis
Adams' work entitled "Constitution-
al Ethics of Secession," at page 16,
where he makes the following state-
ment :

"Mr. Lodge and Professor Smith may be
wrong, but whether they were wrong or
right does not affect the proposition that
from 1788 to 1861 in case of direct and an
insoluble issue between sovereign states
and sovereign nations every man was not
only free to decide, but had to de-
cide the question of ultimate allegi-
ance for himself, and whichever way
he decided he was right. The Constitution
gave him two masters, both he could not
serve, and the average man decided which
to serve in the light of sentiment, tradition
and environment. Of this I feel as histori-
cally confident as I can feel of any fact not
matter of absolute record or susceptible of
demonstration."

In the June number of the New
England Magazine may be found an
article of very moderate length, in
which I have expressed an opinion,
with something of authority and
something of argument added there-
to, which involves a denial of the
historical and legal truthfulness of
each and all the propositions to
which I have referred. The view
presented in that article had been
forecast by me in a work that I
published in 1S96 entitled "The Con-
stitution of the United States at the
End of the First Century" (page

167).

It is the object of this paper to
set forth at greater length and with
a fresh array of authorities the view
expressed in my work on the Con-
stitution and restated in the article
published in June last in the New
England Magazine. The views ex-
pressed in this paper should cluster
around and give support to some one
or all of three propositions, viz. :

1. That the members of the con-

vention of 1787 were of opinion
when they assembled that a govern-
ment could be framed upon the
basis of a compact such as existed
in the Articles of Confederation of

.778.

2. That the members of the con-
vention remained of that opinion or
at least indulged the hope that a sta-
ble or efficient government might be
created on the foundations laid by
the confederacy until as late as the
thirtieth day of May, 1787, when
certain declarations were made as
appears by the Madison papers
(Mobile Edition, 2, pa. 747) which
indicate a departure from the
theories which had guided the con-
vention previous to that date.

3. That on the 6th day of Au-
gust the committee on detail by the
hand of Mr. Rutledge made a re-
port in which the preamble to the
Constitution was so changed as to
establish the fact that the states as
sovereignties had disappeared as
elements of the national govern-
ment. Previous to that date, every
proposition for the government,
especially the propositions submit-
ted by Mr. Randolph and Mr. Pinck-
ney, enumerated in the preamble the
thirteen states as the elemental and
independent forces in the govern-
ment to be established under the
Constitution as then proposed.
The Confederacy of 1778 contained
declarations which indicated very
distinctly that the states were sov-
ereignties, although members of the
Confederacy.

The peculiarities by which the
Confederacy of 1778 and the Con-
stitution of 1787 may be distin-
guished are these :

First, in the Articles of Confed-
eration states are enumerated as the
elements of power.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Article 2 of the Confederacy is in
these words :

"Each state retains its sovereignty, free-
dom and independence and every power,
jurisdiction and right which is not by this
confederation expressly delegated to the
United States in Congress assembled."

Article 3 is in these words :

"The said states hereby severally enter
into a firm league of friendship with each
other for their common defense, the se-
curity of their liberties and their mutual
and general welfare, binding themselves
to assist each other against all forces of-
fered to or attacks made upon them or any
of them on account of religion, sovereignty,
trade or any other pretense whatever."

Each state was bound to main-
tain its own delegates in the meet-
ing of the states and whenever they
might act as members of commit-
tees of the states; each state was
*o have one vote ; states were
prevented from making treaties
with each other ; they could not
send ambassadors to foreign states
or countries without the consent of
the United States ; nor could a state
engage in war without the consent
of the United States in Congress
assembled. None of these declara-
tions, or declarations corresponding
in character, arc to be found in the
Constitution of the United States.
A state, as a state, has no authority
under the Constitution to do any
act which can in any form relate
to or affect the public welfare of
the country or even of the state
itself in its relation to foreign
countries. The change in the pre-
amble and the omission by the con-
vention of 1787 to preserve in the
Constitution any of the distinguish-
ing features of the Confederacy, by
which the states might exercise
authority in affairs affecting the
fortunes of the entire body con-
federated, should upon grounds of
reason be accepted as conclusive

evidence that the Convention of
1787 in its final action had aban-
doned the idea that a government
resting upon the principles asserted
in the Confederacy could be an ef-
ficient government for all the pur-
poses of peace and war. But the
Convention did not leave the matter
in doubt. The Constitution when
submitted to the people contained
as an appendix a letter in which
the views of the Convention are set
forth, and to which the same assent
was given by the signature of mem-
bers as was given to the text of the
Constitution itself. That letter is
of such importance, and its ex-
istence has been so neglected by
writers and commentators on the
Constitution of the United States,
that I think its insertion is fully jus-
tified at the present time, when the
moral aspect of the contest of 1861
is under consideration in this coun-
try, and concerning Avhich the at-
tention of leading minds in other
countries appears to be directed.
The Letter is printed in the Madi-
son papers, Volume 3, Mobile
Edition of 1842, page 1560, and is
as follows :

"We have now the honor to submit to the
consideration of the United States, in Con-
gress assembled, that Constitution which
has appeared to us the most advisable.

"The friends of our country have long
seen and desired that the power of making
war, peace and treaties ; that of levying
money, and regulating commerce, and the
correspondent executive and judicial
authorities, should be fully and effectually
vested in the general government of the
Union. But the impropriety of delegating
such extensive trust to one body of men
is evident. Thence results the necessity of
a different organization. It is obviously
impracticable, in the federal government
of these States, to secure all rights of in-
dependent sovereignty to each, and yet pro-
vide for the interest and safety of all.
Individuals entering into society must give
up a share of liberty, to preserve the rest.

THE CONVENTION OF 1787

247

'he magnitude of the sacrifice must de-
pend as well on situation and circumstances,
as on the object to be obtained. It is at
all times difficult to draw with precision
the line between those rights which must
be surrendered, and those which may be
reserved. And on the present occasion
this difficulty was increased by a difference
among the several States, as to their situa-
tion, extent, habits, and particular interests.

"In all our deliberation on this subject,
re kept steadily in our view that which
appeared to us the greatest interest of
every true American, the consolidation of
our union, in which is involved our pros-
perity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national
existence. This important consideration,
seriously and deeply impressed on our
minds, led each State in the Convention
to be less rigid in points of inferior magni-
tude, than might have been otherwise ex-
pected. And thus the Constitution, which
we now present, is the result of a spirit
of amity, and of that mutual deference and
concession, which the peculiarity of our
political situation rendered indispensable.

"That it will meet the full and entire
approbation of every State is not, perhaps,
to be expected. But each will doubtless
consider, that had her interest alone been
consulted, the consequences might have
been particularly disagreeable and injurious
to others. That it is liable to as few
exceptions as could reasonably have been
expected, we hope and believe; that it may
promote the lasting welfare of that country
so dear to us all; and secure her freedom
and happiness, is our most ardent wish."

Of this letter as a whole it may
be said that it is devoted largely to
two aspects of the situation; first,
that the powers necessary to a gen-
eral government are very important
powers, and that the exercise of
such powers cannot be vested in
one body of men. Thus the plan
of legislation necessarily incident to
a compact between states was re-
pudiated and disavowed as danger-
ous with reference to war, peace
and treaties, levying money or regu-
lating commerce. These views are
set forth as conclusive views which
compelled the Convention to estab-
lish a government containing two

branches, — a Senate and a House of
Representatives. This arrangement
of necessity annulled the sover-
eignty of states in regard to the
great powers of government, powers
essential to a government adequate
to all the exigencies of peace and
war.

(2) Upon this declaration the
Convention sets forth the duty of
making sacrifices and the magni-
tude of such sacrifices is made to
depend on situation and circum-
stances. They admit the difficulty
of drawing a precise line between
those rights which must be surren-
dered and those which may be re-
served. Their important declara-
tion is in these words :

"In all our deliberation on this subject,
we kept steadily in our view that which
appeared to us the greatest interest of
every true American, the consolidation of
our union, in which is involved our pros-
perity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national
existence."

It cannot be said of the letter
that there was any attempt on the
part of the Convention to conceal
from the people the truth in regard
to the character of the government
which they were setting up. They
declared it was a consolidated gov-
ernment. They had omitted from
the Constitution all the distinguish-
ing features of the Confederacy.
They declared that the Confederacy
had failed in substance and that a
confederated government was inade-
quate for the exigencies of peace and
war. It follows from all this that
from a legal point of view the people
and states that ratified the Consti-
tution ratified it upon the under-
standing that the Confederacy had
disappeared and that a consolidated
government was then to be estab-
lished.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

The people and states of the
Union thus became morally and
legally bound to the Constitution
upon the declaration which had
been set forth in the letter of the
Convention, if the Constitution it-
self was consistent with the decla-
rations which the letter contained.
The Constitution upon the single
point whether it was a compact or
a union or in other words a con-
solidated government was not left
open to dispute or controversy. It
was settled by the people them-
selves, who having before them the
letter of the Convention in which
the opinion and purpose of the Con-
vention were distinctly set forth, did
by their ratification of that docu-
ment, ratify it upon the theory set
forth in the letter as to the nature
and character of the Constitution
which the Convention had sub-
mitted to the people of the country.
Thus every citizen of the country
became legally and morally bound
to support the Constitution upon
the doctrine set forth in the letter,
and especially as the Constitution
appears to be consistent with the
doctrines set forth in the letter.
Therefore, the question whether
the Constitution is a compact or a
consolidated government is not now,
and subsequent to the ratification
of the Constitution never was, open
for debate as to whether it was a
compact or a consolidated govern-
ment. It had been ratified as a con-
solidated government and every
citizen was bound by that ratifica-
tion. It follows that any attempt
to treat the Constitution as a com-
pact was a violation of the consti-
tutional obligations to support the
government of the country, which
obligations then rested and must
continue to rest upon every citizen.

The conduct of the South — which

for the purpose of this paper is to
be tested in the case of General
Lee — is to be considered in two
aspects. The inhabitants gener-
ally, and the leaders perhaps, were
ignorant of the existence of the
letter of the Convention or they
may have treated its statements as
of no value, or they may have mis-
interpreted them; and if so, they
are entitled to whatever justifica-
tion may be found in the presence
and combined action of ignorance
and honesty. They may not have
considered the subject in all its re-
lations, and they may have been
honest in their view that the gov-
ernment was only a compact, — a
production in some form of the Con-
federacy of 1778, but the right re-
mains and the duty of citizenship
continues, whatever theories may be
maintained or acted upon and an
error as to the nature and extent
of one's rights does not justify his
conduct when the legal aspect of his
doings is under consideration.

By the terms of the Constitution,
and by the letter of the Convention
in harmony with those terms, the
whole country was bound, and if
by those provisions in the presence
of the letter the government created
was a consolidated government,
those that contended that it was a
compact, merely, were in error, and
being in error, they are responsible
for their misdoings. Hence, when
the states of the south passed ordi-
nances of secession and took up
arms against the government of the
United States, they were attempt-
ing to repudiate an agreement by
which they were bound, which in-
cluded the character of the Union
or Government established in 1787
and which, by the terms of the
agreement, could be dissolved only
by force exercised against constitu-

THE CONVENTION OF 1787

249

tional authority vested in the Gov-
ernment of the United States, and
derived originally from the assent
of the states and people that rati-
fied the Constitution of 1787. The
construction was justified by the
continued observance of the Consti-
tution according to the terms recog-
nized in it and set forth in the letter
of the Convention.

It follows that the distinction be-
tween the Northern view as repre-
sented by Mr. Lincoln, and the
Southern view as represented by
Jefferson Davis and General Lee,
is in this : that Mr. Lincoln was
maintaining what was constitution-
ally right according to the agree-
ment as set forth in the history of the
Convention of 1787, and that Jeffer-
son Davis and General Lee were in
the wrong in their attempt to vio-
late an agreement which had re-
ceived the assent of all the States
and people of the country and which
recognized in the general govern-
ment the right of self-existence and
of continued self-existence inde-
pendent of the opinion of any State
as to whether the acts of the Nation-
al Government were wise or un-
wise. The parties may have been
equally honest minded, of that we
can not form an opinion. That one
party was clearly in the wrong, and
that the other party was clearly in
the right constitutes a distinction
in law and in ethics which separates
the parties as widely as justice and
injustice are ever separated.

If these propositions can be ac-
cepted, then it follows that the
doers of wrong, whether honest or
otherwise, are not to be canonized
nor are monuments to be raised to
their memory.

General Lee was bound, as every
other citizen of the country was
bound, to support the Constitution

as a Union, and especially and per-
sonally he was bound by his oath
to support the Constitution of the
United States and the Government
of the United States as it should be
administered. I may assume, as I
do assume, that General Lee was
honest and misguided. I assume
that he was honest in the course
that he adopted, but I assert also
that he was misguided and that he
lent his capacity as a soldier and
his influence as a man to the support
of a policy which was in violation
of his duty as a citizen, and especial-
ly in violation of the duty he had as-
sumed when he accepted a commis-
sion in the Army of the United
States. The honors that his name
and memory may receive should de-
pend upon the disposition of his
friends to preserve his name and
memory for the contemplation of
future generations, but upon the
record I venture the expression of
the opinion that he is not entitled
to the gratitude of the country.
General Lee was examined by the
Committee on Reconstruction of
which I was a member, and his tes-
timony may be found in the report
of the committee part 2, page 133.
From an examination of great length
I extract questions and answers
which throw light on his course in
1861. These questions refer to the
body of secessionists : —

Q. And that the ordinance of se-
cession so-called, or those acts of
the States which recognize the con-
dition of war between the States
and the General Government, stood
as the justification for their bearing
arms against the Government of the
United States?

A. Yes, sir; I think they con-
sidered the acts of the States as le-
gitimate, that they were thereby

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

using the reserved right which they
had a right to do.

Q. State, if you please, (and if
you are disinclined to answer the
question you need not do so) what
your own personal views on that
question were.

A. It was my view that the act
of Virginia in withdrawing herself
from the United States carried me
along as a citizen of Virginia and
that her laws and acts were binding
on me.

Q. And that you felt to be your
justification in taking the course
you did?

A. Yes, sir.

On two accasions in the year 1866
I was present as a member of the
Committee on Reconstruction, when
General Lee was under examination.
The impression that I received of
him justifies every favorable view
that has been taken of his character
and purpose in life.

The preparation of this paper has
been delayed that I might obtain
authentic information either in cor-
roboration or refutation of a state-
ment made by Mr. Blaine in the
first volume of his work, "Twenty
Years in Congress." On page 302
he makes this statement:

"It ought not to escape notice that Gen-
eral Robert E. Lee is not entitled to the
defense so often made for him that in
joining the dis-union movement he fol-

lowed the vote of his state. General Lee
resigned his commission in the Union Army
and assumed command of Confederate
troops long before Virginia had voted upon
the ordinance of secession."

Virginia passed the ordinance of

secession the 17th day of April,

1861. In reply to my inquiry I have

received the following letter from

the War Department dated July 20,

1903 :

»
Sir: —

"In reply to your further inquiry in
letter to the Secretary of War of the 13th
hist, I have the honor to inform you that
General Robert E. Lee tendered his resig-
nation at Arlington near Washington April
20, 1861, that it was forwarded on the
same date to Gen. Scott's headquarters by
the Adjutant General of the Army, and by
him submitted to the Secretary of War
April 24, and accepted by Secretary Simon
Cameron April 25, 1861."

This letter shows conclusively
that Mr. Blaine was in error in his
statement and relieves General Lee
from the charge that might have
been made that his testimony before
the Committee on Reconstruction
was either inaccurate through error
or intentionally false.

As an explanation it may be said
that the letter of the Convention
was not known until many years af-
ter the death of Mr. Madison and
when the Haynes controversy was
neglected or forgotten.

Msum^p^

Poetry of Frederic Lawrence Knowles

AMONG the output of books
for the year 1900, there ap-
peared a little volume of verse
entitled "On Life's Stairway," in
which discerning critics recognized
at once the work of a new poet — a
poet of fresh and original fancy, of
insight and imagination. The au-
thor was Frederic Lawrence
Knowles, whose second volume of
poems, "Love Triumphant," will ap-
pear in the fall of this year. It is
certain that in his new volume, Mr.
Knowles has made a very definite
advance in the mastery of his art,
and its publication will undoubtedly
add to his growing reputation as a
poet.

The New England Magazine takes
pleasure in presenting its readers
with some hitherto unprinted speci-
mens of Mr. Knowles' verse which
are to be included in the book, "Love
Triumphant." But first, it may be
interesting to learn something in re-
gard to the poet himself.

Frederic Lawrence Knowles was
born in Lawrence, Massachusetts,

September 8, 1869. His father was
an ex-army officer, educator, and
clergyman. Among relatives on
both sides of the family, he can count
about fifty preachers and teachers.
His ancestry is English and Scotch.
He was educated at Wesley an Uni-
versity, Middletown, Connecticut,
and at Harvard, graduating from the
latter in the class of 1896. He has
edited numerous anthologies, be-
ginning with "Cap and Gown, A
Book of College Verse," Second
Series, 1897; the latest is "A Treas-
ury of Humorous Poetry," 1902. He
has also compiled "The Famous
Children of Literature" Series, and
written "Practical Hints for Young
Writers."

Mr. Knowles is a member of the
Boston and New York Authors'
Clubs, and is a Bostonian by resi-
dence. He says that he has been
much influenced by Whitman,
Browning, Tolstoi, and Emerson,
but his own poetry shows an origin-
ality and individuality not to be mis-
taken.

The Steps

Seize your staff! beyond this height
We shall find the Infinite Light !
Gird your thigh ! this sword shall hew
Paths that reach the untroubled blue !
Though dark mountains form the stair,
It is ours to climb and dare !
Law, truth, love — the peaks are three
Sinai, Olives, Calvary!

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252 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

God's Heart

Come down with me to the moon-led sea,
Where the long wave ebbs and fills, —

Are these the tides that follow
As the lunar impulse wills?

Nay, rather this is the heart of God,

Naked under the sky,
And we hear its pulse with wonder —

The shore, and the clouds, and I !

Unearthly, awful, uncompelled,

Eternity framed in clay,
The urge of exhaustless passions,

Rocking beneath the gray !

Its life is the blood of the universe

Through cosmic arteries hurled,
With the throb of its giant pulses

God feeds the veins of the world !

And the lands are wrinkled and gray with time
And scored with a thousand scars,

But the sea is the soul of the Infinite,
Swinging beneath the stars !

To a Discoverer

Long was my spirit like some lonely reef

In gray, unvisited oceans, where the Sea,

Relentless, drove its salt waves over me,
A cold, monotonous surf of unbelief;
But ere I hardened into hopeless grief,

Thou earnest, bringing love, faith, sympathy;

I found myself and God in finding thee,
And my long dream of doubt looked void and brief.
Then was my soul, with her new glory dazed,

Like that green island among tropic seas

When the strange sail approached the wondering shore,
And startled eyes beheld the Cross upraised,

While the great Spaniard sank upon his knees,
And the Te Deum shook San Salvador!

POETRY OF FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES 253

To Mother Nature

Nature, in thy largess, grant

I may be thy confidant !

Taste who will life's roadside cheer

(Tho' my heart doth hold it dear —

Song and wine and trees and grass,

All the joys that flash and pass),

I must put within my prayer

Gifts more intimate and rare.

Show me how dry branches throw

Such blue shadows on the snow, —

Tell me how the wind can fare

On his unseen feet of air, —

Show me how the spider's loom

Weaves the fabric from her womb, —

Lead me to those brooks of morn

Where a woman's laugh is born, —

Let me taste the sap that flows

Through the blushes of a rose, .

Yea, and drain the blood which runs

From the heart of dying suns, —

Teach me how the butterfly

Guessed at immortality, —

Let me follow up the track

Of Love's deathless Zodiac

Where Joy climbs among the spheres

Circled by her moon of tears, —

Tell me how, when I forget

All the schools have taught me, yet

I recall each trivial thing

In a golden, far-off Spring, —

Give me whispered hints how I

May instruct my heart to fly

Where the baffling Vision gleams

Till I overtake my dreams,

And the impossible be done

When the Wish and Deed grow one !

254 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

A Challenge

Defeat and I are strangers ; though the scourge
Of wild injustice, knotted with all wrongs,
Writhe round my spirit, if I cannot smile,
Then write me craven, say, "He met the test
Sent to all souls, only to faint and fall,
His courage grovels, let us call him slave !"

0 rather, when the mad Hands through the dark,
Unseen and self-provoked, shall lash my will,

Let me the stauncher bare me to the blow,
Rise, hide my hurt, suppress the groan, fold arms,
Erect and scornful, though my back may bleed,
Though flesh, nerve, sensibilities, cry out!
Not otherwise Zenobia must have felt,
Fettered with golden fetters, when she walked,
Behind Aurelian's chariot, still a queen !
Not otherwise Napoleon, when he trod
That abject island, where the very guards
Felt him the master, though they bore the guns
And he was weaponless, the man whose eye
Could daunt Disaster and command the world.
Thus would I live and thus would die; I come
God knows! of a long lineage of kings: —
Burke, Cromwell, Luther, Paul, and Socrates,
Emerson, Milton, Cranmer, Charlemagne,
Columbus, Tolstoi, Lincoln, Augustine —
The monarchs of the spirit in all times,
Exalted thrones defiant of decay.
Then hurl all thunderbolts upon my brow,
Dash me, O life, with waves of salt and blood,
Empty thy quiver, Sorrow, in my breast,
Ye cannot, O ye Powers, compel my soul,
For, rob me as ye will, three things are left
Which make your fury impotent and vain :
That pride in self that lifts me from the worm,
These sympathies that join me to my kind,

1 nis Higher Hope that hands me on to God,
And armors me in immortality!

POETRY OF FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES 235

The Thief

With all his purple spoils upon him
Creeps back the plunderer Sea,

Deep in his rayless caves he plunges,
Fed full with robbery;

His caverns filled with dead men's treasure,
With coins and bones and pearl;

For curtains and for golden carpet,
The hair of some drowned girl !

0 bandit with the white-plumed horsemen,

Raiding a thousand shores,
Thy coffers crammed with spars and anchors,
And wave -defeated oars !

1 hear again thine ancient laughter,

Thy mirthful, mad unrest,
Yet catch the notes of shame and torture
Within thy bravest jest.

For lo ! there is a Hand that holds thee

And curbs thy proudest wave,
Thy boundaries have been set forever —

Thou art thyself a slave !

The lash is given to wild task-masters!

Thy lips may foam with wrath,
Still moons shall call and thou must follow,

Still winds shall scourge thy path !

O impotent thief! I scorn thy pillage,

Marauder of pale coasts !
The brigands whom I dread are fiercer

Than thou and all thy hosts !

For Death hath stolen friend and comrade,
Love robbed the heart of rest,

Sin snared a soul, while thou wast hoarding
Some sailor's treasure chest.

O braggart, laughing o'er thy booty,

Boast on till days are done,
And the frail star where thou disportest

Hath dropped into the sun !

256 NEW ENGLAND, .MAGAZINE

Love Immortal

Churches, nay, I count you vain, —
Lifting high a gloomy spire,

Like some frozen form of pain
Aching up to meet desire;

Standing from God's poor apart —

Granite walls and granite heart!

Sects, ye have your day, and die,
Eddies in the stream of truth, —

The great current, sweeping by,

Leaves you swirled in shapes uncouth,

Born to writhe, and glint, and woo —

Broken mirrors of the Blue.

Creeds ! — O captured heavenly bird,
Fluttering heart and folded wing!

Shall ye see those pinions stirred?
Can your caged Creation sing?

Will ye herald as your prize

What was bred to soar the skies?

Rites and pomp, what part have ye
In the service of the heart?

Rituals are but mummery,

Faith's white flame is snuffed by art;

Candles be but wick and wax,

Alms have grown the temple-tax.

Yet the East is red with dawn,

Like a cross where One hath bled !

And upon that splendor drawn —

Gentle eyes and arms outspread —

See that figure stretched above ! —

As God lives! its name is Love!

Love that lights the tireless brands,

Love that cares for world and wren,

Bleeding from the broken hands —

Crowned with thorns that conquer men

Only Love's great eyes inspire

Church, sect, creed to glow with fire.

Then our lips shall have no sneer

For the spire, the mosque, the ark,

Broken symbols shall be dear

If they point us through the dark;

Laws and scripture served our youth,

Who have grown the sons of truth !

PORTRAIT BY WILLIAM PAXTON

[see page 263]

258

New England Magazine

Volume XXX

May, 1904

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Number 3

New England Artists at the
St. Louis Exposition

By Jean N. Oliver

IN spite of the conspicuous absence
of many of Massachusetts' best
Known artists from the state sec-
tion of the Art Exhibition of the St.
Louis Fair, the men whose work is
represented are, on the whole, fairly
typical of the best painters of New
England. As a matter of fact, one
who knows the geographical distri-
bution of those whose work has been
thus honored, is struck by the ex-
tremely narrow limits within which
the artists represented are confined.
Nearly all of them come from Mass-
achusetts and the larger part of these
reside in the city of Boston. The
reason is a simple one. The prac-
tice of art, like that of other indus-
tries, is subject to the laws of con-
centration, and, after New York,
Boston is unquestionably the art-
center of this country.

The preliminary exhibition held
in Boston during February of the
artistic output intended for the St.
Louis Exposition was sufficiently in-
teresting and comprehensive to sat-
isfy one that New England's repre-

259

sentation does not lack dignity and
worth. The Massachusetts section
is not as large as the New York dis-
play, but it will be worth while
remembering that a very large num-
ber of New York's most prominent
artists are, in reality, Boston men;
having here received their instruc-
tion and the achievement of their
first successes, later to be lured
away by the greater opportunities
and rewards of the metropolis. To
be precise in instances, may be men-
tioned Childe Hassan, Winslow
Homer, Abbott Thayer and Theo-
dora Thayer, Robert Reid, and H.
O. Walker.

It is not because Massachusetts
is the home of the Woman's Rights
movement that one of the most nota-
ble features of the collection is the
heroic statue, "The Volunteer," by
Mrs. Theo Ruggles Kitson. It
holds its prominence by right of
masterly excellence, and in the exhi-
bition may be taken as symbolical,
not only of the idea for which it was
definitely intended, but as express-

260

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ing also the volunteer spirit which
has made Massachusetts the pioneer
in all advance movements.

Mrs. Kitson is a young woman
who, at the age of seventeen, with
her hair in two long braids and
wearing a short dress, received from
the astonished officers of the Paris
Salon a medal for her beautiful child
figure, "The Young Orpheus," her
first exhibited work of sculpture.

a long one and her distinction is
even yet only in its youth.

Perhaps the most striking and
mind-haunting of all the paintings
which represent the art of New Eng-
land at St. Louis is Charles Herbert
Woodbury's big sea picture called
"The North Atlantic." It seems
trivial to designate this simply as
a "marine" for the impression of its
beauty and strength is overwhelm-

THE NORTH ATLANTIC,
BY CHARLES H. WOODBURY

Every subsequent year has won for
her new successes. She studied
drawing for some time in Paris, and
then coming under the direction of
Henry Hudson Kitson, her abilities
were rapidly developed and she
made a name for herself while still
in her teens. Beside this "Volun-
teer" she has recently completed a
statue for Vicksburg. The list of
her achievements in sculpture is

ing, lifting it above the thousands
of sea pictures that deserve no more
than a collective. It is the element-
al, unconquerable soul of the ocean
which the artist has portrayed in
a moment of sternest power.

If Mr. Woodbury possessed the
kind of mind that would have con-
tented itself with the interpretation
of the sea in its passive moods, as
so ably expressed in Whistler's Noc-

NEW ENGLAND ARTISTS

261

turnes, it is not an overword to say
that that great yet jealous master
would probably have found in
Woodbury's work much to praise
with his condemnation. But the
latter attempts and surmounts the
wave as Whistler did the ripple,
with as much subtlety and artistic
finesse, and, with the added value
of a virile expression all his own.

In the last few years Mr. Wood-
bury has worked almost entirely up-
on the problem of the strength of

tinction as an artist in lead pencil
and in the early part of his career
originated a method of drawing in
that difficult medium that is still
used in public and studio drawing
classes. He is a native of Massa-
chusetts, having been born in Lynn
in 1865. He comes of a well-known
old family but is the first of his
name to distinguish himself in art.
Mr. Woodbury's wife, Marcia
Oakes Woodbury, is equally cele-
brated in her own field of subjects.

BALLAST HAULERS,
BY WALTER L. DEAN

waters and since the exhibition ten
years ago of his first sea picture,
his progress in the understanding
and expression of the irresistible
forces of the deep has been accretive
and profound. One of his large
canvasses, "Rock and Sea," received
a medal at the Paris Exposition and
also at Buffalo. The Berkshire
Athenaeum now owns "Mid Ocean,"
and another of his masterly paint-
ings is in the Carnegie collection.
Mr. Woodbury has also won dis-

A few drawings of children ex-
hibited in the Boston Art Club ex-
hibition of 1888 marked her entrance
into the world of art, and later,
after a year or two spent in Holland,
she showed a collection of studies
of Dutch children that immediately
established her as a painter with a
rare understanding of the character
and moods of children ; always dif-
ficult subjects to present with truth
and vivacity. Except for some
early instruction in drawing from

THE SMOKER, BY MARCIA OAKES WOODBURY PORTRAIT BY ELIZABETH TAYLOR WATSON
PORTRAIT BY LEE LUFKIN KAULA STATUE, THE VOLUNTEER,

BY THEO RUGGLES KITSON

262

NEW ENGLAND ARTISTS

2G3

Tomaso Juglaris, Mrs. Woodbury
has worked out her own artistic
destiny, a noble one under any cir-
cumstances. As she has said about
herself, she has learned what she
knows by her failures.

Mrs. Woodbury has received
many honors, among them a prize
from the Boston Art Club, honor-
able mention from the Nashville Ex-
position, a medal from the Me-
chanic's Association of Boston, and
one also from the International Ex-
position at Atlanta.

A justly celebrated painting, en-
titled "The Smoker," holds a definite
place for her in the present Expo-
sition at St. Louis.

In contrast to Mr. Woodbury's
conception of the sea, yet equal in
truth and understanding of both
medium and subject, is that of Mr.
Walter Dean, whose shore-picture
"Ballast Haulers," is filled with hu-
man as well as marine interest and
tells its own story well, a merit too
often ignored by present-day artists.
The rough heavy shore in the fore-
ground, the elusive sea beyond, the
heavy cart and patient horses, and
the figures of toilers of the sea, make
a composition dramatic and faith-
ful to life. Another of Mr. Dean's
paintings is of the deep sea fish-
eries, entitled "Halibut Fishing."
Mr. Dean paints boats and the sea
as if he knew them by heart,
which indeed he does, for since
childhood he has spent at least
a third of the time on the water. He
is an enthusiastic yachtsman and at
one time was a winner in many re-
gattas with his yacht "Clithro." It
has been his custom in the fall of
the year to start off with the herring
fleets to the fishing banks, studying
effects of light and movement and
masses, both by day and night.

Mr. Dean's first master was Ar-

chille Oudinot, of Boston, but later
he went to Europe where he studied
for three years under Jules Lefevre
and Boulanger. Part of this time
was spent rambling about the coasts
of France, Holland, Italy and Eng-
land. In 1892 one of the best-known
paintings in the country was
"Peace," a painting of the Squadron
of Evolution, the first of the mod-
ern navy. He has since exhibited
in all the large exhibitions in the
country, and his pictures are to be
seen in many galleries, among them
the Ayer Library, the Fitchburg
Art and Library Building, and the
Boston Art Club. He was born in
Lowell, but with the exception of
the years spent abroad, has always
lived in Boston.

A most "live" portrait is the one
of Miss Christine Woollett, by Mrs.
Elizabeth Taylor Watson. It is
painted with the fresh enthusiasm
of a young painter and the technical
dexterity of an old one. Mrs. Wat-
son is a product of the Boston Art
Museum and in her art pays an
original tribute to Mr. Tarbell's
work. She was born in New York
but came to Boston as a child and
was one of the youngest pupils of
the Museum school. During recent
years she has exhibited in all im-
portant shows throughout the coun-
try. Among her notable portraits
are those of Dr. McColister, Miss
Elizabeth Lawrence and Mr. and
Mrs. Jacob Edwards.

Among Boston's young painters
whose pictures are immediately
notable in the present exhibition
are Herman D. Murphy, William M.
Paxton, George H. Hallowell, Ar-
thur Hazard and Louis Kronberg.
Mr. Murphy has contributed four
interesting subjects, a portrait of
Rev. James Reed being especially

A FLOWER
BY ARTHUR HAZARD

264

NEW ENGLAND ARTISTS

2G5

distinguished by great subtlety of
handling and dignity of pose.

Mr. Paxton shows a portrait exe-
cuted in his best manner and Mr.
Hallowell two paintings ; strong and
unusual portrayals of life among the
lumbermen of the Maine woods. In
arrangement and color they portend
for him a future of great possibili-
ties.

Mr. Hazard, although a young
man, has accomplished a surprising
amount of work, and has already
made a name for himself. He was
born in North Bridgewater thirty
years ago and at an early age
adopted art as a profession. He
studied for several years in the Bos-
ton Museum School and the Cowles'
Art School; at the latter place un-
der the influence and instruction of
that master-draughtsman, Joseph
DeCamp. In Paris, later, he was a
pupil of Rene Prinet and G. Cour-
tous. Since his return from abroad
he has painted portraits of high ex-
cellence of Dr. R. R. Shippen, of
Washington, Rabbi Fleischer, the
daughter of the late Frank Robin-
son, and the beautiful Mrs. Edward
Mower, of Chicago. Mr. Hazard
has traveled over his own country
with a thoroughness that few Ameri-
cans can boast, and has also
spent two winters in Jamaica, where
he made interesting studies of native
life in the tropics. He contemplates
shortly seeking, as so many others
have done before him, the larger
successes of New York.

Mr. Kronberg, a native of Bos-
ton, has devoted his abilities to one
special branch of painting and is
perhaps to America what Degas is
to France, a painter of ballet girls
and pictures of the stage. He was
a pupil of the Museum School, later,
in New York, of William M. Chase,
and as the winner of the Long-fellow

Traveling Scholarship, a student for
three years in European schools.
Returning to Boston in 1898 Mr.
Kronberg painted in quick succes-
sion portraits of many noted mu-
sicians and actors, among them
Gabrilowitch, Coquelin, Richard
Mansfield, and Benjamin Woolfe.
He has exhibited several times in
the Paris Salon and in the exhibi-
tions of this country. The painting
at St. Louis is in subject somewhat
out of the artist's usual choice — a
Salon picture, Egyptian in theme,
and undoubtedly the finest compo-
sition that he has yet produced. The
painting is of an Egyptian priestess,
sitting between the giant paws of a
Sphinx, holding in her uplifted
hand a lotus blossom. It is full of
the sombre mystery of the dead
faiths of ancient Egypt.

Sarah C. Sears (Mrs. Montgomery
Sears) is represented by two por-
traits in pastel and three water
colors, distinguished by broad sure
qualities of color and drawing. Mrs.
Sears was born in Cambridge and
was a student of the Museum School.
Another field of endeavor in which
she excels is that of decorative
metal work.

A large and important canvas by
Henry H. Gallison called "The Grey
Mist" is sent by the Detroit Art
Museum. This painting is typical
of Mr. Gallison's style, which is tru-
ly American. He paints a rocky
pasture, or an open meadow, or a
sloping hillside as few landscapists
can. Mr. Gallison has exhibited
much abroad, and his pictures have
always received marked apprecia-
tion in London, Paris and Munich.
Recently the Italian government
purchased a painting by him, ex-
hibited in the Turin Exhibition, for
the Government Museum. In all the
important exhibitions in this coun-

PORTRAIT BY SARAH C. SEARS

266

NEW ENGLAND ARTISTS

207

try, also, Mr. Gallison has shown
his work and has received many
awards.

Mr. Gallison is a native of Boston,
where he has had a studio for many
years ; first in the old Studio Build-
ing, and later in the Copley Hall.
He was born in 1850, and after
studying for some years in this coun-
try, went to Paris for a long stay.
Mr. Gallison spends at least half the
year in the country, and has a sum-
mer studio at Annisquam, Massa-
chusetts, where he finds much of the
material for his pictures.

Two portraits by Lee Lufkin
Kaula are painted with a sympa-
thetic understanding of character
and a most clever handling of the
material. One is of an earnest look-
ing girl in a white dress, which re-
ceived marked appreciation at the
Paris Salon, at the Pan American
and Atlanta expositions. Mrs.
Kaula first studied in the Metropoli-
tan Museum School, later with
Charles Dewey, and in Paris with
Colin and MacMonnies in the
Academy Vitti. She now resides in
Boston.

Two sculptors of Boston, Cyrus
E. Dallin and Bela L. Pratt, show
work of a high order ; the former by
two character studies, a reduction of
"Medicine Man," and "Don Quix-
ote," and the latter by three figures
in marble from his "Fountain of
Youth," exquisite figures classically
conceived and beautifully executed.

Few miniatures are to be seen in
this collection, but the eight shown
are most interesting. Miss Laura
Hills' stand preeminent for their
characterization and decorative
qualities. Perhaps no American
miniaturist has so well succeeded in
depicting upon a few inches of space
such wonderful color relations, such
individuality of portraiture, as has

Miss Hills. Microcosmic in expres-
sion, Miss Hills' art is cosmic in its
feeling. All of a great picture glows
within the limits of the little ovals
that enclose her jewel-like paintings.

She comes from the quaint old
town of Newburyport. In drawing
she was a pupil at the Art Students'
League, in New York, and the
Cowles' Art School, in Boston, but
in her miniature work she has not
had, nor has she needed, any better
master than herself. Her exquisite
work is known in Europe as well as
widely known in this country.

Miss Ethel Blanchard and Miss
Sally Cross also show good work in
this line. Miss Sally Cross has two
miniatures of unusual excellence.
She paints in an original way, with
good sense of color; and an under-
standing of values. The little boy
with a violin is especially interest-
ing. Miss Cross is a New England
girl, having spent the greater part
of her life in Boston. She studied
at the famous Cowles' Art School,
and came there under the influence
of Joseph DeCamp, and other well-
known painters. She has exhibited
at the Boston Art Club, Copley So-
ciety, New York Society of Minia-
ture Painters, Pennsylvania Acad-
emy of Fine Arts, and in all the im-
portant exhibitions.

Miss Ethel Blanchard is another
Boston miniature painter, formerly
a student in the Museum of Fine
Arts. She has lived all her life in
Boston or vicinity where, with the
exception of two years in Chicago,
she always has had her studio. She
has painted a number of children
and seems to have remarkable un-
derstanding of their moods and feel-
ings. She is a member of the Copley
Society, the Society of Miniature
Painters, and has exhibited in all

PERSIS BLAIR
FROM THE MINIATURE BY LAURA HILLS

the well-known exhibitions of the
United States.*

The remarkable painting of
"Death and the Captive," which
Miss Mary L. Macomber sends to

St. Louis, will be remembered from
its first appearance "in the Copley
Society Exhibition a few years ago.
It is not easily forgotten, for it ap-
peals strongly to the imagination, as

Editor's Note: — Miss Jean N. Oliver, the writer of this article, and an artist and
miniature painter of reputation, is also represented by a miniature at the St. Louis
Exposition which she has reluctantly allowed us to reproduce in this connection.
Miss Oliver was formerly a student at the Museum of Fine Arts. She has ex-
hibited in the Copley Society, the Boston Art Club, etc. She was born in Lynn, Mass-
achusetts, but has had a studio in Boston for the last five years.

268

I all her work does, having some-
thing to say apart from their techni-
cal excellencies. Miss Macomber's
career has been one of the hardest
kind of work and well merited suc-
cess. She studied for a number of
years at the Museum of Fine Arts,
under the direction of Mr. Benson
and Mr. Tarbell. Her first public-
ly exhibited picture was in 1889, in
the National Academy and since
that date she has been a constant
exhibitor in all the leading exhibi-
tions in America.

Two other clever women painters,
Adelaide Cole Chase, and Mary
Fisher (Austin), show representa-
tive work, modern, well-painted and
interesting.

W. B. Closson, who ten or fifteen
years ago was known as one of the
best wood engravers in this country,
and who is now equally well known
as a portrait painter in pastel, shows
in this exhibition but one picture, a
fascinating study of "A Nymph."
This is a youthful, golden-haired
figure contrasted well against the
brilliant greens of the bank which
forms a background — a mellow yel-
low glow over the whole painting
giving it much depth of tone.

During a long career as a portrait
painter Mr. F. P. Vinton has painted
many distinguished people, and now
the portraits of Hon. A. W. Beard
and Henry Howland are added to
the list.

Mr. Thomas Allen, is one of the
best known men in Boston, al-
though he is not a native of this
state. He has been since 1876 a con-
tributor to all the important shows,
and his first success was in an ex-
hibition given in the Williams and
Everett Gallery in 1883. For a num-
ber of years his studio was in the old
Pelham Building, but later he es-
tablished himself in his present

NEW ENGLAND ARTISTS

209

place at 2 Commonwealth Avenue.
Mr. Allen studied first in Dussel-
dorf,and later at the Royal Academy,
where he was graduated in 1878.
During this time he exhibited in the
National Academy and four years
later he was represented in the Salon
for the first time.

Mr. Allen's one contribution to
the St. Louis Exhibition is a water
color, "Dartmoor," a seriously paint-
ed composition with a remark-
able atmosphere. There is in this
painting a feeling of air and light
and movement, while the color is
good, and the relation of one mass
to another is well expressed.

In the years that John J. Enne-
king has been in Boston since 1865,
his name has been familiar to every
one interested in art, and it is not
too much to say that in his own
class of work he is without an equal.
He paints the late afternoon effects
of a November day as one who un-
derstands the subject, and with a
real love for it. His career is inter-
esting, for he has worked himself out
of commercial life into art entirely
by his own efforts. It was in
Munich that he first studied serious-
ly, attracted there, as so many stu-
dents were in the seventies ; but his
own sense of rich color was disap-
pointed by the methods in vogue,
and, after a short stay, he went to
Paris. There he worked under
Bonnat and other celebrated masters
for three years. By the advice of
Daubigny he then studied land-
scape painting in the different Euro-
pean sketching places. Since his
return to Boston he has had a
studio, and has always been repre-
sented at important American ex-
hibits.

William J. Kaula's pictures have
remarkable depth of tone and qual-
ity. He paints when the subject

DONALD BY ETHEL DLANCHARD
PORTRAIT OF MISS M. BY JEAN N. OLIVER

PORTRAIT BY SALLY CROSS

270

IMAGINATION

27J

pleases him with a most sensitive
feeling for nature. The two land-
scapes he sends to St. Louis are
most interesting, both as regards the
color scheme and the composition.

Frances C. Houston's "Indian
Summer" is perhaps the best of her
later works, and is a noticeable paint-
ing, full of charm and poetic feeling.
Her pictures never give the impres-
sion of having been painted merely
as clever studies, but are satisfactory
and complete.

Eric Pape's picture of "Foaming
Surges" is highly decorative in
theme, suggesting the fanciful con-
ceptions of some of the leading
French painters.

Mr. Philip Hale is well repre-
sented by his two paintings, differ-
ing as they do in subject. They are
"The Boxers" and a portrait.

Among other New England
artists whose work creditably

sustains their reputation in the St.
Louis exhibition may be mentioned :
Maurice Prendegast, Joseph Lin-
den Smith, Dodge McKnight, Theo-
dore Wendell, I. H. Caliga, Edmund
Garrett, William Picknell, Charles
Davis, Charles Hopkinson, Albert
Schmitt, William Burpee, Howard
Cushing, Augustus V. Tack, Charles
Pierce, Ernest Major, Caroline Rim-
raer, Lucy Conant, Harold Warren,
Mary Wesselhoeft, Hendricks Hal-
lett, Charles Hudson, Sears Galla-
gher, M. L. Bumpus, Florence Rob-
inson, Susan Bradley, Dawson Wat-
son, M. R. Sturgis, Charles Pepper,
Edward Barnard, Anne Blake,
Dwight Blaney, Margaret Fuller, J.
H. Hatfield, Geo. Leonard, Lilla
Perry, F. H. Richardson, Leslie P.
Thomson, James Rich, E. L. Chad-
wick, Warren Nettleton, Wm. Hen-
derson, Charles Adams, T. B. Mete-
yard, and D. J. Nolan.

Imagination

By H. Arthur Powell

A sylvan path, whose trees and leafage form
Arcades of emerald, color-shot, yet cool,

Where prismy ardor makes a very storm

Of rainbow lightnings play o'er yon dark pool.

A pact 'twixt man and nature, sweet as rare,
Uplifts to dignity the passing hour;

While, charged with sympathy, the crystal air

Suffuses grief with glamour, pain with power.

This, then, the woodland way that may be thine;

Yet heed the warning that a lost one cries —
It is a path that, forking at a Shrine,

Leads, this to madness, that to Paradise.

Mrs. Bassett's Fall

By Elizabeth Robbins

A COMELY woman in her fifti-
eth year, but straight and al-
most as slender as when a girl,
with hardly a wrinkle on her fair,
pleasant face, — a woman to whom
one felt instinctively drawn. Such
was Mrs. Bassett. She stood in her
cheerful, immaculate kitchen con-
templating the two pies she had
just taken from the oven and set on
the table; pies with delicately
browned, flaky crust, diffusing a de-
licious fragrance. "I believe I'll take
one over to Emma; there'll be just
time before dinner," she soliloquized,
glancing at the clock. "Will is
coming home to-day and she will be
glad to have it."

Her daughter's house was on an-
other street but by going through
her own back yard and across a
small field she had only to climb a
wall to be in her daughter's yard.
"I declare!" she laughed, as she
squeezed through a gap in her back
fence, pie in hand, "if there isn't
Emma starting over here!"

The younger woman did not wait
till they met before speaking.
"Will has come," she said, "and
what do you think? He's had a
splendid position offered him, out
there, — twice as much salary as he's
been having, and the work hardly
any harder."

"Is he going to take it?" Mrs. Bas-
sett asked.

"Why, of course he'll take it,
mother," the daughter answered, a
little irritably. "We're going to be-

gin packing up right away. Will
hired a house there before he came
home. I'm glad to have the pie, —
how good it smells. It's the first ap-
ple pie I've seen this season. Well,
I must hurry back, I was only com-
ing over to tell the news. — I'll run
in again towards night.

"You haven't heard from Edith?"
she paused at the wall to call back.

"Yes, day before yesterday. They
were at Liverpool, just about to go
aboard the steamer. They're prob-
ably in New York now. Her father
was homesick, she said."

"Well, he ought to be," comment-
ed Emma severely. "It was the
greatest idea, his going with them
on their wedding trip."

"Well, I don't know," mused Mrs.
Bassett, as she returned to her own
house. "It seemed to me the most
natural thing for Mr. Morrison to
go, seeing how devoted he and Edith
have always been to each other.
You don't often find a father so all
wrapped up in his daughter as he is.
In all the twelve years they've
boarded with me, I never have
known him to speak a harsh word
to her, or think of himself first. And
she was worth all his care and
thoughtfulness. Edith is a dear,
good girl. It most broke my heart
to have her go away, and I'm going
to miss her dreadfully, — and her
father too. Mr. Morrison is a good
man if ever there was one.

"But clear me ! what a mother I am
to be thinking of them, and here's

272

MRS. BASSETT'S FALL

273

my own daughter going away out
West to live," she reminded herself
reproachfully. "Emma never liked
here, and she always wanted to live
in a city, so she's pretty well pleased,
I guess, though she probably
couldn't live anywhere but what
she'd find something to worry about.
I declare ! I don't see how Will
stands it. He couldn't if he hadn't
the evenest disposition that ever
was. I wish it wasn't so far. But
then, it's only two days' travel after
all, and with Will's salary she can
afford to come back on a visit once
in a while."

Mrs. Bassett was one to whom a
refined way of living had become a
habit, so that her table for one was
set as carefully and daintily as
though she had been expecting the
most fastidious guest. Everything
was ready and she was thinking
how lonely it was to dine alone,
when the outside screen-door opened
and closed and a man appeared at
the dining-room door, — a prosper-
ous looking man of middle age, with
a kindly face.

Mrs. Bassett's face lighted up.
"Why, Mr. Morrison !" she ex-
claimed.

They shook hands cordially and
were frankly glad to see each other.
In the manner of neither was there
a trace of self-consciousness. "How
is Edith?" Mrs. Bassett asked, as
she went to get another plate and
knife and fork.

"She's nicely. I left them in New
York, this morning. They're going
to stay at Sam's aunt's, while they
are getting ready to go to house-
keeping," Mr. Morrison answered.
"I thought I would come and get the
things I left here, before beginning
to work again. I've engaged board
with the Willetts. You've heard
me speak or them ?"

"Then you are not going to live
with Edith?"

"No, nor retire from business,"
Mr. Morrison answered, a shade
crossing his face. "That was what
we planned at first, but — well, Sam
is a good fellow and well meaning
but he's young and naturally some-
what thoughtless and selfish and I
don't feel as if I could stand his way
with Edith always. I'd be likely to
speak out sometimes and it would
make trouble. Thev have got to
get used to each other and it will
be better for them to have no third
party around to complicate things.
I thought it all over and that is the
conclusion I've come to."

"I think you're right about it,"
said Mrs. Bassett, "though it's hard
on you, — and on Edith too. But
you will be going to see her often."

"Yes, she made me promise that."
He looked thoughtful for a moment,
then changed the subject. "Mrs.
Bassett, your dinner tastes the best
of anything I've eaten since I went
away. Talk of French cookery!
American cooking beats it out of
sight. I'd rather have a slice of
your bread and butter than any-
thing I saw or ate all the time I was
gone. And Edith said the same
thing." He looked about the room,
and drew a deep breath of the Sep-
tember air that was drifting in
through the open windows.
"Everything is so clean and sweet
and wholesome here," he said. "Oh,
why must young people go and get
married?" he questioned whimsical-
ly. "It does seem as if Edith was a
great deal better off with her old
father than she is now, — but they
will do it," he added with a sigh.

Them he began talking of the
sights he had seen while abroad, and
continued to talk after they had
finished eating and while Mrs. Bas-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

sett cleared off the table and washed
and wiped the dishes, she making a
comment now and then or asking a
question. "I've missed the train I
meant to take," he said, "but the
next one will do as well. However,
I think I'll go and get those things
ready for the expressman, before I
say any more."

Mrs. Bassett had changed her
dress for the afternoon and was in
the sitting-room sewing when he re-
turned. He had thought of some-
thing more to tell her, and so came
near missing another train. "Oh!"
he exclaimed as he rose to go. "I
nearly forgot that I was to give you
Edith's love, and say that she will
write the first minute she gets and
that you are to make her a long
visit next winter."

"She's a dear girl," said Mrs. Bas-
sett, with emotion.

"Yes, she is," her father agreed.
"And you made a happy home for
us all these years. I wish it needn't
have been broken up."

Mrs. Bassett watched him go
down the street. "Yes," she said,
half aloud, "Edith is a good girl, and
I don't wonder he feels broken up.
I somehow feel worse about her go-
ing away than I do about Emma's
going. I must be a very unnatural
kind of a mother. I'll go over and
help Emma pack. There's nothing
especial to keep me at home now ; I
can go day-times as well as not."

Then her thoughts went back to
Edith and wandered to next winter
and her visit to New York. It
would be something pleasant to
look forward to all the fall.

A little while after supper, Emma
came in. She sank into a chair with
a sigh that was almost a groan. "It
seems as if I never was so tired in
all my life," she complained. She
was always so thin and nervous and

worried that she looked nearly as
old as her mother. There were
some who insisted that she looked
older.

"Will and I have decided that
you must go with us, mother," the
younger woman said presently.
"There's nothing to keep you here,
now the Morrisons have gone, and
I shouldn't have a minute's comfort
thinking of you all alone here.
There's plenty of room in the house
Will has rented, and }^ou can let
this house. Will thinks we could
find someone who will take it just
as it is, all furnished, — or you could
sell it."

Mrs. Bassett's work had fallen in
her lap, and she was staring at her
daughter as if dazed. "But — why,
Emma, I don't want to go !" she
gasped, as soon as she could find her
voice.

"Now, mother!" Emma protested,
in the tone of impatient long suffer-
ing one might use with a fractious
child, "of course you want to go. It
will be ever so much pleasanter in
every way than it is here."

Mrs. Bassett was silent. She had
never been one to argue; it seemed
to her like quarreling.

"You must go," her daughter con-
tinued. "You wouldn't want me to
be perfectly miserable in my new
home, thinking of my mother all
alone here, so far away?"

"There's nothing to harm me here,
Emma," pleaded Mrs. Bassett.

"Nothing to harm you!" cried her
daughter scornfully. "Do you never
read the papers, mother? There's
always some dreadful thing happen-
ing to women who live alone."

"Perhaps I could get someone to
live with me," said Mrs. Bassett.
"I might take a boarder."

"Yes, and slave yourself to death!
You've worked enough in your life;

MRS. BASSETT'S FALL

'275

you ought to take things easy now,
— and don't you have any affection
for me ?" pursued the daughter in an
aggrieved tone.

"Of course I do," Mrs. Bassett
answered, with a touch of indigna-
tion.

"Then you will go with us and
not make any more fuss," Emma
concluded. "Will can put the place
in the hands of a real estate agent
to-morrow morning — "

"Oh, no ! he must n't," cried Mrs.
Bassett agonizingly.

"Why, what will you do, then?"

"Oh, — leave it empty — if I go."

"Yes, and have people breaking
in to steal the furniture, and boys
breaking the windows and every-
thing going to pieces. Now, mother,
do be reasonable."

There was a short silence.

"I saw a man that looked like Mr.
Morrison going by the corner this
noon," Emma said. "He hasn't been
out, has he?"

They talked about Mr. Morrison
and his daughter for a while and
then Emma returned to the former
subject, and so persistentty did she
argue and plead and scold that when
she went away she had extracted a
half promise from Mrs. Bassett that
she would go West with her.

But when she was again alone,
Mrs. Bassett's soul rebelled and she
wept bitter tears. She could not
go and leave this pleasant home en-
deared by precious memories. It
seemed a part of her very life. And
there were her friends and neigh-
bors and acquaintances ; she per-
sonally knew nearly everybody in
the town and loved them and was
interested in all that affected them.
There was her church, also. How
could she leave it all and go to a
strange city where she knew no one?

And with Emma! Mrs. Bassett

recalled the years of her married
life. She had formed a romantic
attachment for a man considerably
her senior, — a nervous, fretful, ex-
acting invalid — and after a brief
courtship had married him at nine-
teen. Her disillusionment had been
swift and complete, and the three
years in which he lived had been
very unhappy ones for her. Emma
had grown to be like him. It was
very wearing to have her come only
to spend the day ; what would it be
to have to live with her?

But how could she help it? She
knew from many past experiences
that when Emma set out to have her
way there was no withstanding her;
she simply wore one out so that one
had to give in to her.

Mrs. Bassett could not sleep that
night. She thought over the many
years of happiness she had had in
the beloved home and all of she
would lose in leaving it, and the
more she thought the worse she felt.

Along toward morning, she sud-
denly resolved that for once in her
life she would not give in. She
would assert her right to stay where
she wanted to stay, and she tried to
think of all the reasons she could
bring forward to fortify her position.

"But, oh, dear!" she sighed, as
the dawn began to show in the east,
"when I see her and she began to
talk, I shall just do as she says, the
same as ever."

Emma returned to the fray im-
mediately after breakfast, and, as she
had feared, Mrs. Bassett found her-
self yielding inch by inch.

"Of course," said Emma at last
when she felt that her case was
nearly won, "if you had some one
to take care of you — if for instance
you were married, or even expect-
ing to be married — it would be a
very different matter." She wished

276

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

her mother to see that she was not
wholly unreasonable.

If she were married, or even ex-
pecting to be married. To Mrs.
Bassett, seeking wildly for some
way to escape, a sudden inspira-
tion came. To be sure it was deceit
but was not even deception justifia-
ble in one so sore beset? She hesi-
tated but for an instant.

4 'I am thinking- of getting mar-
ried, ' she said desperately.

"You — are thinking of — getting
married I" Emma gasped.

"That was what I said."

"Well, well!" ejaculated her
daughter, recovering from the
shock. "Of course it is to Mr.
Morrison. He must have spoken
yesterday, when he was here. Why
didn't you tell me before? How
could I know why you were so set
on not going West with Will and
me?"

"I hardly know myself, yet," Mrs.
Bassett answered. "And, Emma,
you must not tell anybody, — not any-
body, do you understand?"

"Of course not, if you don't want
me to. When is it to be? Soon I
suppose, as long as there is no rea-
son for putting it off. Hadn't you
better go with us after all, and be
married from our house?"

"When I marry it will be from my
own house," her mother answered
with dignity.

"Well, then, I don't see but what
I shall have to give up my plan of
having you live with me," Emma
said slowly.

Mrs. Bassett's heart thrilled with
exultation. She was free once more,
and how easily it had been accom-
plished.

"As soon as I get my own work
done I'm coming over to help you
pack your things," she said calmly.

"I shall be glad to have you,"

Emma said. "It seems if it would
take forever, there is so much stuff;"
and she departed with a subdued
and vanquished air that caused Mrs.
Bassett to laugh inwardly.

"I hoped you were going with
us, mother," Will said significantly,
as they were working together that
afternoon, "but under the circum-
stances I don't suppose we can ex-
pect it."

So Emma had told him ! Mrs.
Bassett was vexed. "I thought I
made her understand," she thought
uneasily. "Will Bradley is the best
fellow that ever lived but everybody
knows he can't keep anything to
himself." She took pains to caution
Emma again. "You must .impress
it on Will that what I told you this
morning isn't to be mentioned to a
living soul till I give the word."

"I did," said Emma a little guilti-
ly. "I don't think he will tell, —
though I don't see why you need
to be so terribly private about it.
It is what everybody has been ex-
pecting for years."

Will was to go to the city on an
errand the next day and Mrs. Bas-
sett was in an agony of apprehen-
sion lest he see Mr. Morrison or
some mutual friend and mention the
forbidden subject. But when he re-
turned there was nothing in his
manner or words to indicate any
such encounter or disclosure and she
breathed more freely.

Mrs. Bassett well knew there was
to come a day of reckoning with her
conscience, but she postponed it.
For the present it was enough that
she was not forced to go away from
what she held so dear. Indeed, she
was so busy that she had little time
to think.

But at last Will and Emma were
gone, and with the return of her
simple, quiet life, Mrs. Bassett's

MRS. BASSET T'S FALL

277

conscience began its work. Now
that she was face to face with her-
self she was aghast at what she had
done. She, a Christian woman, to
so far forget herself as to tell a lie !
And so indelicate, so shameful a lie !
What would Mr. Morrison think if
he knew? She was as sure as that
the sun shone that the idea of marry-
ing her, or any other woman, had
never entered his head. How could
she look him in the face if she
should ever see him again?

Well, one thing was clear : she
must give up her class in Sunday-
school and cease to attend Com-
munion service.

As the days passed she went less
and less among her neighbors ; she
was no longer fit to associate with
good people, she told herself. She
who had been the busiest, the cheeri-
est, the most neighborly of women,
now stayed closely at home and
would sit for hours at a time brood-
ing over her wrong doing. She was
very lonely, and the days dragged
interminably. She dreaded the long
nights in which she could not sleep,
and when morning came there
seemed to be nothing in life worth
getting up for.

Her many friends became quite
concerned about her. They had not
thought she cared so much for
Emma, they told each other. Some
of them came in often and tried to
divert her mind and others thought
she was ill and urged her to see a
doctor. But to none of them, not
even to the minister, could Mrs.
Bassett tell her trouble.

At last, one morning in Novem-
ber she arose with the light of a
new determination in her face. She
had neglected her housework some-
what of late and the forenoon was
spent in restoring everything to its
accustomed state of order and clean-

liness. After dinner, when she had
made herself nice for the afternoon,
she sat down to her desk to write
to Emma. The body of the letter
was short, — "I am ready to come
and live with you, if you still wish
it. I am not to be married." A
great peace filled her heart as she
addressed and sealed the envelope.
Her home and all connected with it
was as dear as ever, but a clear con-
science was above everything and
surely to give up all she had sinned
for would atone for the sin.

"I will put on my things and carry
it to the post office right away," she
said to herself. Her step was elastic
and her eyes bright as she started
across the room.

As she was passing through the
little front hall the door-bell rang.
"Some peddler, it is likely," she
thought, and opened the door. She
started back involuntarily, the color
rushing to her face, for the person
standing on the doorstep before her
was Mr. Morrison.

'ID id I frighten you?" he asked.

"You startled me a little," she
answered, with a nervous laugh. "I
wasn't expecting you."

He took off his hat and overcoat,
and they went into the sitting-room
and sat down. Mrs. Bassett made a
heroic attempt to conceal her em-
barrassment and appear as usual.
She asked after Edith and talked of
the weather and other commonplace
subjects.

For some reason Mr. Morrison
did not seem as responsive as usual.
Was he embarrassed too? He cer-
tainly no longer looked at her in the
old frank, impersonal way, but
rather as if he now saw her for the
first time and was studying her face.
The conversation was fitful, and
there were awkward pauses.

Mrs. Bassett grew more and more

278

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

uncomfortable. "Have you noticed
my rose tree?" she asked finally, ris-
ing and going to it. "There are
twenty-seven roses and buds on it.
I remember you always admired it
very much."

He came and looked down on it,
absent mindedly. "No, I hadn't
noticed it," he said. Then suddenly
he turned toward her. "Mrs. Bas-
sett," he began, "I have something
particular to say to you and I might
as well out with it. A week or more
ago a friend referred to my 'ap-
proaching marriage.' I was some-
what taken aback, he spoke so con-
fidently, but I recovered myself im-
mediately and asked him how he
happened to know of it. He said he
had it from a mutual friend. Then
I asked him of the mutual friend had
mentioned the name of the lady and
he said that he did, and that it was
Mrs. Bassett."

Mrs. Bassett had averted her face.
Her heart was beating wildly, and
she bit her lip to keep it from
trembling. The way of the trans-
gressor was indeed hard.

"It seems incredible now," Mr.
Morrison went on, "but such an idea
had never entered my head till that
moment. The more I thought of it,
however, the more attractive it
seemed. I have always had the very
highest regard for you, but since I
heard that I was going to marry you
my esteem has changed to a much
strong sentiment, — I came here to-
day to ask you to be my wife."

The tears came to Mrs. Bassett's
eyes as she bravely faced him. Of
course he would despise her but he
should know the truth. She had
had enough of deception.

"Do you know where that report
started?" she asked. Then, without
waiting for him to answer, "It
started with me. Emma wanted me
to go West and live with her and I
felt as if I couldnt. She would have
made me go but she happened to say
that if I was married she wouldn't
expect me to, and I told her I was
thinking of marrying. She thought
it was you and I let her think so."
She covered her burning face with
her hands. "You see now that what
you ask could never be. You
wouldn't want — a liar — "

He put his arms around her pro-
tectingly. "Wouldn't I?" he said.
"There may be two opinions about
that."

"Are you sure you understand?"
she faltered.

"Perfectly sure, little woman," he
answered. "I am quite well ac-
quainted with Emma and I see just
how it was. The temptation was
too strong for you and you suc-
cumbed to it, — and have no doubt
suffered for it and repented."

"Yes," she answered eagerly, "I
have and I wrote to Emma today."

"Ah !" he said. "Is that the letter
on the table? May I read it?"

"If you want to."

He opened it and ran his eyes
over the few lines. Then he de-
liberately tore it in three pieces and
put the pieces in the stove. "It
isn't true now, you know," he said
as he came back to her, "for you are
not going to live with Emma, and
you are going to marry me." And
then he drew her to him again and
kissed her.

A Friend of Washington's

By Chrles W. Stetson

AS the steamer turns from the
main channel of the Potomac
and begins winding its way be-
tween the buoys which bound each
side of the narrow cut leading to the
landing at Mt. Vernon, many visit-
ors must have noticed the high
wooded bluff at the water's edge
of the Virginia shore two miles to
the south. The river channel, cross-
ing and recrossing its wide shallow
bed, comes nearly to the foot of the
bluff, so that the descent under
water from the shore is almost as
abrupt and precipitous as it is above
land. At low tide a narrow beach
five or six feet wide skirts the bot-
tom of the cliff, but when the tide
is in, even this is covered, and the
steep wooded ascent rises directly
out of the water. At one point a
sharp ravine breaks the face of the
bluff, and here twenty-five or thirty
years ago a short wharf projected
into the river. At its end was a long
low white pavilion surmounted by
a pretentious red cupola. The lo-
cality was then familiar to Wash-
ington excursionists under the name
of the "White House Landing," but
both wharf and pavilion gradually
rotted away, and the only habitation
now visible from the river is the
little brick cabin of a negro fisher-
man. In the 1 8th century the bluff
and the plateau back of it bore an-
other name. It was then "Belvoir,"
and upon the commanding point
overlooking the river for miles up
and down stood the substantial
mansion of the Fairfax family.
279

The connection of the Fairfaxes
with Virginia dated back to the
latter part of the 17th century, when
Charles II undertook to bestow up-
on Lord Culpeper all the unpat-
ented lands of the Colony. The
grant raised such a storm even
among the loyal colonists that Lord
Culpeper was obliged to content
himself with the proprietorship of
the unclaimed lands in the North-
ern Neck, the territory between the
Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers,
reserving for himself and his heirs
a quit rent of two shillings a hun-
dred acres upon each tract which
he granted. As this section of Vir-
ginia gradually filled with settlers,
and fresh counties were carved out
of it, the quit rents grew into a very
handsome revenue. Lord Cul-
peper's only daughter married the
fifth Lord Fairfax, and upon her
death the Northern Neck became
the property of Thomas, sixth Lord
Fairfax, the early patron of Wash-
ington. As the proprietors lived in
England, the actual business of the
collection of rents and the granting
of land patents devolved upon their
colonial agent. This office was for
many years held by the cousin of
Lord Thomas, William Fairfax, who
built a residence for himself at Bel-
voir in 1736. His eldest daughter,
Anne, married Lawrence Washing-
ton and the young couple estab-
lished themselves on the neighbor-
ing "neck" of Mount Vernon. This
William Fairfax was a man of con-
sequence in Virginia. He was Presi-

280

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

dent of the Council of State and the
Collector of Customs for the South
Potomac.

One of our earliest glimpses of
Washington occurs in a letter of
his to Lawrence Washington, writ-
ten in 1746, — when George Wash-

ington was fourteen.

"George,"' he says, "has been with us
and says he will be steady and faithfully
follow your advice, as his best friend. I
gave him his mother's letter to deliver,
with a caution not to show his. I have
spoken to Dr. Spencer, who, I find is often
at the widow's (Mrs. Washington's) and
has some influence, to persuade her to
think better of your advice in putting-
George to sea."

Lawrence Washington, it seems,
wished to procure a midshipman's
warrant for his younger brother and
Mr. Fairfax promised to lend his
influence. The project, however,
came to nothing as Mrs. Washing-
ton v/ould not consent to it.

In 1746 Lord Fairfax made a visit
to Virginia to inspect his posses-
sions. He made his home with his
cousin at Belvoir. The visit was
unexpectedly prolonged into a forty
years' sojourn, for his Lordship
never recrossed the ocean to Eng-
land again, though he lived long
enough to see the tie which bound
the colony to the mother country
severed. The tide of population
was just beginning to flow into the
Shenandoah Valley, and there about
twelve miles from Winchester, on
the edge of the wilderness, Lord
Fairfax established himself at Green-
way Court. Biographies of Wash-
ington often give a romantic touch
to his long life there by describing
it as the lonely retreat of a hermit
driven from the world by a disap-
pointment in love. Such chance
letters of his as have survived give
the impression rather of an active
man of affairs, busy with the man-

agement of his property and the
collection of his quit rents and alive
to the public interests of the col-
ony and his own country. He was
for many years the Lieutenant, or
executive officer, of Frederick
County, and as Justice of the Peace
presided in the County Court at
Winchester; he took an active and
fearless part in the defence of the
frontier after Braddock's defeat.
Many strong cultivated men in our
own day find an exhilaration in liv-
ing upon the confines of civilization,
close to the solitude of nature, and
Lord Fairfax may have been of a
like mind. His retirement was
neither gloomy nor inactive.

About the time Lord Fairfax
built Greenway Court, Washington
entered his employment and set out
on his famous surveying expedition.
His companion on the trip was
George William Fairfax, eight years
his senior, and the eldest son of
Mr. William Fairfax of Belvoir. A
healthy, though a rough experience,
the excursion proved to both young
men. After several days of work,
Washington noted in the Journal
which he kept of the trip :

"Worked hard until night and then re-
turned. After supper we were lighted in-
to a room, and I, not being so good a
woodsman as the rest, stripped myself very
orderly and went to bed, as they called it,
when to my surprise, I found it to be
nothing but a little straw matted together,
without sheet or anything else but one
threadbare blanket, with double its weight
of vermin. I was glad to get up and put
on my clothes, and lie as my companions
did. Had we not been very tired I am
sure we should not have slept much that
night. I made a promise to sleep so no
more, choosing rather to sleep in the open
air before a fire."

The little Journal closes with the
entr}' :

"Mr. Fairfax got safe home, and I to
my brother's house at Mt. Vernon, which
concludes my journal."

A FRIEND OF WASHINGTON'S

281

The influence of William Fairfax
soon after procured for Washing-
ton the position of Adjutant to the
northern division of Virginia militia.
This brought him to the notice of
Governor Dinwiddie when occasion
arose for communicating with the
French on the Ohio. The French
and Indian War took both young
friends to the frontier. Washing-
ton's resolution and genius won
him greater laurels but Fairfax was
not idle. Writing to Governor
Dinwiddie after Braddock's rout
had carried consternation up and
down the Shenandoah Valley, he
says :

"This instant Mr. Dennis McCarthy came
here and gave me the agreeable news of
Col. Dunbar's being ordered back (Dun-
bar commanded the army after Braddock's
death) with my friend Colonel Washing-
ton who is to have command of the forces
to be raised by this colony, which un-
doubtedly is a great trust, but I dare say
he will discharge it with honor. * * *
I cannot help expressing my intention and
great desire of serving my country at this
juncture, not sembling in the least to serve
under my valuable friend. * * * I hope
I am not too late in my application and
must beg the favor of you to postpone
any office you may incline to favor me
with until I consult my good and indulgent
parent and my worthy patron L'd Fairfax,
who I am in hopes will spare me from his
office. Wives, good sir, are not to be con-
sulted on these occasions, but I make no
doubt mine would consent to so laudable
a call."

The wife of whose consent the
writer speaks so jauntily was Sarah,
daughter of Colonel Cary, a wealthy
Virginia planter, and a lady with
whom Washington corresponded
during the Braddock campaign.
The gallantry of some chance ex-
pressions in his letters have given
rise to the unfounded suspicion that
he was in love with his friend's wife.

The death of William Fairfax in
1757 made George William Fairfax

master of Belvoir, as the death of
Lawrence Washington's only
daughter a few years before had
made George Washington master of
Mt. Vernon. The future careers of
the two proprietors seemed likely to
run along parallel courses. The
next few years Fairfax spent most-
ly in England. While abroad he
kept Washington informed of the
doings at the center of the Em-
pire :

"The chief talk of the metropolis is of
immediate peace (the Seven Years' War
was about to be concluded) and of the
King's marriage with the young princess
of Brunswick, not quite fifteen years of
age, but I believe neither certain, though
the stocks rise every day. The changes
and other particulars I shall refer you to
the magazine here enclosed, and I wish I
could say they were satisfactory to the peo-
ple."

A rumor that Washington in-
tended to change his residence from
Mount Vernon evidently gave him
much concern, —

"should be glad to know of your deter-
mination about leaving that part of the
world, for I assure you 'tis our greatest
inducement and will turn the scale very
much whether we come back or not."

Another letter written in the fall
of 1761 alludes to an attack of ma-
laria— river fever, it was then called
in Virginia — from which Washing-
ton was recovering and suggests
that a change of air might be of
benefit, — "and if you have any busi-
ness or even fancy to see England,
we shall be extremely glad to see
you at York, or at out little retreat
not many miles from it" ; and the
writer goes on in confidence to de-
plore the bad influence which one
Martin, a nephew of Lord Fairfax,
has over his Lordship and to fear
"that it will daily lessen the esteem
which people have for the good old
gent'n." Washington, on his side,

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

appears to have been a faithful cor-
respondent, as the letter just quoted
begins by acknowledging the re-
ceipt of four separate letters from
him. The only one which has sur-
vived contains a long circumstantial
account of the death of a valuable
mare which had been left by Fair-
fax in his charge.

On the cessation of hostilities be-
tween England and France, Fairfax
and his wife returned to Virginia
and began anew their quiet pleas-
ant life at Belvoir. The immediate
estate on which they lived was a
peninsula or "neck" containing
about 2000 acres of land, with the
Potomac in front, and on two sides
estuaries formed by the mouths of
two creeks. The land lay high and
level. Perhaps a fourth of it was
cleared and under cultivation. To-
bacco and corn were the chief crops.
On the high bank which rose 200
feet above the Potomac stood the
mansion, with its wide spacious cen-
tral hall, four rooms upon the first
floor and five upon the second, gar-
rets above and cellar with servants'
hall below. Surrounding the house
and its flower garden, after the man-
ner of the Eighteenth Century, was
a low brick wall. Close at hand
stood the little office building which
the elder Fairfax and George William
had till lately used to transact the
business of the proprietor's agent.
Nearby there were other brick out-
buildings,— kitchen, dairy, servants'
quarters, stables and coach house, —
for Belvoir of course had its chariot;
and forward across the lawn where
the cliffs fell away in sheer descent
to the river, was the summer house.
Below at the foot of the steep rocky
roadway which wound its way down
a narrow defile was the private land-
ing where the yacht and barge of
the proprietor were fastened. Fur-

ther down the river where the fall of
the water was more gradual, was the
warehouse and wharf from which
the tobacco of the plantation was
shipped to the owner's factor in Lon-
don. The fisheries which supplied
the slaves of the plantation with a
great part of their food, centered at
the wharf. Other tenements for
slaves were scattered here and there
over the estate.

On the next "neck" below Belvoir
was "Gunston Hall," the home of
George Mason ; and elsewhere in the
country, mostly in sight of the river,
were the modest homes of other
gentlemen, — the Wests of "West
Grove," the Cockburns of "Spring-
field," the McCarthys of "Cedar
Grove," the Alexanders, the John-
sons, the Chichesters. Several miles
down the river was "Leesylvania,"
the home of the father of "Light
Horse Harry" Lee, Washington's
devoted friend and follower, and be-
yond the seats of other Washing-
tons, Fitzhughs, Stuarts. Still fur-
ther down where the river widens
out into an arm of the Bay lived
Councilman Carter of "Nomini,"
and near his seat was "Stratford,"
the great house of the Lees.

The duty of public worship and
the desire for social intercourse
drew the gentry of the country to-
gether weekly at Pohick Church, —
old Pohick, for the present church
was not finished until a few years
before the Revolution. The Sunday
scenes before its doors were no
doubt like those witnessed before
the door of another Virginia Church,
by Philip Fithian, the young Prince-
ton tutor in Councilman Carter's
family and by him set down in his
Journal :

"It is not the custom for Gentlemen to
go in Church til Service is beginning,
when they enter in a Body, in the same

A FRIEND OF WASHINGTON'S

283

manner as they come out; I have known
the Clerk to come out and call them after
prayers. They stay also after Service is
over, usually as long, sometimes longer
than the Parson was preaching."

Washington and Fairfax were
both vestrymen of Truro Parish and
each purchased pews in the new
church, though a misunderstanding
afterward caused Washington to
change his attendance to Christ
Church, Alexandria. In the general
wreck of the Episcopal Church of
Virginia which followed close on
the Revolution, Pohick became de-
serted and stood for many years
open to wind and rain. The initials
G. W. F. on the Fairfax pew were
still to be seen until the Civil War.
Close to the new church was the
"race course near Bogges." Every
Virginia county had its track and
most more than one. Northumber-
land appears to have three as early
as the beginning of the Eighteenth
Century.

The daily "where and how my
time is spent" which Washington
kept gives many glimpses of the pur-
suits and pleasures of his neighbors.
No entry occurs more frequently
than — "Colo. Fairfax and his lady
* * * dined here ; and * * *
stayed the night," — or the recipro-
cal entry, — "Went to Belvoir with
Mrs. Washington and dined." The
two houses were not over four or
five miles from each other by the
road, and by water they were little
over two miles apart. Hardly a
week passed without some inter-
course between the two families,
and during this period Fairfax was
Washington's most intimate friend.
This same diary in which Washing-
ton set down the daily round of his
occupations and happenings enables
us to guess what his neighbors were
doing. The outward tenor of all

their lives was the same. What
Washington did one day, Mr. Ma-
son or Mr. Fairfax was likely to be
doing the next.

Thus we find that one day Wash-
ington

"planted out twenty young pine trees at
the head of my cherry walk. Received my
goods from York. Hauled the sein again,
catched two or three white fish, more
herring than yesterday and a great num-
ber of Cats. Made another plow, the same
as my former one, except that it has two
eyes and the other one."

A day or two later :

"The heavy rains that had fallen in these
few days past made the ground too wet
for plowing. I therefore set about the
fence which encloses my clover field."

On another day :

"Visited my plantations and found the
new negro Cupid ill of a pleurisy at Doeg
Run Quarter, and had him brought to
the house in a cart for better care of him.

"Mr. Carlyle and his wife still remain-
ing here, we talked a good deal of a scheme
of setting up iron works on Colo. Fairfax's
land on Shenandoah.

"Finished threshing and cleaning my
wjieat at Doeg Run Plantn.

"Began shearing my sheep.

"Cold northerly wind. Colo. Fairfax
and I set out (for the Court House in
Alexandria) to settle and adjust Clifton
and Darrell's accounts, conformably to the
decree of our General Court."

The Referees found it more con-
venient to hold subsequent sessions
at their respective houses, and —

"according to appointment Colo. Fairfax
and Mr. Green met here upon Clifton's
Affair, he being present, as was Mr. Thomp-
son Mason, as counsel for him * * *
others left at six, but Colo. Fairfax and
Mr. Green stayed the night."

Other entries tell of occasional re-
laxations :

"Went fox hunting with Colo. Fairfax,
Captn. McCarthy, Mr. Chichester, Posey,
Ellzey and Manley, who dined here with
Mrs. Fairfax and Miss Nicholas.

"Went to x\lexandria to see Captn. Little-
dale's ship launched, which went off ex-
tremely well.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"Went fishing in Broad Creek.

"With Mrs. Washington and ye two
childn. went up to Alexandria to see In-
constant or the way to win him" (played.)

So the years went busily and hap-
pily by, with little heed to occasion-
al ominous political rumblings. In
1768 Fairfax was made a member of
the Council, or upper house of legis-
lature. He had some years before
this served a term as Burgess.
Washington represented Fairfax
County in the Flouse of Burgesses
from 1764 to the meeting of the
First Continental Congress, so the
two were frequently in Williams-
burg together during the last years
of the colonial government.

In 1773, through the death of his
father's brother, Mr. Fairfax inherit-
ed some property in Yorkshire and
found it necessary to make another
voyage to England. As his stay was
to be of several years' duration, Bel-
voir was offered for lease. The ad-
vertisement describing its "beautiful
site," its "mansion house all brick,"
its "large and well furnished garden
stored with a great variety of valu-
able fruits" and its "valuable fisher-
ies" may still be read in the faded
columns of the Virginia Gazette.
Washington undertook in his ab-
sence to "perform the duties of a
friend by having an eye to the con-
duct of your Collector and steward."

Fairfax never returned to Virgin-
ia. Indeed he was hardly settled in
his Yorkshire home when the un-
happy dispute between the two
great branches of the English race
passed into a conflict at arms. There
was little for him to do but to re-
main where he was. With his many
English connections, and attached
to England as he was from his many
visits there, he would probably not
in any event have taken an active
part in a war against her authority.

Flad he been in Virginia when hos-
tilities broke out, he would doubt-
less have remained there, a pained
and inactive spectator of events,
sympathizing in a measure with
each party. Another Member of
the Council, who was confined for
his loyalty by the Virginia Conven-
tion,— Ralph Wormeley of "Rose-
gill" — expressed what must have
been the attitude of many whom
their contemporaries called Tories,
when he set out in a petition which
he presented to the Convention,

"that he had from the origin of the un-
happy contest disclaimed the right of taxa-
tion in the British Parliament, but that it
was his great misfortune to differ in senti-
ment from the mode adopted to obtain a
renunciation of that unconstitutional claim."

It is hardly accurate though to
call George William Fairfax a loyal-
ist. Living in England where the
war naturally aroused much bitter
feeling against the Americans, his
sympathies seem throughout to
have been with his friends in Vir-
ginia. When he heard that John
Randolph, Attorney General of the
Colony, had come to England after
the breaking out of hostilities, he
writes to his informant that he was
"never more astonished" and fears
it "bodes no good to his country,"
and, "I should not be surprised if I
should see in the papers his appoint-
ment to some lucrative place here."
The suspicion was unjust to that
unfortunate loyal gentleman, who
lived and died in obscurity in Eng-
land, leaving the last request that
his body should be carried over the
ocean and buried in his native colo-
ny.

The rest of the letter reveals in a
measure Mr. Fairfax's views on the
struggle in progress and is worth
quoting.

A FRIEND OF WASHINGTON'S

285

"I cannot really believe that the Ministry
will be able to get 50,000 men landed in
America (as his correspondent had heard
was planned) or that the commissioners
will do anything effectual unless they are
allowed to treat with the Continental Con-
gress. They may indeed protract matters
and enrich themselves with the overflow of
your T— y, but I expect very little national
advantage from their negotiations. How-
ever I do most sincerely and heartily wish
that I may be mistaken and that the com-
missioners may obtain peace and tranquil-
lity through the British dominions, though
from letters lately received from G. W —
I must agree with you that there is little
prospect of so happy an event. Sad re-
flections for me, my good sir, whose chief
resources are now cut off and forced to
contract his living to the small income he
has here" * * *

The letter was written shortly af-
ter the evacuation of Boston by the
British. Lord Howe and General
Howe had been appointed members
of a commission to treat with the
colonists, but without authority to
recognize the Congress. The time
had probably gone by when an ac-
commodation of any kind could be
effected, but the mode suggested in
this letter, — recognition of Congress,
and an adjustment of difficulties
through it, — was surely the one
course which presented any hope of
reconciliation.

Washington had now an oppor-
tunity of repaying the debt of grati-
tude which he felt he owed the Fair-
fax family for his early advance-
ment; and he did it with ample in-
terest. His services in protecting
the aged Lord Fairfax in the enjoy-
ment of his property brought from
the latter at his home at Greenway
Court a touching letter of acknowl-
edgement. When Bryan Fairfax,
the brother of George William, in
the middle of the war, determined to
go to England, he furnished him
with a safe conduct to the British
lines at New York, but Bryan Fair-

fax found the oath prescribed for
loyalists by the British General was
so strict that he preferred not to
take it and returned to his home in
Alexandria. When a project was on
foot in the Virginia legislature to
sequester the estate of George Wil-
liam Fairfax, he wrote to a friend in
that body : —

"I hope, I trust, that no act of legislation
in the State of Virginia has affected or
can affect the property of this gentleman
otherwise than in common with that of
every good and well disposed citizen of
America,"

and the knowledge of his disapprov-
al was enough to prevent the plan
from being carried farther. He
could not, of course, act any longer
as the agent of his friend when he
was compelled to entrust his own
affairs to the care of others. And
like all persons residing in England
to whom American debts were ow-
ing, Fairfax found that his remit-
tances ceased during the war.

In spite of hostilities, Washington
found opportunity to write to Fair-
fax occasionally during the years
1775 and 1776. The tone of his let-
ters shows that he counted upon the
latter's sympathy with the Ameri-
can cause. Thus he took care that
Fairfax should have the American
as well as the British account of
Lexington, concluding his letter in
a strain of passion unusual for him :

"unhappy it is, though, to reflect that a
brother's sword has been sheathed in a
brothers breast, and that the once happy
and peaceful plains of America are either
to be drenched with blood or inhabited by
slaves Sad alternative ! But can a virtuous
man hesitate in his choice."

A little later he communicated
the news of his appointment to the
command of the Continental Army
and gave an American version of
Bunker Hill. After this there seems

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to have been no correspondence be-
tween the two for several years.
The reports he had from Virginia
of the neglected condition of Belvoir
induced Washington to write again
in 1780.

Archdeacon Burnaby, who knew
Mr. Fairfax, adds a few details of
his life in England during the war.
He says :

"During the ten years' contest, the con-
sequences of which Mr. Fairfax early fore-
saw and lamented, his estates in Virginia
were sequestered and he received no re-
mittances from his extensive property.
This induced him to move out of York-
shire, to lay down his carriages and retire
to Bath, where he lived in a private but
genteel manner, and confined his expenses
so much within the income of his English
estate that he was able occasionally to lend
large sums of money to the government
agent for the use and benefit of American
prisoners."

Just before the war ended Bel-
voir was burned to the ground; and
Fairfax gave up all thought of re-
turning to his Virginia home.

With the return of peace the old
correspondence was renewed, and
Washington's letters show the
strong attachment he still felt for
the friend of his youth. In a letter
from New York, after its evacua-
tion by the British Army, he says :

"There was nothing wanting in (your)
letter to give compleat satisfaction to Mrs.
Washington and myself but some expres-
sion to induce us to believe that you would
once more become our neighbors. Your
house at Belvoir, I am sorry to add, is no
more, but mine (which is enlarged since
you saw it), is most sincerely and heartily
at your service till you could rebuild it.
As the path after being closed by a long,
arduous and painful contest, is, to use an
Indian metaphor, now opened and made
smooth, I shall please myself with the hope
of hearing from you frequently, and till
you forbid me to indulge the wish, I shall
not despair of seeing you and Mrs. Fair-
fax once more the inhabitants of Belvoir
and greeting you both there the intimate
companions of our old age, as you have
been of our younger years."

In another letter written at Mount
Vernon in that peaceful interval of
retirement between the resignation
of his commission and his election
as President, Washington says :

"Though envy is no part of my compo-
sition, yet the picture you have drawn of
your present habitation and mode of liv-
ing is enough to create in me a strong desire
to be a participator in the tranquillity and
rural amusements you have described. I
am getting into the latter as fast as I can,
being determined to make the remainder
of my life easy, let the world or the affairs
of it go as they may. I am not a little
obliged to you for the assurance of con-
tributing to this last by procuring me a
buck and doe of the best English deer
* * * My manner of living is plain. I
do not mean to be put out of it. A glass
of wine and a bit of mutton are always
ready, and such as will be content to par-
take of that are always welcome.-' * * *

Mr. Fairfax's health had been fail-
ing for several years and in 1787 he
died. Mrs. Fairfax survived him
until 181 1. He left no children, and
the estate passed by his will to the
son of his brother Bryan. Belvoir
was never re-built.

We know that agriculture upon a
large scale became singularly un-
profitable in tidewater Virginia to-
ward the close of the Eighteenth
Century, and that old society of
landed gentry which had flourished
there and which made the name of
Virginia famous, suffered ship-
wreck. John Randolph said it was
dead by the year 1800. Just what
caused the catastrophe, nobody has
satisfactorily explained. The ex-
haustion of the soil, to which it is
sometimes ascribed, may have been
an element, though agricultural
chemists of the present day are scep-
tical of the final and permanent ex-
haustion of any soil. The same
estates had stood the drain of tobacco
growing for a long period before the
downfall, and at no time were the

A FRIEND OF WASHINGTON'S

287

planters who lived upon them more
prosperous than before ruin came
upon them. Perhaps some deep-
seated economic change, consequent
upon the opening up of the Western
prairies, contributed, though it could
hardly have originated the disaster.

But the Revolution itself, and the
democratic legislation which Jef-
ferson carried triumphantly through
the Virginia legislature must have
had a large share in bringing about
the result. The war cut off entirely
for eight years the principal market
for Virginia tobacco. The long set-
tled connections between the plant-
ers and their English factors and
mercantile agents were broken up,
and were never re-established.
When peace came, the planters
found, perhaps to their surprise, that
the freedom of trade with all the
world which they had gained, did
not compensate them for the loss of
the practical monopoly of the
British tobacco market, which the
legislation of the mother country
had secured to them.

During the war the system of en-
tails by which estates had been kept
together from generation to gener-
ation in the hands of the same fami-
lies, was abolished, and the present
system of fee simple holdings es-
tablished. And for primogeniture
had been substituted the more equi-
table system of an equal division
among the surviving heirs. Such
changes were no doubt inevitable
under the conditions of modern
American civilization, but they told
against the permanence of a society
which had been founded upon a dif-
ferent basis. The system of entails
kept the capital of the colony in a
few hands. The profitable applica-
tion of slave labor to the production
of a crop like tobacco required both
capital and a large scale of opera-

tions. With the splitting up of es-
tates the individual holdings became
smaller, the slaves fewer, and the
margin of profit inadequate to sup-
port any but those who worked with
their own hands.

But whatever the cause there can
be no doubt of the fact. Randolph
writing to Francis Scott Key in
1814, says:

"What a spectacle does our lower country
present. Deserted and dismantled country
houses, once seats of cheerfulness and
plenty, and the temples of the Most High
ruinous and desolate."

And Bishop Meade, who travelled
extensively throughout the old tide-
water country a few years later, de-
scribes it as almost a desert.

As it was elsewhere in the lower
counties, so it was in the neighbor-
hood we have been describing.
Washington bequeathed the 2000
acres of his estate which adjoined
Belvoir to his nephew Maj. Law-
rence Lewis, and to Nellie Custis
who had married Lewis. Together
they built there the noble brick man-
sion of "Woodlawn." Lewis had for
some years been the manager of
Washington's farm, and the latter
thought highly of his business capa-
city. Yet after years of unremuner-
ative effort, Maj. Lewis and his
wife simply abandoned house and
estate and moved westward to an-
other property in the Shenandoah
Valley. Mount Vernon itself, and
the bulk of the estate, as is well
known, were devised to Judge Bush-
rod Washington, who was certainly
neither improvident nor careless in
his management of it; yet he also
found the prevailing conditions too
adverse to cope with successfully.
By 1854 it is said there were but
three white families living upon the
whole of the 8000 acres which the
Mount Vernon tract comprised in
1799. Broom sedge and pine bar-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

rens covered what in Washington's
day had been cultivated fields. Al-
most as sad a fate overtook the no-
ble estate of Gunston Hall, though
George Mason left behind him
capable and energetic sons who
strove hard to maintain the pros-
perity of their ancestral home.

Under such conditions the culti-
vated fields of Belvoir gradually
lapsed again into forest land, and be-
fore the Civil War the estate became
the property of a retired Washington
butcher, whose descendants still
own it though they have never lived
upon it. Of its 2000 acres a clear-
ing of perhaps 150 lying around one
of the tenements of the old estate
is still cultivated. Here and there,
through the rest of it, timber is oc-
casionally cut into firewood, and in
the autumn the boys and young men
of the country find the shooting on
the peninsula excellent.

Close to the bluff there is a little
opening in the forest and the sun-

light peeps through. Here one may
find five or six little mounds of
grass-covered brick, a well filled al-
most to the surface with earth, the
remains of an extensive cellar, a few
worn-out cherry and pear trees, long
since past bearing, and, mingled
with the grass around, "a host of
golden daffodils," descendants of
those which a century and a half ago
bloomed in Mrs. Fairfax's garden.
Through the trees to the northward,
one catches a glimpse of the wooded
slope of Mount Vernon ; and the
obvious contrast is suggested of the
different fates of the homes of these
two friends; — one a shrine of pil-
grimage for the world, the other a
forgotten ruin. One brings to mind
the vision of the mighty America
which worships there ; the other
that "extinct race of country gentle-
men" whose homes once adorned
the banks of the Potomac, the Rap-
pahannock and the James.

Heirs of God

By Burton Ives

Life is God's legacy. Joint heirs are we

To vast creation's limitless estate ;
Ours are the treasures of the land and sea,

And ours the boundless unpaid wealth of fate.

And out of the great fortune that is ours,

Grim Time, the trustee, pays us, one by one,

The golden days of labor, love, and flowers,

Which, well or ill, we spend 'tween sun and sun.

The Whistler Memorial Exhibition

By Maurice Baldwin

TAKING the first night of the
opening of the Whistler Show,
held in Copley and Allston
Halls in Boston, during February
and March, as a foundation for a
study of the exhibition, it must be
admitted that on that occasion the
people who had come to see the
works of this dead, great, and little-
understood painter of pictures
formed the most interesting feature
of the evening.

These twelve or fifteen hundred
holders of special tickets set the
rank of those to whom Whistler's
art makes its appeal, and that the
quality of appreciation was both
high and rich may be gathered from
the character of those who made up
that first collection of visitors.

During March the Automobile
Show in Symphony and Horticul-
tural Halls drew, on the first night,
eight thousand people. Automo-
biles and Whistler are the fashion,
and very much else, as well; and
both, during these exhibitions at-
tracted the same two classes of peo-
ple— those who understood fine
workmanship and high inventive
genius, and those who can afford to
own the products of special and
great skill.

After these two classes follow, of
course, the sheep — that amiable and
facile-minded multitude who gave to
fads and fashions and follies the
strength of numbers.

Boston society, with no small
abetment from the best of other

289

cities, set the seal of its interest
and approval upon the Whistler
Show on its initial night. As nearly
as might be, those whose names may
directly or indirectly, be traced back
to the passenger list of the May-
flower, were present on this occas-
ion. Boston's Smart Set is very
much more than an aggregation of
fashionables. Its erudition, its in-
terest in and understanding of the
greater things of life, art, philoso-
phy, literature, music is sincere and
genuine. In spite of its politics and
its city council, Boston is still a city
where great social distinction and in-
tellectual distinction are reasonably
compatible terms.

During the days that followed, the
"attendance at the exhibition, both
day and night, and on Sundays, was
large and appreciative. People
came from El Paso, Texas. Or-
lando, Florida, and way stations, to
view Whistler's "Nocturnes" and
etchings. Boston for a time, as on
many previous occasions for other
reasons, became a Mecca. Student
bodies from the art schools of other
cities visited the galleries. Artists
from everywhere made definite their
appreciations and doubts. Teachers,
school boys and girls, college pro-
fessors, business men, actors and
politicans, Christian Scientists and
Socialists, Russians and Japanese
formed part of the heterogeneous
stream of interested humanity that
attended the show. In the low hum
of comment and conversation before

JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER

the pictures could be discerned the
drawl of the West, the lilt of the
South, the patois of the East. The
railroads might easily have made the
Whistler Show an excuse for re-
duced rates. On Thursdays tea
was served by prominent society
women. A Boston paper referred to
it editorially as an affair of both nat-
ional and international importance
— the exhibition. The Copley So-

ciety, under whose auspices the ex-
hibition was held, very justly bene-
fited greatly, financially and other-
wise, by the event.

If one's sense of humor be some-
what stirred by the pious serious-
ness with which Boston took this
chief exhibition of the year the
event itself does not suffer either in
dignity or importance. Both as a
memorial to a great American artist

290

THE WHISTLER MEMORIAL EXHIBITION

291

and as an exhibition of art the affair
was of unusual distinction and
value. As a recognition of the
genius of Whistler this gathering to-
gether from all parts of the world
of so large a number of his works
was an extraordinary testimonial of
appreciation, only worthy of the
very great. Whistler's fame will

It was one of Whistler's insistent
ideas in his own exhibitions in Lon-
don, that the exhibition itself should
possess a decorative character — that
is, that the display of his works,
whether paintings or prints, should
have a definitely complementary set-
ting. He proposed that the effect of
his paintings should gain from the

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WHISTLER S PORTRAIT OF HIS MOTHER

not suffer after the exuberance and
over-praise have subsided, for both
the artist and his art have entered
the eternal life. This exhibition
alone places Boston in the same
rank as an art center in America,
that London holds in England and
Paris in Europe.

environment of their frames — that
the whole exhibition should, in a
sense, be a Whistler picture. How-
ever one may question the entire
wisdom or right of an artist to de-
pend upon the surroundings of his
work for the enhancement of its
artistic qualities there can be no

292

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

LITTLE ROSE OE LYME-REGIS

doubt that a certain consistency and,
consequently, benefit is to be gained
by a regard for the secondary con-
siderations of arrangement and
background.

In preparing Copley and Allston
Halls for the exhibition the com-
mittee in charge endeavored to pro-
vide a decorative scheme which
should follow as closely as might
be the ideas and preferences of the
artist. Certainly the result was an
effective and beautiful one. The en-
tire interiors were repainted, re-
papered, and redecorated. In Cop-
ley Hall a very beautiful pearly-gray
grass cloth of Japanese manufacture
covered the walls. A few Japanese
brasses, woodcarvings, gilded stucco
wreaths, a number of bay trees and

small decorative shrubs relieved the
long lines of the hall. A wall with
wide arched doors was placed across
the stage to which a circle of steps
led, thus making a small room in
which some original pencil sketches
and studies were hung. This room,
brilliantly lighted, was covered with
a warm straw-colored grass cloth,
and seen through the two doors
from the main entrance saved the
larger hall from a gray monotony.
Between these two doors hung "The
Princess du Pays de la Porcelaine,"
one of the most brilliantly colored,
as well as beautiful, of the paintings.
Opposite it, upon the screen at the
entrance to the hall, was the famous
"White Girl." Two small alcoves
enclosed small marines and street
scenes, and a number of lithographs
made in Whistler's youthful days.

On the two long walls hung about
a hundred of the chief oil paintings
of the artist. It is unlikely that
there will ever be another exhibition
of Whistler's works so comprehen-
sive and extensive as was this. The
collection contained about one hun-
dred and fifty oils, water-colors, and
pastels; about two hundred and
twenty-five etchings; and a large
collection of lithographs and draw-
ings. "The good and the bad, the
worst and the best" of the painter's
work were here. The exhibition was
Whistler's artistic autobiography,
the unqualified truth of his weak-
ness and his strength, his failures
and successes, his whims and phan-
tasies, his triumphs. Its very hu-
manity enobled it; its uneven merit
was one of its charms; its greatness
explained the failures.

And now before discussing what
Whistler was as an artist let us con-
sider some of the things he was not,
for upon these latter points have
been built up a structure of adverse

THE WHISTLER MEMORIAL EXHIBITION

293

criticism and misunderstanding as
unjust as it is ridiculous.

One of the most common expres-
sions heard during the exhibition,
and which was made by quite intel-
ligent and often highly cultivated
people, was that "Whistler's por-
traits don't look like anybody."
Well, why should they? Yielding
to the importunities of insistent
friends, sometimes under pressure
of circumstances. Whistler occa-
sionally painted pictures in which
his sitter played a part. The only
satisfaction to the vanity of the sub-
ject lay in having one of Whistler's
pictures named after him and in pay-
ing for the honor. The police force
would have found Whistler's por-
traits, with three or four exceptions,
useless as means of identification.
In the first place Whistler was not
a portrait painter and didn't want to
be one. When he painted the three
or four exceptions referred to they
were simple tours-de-force — b oasts
merely to show what he could do if
he tried. And as portraits and
boasts, his paintings of his "Moth-
er," "Thomas Carlyle," "The Black-
smith," and the "Little Rose" are
perfect. Having proved that his
style of art was elective and not a
limitation, he proceeded to follow
his bent.

Out of every hundred persons who
have the vanity and the money to
Tiave their portraits painted there
is not more than one who is worth
painting. The domain of art is
Beauty — it has no other reason for
existence and needs none. Apart
from their possible historical sig-
nificance, portraits, with one excep-
tional consideration, are of no earth-
ly value. Great art may save them
from being tiresome, but in these
cases it is the art and not the per-
sons portrayed that makes the paint-

ings worth the space they take.
Photography is the proper resort of
those who wish their features per-
petuated. There is a place for
miniatures if the subject be worthy.
The only excuse for a portrait is the
call of love for an enduring present-
ment— which time may not mutilate
nor custom stale — of someone dear.
And because true love — deep love — ■
would not vaunt itself and its ten-
derness to the world, neither should
the portrait, the symbol of an idol,
be much larger than the heart in
which, like a secret shrine, its wor-
ship burns.

But for the thousands of paint-
ings of smug aldermen, financiers,
and fat ladies, there is really no
place in art. High technical skill

THE BLACKSMITH

294

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

may save one from becoming sick
at the sight of them, but beauty
alone remains the purpose and the
true goal of art.

And so thought Whistler. He en-
tered fully into that reserve which
is a characteristic of Japanese art,
which he greatly admired and was
influenced by — the disinclination to
use the human form and face in any-
other way than as part of a decora-

dreamer, nature provides no more
than a stone from which to spring
into flight. The uplift of wings
takes him who soars further away
from the earth from whence he
sprung: its facts of sea and land, of
rock and tree, of life and death, be-
come spiritualized and changed to
something other than they are in the
pure ether of the altitudes, and it is
this illusion which alone gives to a

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BLACK LION WHARF

tive intention. The expression of
beauty in color is the total of what
Whistler strove for in his art. The
expression of those phases of
beauty in color which made a special
appeal to his imagination was the
end to which he bent all his energies
and the subtleties of his genius.
Whistler was a colorist, a poet of
the brush, a musician in tint , a
dreamer of irridescences and designs.
To the true artist, poet, musician, or

poem or picture or a song its beauty,
which is its soul.

In his so-called portraits, then,
and indeed in nearly all of the paint-
ings executed in Whistler's best
manner, there is evident no other
intention than the interpretation of
the beauty of color as he chose to
see it. To him subject was inci-
dental, very often accidental, serv-
ing no more than as a spur in the
side of his intent, an excitant to an

THE WHISTLER MEMORIAL EXHIBITION

295

emotion which could only find ex-
pression in a tonal harmony, a re-
lation of values depending only up-
on their truth for their beauty.
Whistler clothed nearly all of his
themes in a rich and subtle glamour
— the mist of dreams. His pictures
might have suggested these lines
from a forgotten poet :

Every thought has a hue —
Red or blue,

Black and Brown" ; the uninterest-
ing "Comte Robert of Montesquiou-
Fezensac" and more uninteresting
"Arthur J. Eddy"; the "Sarasate,"
full of distinction ; the portrait of
Miss Cassett; "The Andalusian," a
beautiful study, in dark grays, of a
Spanish woman with back turned to
the beholder, a cheek showing over
the shoulder.

In none of these paintings was

LIME HOUSE (ON THE THAMES)

There are atoms of perfume

In gloom ;

There are colors heard when sleeping,

There is music seen when weeping,

There are concerts vague of tune

In the moon.

To finish with the portraits, those
shown in this exhibition include
"The Fur Jacket," one of the most
appealing and exquisite of the full
length studies, holding in its vague
outlines and the delicate flesh tones
of the face a rare and tender charm ;
the finely posed and effective "Miss
Rose Corder," an "Arrangement in

perceptible any of the oriental feel-
ing that pervades many of Whist-
ler's smaller figure studies. And in
none of them was apparent much of
the Velasquez quality which some
have claimed to have perceived in
them. Whistler's fastidious, sensi-
tive genius seems quite another
thing than that of Velasquez.

"The Symphony in White — The
Little White Girl," with its dainty
Japanese treatment of accessories
seemed to be the apogee of Whist-
ler's delicate and exquisite taste.

GERMAN RAG PICKER

There is drawing enough in this per-
fect and lovely thing to satisfy the
most exacting realist, but it was not
of the drawing that one thought in
contemplating this masterpiece so
filled with the white charm of in-
nocency and youth. It seemed a
maiden-soul — almost without the
clay, so radiant and sweet and pure
it is.

Near this painting hung a famous
and especially delightful group of
five decorative studies very Japanese

in arrangement and treatment — the
"Symphony in White and Red/'
"Venus," "Symphony in Green and
Violet," "Symphony in Blue and
Green," and "Variations in Blue and
Green." Their delicacy of color and
the illusive grace of their drawing
made them of especial note.

On the western wall of Copley
Hall hung the final utterances of
Whistler's art — the incomparable
"Nocturnes." These supreme paint-
ings embodied all the refinement,

296

THE KITCHEN

poetry, feeling, insight, and manual
■dexterity of the painter's life as an
artist. Flawless, marvelous, spirit-
ualized twilight and darkness — it is
"hard to describe the beauty which
seems to- be diffused from these
splendid canvasses. Their techni-
-cal simplicity is not the least won-
derful thing about them. In these
are particularly noticeable a fine
poetized glamour — the wistful in-
tangible grace of hidden things — the
"witcheries and mysteries of night.
No other artist has ever expressed
297

the sweet still hush of eventide so
exquisitely or so simply. In gazing
upon them the observer slowly felt
the sober pensive loveliness of dusk
and dreams stealing over him. As
someone said, "a moment more and
one might expect the stars to break
through the deep velvety skies, and
to see their reflections in the placid
waters." It is useless to attempt in
words to convey an idea of their
memory-haunting loveliness.

Their names describe them as well
as may be. Three in "Blue and

THE FIDDLER

Silver — Bognor — Battersea, and
Cremorne Lights," Nocturne in
"Black and Gold — The Falling
Rocket," "Nocturne — Southamp-
ton," and the rest of the group ;per-
fect in their expression of night's
elusive enchantments.

With these more important works
to which only the briefest reference
has been possible were numerous
small paintings of figures, street
scenes, landscapes and the sea.

These "bits" were in quality and*
character equal in every way to the
more pretentious canvasses. In
them the sensitive color feeling pre-
dominated and made each a gem —
precious miniatures of flower-like
perfection. Looking at these tiny
paintings one realizes that Whistler
had no disdain for an illustrative
value when it did not intrude upon
the color quality which he desired'
to retain.

298

ABBY SOPHIA'S LEGACY

Of the large number of etchings
and other studies which rilled All-
ston Hall nothing need be said.
Whistler's fame as an etcher was
made permanent years ago. Even
in these his passion for color gives
them a unique character.

Great as is Whistler's contribu-
tion to the beautiful paintings of the
world his gift to the knowledge of
art is greater. His insight as to the

relations of values and his acute
perception and taste in color will
long possess a wealth of suggestion
and instruction for artists to come.
When the foolishness of faddism has
passed away Whistler's paintings
will take their just place among the
great art treasures of the world and
Whistler's name will be found
among the names of the masters.

Abby Sophia's Legacy

By Harriet A. Nash

^T COME right over just as
X soon as I heard," declared
Mrs. Foster, seating herself
in the large rocker. " 'Twas dret-
ful sudden, wasn't it?"

"Sudden at the last," agreed her
hostess, a tall thin woman, whose
gingham wrapper hung limply about
her, and who seemed to radiate an
atmosphere of overwork. She hung
a huge brass kettle upon the crane
as she answered and added a stick
to the fire beneath it.

There were five neighbors sitting
about the room before Mrs. Foster's
arrival, but Mrs. Merritt had mourn-
fully assured each and all of them
that "there wasn't a thing they could
do."

"I was settin' in front of the fire-
place piecin' a quilt," explained the
newcomer, "when all to once there
come the awfullest bell in my left
ear. I clapped my hand up to my
head and says I, 'AVhat poor creat-
ure's dead now?' 'Twasn't half an
hour before 'Lisha come in with the
news. 'Poor Abigail Merritt's gone
at last,' says he."

A counterpart of the thin woman
before the fireplace came softly
through the stairway door, a huge
armful of clothing almost conceal-
ing her face.

"How d' you do Mis' Foster," she
said in a subdued tone. "You heard
poor Abigail was gone, I s'pose?
Well she's been a poor sufferin*
soul and I for one can't wish her
back." The six neighbors cast
some significant glances toward one
another. They had often expressed
sympathy for Eleazer Merritt in his
peculiarly assorted household, which
had included, besides two maiden
sisters of his wife, his own widowed
sister, the fretful invalid just gone
from earth. The fact that the de-
ceased woman possessed a substan-
tial property left her by her hus-
band, while the "Simmons girls"
were dependent upon their brother-
in-law, was not believed to add to
the household harmony.

"I wonder'f she left a will," sug-
gested Mrs. Foster.

300

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

A nearer neighbor nodded with
some importance. "Ezry'n I wit-
nessed it," she explained. But
when further pressed for particu-
lars as to its contents, she was
obliged to admit that she did not
know.

Sophia Simmons having deposited
her load upon the wooden settle,
came back to seat herself among the
callers.

"I s'pose you've heard about the
will," she began. "It seemed kind of
unchristian to open it before the fu-
neral, but we knew she'd left direc-
tions as to just what she wanted
done, so we had to. It'll be a pretty
lifeless affair with neither singin'
nor flowers, I'm thinkin', but them's
her own wishes. Abigail was
naturally of a gloomy turn of mind
and her trouble aggrevated it, poor
thing."

"She'n Henry never spoke after
they separated, did they?" ques-
tioned a neighbor.

"Never. She always blamed his
folks for that. He sent for her when
he was dyin' but she didn't get
there till it was too late. I always
thought it showed a good disposition
in Henry Clark to leave her all his
property after all. But she was
terrible sparin' in the use of it, as if
she begrudged bein' beholden to
him. And Oak Hill's never been
lived in from that day to this."

"I supposed," suggested an inter-
ested neighbor, "that Abigail would
naturally leave Oak Hill back to the
Clarks."

Sophia Simmons shook her head
with some importance. "The Clarks
hadn't any claim to it," she said
shortly. "Henry made his money
himself in Californy and if he'd
wanted them to have it it stands to
reason he'd said so. She willed — "

The busy hostess turned from her

dye kettle. The little flush upon
her thin cheek betokened that she
knew what privileges were hers by
right. "She left Oak Hill to Abby
Sophia," she announced.

A little figure uncurled itself from
the settle in a shadowy corner.

"Who, me, ma?" she inquired
amid a chorus of interested excla-
mations.

"I didn't know you was there
child," replied her mother shortly,
as she resumed her work, but Sophia
Simmons continued.

"Yes, you. How do you suppose
you'll feel to be sole mistress and
owner of Oak Hill? You'll have to
be an awful good girl to deserve
such a piece of luck. There's a con-
dition to it though which you'll do
well to remember. There's Merritt
enough about you to make you go
contrary to your Aunt's will after
all."

"Sophia !" interrupted Mrs. Mer-
ritt sharply, but her sister continued,
addressing the guests : "Oak Hill
is left to Abigail Sophia so long as
she don't marry one of Alexander
Clarkses boys," she explained.
"You hear now, child."

A subdued laugh, quickly checked,
ran around the room, while the little
girl, uneasily conscious that she had
suddenly become an object of in-
terest, retreated to the window.
Mrs. Merritt stirred the black dye
with an offended air.

"Abigail meant well by the child,
no doubt," she admitted, "but I
sh'd rather she'd left the property
elsewhere than had foolish notions
put into her head too young."

There was a sound of wheels in
the dooryard, a bustle in the side
entry, and the third Simmons sister
entered the great kitchen, loaded
with boxes and bundles. Sophia
turned eager attention to the various

ABBY SOPHIA'S LEGACY

30]

packages while the new arrival re-
moved her bonnet and greeted the
guests in decorous tones, in keeping
with the near presence of death.

"I've been out to the village bor-
rowing mourning," she announced.
" 'Lizy bein' naturally forehanded
has had hers all ready for months,
but Sophia and I don't calculate to
mourn after the funeral, and so
long's Lizy's got the children's sum-
mer things all made up she ain't cal-
culatin' to put any of them but Abby
Sophia into black for good. She
wouldn't her but for the will.
You've all heard, of course? So I
borrowed for the two oldest girls
and Viry Ann and the baby. I got
Mis' Judge Haskell's best crape for
me, Sophy, and her second best for
you. The children's things I had
to pick up around, a bonnet here
and a cape there. They say it's
goin' out of style for children to
mourn."

Eight heads clustered about the
table where Sophia was critically
inspecting the borrowed raiment.
Mrs. Merritt with the air of one who
has no time to w^aste upon trifles
gave close attention to the contents
of the brass kettle.

:' 'Lizy's terrible put out at flavin'
to color today," the eldest Miss Sim-
mons whispered to a neighbor.
"She makes it the pride of her life
to be forehanded in everything, but
she got belated this time owin' to
her never dreamin' how the will
run."

Abigail Sophia from her window,
watched her mother with fascinated
eyes. Her ten year old brain was
sadly perplexed with events of the
past few hours, since she had
awakened to find herself elevated to
a position of importance, which, as
third of her father's five daughters,
she had not previously occupied in

the household estimation. Now,
had come this new piece of informa-
tion. She was the owner of Oak
Hill, and in order to retain it she
must remember never to marry any
of the Clark boys. Abby Sophia
had long since determined not to re-
main single and follow in the foot-
steps of her maternal aunts, but
further than that her matrimonial
plans were all unformed. Aunt
Abigail need not have worried about
the Clark boys ; for her niece was
deeply in terror of Tom and Silasr
who were among the dreaded "big
boys" of her school, and Henry was
only a little boy. It became evident
to Abby Sophia, sitting thoughtful-
ly in the south window, that when
she married, her choice would be a
gentleman, like Elder Spooner or
Dr. Drake.

At that moment Mrs. Merritt
lifted Abby Sophia's best red cash-
mere dress and plunged it into the
kettle of boiling dye; it came up a
moment later, a dripping black
. mass, which the child regarded with
swelling heart. Oak Hill with its
great house and wide gardens over-
grown now with neglected shrub-
bery, was a very poor substitute at
this moment for her beautiful dress ;
but remonstrance she knew was use-
less. Tears blinded her eyes as she
turned to look far down the road to
the schoolhouse where her sisters
had been sent as usual.

"Mother," she petitioned restless-
ly. "Can't I go out in the yard a
little while?" Mrs. Merritt looked
doubtful.

"I don't care — " she began, but
the eldest Miss Simmons inter-
rupted. "Of course you can't when
your poor aunt's died and left you
all her property," she said severely,
while her sister Sophia added : "I
should think you'd be ashamed not

302

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to show a proper spirit of grief,
Abby Sophia."

Abigail Sophia found her per-
plexity deepening, as passing days
developed her changed position in
the household. It was not un-
pleasant to receive at home and
abroad the deference considered
justly due the owner of Plainville's
finest estate, and to be pointed out
to strangers who found their way
to the Huckleberry district, as the
little girl who had inherited Oak
Hill; but the pleasure ceased when
she began to learn how many enjoy-
ments, permissible to the third of
her father's five daughters, were
considered unbefitting the heiress of
her aunt. The two Miss Simmons
who felt themselves equally respon-
sible with their sister and brother-
in-law for the proper training of
their nieces, did not fail to keep be-
fore her a high standard of excel-
lence. The future mistress of Oak
Hill must walk and net run, must
keep her curly hair smooth and sit
erect in her chair; and when the
minister called, instead of slipping
out with her sisters to play "going
to meeting" in his roomy carryall,
must sit silent with folded hands
in a corner of the parlor, listening
to the conversation and endeavor-
ing to profit thereby. Her mother
set long "stents" of sewing in spite
of tearful objections.

"You'll be only too thankful to
me, child, when you come to have
the over-seaming and hemming of a
large house on your hands," Mrs.
Merritt assured her daughter. Even
the easy going father began to de-
mand an excellence in school work
and to criticize a lack of proficiency
in arithmetic. "You can't know too
much about weights and measures,
to saw nothin' of notes and inter-
est," Eleazer Merritt declared. "It's

a solemn thing for a woman to be
left in charge of a fine property like
Oak Hill, Abby Sophia."

Yet it was at school that Abby
Sophia met her most serious diffi-
culties. A guarded line of conduct be-
came necessary, lest the girls should
consider her unduly elated by her
inheritance. The boys made de-
risive inquiries concerning her
spring planting, or petitioned with
mock humility for privilege to go
nutting in the Oak Hill woods
"come autumn," while the entire
school tormented her sensitive na-
ture with significant allusions to
the Clark boys, and warnings
against any special interest in them.

Tom and Silas Clark laughed
good-naturedly when the childish
banter reached their ears, but their
younger brother writhed in spirit,
feeling the will of his uncle's widow
an insult to his name and race.

"You needn't be scared," he
scornfully assured Abby Sophia
when he met her upon the play-
ground one day. "You won't never
lose Oak Hill through me 'cause I
wouldn't marry you if 'twas leap
year and you asked me to." Never-
theless the next time Abigail fled
from her tormentors to weep in a
retired corner by the stone wall
Henry valiantly precipitated him-
self upon the pursuing group.

" 'Taint any of your business," he
asserted between vigorous blows of
his hard little fists. "I guess the
Clarks and Merritts can settle their
own affairs without any interferin'
from any of you, and the next
scholar that says 'will' or 'marryin' '
in my hearin' is goin' to get licked
if its a boy or chased with dead
snakes if he's a girl. I'm tired 'n
sick of this."

The fact that Tom and Silas never
allowed Henry to fight his battles

ABBY SOPHIA'S LEGACY

303

singlehanded bore weight with the
larger boys, and Abigail found life
more endurable from henceforth.

"Why didn't Aunt Abigail want
me to marry the Clark boys?" she
asked her mother that night after a
long hour spent in considering the
question. Mrs. Merritt made an im-
patient gesture.

"The Lord knows," she answered.
"I wish to goodness she'd burnt Oak
Hill and scattered its ashes to the
four winds, before she put foolish
notions into your head. You hadn't
ought to thought of marryin' for a
dozen years to come."

"They're good boys," declared
Abby Sophia stoutly.

She cast a look of gratitude to-
wards her champion when she
reached the schoolhouse the next
morning, but he, intent upon trad-
ing slate pencils with a classmate,
had apparently forgotten her ex-
istence. Abby Sophia considered
again as she laboriously studied her
geography lesson. Her grateful
heart had no intention of carrying
a debt of gratitude for any length of
time, but it was some days before
an opportunity presented itself for
lightening the burden. With it,
came a demand for self sacrifice to
which she rose heroically.

"Goin' to the circus to-morrer,
Henry?" she heard a schoolmate
ask.

"If I leave off to the head to-night,
I be," replied Henry with pleasing
optimism. "I get a quarter every
time I leave off, but pa says I shan't
have any money given to me to go."

Abby Sophia heard with interest.
She herself was sure of attendance
upon this same circus, for her
father had promised to take all of
his children who had perfect lessons
to-day. She felt very doubtful
about Henry whose place was near

the foot of the class. Secure in her
own position at the very head,
she looked down the long line.
There were many pupils between
them, for Henry on ordinary occa-
sions was an indifferent student.
To-day he spelled carefully and cor-
rectly each word as it came to him,
and Abigail was gratified to observe
that he came upward to the very
middle of the class. If he had only
more time he would earn his
quarter, she decided as she spelled
evolution with a careful choice of
letters. The little girl at her elbow
mis-spelled chemicals and a panic
carried the disaster on down the
class. A moment later Henry had
mounted to the second place. Abi-
gail wished it was last night again
that he might succeed to her place.
A sudden thought came to her as
the word "mosquito" came up to her
from the foot. Abigail fixed her
eyes upon the floor; her cheeks
were crimson with the enormity of
the deceit. "M-u-s-k-e-e-t-o-e," she
spelled deliberately, while a smoth-
ered laugh ran through the class,
and Henry, spelling the word cor-
rectly, went above her.

"You must have got muddled," he
whispered sympathetically.
"You've spelt lots harder words'n
that."

Abby Sophia sat upon the door-
step and contentedly watched her
sisters drive away to the long talked
of circus, next morning, consoling
herself with the assurance that
when she was actually mistress of
Oak Hill she could attend unlimited
circuses at her own pleasure.

Eleazer Merritt was not a wealthy
man, and the many feminine de-
mands upon his purse made careful
economy necessary. As his daugh-
ter's guardian he gave careful atten-
tion to the Oak Hill property, keep-

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N E W E X G L A X D MAGAZINE

ing the unused buildings in repair,
and the large farm in a proper state
of cultivation. It required more
time than he could well spare from
his own farm work, but he declined
to recompense himself from the Oak
Hill income or even to use any part
of it for Abby Sophia's expenses.

"I guess "Leazer Merritt can bring
up and educate his own children."
he asserted when his wife's sisters
lamented the folly of his course.
"It don't make any difference if
Abby Sophia's future station in life
does demand higher privileges now.
The Clarks ain't goin' to have it to
twit on that we're livin' on Henry's
property. When she's twenty-one
she can begin to spend it, but up to
that time we must manage to get
what she needs ourselves."

Yet Abigail continued to wear
muslin and cashmere while her sis-
ters were forced to content them-
selves with calico and delaine, and
at the age of fifteen was transferred
to the village high school though
Martha and Jane had cheerfully
completed their education at the
little district schoolhouse.

Truth to tell Abby Sophia had
not even yet arrived at an age where
she appreciated her superior ad-
vantages, and was deadly homesick
in the unaccustomed routine of the
village school. She roomed in the
kitchen chamber of a family friend
and boarded herself upon food
brought fresh from home each
Monday morning. It was some-
thing of a comfort on the second
morning to discover Henry Clark's
freckled countenance among the
many unfamiliar ones.

"I didn't know you was here,"
she said shyly, when she met Henry
on the broad walk at recess. "I
thought vou was going to be a farm-
er."

"So I am." replied Henry in a
burst of confidence. "But I want
an education all the same. I never
could see any reason why ministers
and lawyers should have all the
learning."

Abby Sophia didn't mean to be
deceitful, but somehow it was far
easier to make no mention of Henry
on her Friday night visits home.
So she missed the specific prohibi-
tions of his acquaintance which the
two Miss Simmons would have
promptly laid upon her. Henry
cheerfully walked the two miles be-
tween his home and the village each
night and morning, bringing to his
homesick neighbor daily reports
from the Huckleberry district.
They were no longer classmates, for
Henry developing a brilliancy of
scholarship which far surpassed
Abby Sophia's conscientious ef-
forts, was bent upon completing the
four years' course in three.

"Then I'm going to the State Col-
lege." he confided to Abby Sophia
one moonlight night when neighbor-
ly courtesy demanded that he "'see
her home" from the High School
Literary Club.

"You'll be too grand for the
Huckleberry district after that,"
suggested Abby Sophia doubtfully,
as she stood upon the doorstep of
her boarding place.

"No I won't." replied Henry firm-
ly. "The Huckleberry district needs
breadth of character much as the vil-
lage does and I'm going to college
more for experience than for learn-

Abigail Sophia was nearly nine-
teen when Eleazer Merritt sold his
yearling colt to purchase a graduat-
ing dress with elaborate trimmings
of real lace which did full credit to
her future home.

A B B Y SOPHIA'S LEGACY

305

'"I'd much rather have plain white
muslin like the rest.*' the girl ob-
jected sensibly., but the two aunts
joined in silencing her. Even her
mother whose highest ambition in
Abby Sophia's behalf was to "keep
her free from foolish notions." de-
clared sagely, "the others ain't
owners of Oak Hill child. Take
what you can get and be thankful
for it."

"It's to be hoped she won't marry
before she comes into her property/'
grumbled Miss Sophia. "Her
father'd probably scrimp us all and
mortgage the farm to fit her out,
rather'n make use of what's her
own."

'* 'Leazer Merritt'll prob'ly do as
he pleases with what's his own." re-
torted Mrs. Merritt in a sudden
burst of independence. "And so
long's his wife that's helped to earn
it don't object, I guess outsiders
needn't feel called on to interfere."

So Abigail graduated in the lace
dress., then cheerfully bestowed it
upon her next younger sister for a
wedding gown. Viry Ann who had
for years been clothed in Abigail's
outgrown raiment accepted the
dress with much pleasure. The
second sister had married a year
earlier, while the eldest seemed' to
follow the example of the two Miss
Simmons.

"You must try and do something
for Martha when you're twenty-
one." urged the second sister with
the patronizing air of young matron-
hood. "It's really too bad for
poor father to have another old maid
on his hands."

Abby Sophia cheerfully settled
herself to teach the Huckleberry
district school and wait for her
twenty-first birthday, on which date
it had been agreed in family council,
she should take up her abode at Oak

Hill. She went sometimes to visit
the great house with its cheerful
rooms and rich furnishings with
which the years had dealt kindly,
and saw visions of herself living
there alone through a long vista of
years. She always came away with
a feeling of depression wrought by
remembrance of the great house's
early history.

"Poor Aunt Abigail." the girl
often sighed, gazing off .from the
wide veranda over a rich farming
country closed in by far or! hills.
Yet a little of reproach usually
mingled with her pity. "She ought
to have been happy here," Abby So-
phia decided with the swift judg-
ment of youth. "She didn't have to
live alone."

Still if the future held anything of
loneliness it also promised independ-
ence and a blessed freedom from the
daily criticism which had been her
lot from childhood. There were
many long accumulating plans to be
carried out in the immediate years
following her coming of age. "I
shall do just as I please about every-
thing," declared Abby Sophia, "and
give the other girls all the good
times and pretty clothes they want."

But as the long expected birthday
drew near and various articles
which had been accumulating since
childhood, were packed for removal
to the new home, it became apparent
that the two Miss Simmons were
also packing.

"Are you going visiting?'' the
girl inquired innocently one day as
Miss Joanna brought down a hair
covered trunk from the attic.

"Bless you child, we're going to
live with you." replied Miss Sophia.

"You didn't suppose a girl of your
age was goin' to be left to manage
that great house and farm alone,
did you?"

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

So Abigail, though nominally the
owner of Oak Hill, found herself by
no means its mistress and was quite
as much under orders as she had
been in younger days. She would
have celebrated her advent by a
quiet family gathering, but Miss
Joanna firmly put the preference
one side.

"Your poor dead aunt's memory
requires something more," she de-
clared, and arranged for a large
party to which the whole country-
side should be bidden.

On the night of the party Henry
Clark came home from college.
Miss Joanna would not have con-
sidered this an important circum-
stance, since the Clarks were the
only family in the Huckleberry dis-
trict who had not been invited, but
neighbors whispered the news to
one another and commented on
what might have been had Henry
Clark, Senior, remembered his duty
to his own blood.

It was not an enjoyable party to
Abigail, though she delighted in
such gatherings, as a rule. Tonight
she was burdened with the solemn
realization that to be mistress of a
house and fortune did not bring un-
clouded happiness as she had long-
supposed.

She had gone this afternoon
bankbook in hand to her father urg-
ing him to accept from her the
money which her education had cost
him. Eleazer Merritt had drawn
himself proudly erect.

"If sister Abigail had desired me
to have any of her property, it was
in her power to will it to me," he
declared obstinately. "So long as
she didn't I could bring up my child-
ren without her help."

In the light of his reply many of
the things which had puzzled the
girl became clearer. What wonder

if the hard working farmer had
cherished a slight resentment all
these years. It would have been so
easy for Aunt Abigail with her
wealth to have lightened a little of
his many cares. Even her sister
Martha had proudly refused the
offer of a new dress for the party.
Indeed when Abigail came to reflect
upon the matter, the two Miss Sim-
mons were the only members of her
family who were willing to share
her fortune.

"Abby Sophia, have you spoken
to the Petersons?" demanded Miss
Joanna, as' the crowd surged through
the rooms. "They've driven way
out here from the village, and we
must show a proper appreciation of
the effort."

The girl obediently started in the
direction indicated, but Miss So-
phia stopped her. "You must go
and talk with Mis' Judge Haskell,"
she commanded.

Abigail, unable to obey both com-
mands, rebelliously turned about
and went out, down the steps into
the summer moonlight. At the foot
of the steps she met Henry Clark.

"I'm afraid to say how long I've
been standing here, waiting for a
glimpse of you," he explained. "I
only returned home tonight and
didn't know about the party, but it
didn't seem as though I could wait
for what I had to tell you."

They were walking down the
gravelled path towards the summer
house and Abigail in her surprise
was permitting him to hold the hand
she had offered in greeting.

"I haven't much of worldly goods
to offer you in exchange for Oak
Hill," Henry continued, "but it
would be an insult to your woman-
hood if I kept silent for that reason.
I love you, dear. You knew that,
didn't you?"

ABBY SOPHIA'S LEGACY

307

"Long ago," replied Abby Sophia
solemnly. "Ever since I was a little
girl."

"It's a fine old place," Henry de-
clared a long half hour later, as he
stood looking up at the house. "Are
you sure you won't regret it, if fi-
nances sometimes go hard with us —
later on?"

Abby Sophia clasped her hands
upon his arm.

"Not for a thousand Oak Hills,"
she declared fervently. "And it
isn't a sacrifice at all, for oh, Henry,
it hasn't been anything like what I
thought it would be."

"Father," she inquired next morn-
ing, seating herself on the stone wall
near the corner where Eleazer Mer-
ritt was industriously hoeing, "what
becomes of Oak Hill if I don't have
it?"

"I don't know," replied her father,
absently calculating the long rows
yet unhoed. "For that matter I
s'pose nobody livin' knows since old
Squire Knox that drew the will died
four years ago come August.
There's a codicil in his son's hands
to be opened on your weddin' day,
whomsoe\^er you marry. Your
mother'n aunts don't know or they'd
wore my life out years ago. What
do you want to know for?"

"Because," replied Abby Sophia
tranquilly, "I don't want Oak Hill
any longer. I'm going to marry
Henry Clark." •

Eleazer Merritt resumed his hoe-
ing. "I might have expected you'd
do some such fool thing, bein' a
woman," he said.

Great was the consternation among
the feminine members of the Merritt
family. The aunts in wrath de-
clared it should not be, the married
sisters argued from a worldly wise
point of view, while the mother de-
clared drearily that she always ex-

pected some such result from foolish
notions being put into the child's
head so young. Her sister Martha
met the announcement with re-
proaches.

"I might have married Silas Clark
and had a comfortable home of my
own," she declared, "but they made
me break it off because Aunt Abi-
gail left her money to you"

Oak Hill became closed and ten-
antless once more ; the Misses Sim-
mons came back to the brother-in-
law's home and Abby went about
modest preparations for a simple
wedding.

"I should rather been engaged
longer and given you time to get
ahead a little," she explained to
Henry beneath the lilac bushes by
the front gate. "But there'll be no
peace at home until it is over, and
besides Aunt Abigail's money be-
longs to somebody and it isn't right
to keep them waiting any longer.
My father has an idea that Oak Hill
is to be used for an old ladies' home
or something of the sort."

Henry who had paid his own way
through college answered cheerful-
ly that he should "get ahead" much
faster with a wife to help him. He
had taken a large farm to work "on
shares" for the summer and was al-
ready fitting up a little cottage for
their abode. In a year or two they
would have a place of their own.

Eleazer Merritt resolutely de-
clared that he had no money to
spend on his third daughter, but
Abigail cheerfully constructed a
dress from some muslin window
curtains bought with her first school
money, and contrived a lace bonnet
from the ever resourceful "piece
bag." "Silas says he'll stand up
with us if you will," she informed
her older sister, and having won
Martha's reluctant consent, lavished

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

far more care upon the bridesmaid's
toilet than upon her own.

After the simple little service in
the parlor of a village parsonage the
four drove directly to young Lawyer
Knox's office.

The lawyer deliberately broke the
red seals of the codicil and examined
with much interest a sealed en-
closure.

"This seems to be intended for
you — Mrs. Clark," he said. The
bride's white gloved fingers un-
folded the message from the dead
reverently.

Dear Niece Abigail:—

I'm singling you out from your sisters
to will you my property, partly because
you bear my name but more because you
are clear Merritt, while the others show
now and then a streak of Simmons. And
I'm making a curious condition because it
suits my fancy. Long before this reaches
your eyes Henry Clark and I will have met
and made up our differences where mis-
understandings come no more. He was the
best man that ever lived, and it was only
his money that came between us. I hope
you've grown to be a sensible woman who
isn't going to let either the possession of
money or the lack of it spoil your life. I
know from the way my will reads all
Huckleberry district is going to declare I
held hardness against the Clarks up to the
last, but it isn't true. Henry Clark was a
man of sterling virtues, and since he didn't
leave a son to inherit his good qualities,
there's no reason why his nephews
shouldn't have got them all. I hope they'll

grow up to be just such a man as he was,
and nothin' would please me better than
to have you turn your back on Oak Hill
to marry one of them. Perhaps you'll
never marry at all, but with your two
Simmons aunts before your eyes it isn't
to be expected that you'll follow in their
footsteps. If you do marry the blessing
of a good man's affection ought to outweigh
money values. Anyway I have arranged
that on your wedding day whomsoever you
may marry, one-half the property I leave
shall be settled on you forever, while the
other half goes back to the family from
which it came and into the hands of Henry
Clark, Junior, nephew and namesake of my
beloved husband. I expect the whole
Huckleberry district and your Simmons
relation in particular will say I'm crazy
but I know the Merritt disposition and I
wouldn't be a mite surprised if you'd been
attracted to the Clarkses ever since you
heard my will read.

Hoping these few lines will find you hap-
py and contented, I am

Your Affectionate Aunt,
Abigail Merritt Clark.

"The happiest possible arrange-
ment," declared young lawyer Knox
with enthusiasm. "Your aunt, Mrs.
Clark, was possessed of extraordi-
nary prophetic gifts. The bride
turned from his offered congratula-
tions to clasp her hands upon her
husband's arm.

"Poor Aunt Abigail," she said
with tearful eyes, "don't you see
how much more than Oak Hill she's
left us — each other and all the happi-
ness she somehow missed herself."

The Pilgrim Fathers on the
Kennebec

By Emma Huntington Nason

THERE is always a great charm
in the beginning of things ; and
to trace to its origin a local tra-
dition has untold fascination. But
when, having followed one such
story to its source, we find it to be
veritable history, and not that only
but the history of the founders of
the Plymouth Colony, then we won-
der why such a record was ever
suffered to pass into the realm of
the half-forgotten.

The story of the Pilgrim Fathers
on the Kennebec is one of the most
interesting and important in the
early annals of New England, yet
it has lapsed into an almost legend-
ary form, and today, many of the
dwellers on the banks of the Kenne-
bec are unaware that the Pilgrim
Fathers were ever sojourners on its
shores. Nevertheless it is true that
more than a hundred years before
the erection of old Fort Western
which is still standing in the city
of Augusta, there was a flourishing
English trading-post in this lo-
cality; and h^ere for thirty-four
years the men of Plymouth dwelt
beside the Abenaki Indians and
carried on a profitable trade with
the aboriginal inhabitants of Maine.
Of this long period no consecutive
record exists. We can only ask,
Who came and went as the Pilgrim
barque plied back and forth between
Plymouth harbor and the Kenne-
bec? Who were the successive com-
mandants of the trading-post? How
309

did these men live in this remote
region? What did they learn of the
life, character and ancient traditions
of that remarkable people whom the
early voyagers called the "Gentle
Abenakis," and what did they gain
from their traffic and intercourse
with these Indians?

In order to answer these ques-
tions one must search carefully not
only the writings of the early New
England chroniclers and historians
but also the works of the first
French missionaries and voyagers,
and especially the Jesuit records
kept at Quebec and Montreal.

In the writings of the early New
England historians the references
to the coast of Maine and the Kenne-
bec are comparatively few and brief,
but every one is of inestimable
value; and in these scanty records
there are two facts which stand out
with remarkable significance. The
first is, that when the Pilgrim colo-
nists were on the verge of starva-
tion their lives were saved by sup-
plies from Pemaquid and the adja-
cent islands. The second is, that
when the Pilgrim Fathers were on
the verge of despair and hopelessly
discouraged in regard to their fi-
nances they were enabled through
the profits of their trade on the
Kennebec river to discharge their
obligations to the London Company
and thus establish their colony in
the New World.

The students of New England

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

history have already recognized the
fact that there were important settle-
ments well established in Maine
long before the landing of the Pil-
grims, and that the early colony on
the Maine coast was neither a daugh-
ter of Plymouth nor in any way de-
pendent upon the Plymouth Colony.
It is also known that there were
profitable fishing and trading-posts
at Pemaquid, New Harbor, Da-
mariscove and Monhegan already
existing in such a flourishing con-
dition that they were able to send
supplies to Plymouth at the time
when the Pilgrims were dying of
famine. In these fair havens on the
Maine coasts an extensive trade had
been carried on since 1607; and in
1622, when Edward Winslow came
hither for supplies he found more
than "thirty sail of ships" at anchor,
or fishing, in the Pemaquid waters.
Gov. Winslow himself tells us in
his "Good News From New Eng-
land" that "about the end of May,
1622, our store of victuals was
wholly spent having lived long be-
fore with a bare and short allow-
ance." Learning of the plenty that
prevailed on the Maine coast Wins-
low was sent there by Gov. Brad-
ford. "Here," writes Winslow, "I
found kind entertainment with a
willingness to supply our wants. *

* * They would not take any bills
(of Exchange) for these supplies
but did what they could freely *

* * and supplied our necessities
for which they sorrowed, provoking
one another to free gifts for the
colony to the utmost of their abili-
ties." "In the time of these straits,"
adds Winslow, "we must have
perished unless God had raised up
some unknown or extraordinary
means for our preservation."

But the years of plenty which fol-
lowed the famine afforded little be-

yond //hat was needed for the sup-
port of the colony at Plymouth and
the leaders were overwhelmed by
their debt to the London Adven-
turers. In the year 1626, this debt,
which amounted to eighteen hun-
dred pounds sterling with six hun-
dred pounds additional due to other
creditors, was assumed by Gov.
Bradford, Myles Standish, Isaac
Allerton, William Brewster, John
Howland, John Alden and Thomas
Prence. These men undertook the
payment of the public debt, and this
they accomplished by their fur
trade with the Indians on the Kenne-
bec.

To Edward Winslow belongs the
honor of founding and establishing
the ancient Kennebec trading-post.
In the year 1625, accompanied by
six comrades he came with a shallop-
load of corn to trade with the
Indians at Koussinoc where the city
of Augusta now stands. At this
period the shores of the Kennebec
were a primeval forest unbroken ex-
cept here and there by small clear-
ings where the Abenaki Indians
built their villages and cultivated
their fields of corn. It is said that
there were at this time thirteen
Abenaki villages on the banks of
the Kennebec and along the coast
of Maine, and numerous round
stone hearths where the Indians had
their council-fires may still be seen
up and down the valley of the Ken-
nebec. Winslow at once saw the
possibilities for trade with the Indi-
ans of this river, for the Kennebec
was the great water-way leading
from Moosehead Lake and the for-
ests of Canada. If a trading-post
were established near the Indian vil-
lage at Koussinoc, all the hunters
would speedily learn of this market
for their peltries. At the same time
it would be so far from the sea that

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

311

it would not attract the attention
of the fishing and sailing vessels
that were always on the lookout for
traffic with the Indians on the coast.
The first voyage of the Plymouth
men was very successful. As Gov.
Bradford tells us, "It was made by
Mr. Winslow and some of ye old
Standards, for seamen had we none."
These brave landsmen started out
from Plymouth in a little vessel
built for them by the house-car-
penter of the colony. "They had
laid a deck over her midships,"
writes Gov. Bradford, "to keep ye
corne dry but ye men were fain to
stand out in all weathers without
shelter, and at this season of the
year it begins to grow tempestuous,
but God preserved them and gave
them good success for they brought
home 700 pounds of beaver besides
some furs, having little or nothing
else but this corne which they them-
selves had raised out of the earth."
Encouraged by this success the
colony began life with new hope,
and the Plymouth merchants at
once determined to build a per-
manent trading-house on the Kenne-
bec. "In 1627," continues Bradford,
"having procured a patent for the
Kennebec, they erected a house
above in ye river in ye most con-
venient place for trade (as they con-
ceived) and furnished the same with
commodities for that end, both sum-
mer and winter, not only with corne
but with such other commodities
as ye fishermen had traded with
them, as coats, shirts, rugs and
blankets, pease, prunes, etc., and
what they could not get out of
England they bought of the fish-
ing ships, and so carried on their
business as well as they could." A
little later the Pilgrims were able
to secure a large amount of wam-
pum which was made only by the

Narragansetts, Pequots, or other
coast tribes, and which the Indians
of the interior were very eager to
obtain, and the control of this cur-
rency gave the Plymouth men a
great advantage over any other
traders who might wish to buy furs
of the Kennebec Indians. The ship-
ments of beaver from the Kennebec
to England from 163 1 to 1636 were
very large, that of the year 1634
alone amounting to twenty hogs-
heads. These cargoes brought large
profits to the Plymouth colony, es-
pecially since the whole expense of
the business was defrayed by the
sale of otter skins and other small
peltries.

Considering these facts in regard
to the early dependence of the Pil-
grim Fathers upon the resources of
Maine, it is surprising to learn how
little the historians of Plymouth
have to say of the Kennebec trad-
ing-post and the men who occupied
it for so many years. It has even
been intimated that the Pilgrim trad-
ers did not care to advertise this very
^profitable source of their supplies
and were purposely reticent on the
subject. It would, however, have
been extremely interesting if Gov.
Bradford had told us who those
"old Standards" were who came on
that first trip with Edward Wins-
low. Now we can only learn the
names of the noted men who sub-
sequently came to the Kennebec.
Among them were Gov. Bradford,
Myles Standish, John Alden, Thom-
as Prence, John Howland, Thomas
Southworth and John Winslow; the
three latter each being here for a
term of years in command of the
Plymouth trading-post.

What wonderful stories these
men might have told us and what
a remarkable volume of folk-lore
they might have edited. Here was

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

an ancient people who claimed to
be the first and only perfect crea-
tion of the Great Spirit. They had
a wonderful and musical language.
They had a system of writing and
communication with other and dis-
tant tribes. They lived in villages;
they cultivated the soil ; they were
gentle, unsuspicious and generous.
They greeted the stranger kindly
and shared with their white guests
whatever they possessed, all of
which was most cordialfy accepted ;
and yet how few and meager are
the words which these early visitors
to the Kennebec have left in ac-
knowledgement of their debt to the
Indians. We cannot plead that the
men of Plymouth were ignorant, un-
lettered emigrants whose energies
were wholly absorbed in the struggle
for existence. Edward Winslow
was an educated, philanthrophic
man ; Gov. Bradford thought it
worth while to keep the Log of the
Mayflower and the records of Plym-
outh ; Myles Standish was well
versed in the Bible and the Com-
mentaries of Caesar; while John
Alden, as Longfellow writes, "was
bred as a scholar" and "could say
it in elegant language" ; and yet
these men came to these newly dis-
covered shores where the air was
scintillant with local color and the
wigwams just overflowing with
available material, and left us no
record whatever of their experience.
We cannot help wondering how
these great and wise ancestors of
ours did employ themselves during
the long days and evenings, "both
summer and winter," as Bradford
writes; which for thirty-four years
they passed in this remote region.
They really could not have spent all
their time trafficking with the
Indians. And there must have been
much of interest constantly tran-

spiring before their eyes, for Kous-
sinoc was the great rallying place
of the Abenakis. Here the solemn
councils were held every autumn
before going on the great hunt to
the Lake of the Moose, and here the
spring-time feasts were celebrated
when the braves returned laden
with their trophies. Here were per-
formed all the sacred rites and
ceremonies of the tribe. At these
celebrations there were games and
dancing and feasting. The young
braves exhibited their prowess in
shooting-matches, foot races, wrest-
ling, and ball playing. The medicine
men performed their wonderful
tricks in magic and jugglery, and
after the feasts and games were
ended the Indians gathered around
their camp-fires and here the songs
were sung and the tales re-told
which their fathers had repeated
from generation to generation.

Now we know from the valuable
fragments of Abenaki folk-lore,
which happily have been preserved
to us, what a wealth of poetry and
tradition these Indians once pos-
sessed. Their system of folk-lore
was truly wonderful, and presented
many legends which, for genial hu-
mor, poetic beauty and mythological
significance, are comparable to those
of any European folk-lore. Some of
these tales possess a subtle sense of
fun and sarcasm, others have a
very curious psychological element
showing that these Indians were
dimly conscious of the old struggle
between good and evil which is con-
stantly going on in the human
soul ; and if the few legends gath-
ered here and there at this late day
from the scanty remnants of the
Abenaki tribes are so wonderful, we
can imagine what their folk-lore
must have been in the palmy days
of their tribal existence when every

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

313

village had its poet and story teller
and the Men of the Dawn re-told all
that their sires had taught them
from the beginning of the world.

But of none of these things did
the Pilgrim traders who came to the
Kennebec make any record. We
must therefore cease to sigh for the
poetry and romance that we might
have had, and content ourselves
with the few historic facts which we
are able to gather from English and
French sources.

One of the first agents in com-
mand of the Plymouth trading-post
was John Howland. Among all the
notable men of the colony there was
no one who bore a fairer record for
bravery, efficiency and general use-
fulness than this sturdy youth from
Essex County; and with his "mili-
tary turn" and adventurous spirit
Howland was well fitted for the ad-
ministration of the business of the
colony in this important location.
He was, moreover, one of the com-
pany responsible for the public debt,
and therefore especially interested
in the success of the enterprise on
the Kennebeck. We also find John
Howland and John Alden frequent-
ly associated in the affairs of Ply-
mouth ; and in May of the year 1634,
while Howland was in command at
Koussinoc, John Alden came from
Plymouth to bring supplies to the
trading-post; The spring trade was
just then opening with the Indians.
One by one the great canoes glided
down from the head waters of the
Kennebec laden with the hunters'
spoils, and a very profitable season
was anticipated. It was at this
time, at the height of prosperity of
the Plymouth company, that the
tragic Hocking affair occurred.

It seems that the Piscataqua Plan-
tation had become very jealous of
the success of the Pilgrim traders

who held complete and absolute
jurisdiction over the territory in the
vicinity of Koussinoc for fifteen
miles up and down the river, thus
controlling all the trade which came
from Moosehead Lake; and having
determined to secure a portion of
this trade, Piscataqua sent John
Hocking to intercept the Indian ca-
noes as they came down from the
lakes.

Hocking boldly sailed up the
Kennebec and anchored above the
Plymouth post. Howland at first
went out in his barque and re-
monstrated with Hocking for thus
infringing on the Plymouth rights,
but receiving only abusive threats
in reply, he ordered Hocking to
drop below the Plymouth limits.
Hocking refused, and Howland sent
three men in a canoe to cut Hock-
ing's cables. The old Plymouth rec-
ords state that these men were
"John Irish, Thomas Rennoles and
Thomas Savory." They cut one of
Hocking's cables and then, as their
canoe drifted down the stream,
Howland ordered Moses Talbot to
get into the canoe and cut the other
rope. Talbot accordingly went
"very reddyly," and brought the
canoe back within range of Hock-
ing's vessel. Flocking, standing on
deck, carbine and pistol in hand,
first presented his piece at Thomas
Savory; but the canoe swung
around with the tide, and Hocking
put his carbine almost to Moses Tal-
bot's head. Then Howland, spring-
ing upon the rail of his barque,
shouted to Hocking not to shoot
the men who were only obeying
orders, but to take him for his
mark, saying that he surely "stood
very fayre." But Howland's brave-
ry was in vain for Hocking would
not hear, but immediately shot Tal-
bot in the head. Whereupon, "a

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

friend of Talbot's, who loved him
well," seized a musket and returned
the fire ; and Hocking "was pres-
ently strook dead being shott neare
the same place in the head where he
had murderously shot Moyses."

John Alden, although at the trad-
ing-post at the time this unfortu-
nate affair took place, had no con-
nection with it. He soon returned
to Plymouth, and being in Boston
a few weeks later, he was arrested
and imprisoned by the Massachu-
setts magistrates to answer for
Hocking's death. The Plymouth
people were very angry at this un-
warrantable interference in their af-
fairs, and the indomitable Myles
Standish at once started for Boston
and effected Alden's release. Right-
eous Boston, however, insisted upon
an investigation of the matter, and
requested all the plantations, espe-
cially Piscataqua, to send delegates
to the hearing. But after all their
efforts none of the plantations in-
vited, not even Piscataqua where
Hocking belonged, manifested suf-
ficient interest to send a representa-
tive. Winslow and Bradford ap-
peared in behalf of Plymouth, and
Winthrop and Dudley represented
Massachusetts. Two or three min-
isters were also present, and after
mature deliberation it was decided
that the Plymouth men acted in self-
defense and that Hocking alone had
been to blame. The sad story of
this early tragedy on the Kennebec
is relieved only by Howland's dash
of bravery, and the touching loyal-
ty of Talbot's friend "who loved
him well"; but it is of especial in-
terest in this connection because it
proves that John Howland and John
Alden were both at the Kennebec
trading-post in 1634.

The next agent at the trading-
post was Captain Thomas Willett,

a young man who had been a mem-
ber of the congregation at Leyden
and who had followed the Pilgrims
to Plymouth in 1632. He became
eminent among the colonists and
had served them very efficiently at
Castine before coming to the Ken-
nebec. Later in life, Willett en-
gaged in trade with the Manhattan
Dutch and, in 1664, became the first
English governor of New York.
The record of Willett's service on
the Kennebec, like that of all the
other agents, would be very dim and
unsatisfactory were it not for the
flash-lights cast upon this unknown
ground by the writings of the old
French fathers. From these, we
learn that Capt. Willett was just
and tactful in his dealings with the
Indians, that he was interested in
their welfare and won their confi-
dence and esteem.

But while a new and strong light
is thus cast by the Jesuit records
upon these elusive pictures of the
past, giving us in a single glimpse
the material suggestive of a whole
chapter of history, it is much to be
regretted that the story is not more
connected, and especially that some
of these authors so frequently speak
of "the Englishmen" on the Kenne-
bec without mentioning their names.

Thus, on one occasion, Ragueneau
speaks of a certain gentleman who
had just arrived from Boston and
"who spoke very good French."
We wish he had told us the name of
this accomplished gentleman. We
would also like very much to know
who was in command at the trading-
post in 1642 when one of the Indian
converts from Quebec came to visit
the Abenaki village at Koussinoc.
This Indian had been converted and
baptized by the name of Charles,
and furnished with a rosary and an
image of the Virgin. The Abena-

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

315

kis at once took their guest to visit
the English settlement which, as is
stated, was very near. Of course,
the new convert had not then
learned that there were two kinds of
Christians, Catholics and heretics ;
so he proudly displayed his rosary
at the trading-post. Great was the
Indian's surprise when "an English-
man" told him that his rosary was
"an invention of the devil" and that
his beautiful image of the Virgin
was worth no more than an old rag
which was lying upon the ground.
But these Indian neophytes were
well instructed, and the new con-
vert promptly retorted that it was
the devil who put these words into
the Englishman's mouth and that
the Englishman himself would cer-
tainly burn in hell since he despised
what God had made and ordered.
"After that time," says the old
French writer who tells this story,
"the heretics left him in peace," and
the Quebec Indian had the comfort
of seeing the Kennebec chieftain,
who was with him, speedily con-
verted and baptized.

In studying these early records
of the relations of the French and
English with the Indians of Maine,
we cannot fail to be impressed by
the very curious fact that the Pil-
grim Fathers, during their long
sojourn on the Kennebec, made no
attempt to civilize or christianize
the "Gentle Abertakis." The policy
of the French at this time was quite
different from that of the English.
The French made every effort to
conciliate and convert the Indians
and to make use of them as a po-
litical power and as allies in their
long wars with the English. One
of the old French historians makes
the following very ingenuous state-
ment in regard to this point: "We
believe that God raised up the Abe-

naki nation in order to protect the
French people in Canada whom he
wished to save ; * * * and that
God gave to these savages their
bravery and valor in fighting that
they might become redoubtable to
the enemies of France." Charlevoix
also declares that "the Abenakis
were the principal bulwark of the
French against the English," and
that they were so recognized by the
court and king in France.

But while the Pilgrims did not
undertake the work of christianiz-
ing these Indians themselves, they
seemed very willing that the French
should do it; and therefore when
Father Gabriel Druillettes, a highly
educated and cultured Frenchman,
was sent into the wilderness of
Maine to take up his abode with
these savages the Pilgrim traders
gave him a cordial welcome. This
was in the year 1647, when John
Winslow was in command of the
trading-post.

John Winslow was the brother of
Gov. Edward Winslow and was one
of the ablest and best men of the
Pilgrim Republic. He came over
in the "Fortune" to unite his lot
with that of the Pilgrims and mar-
ried the pretty Mary Chilton, who,
according to some historians, was
the first of the Mayflower emigrants
to set foot on Plymouth Rock.
Winslow became one of the wealth-
iest and most influential mer-
chants of the colony, and was for
many years closely connected with
the trade on the Kennebec. It is
not much wonder that the Plymouth
merchant, during his long and lone-
ly sojourn at the trading-post,
should form a warm friendship with
such a man as Father Gabriel Druil-
lettes, or that the French priest who
came to establish a mission-chapel
at Koussinoc should be frequently

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

entertained at Winslow's table.
One passage in the journal of the
priest shows the friendly relations
which existed between these two
remarkable men.

"I love and respect the Patriarch,"
said Winslow, using the title com-
monly bestowed upon the priest.
"I will lodge him at my house and
treat him as my brother." And
Father Gabriel writes, "I shall
henceforth call him (Winslow) my
Pereia, on account of the friendli-
ness he ever showed me."

The name "Pereia" is here an al-
lusion to a Portuguese merchant
named Pereia, who was the devoted
friend of the famous Jesuit priest,
St. Francis Xavier; and this name
was thus very appropriately applied
to John Winslow, who was the de-
voted friend of Father Gabriel Druil-
lettes.

It is said that the Indian village
at Koussinoc contained at this time
five hundred inhabitants, including
the women and children. There
were fifteen large lodges on the
pleasant intervale by the river's side
and in their midst stood the mission
chapel of the Assumption. The de-
scriptions which Father Druillettes
gives of his life and work, and of his
associations with the English on
the Kennebec, are extremely inter-
esting; and one of the most import-
ant episodes mentioned is the diplo-
matic mission of the French priest
to Plymouth and Boston whither he
was accompanied by his faithful
friend John Winslow.

The object of this mission was to
establish an alliance between the
English colonies, on the one hand,
and the French and their Abenaki
allies, on the other. A short time
previous to this the New England
confederacy, consisting of the four
colonies of Plymouth, Massachu-

setts, New Haven and Connecticut,
had been very anxious to establish
a commercial treaty with New
France in order to gain a share of
the profitable trade on the St. Law-
rence. In return the French gov-
ernment now proposed to agree to
such a treaty providing the English
would unite with the French and
Abenaki nation in keeping the hos-
tile Iroquois from their territory.

The record of this embassy opens
with a picturesque scene at Kous-
sinoc. On St. Michael's Eve, Sep-
tember 29th, 1650, the French envoy
arrived from Quebec and had again
the pleasure of meeting John Wins-
low, with whom he had been
pleasantly associated during his
former sojourn on the Kennebec.
On the following morning, Father
Druillettes, in his diplomatic char-
acter, made a visit of state to the
trading-post. The Father was ac-
companied by his intelligent and
faithful interpreter, Noel Negaba-
met, of the Sillery Mission at
Quebec, and followed by a train of
attendants all decked in the splendid
finery of the Abenaki braves. After
the opening ceremonies Noel pre-
sented WTinslow with a valuable
gift of beaver skins and made a for-
mal address in behalf of Monsieur
the Governor of the river St. Law-
rence. In response, Winslow not
only accepted the gift in behalf of
the English government but con-
sented to go personally with Father
Druillettes to Plymouth and, as it is
recorded, "to do with reference to
the governor and the magistrates
all that could be expected from a
good friend."

It will be remembered that at this
time the Massachusetts colonists
had just passed a law by which no
Jesuit priest could set foot upon
their soil under penalty of death.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

317

But, notwithstanding this law,
Father Druillettes, as the accredited
envoy of the French government,
ventured to visit the forbidden terri-
tory and was everywhere received
with courteous hospitality. In com-
pany with John Winslow, he left
Koussinoc and made the journey by
land as far as Merrymeeting Bay.
"The road was difficult," writes
Father Druillettes, "especially to
the agent who is already growing
old, and who assured me that he
would never have undertaken it if
he had not given his word to Noel."
On reaching Boston Father Druil-
lettes was entertained by Major
Gibbons, who cordially received the
French priest and who even gave
him a key to an apartment in his
house where he could, with com-
plete liberty, offer prayer and per-
form his religious exercises. Thus
the Jesuit Father, whose life
might otherwise have paid penalty
of the law, was not only kindly re-
ceived but actually permitted to
perform mass under a Puritan roof.
On the 13th of December he was in-
vited to dine with the Governor and
chief magistrates of Boston and giv-
en an opportunity to explain his
mission.

Proceeding to Plymouth, Father
Druillettes was also courteously
welcomed by Gov. Bradford, and
the day being Friday, Dame Brad-
ford gave him a dinner of cod-fish
out of regard for his religious scru-
ples. During his stay in Plymouth,
Father Druillettes was lodged at
the house of the wealthy merchant,
William Paddy, whose name the
French priest softened into Padis.
This William Paddy was one of the
five "farmers" to whom the business
of the Plymouth trading-house was
leased in 1649. He must have been
a very exemplary man, for his

tombstone, which was unearthed in
1866 under the north side of the old
Boston State House, bears this in-
scription :

"Here sleeps that blessed one, he
Whose lief God help us all to live,
So that when tiem shall be
That we this world must lieve,
We ever may be happy
With the blessed William Paddy."

Subsequently, Father Druillettes
made a visit to Roxbury where he
was greeted as a brother by John
Eliot, the Massachusetts apostle to
the Indians. There was undoubted-
ly much of sympathetic interest be-
tween these two missionaries, for
John Eliot listened to his guest
"with great respect and kindness"
and begged Father Druillettes to
spend the winter with him and share
his labors among the Indians of his
fold. These details throw a kindly
light on the character of both the
Puritan and the Pilgrim who in
their hearts, perhaps, were not so
bigoted as they have sometimes
been represented.

Father Druillettes remained in
Plymouth nearly all winter. His
mission apparently grew in favor
with the colonists, and when he re-
turned to the Kennebec in February
he rejoiced in the assurance that his
mission had been a success. This
assurance was confirmed by Wins-
low who arrived in Koussinoc in
April. "The agent assures me,"
writes Father Druillettes, "that all
the magistrates and the two commis-
sioners of Plymouth have given
their word and resolved that the
other colonies be urged to join them
against the Iroquois in favor of the
Abenakis who are under the pro-
tection of Plymouth." Winslow
also said that Governor Bradford
had sent Captain Thomas Willett —
"who was much interested in the

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Abenakis, owing to his acquaintance
with them while he was in command
at Koussinoc" — with letters to New
Haven and Connecticut, urging
these two colonies to join the al-
liance. Father Druillettes evident-
ly had good reason to hope that the
treaty would soon be made. Great
was his grief and disappointment,
therefore, to learn that the courage
and goodwill of the colonists had
disappeared soon after his depart-
ure and that a resolution had been
passed in Plymouth to have nothing
to do with the French alliance. The
facts in the case undoubtedly were
that while Plymouth men were
anxious to protect their trade on the
Kennebec and while the other colo-
nists were eager for the commercial
benefits which would result from
the treaty with New France, the}^
had not the courage to form an al-
liance which might involve them in
difficulties with the hostile Indians.

It is, of course, idle now to specu-
late as to what the results might
have been had this treaty been made
at this time between the English
and the French and Abenakis. But
the caution of the colonists did not
save them from the dangers which
they feared. King Philip's war
broke out in 1675. The long con-
flict between France and England
produced its inevitable results in
the colonies. The Indians natural-
ly fought with their French allies;
and a whole century of horror and
bloodshed followed.

In contrast to this century of war-
fare and desolation, the thirty-four
years of the Pilgrim occupancy of the
Kennebec trading-post seem like a
peaceful pastoral prelude preced-
ing the long tragedy of the Indian
wars. It was during this period
that the doughty captain, Myles
Standish, frequently came to the

Kennebec to bring supplies to the
agents, and perhaps also to visit the
good father of the chapel of the
Assumption. The alleged Catholic
tendencies of Myles Standish are a
matter of curious interest. It is
rather hard for us to conceive of the
bluff old captain of the Pilgrims
telling his beads or saying his
prayers in the little mission chapel
at Koussinoc, and yet it is well
known that Standish came of Catho-
lic ancestry in England and that he
never united with the Pilgrims in
their church covenant. It has there-
fore been suggested by some stu-
dents of Pilgrim history that Stand-
ish in his heart remained constant to
the faith of his ancestors, and that
he may have found some comfort to
his soul in visiting the black-coated
priest at Koussinoc. It is possible
that it was Myles Standish whom
John Winslow had in mind, when
he told Father Druillettes that if he
established his mission on the Ken-
nebec "some English would come to
see him."

In 1654, we find Thomas South-
worth in command at Koussinoc.
Southworth was the son of Alice
Southworth, the second wife of
Governor Bradford. He was "a
man eminent for the soundness of
his mind and the purity of his heart"
and was held in high esteem in the
colony. He was employed as agent
in charge of the trading-post for
three years, and, like the other
prominent men of Plymouth, cheer-
fully bore the privations and dis-
comforts of this temporary exile in
the wilderness for the good of the
colony and the maintenance of the
trade with the Indians.

It was in 1654, also, that Thomas
Prence came into the Kennebec re-
gion and assembled the settlers at
Merrymeeting Bay. His object was

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

319

to establish the authority of Plym-
outh over the Kennebec settlers.
Governor Prence must have been a
man very well qualified for his
numerous and important offices, for
as the old records state "he had a
countenance full of majesty and was
a terror to evil doers." Sixteen
settlers, or planters, appeared at
this conference at Merrymeeting and
swore allegiance to the English
crown and also to New Plymouth.
And thus, as the historian gravely
records, "the Pilgrim Republic had
reached the dignity of holding a
colony." A few wise and practical
laws were enacted at this time for
the preservation of peace and order,
and especially for preventing the
sale of strong drink to the Indians.
During this long period in the
history of the trading-post, the
Kennebec patent had changed its
ownership several times. In 1620,
King James made a grant of New
England to the council established
at Devon, and from this council
William Bradford and his associates
received the patent conveying to
them "all that tract of land lying in
and between and extending itself
from the utmost limits of the Cob-
bossee Contee which adjoineth the
river Kennebec towards the west-
ern ocean and a place called the falls
of Nequamkike, and the space of fif-
teen miles on each side of the Ken-
nebec." In 1630 this patent was
confirmed to William Bradford, his
heirs, associates and assigns. In
1640 Bradford and his associates
surrendered this grant on the Ken-
nebec, . of which they held the ex-
clusive rights, to all the freemen of
the colony of New Plymouth. A
few years later, in 1648, the colony
adopted the system of leasing the
trading-post, usually for a period of
five years, but still retained juris-

diction over the territory. Accord-
ingly, in 1649, the business was
leased to five prominent Plymouth
men known as merchants or "farm-
ers." They were Governor Brad-
ford, Governor Thomas Prence, Mr.
William Paddy, Mr. John Winslow
and Captain Thomas Willett. In
order to strengthen their claim to
this territory, if possible, Governor
Bradford at this time secured a deed
of the land from the famous Indian
chieftain Monquine, more familiarly
known as Natahanada. This chief-
tain, in consideration of two hogs-
heads of provisions, one of bread,
one hogshead of pease, two coats of
cloth, two gallons of wine and one
bottle of strong water, conveyed to
William Bradford, John Wrinslow,
Thomas Prence, Thomas Willett
and William Paddy the territory
from Koussinoc up to Wesserun-
sick for the New Plymouth Colony.
A copy of this curious and interest-
ing deed is now in the Registrar's of-
fice of Lincoln County, Maine.

It must be remembered however
that such a deed as this was practi-
cally worthless; for the Abenaki
Chieftains held no personal or rep-
resentative rights in the lands of
their tribes, and had no comprehen-
sion of a legal transference of their
territory. By these deeds so fre-
quently given, and sometimes of the
same land to different parties, the
Indians at first understood that they
were merely granting to the strang-
er the right to occupy the land and
to hunt and fish in common with
themselves. Thus, in 1725, the
Abenaki Chiefs refused to ac-
knowledge any exclusive claim of
the English by right of possession.
"We were in possession before
you," they said, "for we have held
it from time immemorial. The lands
Ave possess were given us by the

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Great Master of Life. We acknowl-
edge only from him." And again,
in 1744, when Governor Shirley ex-
hibited the deeds signed by the
Indians as a proof of his claim to
the territory, the aged chieftain,
Ongewasgone, replied, "I am an old
man, yet I never heard my an-
cestors say that these lands were
sold."

But long before the struggle for
the permanent possession of the
Kennebec valley began, the trade
with the Indians had commenced to
decline and in 1661 Plymouth sold
the entire territory for four hundred
pounds, to Antipas Boies, Edward
Tyng, Thomas Brattle and John
Winslow. By this time, however,
the days of prosperity for the trad-
ing-post were over, for game had
grown scarce and the hunters few.
Many of the bravest of the Abenaki
men had been killed by their ene-
mies, the Iroquois ; and the remain-
ing chiefs had begun to realize that
their rights were being permanent-
ly encroached upon, and they be-
came dissatisfied with the business,
the profits of which went entirely
to the white men. In a very short
time therefore the new purchasers
abandoned the trading-post. The
buildings fell into decay. The
tangled vines and spreading ferns
grew over its ruins and at last noth-
ing was left to mark its place. The
heirs of the last-named purchasers
held the property for nearly one
hundred years, the land lying dor-
mant and unsettled until Fort West-
ern was built in 1754.

The men of Plymouth were thus
spared any hostilities with the
Indians. For thirty-four years — a
whole generation — they frequented
the Kennebec and dwelt in peace

with the "Gentle Abenakis." They
braved the dangers of the sea and
the privations of the forest, not for
their own personal gain but for the
financial upbuilding of the colony,
and withdrew before the Abenakis
were involved in the general and
inevitable conflict.

The picturesque Indian village, as
well as the Plymouth trading-post,
soon disappeared from the banks of
the Kennebec ; and its name after-
wards became corrupted into "Cush-
noc." But fortunately the word in
its original form is preserved in the
old French records; for Father
Druillettes, writing in 1652, states
that "the Abenakis have a village
and burial ground where they meet
every spring and fall in sight of the
English who live at Koussinoc."

In regard to the meaning of this
name there are several interesting
theories; but Maurault, in "His-
toire des Abenakis1'' tells us that
"Koussinoc" signifies in French, il
y en a beaucoup — meaning in Eng-
lish, "there are many of them there"
— and that the village was so called
by the Indians because the English
had greatly increased in numbers at
this place.

It is a matter of regret that the
capital of Maine does not still retain
its ancient name, but the word is
replete with historic associations
and is in itself a precious legacy. It
brings before our minds a series of
pictures vivid with life and local
color, and in which the elements
of adventure, hardship, bravery and
romance are mingled. And as we
repeat this musical old Indian name,
we are forced to think of our Pil-
grim ancestors at Koussinoc, and to
remember that, in those olden days,
"there were many of them there."

The Gypsies

By D. C. Cahalane

"And though we should be grateful for

good houses,
There is, after all, no house like God's out-
of-doors."

[STEVENSON.

SOCRATES grasped the idea-
how many things there are in
this world we do not want.
The man who does not learn this
lesson, cannot appreciate the soli-
tude of the woods and fields.

What, after all, is civilization but
tyranny? Its limitations and re-
strictions harass us at every turn
from the cradle to the grave. Con-
vention tells us we must do certain
things, and so complicates the con-
ditions of our lives that we spend
years in soul destroying toil to sat-
isfy these silly assumptions. In
our blind conceit we sacrifice youth
and health in order that we may pass
on to generations unborn, share cer-
tificates and other bauble, which
in turn yield the recipient — princi-
pally worry.

Thrice happy is the man who in
these days of complicated living
heeds the wisdom of the preacher —
"All is vanity" — and takes himself
for a season out of the beaten paths
and comes into closer touch with the
elements. How many of you who
read these lines, have mused by the
road-side camp-fire of those children
of nature — the Gypsies, or revelled
in a world of mystery by your own
camp-fire in the woods. The mem-
ory of our tribal ancestor as he sat
by his camp-fire has come down to
us in our blood. Sitting in its glow

321

we are back home again, resting
in freedom from care.

For real camp-fire company, give
me the companionship of a boy.
John Burroughs long ago observed
that the boy is the true companion
of the woods and fields. Boys are
epitomes of the early life of the race.
If you want to delight a youth, set
him to work building a camp-fire.
Somehow the boy is a part of nature.
He seems to be more familiar with
its processes than the man. Watch
him as the sun disappears with its
afterglow of gold and the air is full
of strange whisperings. No sound
escapes his ears. With the hooting
of the owl the drowsy eyelids close
over visions of coming pleasures on
the morrow and in my arms I bear
him gently to the tent. Half asleep,
half awake, always looking toward
the future, he tells me of his plans
for the coming day. Then sleep
gently draws the veil before his eyes,
allowing him to dream of the pleas-
ures of the day.

The instinct which drives men to
the woods is possessed in no small
degree by the Romany race, who are
the true wanderers. Their life is one
of poetry compared with the com-
monplace existence of mankind in
general. It affords quiet dignity,
refined simplicity and the com-
panionship of divine things. It
means freedom from the small talk
of the drawing room, from snobbery
of every sort. In exchange it gives
the maoqc of sunshine, the green

ONE OF THE BOSWELLS
A Man Well Versed in Latin and a True Type of the Real Romany Stock.

fields and shady lanes — the com-
panionship of every flower that
blooms — of every bird that floats in
the soft summer sunshine.

The history of the Gypsies forms
an intensely interesting study.
Their ''wonderful story" cannot be
quickly told. Time in its mighty
changes disturbs them not. The
customs of centuries cling to them
today as tenaciously as life itself —
all of which bespeaks the nobler and
more ancient origin than is usually
allowed. Mr. Paul Kester says that
a fancy of his is, "that the ancestors
of our friends of the road were once
a savage race in India, a race — like
the Arabs — of warrior kings ; that
conquest and subjection followed
their supremacy, and that they slow-
ly sank into the degraded condition
that prevailed before the beginning
of their exodus, still cherishing
their pride and their free spirit while
cringing to their conquerors, the

pitiful remnant of a prehistoric
race."

Since the twelfth century have
they been in Europe. Stanley long
since wrote :

"Why floats the silvery wreath

Of light thin smoke from yonder bank of

heath ?
What forms are those beneath the shaggy

trees,
In tattered tents scarce sheltered from the

breeze?
The hoary father and the ancient dame,
And squalid children, cowering o'er the

flame,
The swarthy lineaments — the wild attire,
The stranger tones bespeak an Eastern

sire."

The origin of the Gypsies was the
subject of inquiry in Europe more
than 400 years ago.

Although I find early record of
over a score of theories on the
origin of the Gypsies which have
been entertained by men who have
studied the race, there is finally but

322

. : ;• ?*

. \I

■ - ' wmm» '■

• mm mm
■HI K"

A GYPSY TYPE

one reasonable conclusion, viz: that
they had their origin in India.
Grellman nearly a century ago was
the first to assert that the Hindo-
stan language has the greatest af-
finity with that of the Gypsy.
Grellman's method of reasoning
was the only true method of de-
termining the origin of these people.

His dissertation printed in 1807
quite conclusively proved the east-
ern extraction of the Gypsies, par-

323

ticularly by the similarity of their
language to that of Hindostan.

The different appellations by
which the Gypsies were distin-
guished in earlier times appear to
have reference to the countries from
Which it was supposed they had
emigrated. For example; the
French having the first accounts of
them from Bohemia, gave them the
name of Bohemians. The Dutch
supposing they came from Egypt,

324

N E W ENGLAND MAGAZINE

called them Hey-
dens — Heathen.
The idea of the
English appears
to be similar in
pronouncing them
Gypsies — Egyp-
tians. These peo-
ple appeared in
Europe in the
15th Century.
Mention is made
of their being in
Germany as early
as the year 1417.
In Germany they
spread so rapidly,
that in 1418 their
names were re-
corded in the an-
imal publications
of various parts of
the country. Hoy-
Ian d (a later
writer than Grell-
man) says they

traveled in bands, each having its
leader, sometimes called Count, oth-
ers had the title of Dukes or Lords
of lesser Egypt.

German historians are agreed
that when the Gypsies first made
their appearance in Europe they
chose to be considered as Pilgrims
and that their profession met with
the more ready belief as it coincided
with the infatuation of the times.

Grellman stated that several old
writings mention the credulity with
which people cherished the idea that
they were real pilgrims and holy
persons, which idea procured for
them toleration and safe conduct in
many places. Hoyland gives an ac-
count of Hungarian Gypsies being
employed in Hungary in the work-
ing of iron about the year 1650.
This occupation appears to have
been a favorite one with them in

GYPSY FAMILY AT RAGOWITZ FAIR, NEAR BUDAPEST!!

those far off times and is even to this
day.

An interesting item in Pasquier's
"Recherches. de la France" is a note
copied from an old book in the form
of a journal, the latter the property
of a doctor of divinity of Paris,
which fell into the hands of Pas-
quier. He says : "These people wan-
dered up and down France, under
the eye and with the knowledge of
the magistrates, for 100 or 120 years.
At length in 1561 an edict was is-
sued commanding all officers of jus-
tice to turn out of the Kingdom, in
the space of two months, under pain
of the galleys and corporal punish-
ment, all men, women and children
who assumed the name of Bohemi-
ans or Egyptians."

An early Italian writer on Gypsies
tells us that there was a general law
throughout Italy that no Gypsy

THE GYPSIES

325

should remain more than two nights
in one place. By this plan no place
retained its guests long. The writer
above referred to observes that
Italy rather suffered than benefited
by the law.

Whatever their origin, no race is
more widely scattered over the
earth's surface than the Gypsies. Go
where you will, you will find these
wanderers. Something like a million

America. Yet in January, iy 15, nine
Border Gypsies, men and women,
by the names of Faa, Stirling, Yors-
toun, Finnick, Lindsey, Ross and
Robertson, were transported by the
magistrates of Glasgow to the Vir-
ginia plantations at a cost of thir-
teen pounds sterling (Gypsy Lore
Journal). That is practically all we
know concerning the coming of the
Gypsies to America.

PEASANTS AT MARKET, BELGRADE

is their probable number in Europe.
Of the number of Gypsies in
America I have not the vaguest
notion, for there are no statistics of
the slightest value to go by. Just
when Gypsies came to this country
is uncertain. In Appleton's Ameri-
can Cyclopedia (1874) the writer of
the article "Gypsies" pronounces it
questionable whether a band of
genuine Gypsies has ever been in

There is a record of Gypsies in
New York as far back as 1850. To-
day we have distributed throughout
this country thousands of the race
from England, Scotland, Hungary,
Spain, one knows not whence else
besides.

Groome, speaking of the Gypsies as
Nomads, says, "we do not know
within a thousand years when the
Gypsies left India." It is well

326

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

known however that India was their
original home, and that they so-
journed long in a Greek-speaking
region, and that in western and
northern Europe their present dis-
persion dates from after the year
1417.

The English Gypsies who leave
Great Britain usually go to some
English-speaking country, princi-

of the real Romany in the Stanleys,
Coopers and others. The latter are
particularly noted as a most decided
type of pure blooded, old-fashioned
Romany stock.

We find record of one hundred
Gypsies who arrived by train at
Liverpool in July, 1886. They were
called the "Greek Gypsies" and had
started from Corfu, but according

RAGOWIIZ FAIR — SWINGS, MERRY-GO-ROUNDS AND GYPSY WAGONS

pally to Canada and the United
States. The Romany race with us
today are all descendants of early
Gypsy immigrants, their surnames
Lee, Cooper, Stanley, Lovell, Bos-
vills, Smith, Herron, Hicks, etc.,
dating back to the 16th and 17th
centuries.

Among the American Gypsies
may be found many fine specimens

to their passports came from all
parts of Greece and European
Turkey, bound for New York. The
United States being closed to pauper
immigrants, no steamboat would ac-
cept them and they encamped at
Liverpool. Their encampment was
visited by Mr. David MacRitchie
and Mr. H. T. Crofton, the joint
author with Mr. Bath Smart of the

THE GYPSIES

327

admirable "Dialect of the English
Gypsies" (1875). In Chambers'
Journal for September, 1886 may be
found an excellent article by Mr.
MacRitchie concerning their camp.
After camping some time at Liver-
pool they crossed to Hull, but failed
in getting passage there. About a
year later Groome discovered some
of this party in Yorkshire. Their
subsequent fate is unknown. No

Francis H. Groome who died in
January, 1902, in Edinburgh — and
whom Theodore Watts-Dunton
designates as the "Tarno Rye" and
says of him that he (Groome) was
one of the most remarkable and ro-
mantic literary lives that, since
Borrow, have been lived in his
time, — was next to Mr. Sampson,
the librarian of University College
at Liverpool, an ideal collector of

A GYPSY CAMP IN A BOSTON SUBURB

doubt at some later date some of
them, at least, succeeded in reach-
ing these shores.

So then, this-, wandering race,
from time immemorial established
in Europe, but immigrants original-
ly from India, must have fascinating
folk-tales which will surely be of in-
terest to every student of Indo-
European Lore.

Welsh Gypsy folk-tales, as the
scores of stories published by him
in 1899 amply prove. The Welsh
dialect is probably the best pre-
served of all Gypsy dialects, and the
Groome's folk-tales are well worthy
of study.

In a visit to a camp last summer
I found a pleasant surprise in a
family of Welsh Gypsies who came

3'28

N E W ENGLAND MA G1Z I N E

to this country the season previous.
From Theodore Watts-Dunton's
"Aylwin" I had learned of the pic-
turesque Snowdon Hills and that of
fascinating "Romany Chi" Sinn
Lovell. Here I was at last face to
face with a party of Welsh Gypsies
who had lived in the very locality
described by the author of "Aylwin."
Not less interesting was a camp
of Russian Gypsies of which the

looked rather hard for their winter's
wear. I have often wondered how
they since fared and what became of
them.

The average person is wont to as-
sociate small crimes with the Gyp-
sies. The "low down" native, him-
self often a midnight marauder in
poultry yards is ever on the alert
to ply his calling when there is a
Gypsy encampment in the neighbor-

A GYPSY TENT IN A BOSTON SUBURB

members were all typical Gypsies
in physique, the women beautiful,
all rags and tatters and most in-
veterate beggars. One of the men
was an accomplished linguist and
could speak Greek, Russian and two
or three other dialects of south-east-
ern Europe. A Gypsy acquaintance
of mine met this same band early
the following spring and they

hood. So these nomads always have
shared and always will have to share
the blame of these depredations, re-
gardless by whom committed.

To be sure, some of the poorer
classes like my friends the Russians,
being often sorely pressed, some-
times trespass on neighboring corn-
fields and potato patches. As a rule
acts of kindness shown the Gypsy

THE GYPSIES

329

wayfarers inspire them with a feel-
ing of honor and they rarely, if ever,
violate any trust reposed in them.

When small boys we were told
of Gypsies kidnapping children of
other people. Fresh in the minds
of all was the fruitless search among
the Gypsy camps near Boston in the
summer of 1902 for the small boy
who had so mysteriously disap-
peared. Such crimes emanate usual-
ly from the versatile brain of a
writer of Gypsy romance.

Fortune telling is a practice which
has long prevailed among the Gyp-
sies of all countries. There are al-
ways multitudes of people looking
for light from some sibyl, whose
prognostications are believed to be
the offspring of some supernatural
agency. Sighing and disappointed
lovers are the Gypsies' best cus-
tomers. They hope to find in the
Gypsy mother a panacea for the an-
guish which destroys their hap-
piness or mars their peace of mind.

Gypsies are good discriminators
of human nature and have the
shrewdness to adapt their speech to
circumstances.

Yet even in Gypsy life there are
plenty of opportunities for the hon-
est earning of livelihoods, such as
the weaving of carpets, basket mak-
ing, knife grinding, repairing of
clocks, tin and china ware, lace mak-
ing, hawking of all kinds, horse deal-
ing and many other employments.

I never visited the tent of Gypsies
without receiving a hearty welcome.
If you can rakker the jib, how ever
little, you will be assured of cour-
teous treatment, and pressed to take
refreshments; and the tent or van
will be at your service at night if you
are apray the drom and lack shelter
for the night.

Let me add, many Gypsy beds
are clean and inviting with linen as

pure and white as will be found up-
on your own bed at home — and
among the wanderers, in many a
van may be found silk gowns and
jewels.

Should your actions, however,
creat suspicion, even though you be
a student of ethnology, you will not
add materially to your fund of in-
formation from your interview with
members of this strange and fasci-
nating race, whose romantic life to
the most of us is shrouded in mys-
tery.

Gypsies are the Arabs of our
country. They present the singular
spectacle of a race who regard with
absolute indifference the comforts
of modern civilization, false refine-
ment and struggle after wealth.
They are not, as many suppose, out-
casts of society, but they refuse to
wear the bonds it imposes. To the
Gypsy who dwells in the town in the
winter, with the first spring sun-
shine comes the longing to be off
and he is soon on the road.

As the smoke of his evening
camp-fire goes up to heaven, and
the savory odor of the roast
"hotchi-witchi" floats in the air, he
sits in the deepening twilight drink-
ing in all the sights and sounds
around him. He feels

" 'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear ;
'Tis sweet to listen to the night winds

creep
From leaf to leaf."

Cradled from his infancy in such
haunts as these "places of nestling
green for poets made," he sleeps
well with the dearly-loved lullabies
of his far away ancestors soothing
him to rest.

Several years have elapsed since
Charles Leland (Hans Breitmann)
and Frank Groom e met for the last
time at a folk-lore congress in Lon-

330

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

don. Both these scholars of Gypsy-
lore went to their final rest not
many months ago. Leland was laid
away, far from his native land, at
Florence, Italy; and Groome was

buried among his forefathers at
Monk Soham in Suffolk, England.
I am proud of the slight acquaint-
ance I had with Groome, the
Romany scholar.

Black Jake's Souvenir

By Henrietta R. Eliot

D[D you ever see a negro pale
with fright? I did when I was
ten years old, and though I am'
an old man now, I have not forgot-
ten it, and never shall.

It was a mid-summer afternoon
and I was eating cherries up in the
tree behind the house, when crash !
the board fence at the back of the
yard banged and rattled like a vol-
ley of musketry, two boards fell in-
wards and "Black Jake" — our Jake —
no longer black, but a dreadful sort
of putty color, sprang through the
gap and over the splintering boards,
and shot past me toward the front
gate. I scrambled down as fast as
I could and reached the gate in
less than a minute but he was al-
ready out of sight, while a fresh
crash and splintering of the fallen
fence boards turned my eyes again
to the back yard in time to see
the last of three men — one of them
a local police-man — plunging to-
ward me through the, hole which
Jake had made.

"Where did that blamed nigger
go?" shouted the foremost man as
he ran toward me.

"Right out of this gate," I"
answered, "but he — "

"Which way'd he turn?" inter-
rupted the man.

"I don't know. He ran like gee
whizz! and when I got here I
couldn't see him either way."

The man ' did not stop for the
end of my sentence but dashed past
me and around the nearest corner,
with his followers, while I mechani-
cally finished it to the empty air.

A police-man after "Black Jake!"
AVhat did it mean? He had split
our wood, spaded my mother's
flower beds, and done all the odd
jobs about our house almost ever
since I could remember, and I had
often heard my father praise his
honesty. Indeed, every one trusted
"Black Jake." He had escaped
from slavery five years before and
had come directly to the little town
in northern Ohio where we lived,
and being at that time the only ne-
gro in the place, had by common
consent received this name, which
had ever since clung to him, along
with an affection and even respect
seldom given by a community to
its "hewers of wood and drawers of
water" ; and now a police-man was
after him! What did it mean?

Suddenly I remembered some-
thing my father had told me about
the fugitive slave law and I was
sure those men were trying to catch
Black Jake and take him back into

BLACK JAKE'S SOUVENIR

831

slavery ! And my father, who
might have helped him, had started
for Boston only the day before ! O,
how glad I was that I had not been
able to tell which way he ran !

[The broader sympathies of these
later years have drawn North and
South together, and Northern peo-
ple have learned to understand, at
least in part, the relation which a
conscientious believer in slavery
bore to his slaves — and the almost
insoluble problem which the insti-
tution presented to the very few
Southerners who did not so believe.
But I am speaking now of a by-gone
time.] To me, as to many another
Northern child of that day, slavery
meant only whipping, cruelty, heart-
break and torture of every kind.
The thought of Jake's being caught
was more than I could bear, for a
special bond of comradeship existed
between Black Jake and my small
self. Whatever the job might be
for which he had been hired I had
always worked with him, when out
of school, and I could not remem-
ber, even back in my petticoat days,
when he had not made me feel that
my labor was as important as his
own, and I loved him dearly. I ran
to tell my mother what had hap-
pened and what I feared, and she
comforted me as mothers can.

"If those were slave hunters," she
said, "he may get away from them
into Canada — it is but a few hours
away."

To my childish imagination her
cheerful "may" meant "will," and,
quite re-assured, I went whistling to
the cellar to split the morning's
kindlings (my special daily task)
before the supper bell should ring.

As I selected some straight-
grained sticks from the wood pile,
(for my Yankee mother never could
be converted to the use of coal, and

we burned the costlier fuel,) I heard
a sort of tapping, and stopped
whistling to listen.

"Dat yo' Mars' Clar'nce?"

The voice was a tremulous whis-
per, but I knew on the instant that
it was Black Jake, and that he must
have turned down our side cellar-
way instead of running through the
yard to the street.

"O Jake," I whispered, "is that
you? I'll tell mamma you're here,
and she'll help get you to Canada;"
and I started for the stairs.

"Fer de Lawd's sake," the voice
broke ' from a whisper to louder
tones as I ran, "come back Mars'
Clar'nce — ef yo' tell yo' ma, I'se
plum done fer," whispering again
as I stood still. "Fer de lub o'
goodness keep yo' . mouf shet, en
come behime yere whar I be."

Still as a cat I climbed to the top
of the pile — the half emptied front
rick of sticks making the climb easy
— pulling myself along on my stom-
ach across the four ricks which, re-
maining entire, rose to within a foot
of the ceiling, then let myself down,
first on to Jake's shoulders, and then
to the ground, in a space barely
wide enough for us to stand side
by side, both facing the wood.

"Yo' done guess right Mars'
Clar'nce," Jake whispered. "De
nigger ketchers is atter me sho, but
yo' mustn't tell yo' ma. I reckon
she ain't nebber lied sence she was
bawn, en' eben ef she tuck'n argified
wid hussef, 'twell hit seem like she's
jestified, she couldn't never make no
sess un it. I 'low dey'll year dat I
wuks fer yo' pa, en dey'll such dis
house 'fo' dey's thoo, en' dey'll quiz-
itate yo' ma — but honey — wat folks
don' know, dey caint tell, so I am'
gwine tell yo' ma, en' I am' gwine
sen' no wud to Ruby."

"Now listen, honey." I had to, for

332

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

his frightened whisper was almost
inarticulate and he stopped be-
tween the words to catch the sound
of any possible approaching step.

"Listen, honey. I'll hatter stay
right yere, 'twell de good Lawd
show me some way fer gittin'
acrost to Canada."

"But Jake," I interrupted, "you'll
starve."

"Not wile you'se roun' chile," he
answered. "I'se 'pendin' on yo'.
Nobody ain' gwine bodder yo', caze
yo' ain't seem 'sponsible. But," he
added, "y°' is 'sponsible — 'mazin'
'sponsible, en' I knows I kin trus'
yo'."

As he spoke I could feel his arm
twisting and his elbow shoving me,
in the narrow space, as he felt in
his pantaloon's pocket.

"Dar, Mars' Clar'nce, is de money
fer a loaf er bread en' a Balogna
sassage — I ain't hungry now, but I
'low I'll be bleeged ter eat ter-mor-
rer, fer to keep up my strenth fer
ter git ter Canada. I'll boost yo'
outen yere in a minit, en' atter sup-
per, (dere's yo' supper bell now) yo'
ast yo' ma, nat'ral like, ef yo' kin
play ball in de square, en' den yo'
kin git de bread en' sassage on de
way, en' come back acrost de lot
and thoo dat hole I done make in
de fence; chuck de grub inter de
cellar way 'twell yo' kin pump
some water, (yo' kin take de ole
tin bucket I keeps in de shed fer to
drink fum while I'se wukkin) en'
fotch 'em all down yere en' hide 'em
in de ash pit, en' den yo' go ter
splittin' de kinlin's like nothin' ain't
happen. I kin crope outen yere en'
git 'em in de night — en' doan yo'
come yere agin," he was boosting
me out as he spoke, " 'twell yo' come
ter split de kindlin's ter-morrer eve-
nin'."

I must have shown my fright and
nervous sense of responsibility in
my poor little face when I appeared
at the supper table, in spite of my
valiant efforts to the contrary —
but whatever my mother noticed
she probably attributed to my re-
cent excitement over poor Jake, and
tactfully diverted my mind — or
thought she did.

"Have you finished your kind-
lings?" she asked.

"No," I answered, "but I won't
forget them, but please may I go
first to the square to play ball? The
game will be half through if I do
the kindlings first."

Why must I feel like a double-
dyed villain, when I was trying so
hard to do right? Surely, as Jake
had intimated, the habit of perfect
truthfulness is strong, and hard to
break !

Arrived at the square, I played so
badly as to disgrace myself with
my fellows, and returned through
the fence hole with my bundles, on-
ly to confront my mother examin-
ing the boards to see if they were
too broken to replace. I hastily
dropped my bundles before climb-
ing through, and my mother had
evidently been too intent on the
boards to notice them.

"This hole makes a convenient
short cut," she said, "but it must
be nailed up all the same — with
your father and poor Jake out of the
question, you and I will have to see
what we can do." And she began
replacing one of the boards.

"Now, Clarence," she said, "hold
this in place while I hammer."

Of course I had to obey, although
I was separating myself from my
bundles. Meantime the light would
soon begin to wane, and I must get
them to the cellar before Ann, the
cook, locked it.

BLACK JAKE'S SOUVENIR

333

I grasped the board and my moth-
er stooped for a nail — she took one,
dropped it, took another, dropped
it, raked the pile in the box back and
forth and pushed them from her.

"They're all either too large or
too small," she said. "I think there
are some that are just right in the
house. I'll look, any way;" and she
started.

This was my chance and I must
risk it. With the disappearance of
my mother's skirts through the
kitchen door, I sprang through the
hole, grabbed my bundles, thrust
them into the cellar-way, and ran
to the tool shed for the bucket. As
I came from it my mother appeared.
She looked annoyed.

"Put down that old bucket and
come here," she said. "You should
not have let go of the board. It's
so badly broken already I'm not
sure we can make it do, however
carefully we handle it."

[Alas! The "right way" may al-
ways be narrow, but surely it is not
always straight !]

At last the boards were nailed,
and my mother, praising my ef-
ficient help and telling me to go to
my kindlings, strolled toward the
front yard. I seized my bucket in
desperation, but fearing to call at-
tention to myself by the sound of
the pump, I ran to the kitchen fau-
cet instead, and called down the
wrath of Ann, for bespattering her
newly wiped sink — but my bucket
was full and I tried not to care that
my eyes were too. In another
minute food and water were safely
hidden in the ash pit, and with such
fading light as fell through the open
cellar way, I was just finishing my
kindlings when Ann came to lock

up;<

"Yer mother is always afther tell-
in' yez to shplit thim kindlin's before

supper," she snapped. "One of
these foine nights, ye'll be choppin'
off wan of yer fingers and nobody
to blame but yerself."

In spite of my relief that Jake's
provisions were safe in the ash pit,
the evening was not a happy one.
I went to the sitting-room where
the lamp was newly lighted and
tried to read, but hand-cuffs and
lies, Bologna sausages and" maps of
Canada, jostled each other in my
mind as I tried to make sense of
the page before me, and I was glad
when half past nine — my usually
dreaded bed-time — struck.

The next day was as bad. I kept
away from the cellar as Jake had
directed, but the image of the poor
fellow wedged flat between the
wood pile and the wall never left my
thoughts. I actually felt him, like
a pain in my bones, no matter how
I tried to busy myself. And the
afternoon brought fresh trials.

My mother had sent me to buy
some eggs and I was starting
through the sitting-room door which
opened on the side yard, when I
bethought me that I might have no
equally good opportunity to buy,
unobserved, the food Jake would
need for the next day. I slipped
back across the room, unnoticed by
my mother — who was reading in
the parlor adjoining — and had just
taken my own purse from the
drawer where I kept it, when my
ear caught the rasping voice of the
man who had called to me the day
before. The maid was showing
him into the parlor and I could hear
the rustle of my mother's skirts as
she rose to meet him.

What should I do? I dared not
cross the room for the folding doors
were open, so I stood as still as my
knocking knees would let me.

"I'm hunting a runaway nigger,"

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the man explained. "I don't never
want to trouble the ladies, but you
see a dozen people hereabout seen
the nigger go into your yard, and
nary one seen him come out, though
there was twicet as many people to
the front of the house as to the back.
Likewise we've had a watch on the
nigger's house, and you've been
seen twicet since yesterday going
back and forth betwixt this house
and his'n. And the upshot is, we've
decided he's hid somewheres on
these premises. We've got a search
warrant and four men are watching
the outside doors, and we're bound
to get him, if he's here, but it'll
save you and us a lot of muss and
trouble, if you'll give him up, pleas-
ant and easy, to begin with."

"If I did know where the man
was, I would not tell you." (I
could feel my mother's eyes pinning
the man to the wall like a beetle.)
"But I do not. He is nowhere on
the premises to my knowledge. In
fact my little boy told me he ran
through our yard and out of the
front gate. As to the man's poor
wife, Ruby, I certainly have tried to
comfort her and shall continue to
do so. Now if you have a search
warrant you can proceed to your
business."

"I'll talk with the little boy first,"
said the man, "youngsters often see
things that older folks don't. Where
is he?"

"He has just gone for an errand,"
answered my mother, her voice
trembling with indignation, "but I
know he knows nothing of the poor
man's whereabouts. The child
never kept anything from me in his
life."

And there I stood behind the
angle of the open folding doors,
trembling with the certainty that it
was but a matter of minutes before

the slave catcher must enter. He
was already moving — I grew rigid —
but no, it was toward the front door,
which he opened to admit another
man. It was a noisy door to open
and, while it scrawked on its hinges,
I opened the door into the dining-
room, unheard, and sped through
it and the kitchen into the yard,
followed by Ann's vituperations, for
she knew I was forbidden to go
that way.

Our town was built without
alleys, and back yards backed on to
back yards with no gates between,
but the side fences were low, and
jumping these and running across
three back yards, I was soon on the
street far from the house. I made
my errand cover the time, as near as
I could guess at it, that the men
would take to search the premises,
and returned as I had gone, over the
fences, sick with anxiety as to poor
Take's fate, but resolved to say or do
nothing which might betray him, if
his hiding place had not yet been dis-
covered. I had bought a new buck-
et and a loaf of bread — my money
would go no further. Putting these
in the cellar-way, I hurried with the
eggs to the kitchen door.

Ann was swelling with rage, (not
at me for a wonder this time), and
was talking to herself.

"The nashty bastes ! Is it nagers
they're afther huntin' in me kitchen?
I'll tach thim manners wid me
broom shtick, if iver they cooms
nager huntin' around me agin."
Then she saw me, and came to the
door for the eggs.

"Thim eggs is moighty shmall fer
their size," she said acidly.

"Did they find — " I began im-
pulsively, then caught my breath
and stammered, "I mean, did they
dirty your kitchen?"

But Ann was already half way

BLACK JAKE'S SOUVENIR

335

across it with the eggs and had not
heard me. I ran to the cellar.

"Are you there Jake?" I called
in a stage whisper, as I pulled the
door to, behind me.

"Yes, Mar's Clar'nce," he whis-
pered, 'Tse plum tuckered out, but
I'se yere. De Philistines deys ben
atter me, but de good Lawd hab de-
libbered me outen dere han's."

"I can't stay," I said, "but here is
some bread," and I sent it skating
across the top of the wood toward
him. I feared my mother would
note my long absence but I must
take my chance while I had it. I
snatched my bucket and ran to the
pump. O, had it ever made so much
noise before? I felt at each stroke
as if some one would surely run
out and ask what I was doing and
why I was doing it; but no one did,
and in another instant the water was
safe in the ash pit and I was hurry-
ing to my mother.

She met me flushed but smiling,
and evidently not intending to let
me know what had been going on.
I looked at the clock and was grate-
ful to see that it was nearly six.

"I'll split my kindlings now," I
said, and so made my escape to the
cellar again.

"I wuz pow'ful thusty," said
Jake, as he took the bucket, (which
I had managed to get to him over
the wood pile) from his lips. It held
two quarts, but he had already half
emptied it.

"Hit do seem moughty unpro-
vidin' to drink so much ter wunst,"
he said, "but I'se 'lowin fer ter come
outen yere ter-night, so's I ain't so
savin' un it."

"But Jake," I exclaimed, (I was
was wedged beside him as I had
been before,) "you just can't go to
Canada to-night. Those men'll
catch you as sure as you live !

You've got to stand it, and stay
here till we know they've gone
away. I didn't have money enough
to buy anything but the bread, but
my pockets are chuck full of cher-
ries, and they'll taste good. Could
you lie down and sleep in here last
night without most choking?"

"Bress you honey! I didn't stay
yere atter I year yo' ma lockin' up
de house. I crope up en' lay un de
top er de wood de hull night, bein'
moughty keerful do ter git down
agin, 'fo' Ann came roun' in de
mornin'. But we's wastin' time en'
de supper bell gwine ring any
minute. Now, yo' see, honey, dis
yere house done ben suched, en' yo'
ma done ben axed all she gwine be
axed, so's I ain't skeert no mo' er
her knowin' dat I'se yere, en' atter
yer supper yo' kin tell her; but be
moughty keerful der don nobody
else year, en' doan fergit ter say
dat atter de house is done locked,
en' de lights is out, I'se gwine crope
up en' 'vise 'long wid her.

II.
- "O whacky ! but weren't you
scared, Jake, when those men came
into the cellar?" I asked, as I sat
beside him in the kitchen four hours
later, while he ate the supper which
my mother had insisted should pre-
cede his talk with her.

"Yes, Mars' Clar'nce, I suttinly
wuz mos' onrighteously skeert.
Mos' specially w'en one un urn be-
gun fer ter pull down de wood pile.
But des den de odder give me 'sur-
ance. 'Dey ain't no nigger in dat
wood pile/ he sorter singed, en' dey
bof laff ter split. 'Dey ain't no nig-
ger dar,' sezee, 'caze he cain' pile de
wood back on hisself, en' der cainr
no one else pile it dat-a-way, good
en' eben, 'thouten bein' cotched at
it, wid de cellar bein' used all de
time — en' er one thing I'se suttin'

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

sezee, 'ef dat nigger's hid in dis yer
house de folks don' know it ! Dat
lady war mad, but she warn't lyin'!
Dats wat he sez Mars' Clar'nce, en'
I wuz mos' mazin' glad yo' ain't
tole yo' ma."

"But Jake," I asked, "how did you
ever come to think of that place to
hide away?"

"You wunnerin' how I come ter
make straight fer dat wood pile,
honey? I tell yo' Mars' Clar'nce
hits proned inter niggers wen dey
sees a good hidin' place not ter dis-
remember it offen der mines ! Wen
I tuck'n pile dat wood fer yo' pa, en'
he done tole me ter pile it dat-a-way
offen de wall, long er hits bein'
green, I 'lowed to mysef dat it wuz
de bessest place roun' fer hidin'.
Five years ago, wen I wuz runnin'
'way fum ole Mars' Henry — hidin'
in de swamp en' ridin' unner freight
kyars en' sleepin' in plow furrers,
I 'lowed ef ebber I got to de Norf,
I wouldn't ast no mo'. I 'lowd I'd
feel safe yere — but Laws, Mars'
Clar'nce, ef onct de feelin' er sum-
mon's huntin' yo' gits clar inter
yer bones, yo' caint nebber git shet
un it ! Fer two years atter I come
to dis yer town I ain't got no peace.
Hit seem like I'se spectin' summun
gwine jump down fum somewhars
atop er me ev'y breathin' minit !
En' I dassent go ter Canada fer I
'lowed dey'd hab my 'scription on
all de boats."

"But why didn't you go after two
years?" I asked. "It must have been
safe then."

"I reckon I doan't 'zactly know."
Jake scratched his head thoughtful-
ly. "Fus' 'twas marryin' Ruby.
Den one ting en' nudder, en' den
de baby, 'twell byme bye I reckon
I'se so use ter feelin' skeert dat I
warn't skeert no mo'. But ef de
good Law'd'll kyar me dar now, I

ain't takin' no mo' chances."

"If you're through eating, Jake,"
said my mother, speaking softly at
the door, "you can come into the
dining-room. Our minister, Mr.
Dayton, is here, and we have made
a plan which I will explain to you.
Can you write?"

"Not like Ruby kin," answered
Jake, taking the seat at the table
which my mother offered, "but right
smart fer a nigger dat's jes startin'
in. Hit pears like yo' caint cotch
onter nuffin atter you'se growed up,
but Ruby she's wukked pow'ful to
larn me, en' I kin write some."

"Then take this paper and pencil,"
said my mother, "and tell Ruby, in
the fewest words you can tell it in,
that you are well and send your love
and will try to send money for
her to join you in Canada. Write,
and I'll explain afterwards," she
added as he hesitated.

Hurry as Jake would, this literary
effort consumed half an hour and
was finished while Mr. Dayton stood
waiting, hat in hand.

"Now address this envelope to
her," he said, placing one already
stamped in front of Jake. This took
ten minutes more and Mr. Dayton,
pouncing upon it before Jake's slow
hand had raised from the last stroke,
thrust it into a larger envelope,
already addressed and, with an "I'll
get it there in time" spoken back
over his shoulder, left the room, and
we heard the front door close behind
him.

"Now, Jake," said my mother,
"listen carefully. Mr. Dayton has
not taken that letter to Ruby, but
to the conductor of the midnight
train, who will take it to Detroit
and mail it in the morning to a
friend of mine in Toronto who will
take it out of the big envelope and
mail it back to Ruby, and it will

BLACK JAKE'S SOUVENIR

337

get to her with the Ca?iada post
mark, you see, by day after to-mor-
row ! It is a deception," she con-
tinued as if to herself, "but this fu-
gitive slave catcher, in trying to take
a man from his family has forfeited
his right to the truth." Then to
Jake again, "After Ruby gets the
letter, it won't be an hour before
every one will be telling every one
else that 'Black Jake' has outwitted
the slave hunters and is safe in
Canada. The slave hunters them-
selves will hear of it and assure
themselves of the truth of the ru-
mor by calling on Ruby to see the
letter, which she will only be too
glad to show them, and they will
go back to where they came from.
You, Jake, can sleep on a cot in the
attic locked store room where no one
but myself ever goes, till we are
sure they are out of the way and
then you can safely make the jour-
ney to Canada."

Jake had listened, wide-eyed and
open-mouthed — "Bress de good
Lawd," he said turning from her to
me, as one to whom in his excited
state he could address himself more
easily. "Bress de good Lawd ! He
hab showed me de way, but yo' ma,
she am de angel pintin' it !"

I have lived on the Pacific Coast
for thirty years but I have never
lost track of Jake, and last year, go-
ing East by the "Canadian Pacific,"
I stopped off at the little town of

— where he and old Ruby are

still living. Their seven children
were scattered long ago by mar-
riage or death, and I found them
quite by themselves, a dusky Darby
and Joan.

"Hit do seem mos' strawdinnery,"
said old Jake speaking to himself,
when, our greetings over and Ruby

gone to get the supper, we sat to-
gether in their little front room.
"Hit do seem mos' strawdinnery dat
dis gemman air HT Mars' Clar'nce !"
Then addressing me, "Wy it seems
like you'se mos' as ole as I is. 'Cose
I oughter knowd you ain' gwine
stay dat way I lef yo', but 'clar
to gracious, ef I ebber knowed in my
bones dat yo' wus done growed up,
■'twell dis yere blessed minit."

He sat gazing at the floor, the dis-
sipation of a cherished vision evi-
dently clashing with the pleasure of
seeing me as I was in the flesh.
Presently he arose, and crossing to
the mantle piece took down some
sort of nondescript dangling ar-
rangement that hung over it.

"Dis yere's de way my HT Mars'
Clar'nce'H alius look ter me," he
said, holding out a small photo-
graph of my ten year old self which
my mother had given him when he
started for Canada. It was framed
and depended from one end of a
heavy curved piece of iron wire,
from the other end of which hung
a small faded green silk bag, the
wire itself being tied mid-way with
a bright bit of new scarlet ribbon
by which it had hung to the wall.

"Dats de spittin image ob de HT
chap wat stud by me in de wilder-
ness," he said gazing with a sense
of injury in his eyes, at my gray
bearded face, "en' dis," opening the
little green bag, "is his har."

Could that sunny curl ever have
danced on my bald head?

"But Jake," I said, "what is that
they are tied to?"

"Dat?" repeated Jake, "wy, dat's
de han'le er de ole itn bucket HT
Mar's Clar'nce fotch de water in dat
fus' night." He spoke in the third
person, as seeming to begrudge my
identity with that of the child of
years gone by. "I tuk it offen de

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

bucket, en' put it in my pocket fer
a 'membrancer dat night wen I wuz
awaitin' fer ter go up ter his ma ; en'
ebber since. Ruby en' me keeps a
sorter passover feast ebbery year
wen de time ob my delib'rance comes
'roun'. We puts dat han'le on de
table wen we eats, en' wen we'se
done, Ruby she ties a new ribbon
onter it en' hangs it up agin. Them

was hard 'sperences fer liT Mars'
Clar'nce, 'thouten his ma nor no-
body, en' dat outdaceous Ann a har-
ryin' en' a pesterin' of him — I heern
her — por liT chap !" A film gath-
ered on old Jake's spectacles, and as
he sat looking at the floor with the
bucket handle in his hand, I think
he had quite forgotten that I was in
the room.

Concerning Oriental Rugs

By Mary R. Towle

THE literature of oriental rugs
is very meagre. Though for
years travellers and merchants
have been busily collecting these
beautiful pieces of handiwork at
fairs and markets in almost every
city and village in the orient, "from
silken Samarkand to cedar'd Leba-
non," and though no modern man-
sion is regarded as artistically com-
plete unless its floors reflect back in
glowing but subdued colors the
glories of the paintings and tapes-
tries upon its walls, yet the subject
of rugs is one which has received
very little attention from writers,
except for a few savants who have
not succeeded in inspiring the public
with any great degree of their zeal.
After reading a half dozen or so of
books, mostly by German scholars,
anyone who wishes more detailed
knowledge must rely on his indi-
vidual taste and powers of observa-
tion.

It is hard to understand just why
this should be so, for nearly every-
one admires good rugs and many
people are intensely enthusiastic
about them. But ask some specific
questions of your friends who have

been known to spend whole days at
rug auctions, and nine times out of
ten they will refer you, not to a book
on the subject, but to some local
dealer who has awakened their in-
terest by volunteering some de-
tached bits of picturesque informa-
tion.

We in America are practically but
just beginning to appreciate rugs.
Fifty or even twenty-five years ago,
when old and valuable specimens
were much more plentiful than now,
and when every caravan load that
came across the desert contained
many fine pieces, the good and the
bad were bought and used without
distinction, and both were esteemed
almost wholly from the standpoint
of their utilitarian value. The
daughter of a well-known author
and editor who died some years ago,
recently told me that her father and
mother prided themselves on the
fact that it had been their custom
to make wedding presents of antique
rugs when the latter cost less on
this side of the water than Brussels
carpeting. But for one instance of
such discrimination there could
probably be cited hundreds of cases

CONCERNING ORIENTAL RUGS

339

in which rugs that would be price-
less now, fell into the hands of peo-
ple who, not realizing their value,
put them to rough and continuous
use, and thus, within a few years,
either destroyed them or injured them
beyond hope of repair. Now that the
taste of the American public has
been gradually educated up to a
much higher point of artistic appre-
ciation we are paying large prices
for the remains of these old rugs
wherever we can find them ; at auc-
tions, at private sales, or in the
hands of dealers.

Many people who wonder at the
present high price of oriental rugs
do not realize the amount of time
and labor that the latter represent.
The apparatus usually employed in
rug weaving consists of two up-
right poles supporting a frame on
which is stretched the warp, and
from the top of which are suspended
balls of the variously colored yarns.
In front of this frame sits the
weaver and works from the bottom
of the rug upward and from right
to left, tying rows of knots. The
design he keeps in his brain, or
roughly drawn on a bit of paper. In
some rugs of very fine weave it is
an entire day's task for a skilled
workman to tie one row of knots,
and such a rug not infrequently re-
quires twenty years for its comple-
tion. Yet the oriental is satisfied
with his lot because with him work
is not merely a means of livelihood,
but a part of life.

We of the west, who so complete-
ly separate our work from our pleas-
ure, would find it hard to realize
how much sentiment has been con-
nected with the weaving of many of
the rugs in our own possession.
Some rugs, notably the Kish-Kil-
lims, are the work of young girls
about to become brides, and are

woven as gifts to the bride-groom ;
sometimes an entire family work
side by side on a rug. Nearly al-
ways it is an object of pride to the
weaver, and the thing on which he
concentrates the best efforts of his
skill and imagination. Works of art
of the highest order, it has often been
pointed out, are produced only in
this way. In so far as rugs are the
expression of the individual, their
art is of the highest order; in so far
as they are made in factories and on
the principle of the division of labor,
it is not.

For the best rugs are made, not
in the great factories recently es-
tablished by western firms in the
orient, where set designs furnished
by professional designers are copied
to the letter by deft but unthinking
workmen ; they are made in homes
and in little shops where hand and
brain work in unison under the in-
spiration of some cherished ances-
tral pattern which may be varied
here and there, to accord with the
^weaver's fancy, by the broadening
of a stripe or the deepening of a
color.

The dyeing of the wool is, of
course, one of the most important
steps in the making of a good rug.
Formerly only vegetable dyes were
used in the orient, and then, a few
years ago, came the introduction of
aniline dyes and a train of evil con-
sequences. The aniline dyes do not
hold their color and when they fade
they become, not more beautiful, as
do the vegetable dyes, but merely
dull and lifeless. Besides this, many
of them rot the wool in which
they are used, causing the rugs
to wear out almost immediately.
The Shah of Persia has lately issued
an edict prohibiting their importa-
tion into his dominions, and a strong
feeling against them seems to be

340

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

growing up among rug dealers
everywhere. In the east whole
families devote themselves to
the dyer's trade, and great rivalry
exists between these separate small
groups of workers. Usually each
family especially .excels in the mix-
ing of some one ; plcular color, for
which the much prized formula is
handed down with the most pro-
found secrecy to successive genera-
tions. After the mixing of the dif-
ferent shades, the greatest art in
dyeing is in knowing just how long
to the minute wool should be al-
lowed to remain in the dyeing solu-
tion. Sometimes in a patch of plain
color in a rug there will be noticed,
here and there, n slight variation in
shade, and this has often been ex-
plained by saying that the wool
used in these particular spots was
left in the dye an instant too long.
I prefer to believe, however, that
the difference in coloring was in-
tentional, and that the eastern work-
man understood how these little
irregularities would make his rug
more beautiful, just as the irregular-
ities in a statue cut by the sculpt-
or's hand make that statue more
beautiful than one cut from exact
measurements by a stone-mason.

Certain patterns and color com-
binations in rugs have from time im-
memorial been associated with cer-
tain countries, villages, and tribes,
and although these patterns and
color combinations have been modi-
fied from time to time through the
influence of migration and travel,
they still remain substantially the
same as they were five hundred
years, or even longer, ago. These
characteristics are of course the
principal factors in determining
where a rug was made. A thorough
knowledge of them would require
the stitdy of a life-time, but a few of

the more common and general may
be mentioned here as examples.

The design of a rug made in a
Mohammedan country is never per-
fectly symmetrical, the weaver's
idea being to symbolize the fact that
only Allah is perfect. Also, a Mo-
hammedan rarely or never employs
the color green in a rug, as he con-
siders that color sacred, and is un-
willing to put it in a position where
it will be trodden upon. An orient-
al rug that contains green is almost
certainly of Russian origin, or else
the green has been added by means
of a clever chemical process, often
after importation. In the latter case
the green color is more likely to be
present in stripes than in solid
masses, and its application may
sometimes be detected by a certain
indistinctness along its edges.
Broadly speaking, a striking char-
acteristic of Persian rugs in contra-
distinction to others is that the fig-
ures in the designs of the former are
more elaborate and branching and
less conventional, often consisting
of floral devices, while in the Turk-
ish, Turkoman, and Russian rugs
the designs are more often made up
of geometrical figures, or conven-
tionalized forms of the simplest
natural objects, such as crabs and
fishes. A rug that contains a repre-
sentation of a lion and the sun is,
of course, Persian, that being the
emblem of the Persian empire. The
so-called "prayer rugs," in which a
place is distinctly marked out for
the kneeling worshiper, are made by
the Mohammedans, and when in use
are supposed to be laid in such a
way that the devotee shall kneel
with his face in the direction of
Mecca, the holy city. These rugs
not infrequently contain short
Arabic inscriptions, usually woven
to the right of the place of kneeling.

CONCERNING ORIENTAL RUGS

341

Besides these and many other
characteristics having a general sig-
nification, experts recognize as indi-
cating the origin of a rug, countless
more or less subtle peculiarities con-
cerning which it is hard to particu-
larize in words alone. These pe-
culiarities show themselves in the
colors and designs of centres, of
borders, and even of selvedge. For
instance, anyone who has observed
rugs at all is familiar with the dis-
tinctive geometrical figures that
mark a Bokhara, with the elemen-
tary reds, blues, and greens of a
Kazak, and with the central medal-
lion of a Sinneh, and nearly every-
one can tell a Cashmere, or, rather,
what is known as a Cashmere.

A recent writer on the subject
asserts that the border of a rug is
more reliable as an indicator of lo-
cality than the centre. The central
design, being more striking, is more
easily carried in the observer's mind
from place to place, and thus a
simple and effective centre soon
ceases to be characteristic of the
tribe or village where it originated ;
whereas often an unobtrusive bor-
der, while continuing indefinitely to
satisfy the people whose ancestors
first used it, will nojt attract notice
or imitation from without. Mr.
Ellwanger, in his fine work on
oriental rugs, mentions as an ex-
ample of this the Koulah border.
This border is in the form of a
simple spiral on a ground of some
plain color, and is solely characteris-
tic of Koulah rugs.

Among the patterns quite general-
ly used both in the borders and
centres of rugs throughout the
orient are the "crab," "fish-bone,"
and "palm-leaf" patterns. The crab
or star-fish pattern consists, as
might be expected, of several arms
radiating from a centre. The fish-

bone pattern is less easily recog-
nized, it being a representation, not
of the outward semblance of a bone,
but of a cross section of a bone —
the back-bone — of a fish. The so-
called "palm-leaf" pattern, though
bearing a considerable likeness to a
leaf, is not intended to represent
one, but a curve of the river Indus.

Another significant thing about
a rug is the length of its nap. In
general the long, thick naps come
from the north, especially from Cau-
casia, while the Turkish and Persian
rugs have shorter ones. One of the
most beautiful naps is that of the
well-known Kirmanshah rug, which
is, by the way, not made at Kir-
manshah, but at a town near by.
The subject of the nap reminds me
of an odd fact which may not be
generally known. It is that in many
cases the peculiar silkiness of the nap
of old rugs comes not so much from
the quality of the wool employed in
them as from the oriental habit of
never walking on a rug with the
shoes on. A life-time perhaps of
rubbing against practically bare feet
splits into their separate fibres the
ends of the yarn forming the nap,
and thus produces the beautifully
smooth, pliable texture.

The coloring and design are of
course the most important things to
be considered in selecting a rug.
Silkiness of nap and fineness of
weave are as nothing if the reds and
blues are harsh and crude and the
pattern inconsistent. It is a com-
mon thing for a dealer, in display-
ing a rug, to lift up a corner of it
and, turning it wrong side upper-
most, call the prospective buyer's
attention to the number of knots to
the square inch. If the buyer seems
ignorant and enthusiastic the dealer
will go on to tell how each one of
these knots was tied by hand,

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N E \V ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the wool having been worked
in with the fingers, and how
for performing this delicate and
fatiguing labor the poor orient-
al received but thirteen or perhaps
fifteen cents a day. All this is in-
teresting, and of course, other things
being equal, fine, carefully woven
rugs are preferable to coarse, care-
lessly woven ones ; but after all it
is not the main point. A coarse but
beautifully designed and colored rug
may grow in the affections of its
possessor, as a woman with a plain
but noble face grows more and
more beautiful in the eyes of her
friends. Both possess the essentials
of attractiveness. But a finely
woven and badly colored or designed
rug grates more and more harshly
on artistic sensibilities, just as the
beauty of a shallow, unkind person
gets to seem more and more dis-
turbingly incongruous with his inner
nature.

Modern rugs, especially the
cheaper ones, are liable to have the
fault of being "liney." It may be
laid down as a good general rule
never to buy a rug in which the lines
rather than the colors first strike the
eye, for a rug should have the effect
of being composed, not of sharply
defined figures, but of patches or
masses of beautiful, soft color. This
is the same principle that makes a
true artist prefer old stained glass
windows to most new ones. The
windows of the famous "Sainte
Chapelle" at Paris are among the
finest existing examples of old
stained glass. In them the design
is not at first quite clear to the eye;
but to one contemplating, — undis-
turbed by the exercise of the reason-
ing faculty — their gorgeous masses
of varied color, this fact appeals at
once as a gain rather than a loss. In
the wor-t tvoe of modern windows,

on the contrary, the figures stand
out in bold relief and the meaning
is apparent at a glance, the color
scheme being, in consequence,
necessarily subordinated. The only
pleasure to be got from looking
at such windows is of the sort that
Mr. Bernhard Berenson, in his
"Florentine Painters" describes as
the pleasure derived from illustra-
tion ; that is, the pleasure that comes
originally from some sentiment
about the subject represented.

Almost everyone who has lately
written on the subject has called at-
tention to the fact that genuine
antiques are becoming remarkably
scarce. One reliable authority even
goes so far as to predict that within
twenty years the rapidly diminish-
ing supply will be completely ex-
hausted. If this is so we cannot too
carefully treasure the few that re-
main to us, nor too earnestly hope
that modern designers in the rug
industry will study and imitate the
antique coloring and perpetuate in
their purity the best of the antique
patterns. I do not mean to speak
as if good rugs and old rugs were
necessarily synonymous. It is true
that in the matter of color old rugs
have a decided advantage over mod-
ern ones from the fact that no
chemical has quite the softening ef-
fect of time, but this merely means
that while some modern rugs are as
beautiful in coloring as antiques
there are many others that should
not be selected unless one is buying
for posterity.

Perhaps the worst thing that can
be said of modern rugs in general
is that their designs are often com-
posed of elements borrowed from
totally different schools and in-
artistically combined. The modern
designer, considering this central
medallion effective and finding that

CONCERNING ORIENTAL RUGS

border popular, often yields to the
temptation to unite the two, and in
doing so produces, instead of the
masterpiece expected, a rug which is
only comparable, in its hybrid atroc-
ity, to certain Venetian churches of
the seventeenth century. The beau-
tiful centre of the so-called "dia-
mond" Sinneh rug has been especial-
ly subjected to abuse of this sort,
and may be seen, surrounded by
some incongruous border, hanging
on the walls of almost any depart-
ment store. To do the modern de-
signer justice, however, it must be
admitted that this sort of thing is
most noticeable in the cheaper
grades of rugs.

A plea has of late years been put
forward by rug enthusiasts that
good rugs, like paintings and other
products of a high order of artistic
merit, be considered their own ex-
cuse for being, and that their origin-
al utilitarian purpose be to a certain
extent lost sight of. This has from
time immemorial been more or less
the case in the orient, where rugs
of the better sort receive much more
tender and appreciative treatment
than is usual with us. The Turk
or Persian in his native country
hangs his finest rugs on the walls,
and it would neve*r occur to him,
in selecting one, to consider the
amount of his available space, or the
colors of the other furnishings of
his room. To him a man who
should be guided by such considera-
tions would seem something as a
man would seem to us who should
walk into a shop and ask for "a
yard of red books" or for "some
pretty picture about two feet six
inches long."

Perhaps one reason why we sel-
dom regard rugs as separate works
of art is that in speaking of them it
is hard to refer to them individually

by name or by any but the most
minute description. If in describing
a picture we say that it is a land-
scape painted by Carot, and add to
this that it contains a great willow
tree on the right, a lake in the centre
of the background, ^nd to the left,
on the shore of the lake, a castle in
the distance, the person to whom
we are speaking will have at least
some rudimentary idea of what the
picture looks like. It is true that
the facts thus mentioned are not in
any way indicative of its importance
as a work of art, but they serve as
pegs on which to hang reminiscen-
ces of its more subtle characteris-
tics. On the other hand, suppose
we are trying to describe a rug. We
say, perhaps, first that it is a Kazak,
and that the background of the
centre is a lightish red,— and there
we stop. How picture the three
great central medallions with their
irregular divisions? The peculiar
appearance of the nap? The many-
colored borders? It is as impossible
to describe a rug to a person who
Jias never seen it as to describe,
under like circumstances, the odor
of some rare tropical flower.

But whether we choose our rugs
for their intrinsic artistic value or
merely with a view to general ef-
fectiveness and harmony we can
hardly over-estimate the service that
they have rendered our young civili-
zation in the formation of its taste.
From how many a middle-class
home has the gradual, quiet influ-
ence of a good rug banished first
the horrors of painted plush, and
then, in their turn, long cherished
and hideous sofa cushions, "tidies,"
and pieces of cheap pottery ! Many
newly-rich families who dislike to
recall the callow period of their gen-
tility will nevertheless testify in
their hearts to the appropriateness

344

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of this tribute. Then let us not
mourn the passing of the antiques,
since so many of them have been
immolated in such a cause, but

rather hope that they may have
worthy successors to bear a part in
shaping the aesthetic ideals of
future generations.

Reminiscences of An Old Clock

By Ellen Burns Sherman

AS I have kept minutes of the
proceedings of the Windmere
family during four generations,
it occurs to me that I am prepared
to give the public a few reminis-
cences and at the same time to vary
the monotony of my occupation as
a retail dealer in time.

I came into the possession of the
Windmere family as a wedding gift
to Mr. Timothy Windmere, an up-
right man, endowed with all the
square-toed virtues and scarcely any
of the graces. Clock-hearted as I
am, I used to pity Mrs. Windmere
when her stern-mouthed lord so
continually accentuated the solem-
nities and scanted the courtesies of
life. Yet will I do him justice. If
he rarely bestowed a caress or a
term of endearment upon his wife,
he was most loyal to her in every
thought and act of his life, which
is more than I can say of some of
his descendants who were more
prodigal in their expression of af-
fection. But I am anticipating my-
self.

It was when the first Windmere
baby came that Timothy forgot to
wind me and in the unticked still-
ness of the night I could feel the
intensity of the atmosphere to the
leaden ends of my winding strings.
I stood in a corner of the hall, where
I could glance into Mrs. Wind-
mere's bedroom and what I saw in

Mr. Windmere's face made me peni-
tent for my severe judgment of him.
Mrs. Windmere also saw the long-
suppressed passages of tenderness
written on her husband's white face
in the clearest italics which emotion
can use. And when he knelt by her
bed and took her hand in his, I felt
thankful that I had not been wound,
for my ticking would have seemed
brutally impertinent on such an oc-
casion.

I was also aware of a dumb sense
of limitation because I could regis-
ter on my wooden face nothing but
the passing of time, while upon
some human faces a hundred vary-
ing moods and emotions could be
instantaneously recorded.

Nay, do not scoff at my fancies
as incongruous and improbable in
a sedate guardian of the hours. You
must remember that I am no tiny
nickel-plated time-piece giddily beat-
ing off the minutes, with the vulgar
haste of three ticks to a second, but
a grandfather's clock, of dignified
stature and presence and one whose
pendulum swing suggests the
rhythm of the universe and the so-
lemnities of eternity. Am I not,
moreover, a clock whose powers of
collecting associations and memories
is unrivaled among our entire race
of chroniclers?

Some license of imagination as
well as rights of digression I may

REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD CLOCK

345

therefore claim in my confession.
But to return to matters of more
lively interest than my own time-
worn charms.

The morning after the memorable
scene in Mrs. Windmere's bed-
room, I caught sight of the head of
Timothy Second protruding from
the end of a long bundle of white
fluffy clothes; and if I may be as
accurate in the statement of my im-
pressions as the life-long habits of
a time-keeper should have made me,
I shall have to confess that Timothy
The Second was far from prepos-
sessing in his appearance. But the
expression on the face of Timothy's
mother, as she looked upon that
tiny package of humanity, at once
convinced me that my vision was
crudely defective in that nice focus-
ing power which makes the ma-
ternal sense of perspective so won-
derful an endowment. Had Tim-
othy looked ten times worse than
he did, — a supposition which carries
one quite over the brink of the
thinkable — his mother's glance
would still have persuaded me that
my vision of him was a slanderous
figment of my own fancy.

So I accepted Timothy on trust,
as his mother did, ajid his later de-
velopment applauded my swift dis-
cretion ; for a finer, bonnier lad than
Timothy grew to be I have never
seen in all my ninety-eight years of
ticking. A shy, sensitive little fel-
low he was, and even as a child,
keenly alive to every message that
spoke from bird or blossom. Once
I saw him sit a whole half hour peer-
ing into the petals of a bunch of
sweet peas he held in his hand —
looking as though his little white
soul were in closer rapport with
t the flower-souls than his elders
could be.

Sometimes I heard him talking to
the flowers, which he was always
carrying about with him, and
snatches of his conversations I re-
member to this day :

"Where did you get your little
pink frock and white apron, little
sweet pea," said Timothy, "and
where does your mamma buy the
patterns for your pretty dresses, and
isn't it lonesome in the garden at
night, when your mamma doesn't
come to kiss you and tuck you in?"
Another time I heard him talking
to a little toad that he had captured
in a box.

"Poor little toad," said Timothy,
"do you know how homely you
are? Would you know if I brought
you a little mirror so you could take
a look at yourself?"

"I will," he cried with a sudden
impulse ; and away he ran, bringing
back a small mirror from his moth-
er's bedroom.

But midway his tender heart was
seized with a qualm : would the toad
feel very bad to know that he was
such a homely little thing?

"Dear little toad," he began tenta-
tively, "would you care so very,
very much if you saw that you were
awful homely, all but your eyes?"

Timothy paused for reply; but as
the toad seemed stoically indifferent
on the subject of his charms, — or
lack of them — Timothy cried, "Well,
then, if you don't care, take a look at
yourself!" and he placed the mirror
squarely in front of the toad's eyes.

But the toad, never deigning to
glance at it, made a sudden bound,
and landed on the window-sill.

"Humph!" said Timothy, "You
aren't a bit like our cook. I've seen
her stand an hour before her mir-
ror." Where upon, Timothy, quite
discouraged in his attempt to initiate
the toad into one of the first rites of

346

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

civilization, carried his toad out into
the garden where he might enjoy
the bliss of his ignorance undis-
disturbed. But that evening in the
middle of his prayers, he baffled his
mother with the inquiry, "Why are
toads so homely and birds so beauti-
.ful?"

You will hear more of Timothy
later. Meantime, while he grows to
manhood, I will tell you of his three
sisters who led me such a life as I
verily believe no other clock ever
endured.

To save time, as becomes a clock,
I will omit the history of their early
childhood, except to record the fact
that as children these sisters were
always using my case for a doll-
house and giving my pendulum and
weights such continual jerkings that
I had nervous prostration and a
clock-doctor was called. As is cus-
tomary in such cases, the physician
remarked that I was "all run down"
and that I had evidently "suffered
some severe strain."

It was in my pendulum to retort,
"Yes, those girls!" But as I have
said I was all run down, so I made
no response.

When they are grown, I thought,
I can have a little peace ; wherein I
reckoned without my addition table.
For when they were grown , they
proved so very attractive that suit-
ors swarmed the halls of the Wind-
mere home and I discovered that my
troubles instead of coming to an
end, were only beginning. No soon-
er did a young man's calls begin
to ripen to visits than he invariably
attempted to make me bear false
witness against time by setting
back my hands, or stopping my
pendulum.

At first I imagined that the young
woman in the case would resent
such an impertinence to a respecta-

ble member of the household. But
will you believe me, she only
laughed, and in this regard, all three
of the sisters were shamelessly
alike.

If it was embarrassing for me in
the evening to sit by with my hands
idle — like a chaperone without her
fancy-work — and hear and see all
that I was obliged to hear and see,
it was doubly so *in the morning,
when one of the girls had set me by
guess and I was sure to be too fast
or too slow. Then Mr. Windmere
would look at me and perhaps ex-
claim, "Dear me! is it so late as
that. I must be off at once." And
away the poor unsuspecting man
would hurry, though I knew very
well that he would be half an hour
ahead of his appointment.

You will scarcely credit me, but
Mr. Windmere was such a guileless
soul that it was not until I had been
stopped scores and scores of times,
by the various young men who
called on the Windmere sisters,
that their father discovered the
cause of my strange unreliability.
But the discovery came just as Mr.
W7indmere was beginning to grow
mellow in his disposition, and more
porous to the beneficent beams of
humor, an effect wrought by time,
his wife and his children. As a con-
sequence, his daughters did not re-
ceive a reprimand for allowing a
clock of Puritanical training to be
thus cavalierly foresworn in their
presence. On the contrary, Mr.
Windmere bettered the instruction
he had received. Carefully choosing
the psychological moment in the
evening, he would set me ahead,
little by little, until my two compen-
sating errors very nearly forced me
into the orbit of truth, though I
once heard Mr. Windmere himself ,
say that there was no lie big enough

REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD CLOCK

?47

to cover up another. But this is a
digression which I trust will be par-
doned in an old clock like me. I
will get back to the young women
of whom I grew to be exceedingly
fond, in spite of their pranks with
me. There was Almira, the eldest,
whose severe Puritanical mould
was so much like her father's, that
a wit of the neighborhood said he
never saw her that she did not sug-
gest the personification of the
Wordsworthian line :
"Stern daughter of the voice of God."
Almira's suitors were all "sound
in the faith," such as it was, and
their habits were what was called
in those days, "steadygoing." Their
vocabulary of admiration was limit-
ed to handsome and very pretty,
pronounced to rhyme with fretty.
They possessed those solid hard-
ware abilities, which eventually in-
sure what is known as a "compe-
tence" and equally insure its enjoy-
ment upon a strictly hardware basis,
which delights in fine trappings and
resplendent dinners. In few, they
were all endowed with the Peter-
Bell attitude towards life in all its
manifestations which appeal to the
imagination and higher faculties.

But as Almira herself was the
kind of woman who thinks poetry
"the silliest stuff in the world," fate
wras kind to her in furnishing her
suitors whose taste was pitched in
the same key. So when she finally
decided that Hiram Beesly was fore-
ordained for her from the founda-
tions of the earth, I applauded her
choice. Yet how she could choose
at all between men of such sparrow-
like similarity I never could under-
stand. To speak with entire frank-
ness, I was glad when the wooing —
if one may dignify so crude a per-
formance by that name — was at an
end; for mechanical as I am, it

made my weights sag heavily to
hear a man's proposal couched in
such terms as these: "I say, old
girl, let's hitch up, and not waste
any more time courtin'." And the
proposal was matched by the first
gift which followed the engagement.
It was a book on raising poultry,
profusely illustrated with cuts of all
manner of fowls in all manner of
poses. Hiram said he thought he
would give her something that
would be useful to them both.

From these chronicles you will
understand why I was -as willing to
have Hiram Beesly take his leave,
as Hamlet was to have Polonius take
his.

The next set of suitors who came
to see Melissa were all musical and
a decided improvement on their pre-
decessors. One of" them had a fine
tenor voice and another played the
violin, so that the tete-a-tetes to
which I was obliged to beat time
were occasionally relieved by music
and such conversational play of
fancy as a musical nature would
[suggest.

The lovers' last words, too, were
less aboriginal in their choice and
enunciation than the forms used by
the Hiram Beesly coterie. Ellery
Marden, the violinist, unveiled his
sentiments to Melissa by telling her
that he needed a fifth string to his
violin to insure its finest melody,
and she was the only woman who
could furnish him with one. Oddly
coincident in its metaphorical inspi-
ration was the confession of Am-
brose Sewell, who confided to the
lady of his heart that she was the
lost chord which his soul had dis-
covered in some more inspired ex-
istence and for which he had been
groping, ever since.

I sympathized with Melissa in her
perplexity over Cupid's machina-

348

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

tions which had made the same wo-
man one man's fifth string and an-
other man's lost chord. "Dear me !"
she ejaculated, after the departure
of her musical lovers, "I expect the
next one will tell me that I am 'his
missing soft pedal.' ,;

For aught I know, this may have
been the form of the next tender
announcement, which I regret to
say I missed because it was time for
me to strike eleven just at the cru-
cial moment. I saw Albion Porter
take Melissa's hand and I observed
in his face a good deal of the same
unutterable expression with which
I was tolerably familiar and I heard
him make a beginning: "If you
knew how long — " At this point,
my clamorous bell broke in with
unnecessary ictus and indecent
punctuality, drowning gentle fancy
in a flood of irrelevant fact. Only
these concluding words did I catch,
after my clapper had ceased strik-
ing: "All a dream tale."

Certainly what I heard was in no
wise convincing, at least it would
not have been to me. But women
are so unaccountable. Melissa
seemed convinced as she had been
in no previous situation of the kind,
if I might judge from the evidence
which followed. She seemed, more-
over, willing to be convinced again,
in the same manner, which surprised
me as none of her other suitors had
been allowed to come nearer than a
longarm's length. However, these
things be the things of Allah and
what right has an old clock that
knows nothing of such mysterious
rites to be hypercritical concerning
them?

I knew very well from what I had
seen and heard that another fledg-
ling would soon leave the Wind-
mere nest, and my wheels clogged
a little at the thought. I had a

strong grandfatherly affection for
the Windmere daughters and a live-
ly interest in their love affairs,
which I had watched in their various
stages of development.

It was even as I surmised. Three
months from the scene I have men-
tioned Melissa became Mrs. Porter
and went to the far West. After
her departure, it was my duty to
umpire the last game which Cupid
played in the old Windmere home.

Elfreda, the youngest daughter,
and her romances gave me more
anxiety than any of the others, for
she was not one of the sparrows,
which, when they choose to pair,
make their matches anywhere. Her
sisters could have been equally
happy with anyone of a hundred
men of more or less sparrow-like
abilities and attainments. But El-
freda had one of those rare souls
whose true mate may not happen
to live around the nearest corner.
While this fact greatly added to the
possibilities of a happiness of four
dimensions with the true mate when
found, it also increased the possi-
bilities of misery should she accept
as a life-partner a man with only
one octave range when she had five.

I need not have worried however,
for Elfreda's instincts were so sensi-
tive and accurate that she could tell
at a glance, or by the timbre of a
man's voice, whether he was in her
circle of psychical response. If he
was not, she was too honorable to
allow him to think he was and so
cross the rubicon of a bootless dec-
laration. This I considered one of
the marks of her superiority over her
grandmothers, or even her elder sis-
ters ; for they had that first infirmity
of noble minds, which could take
pride in the number of their pro-
posals, unconscious that their pride
did them as little credit as ,1,e emo-

REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD CLOCK

349

tion which made the Indian glory
in the collection of his scalp-locks.
For when a man makes an unavail-
ing confession of love it generally
means but one of two conditions.
Either the woman in the case has
falsely encouraged him, or the man
in the case has been so stupid that
he could not perceive when he was
discouraged.

As neither of these conditions fur-
nish any adequate ground for pride,
the woman who judges them ade-
quate simply advertises her own
lack of discrimination and delicacy.

But to Elfreda the brazen trophies
of Cupid made no appeal. Neither
was she one of those who mangle
their ideals beyond recognition to
make them match the stature of a
suitor who is only externally
eligible. Her father once remon-
strated with her because she was so
indifferent to the attentions of a
young man of fair fortune and a
character which was pronounced
"irreproachable" even under the
dread search-light of a church so-
ciety.

"But my dear father," replied El-
freda, "mere colorless irreproach-
ability cannot inspire my affection.
The potato is doubtless an alto-
gether irreproachable vegetable, but
it lacks any particular flavor. And
I half suspect that Herbert Pippin's
irreproachability is only an apron-
string kind after all. In the three
years I have known him, I recall
only one remark that he ever made
which had force enough to secure
a lodging in my memory longer than
two seconds and the remark which
furnished the exception did so mere-
ly because of its monumental stu-
pidity. 'What can you see to like in
Lamb's essays?' quoth this irre-
proachable young man. Now I do
not blame Mr. Pippin because he

cannot like Lamb ; but the fact that
he cannot, is an infallible token that
I cannot like Herbert Pippin. Then
his name — Herbert Pippin, would
damage his suit in my eyes were he
ten times less irreproachable. I
never knew a man whose name was
so pertinent — to himself, I mean."

"My daughter," rejoined Mr.
Windmere, somewhat sternly, "I
fear you are very capricious and
unreasonable. Mr. Pippin has, I am
sure, good wearing qualities."

"That all depends on upon whom
he is going to wear them. He's
worn them threadbare on me al-
ready."

"You are a strange girl, Elfreda;
a strange girl and quite unlike the
girls I used to know when I was a
young man. Fancy your mother not
liking me because I didn't like
Lamb !"

"Oh, but that is different," said
Elfreda ; though she was somewhat
perplexed how to make the 'differ-
ence clear and at the same time dis-
tinctly soothing to everybody impli-
cated.

"The woman who is doomed to
make Herbert Pippin happy," con-
tinued Elfreda, "will be sure to
think Lamb the very whey of litera-
ture. I do wish Herbert would find
her soon, for I am sure they will
be happy."

Whereupon Elfreda kissed her
father good-night, but called back
over her shoulder, as she mounted
the stairs, "Any fruit but Pippins
for me, father."

I saw Mr. Windmere's mouth re-
lax its rigidity of expression a for-
tieth of an inch as he answered,
"Well, well, child, you must talk
with your mother about it. Good-
night."

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Chapter II.

As an impartial observer, I am
free to state that my sympathies
were all with Elfreda in her argu-
ment with her father. What could
a man like Mr. Windmere know
about the subtle requirements of a
nature like Elfreda's?

I knew, moreover, that there was
a young lawyer in town, Vinton
Dexter by name, whose coming
made Elfreda's heart beat nearly as
fast as the little nickel clock in the
kitchen. To a steady-going old
clock like me it seemed a wonderful
thing that anybody's approach could
change the heart's ticking. I knew
that my pendulum never went any
faster when Elfreda wound me than
when her father did.

But as I have said, it was quite
otherwise with Elfreda when Vin-
ton Dexter was near. I have some-
times been called slow, but I was
not so slow that I failed to perceive
that hi some mysterious way Mr.
Dexter affected the red tide of El-
freda's being as the moon affects the
tides of the sea. I also knew that
Mr. Dexter was subject to the same
mysterious influence ; for I heard
him tell Elfreda that in her presence,
his heart always played a good
many grace notes that Nature had
not written in her original score.

Whereupon, Elfreda asked him if
he were sure that Nature did not
include those grace notes in her
original score. "She is such a ca-
pricious composer you know, and
often writes an air in one soul and
its accompaniment in another. But
I sometimes think she is most care-
less in the way she scatters the
leaves of her music. I have known
cases where her Lead-Kindly-Light
airs have been played for life to an
accompaniment obviously intended
for Yankee Doodle."

"Thank heaven she didn't scatter
the leaves of our music that way,
Elfreda. Even so simple an air as
mine, with your accompaniment — "
At the word accompaniment, it was
time for me to strike twelve ; in fact
I had hung on to my clapper three
seconds beyond its exact striking
time, so I might hear the whole of
Mr. Dexter's sentence. A pest on
my calling, I thought, which is con-
tinually abridging the little poetry
that is interpolated into my prosaic
existence. Why don't these amor-
ous pleaders come in the early after-
noon, so that if I must break into
their eloquence, it will be only for
two or three strokes. Nor was I the
only one that was put out by by
these contretemps . Sometimes
when I was obliged to strike twelve,
not only myself missed the end of
the sentence, but the lover himself
would be so discomfited by the dis-
cord I made in his harmonies that
he could not finish his sentence at
all — at least not with words. In
such cases there was usually a col-
laborated ending, which did not vex
me so much, for I could see it, if I
did not hear it.

When I recall my experience in
detail, I find it truly remarkable
that so many different sentences
can be finished with a collaborated
ending, not only without apparent
loss of continuity but with an effect
which is almost climacteric.

But I must not wander off into
rhetorical speculations while the
reader is left in doubt concerning
the destiny of Elfreda and Vinton.
Despite the depth, height and
breadth of the affection between
these lovers, no other wooing had
filled me with such sadness, for I
knew it was the last that I should
witness. So I hardly think I deserve
all the jests that were made at my

REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD CLOCK

351

expense when I struck thirty-eight
without stopping on Elfreda's wed-
ding day. Mr. Windmere thought
it was because he had deranged my
works, winding me when his own
nerves were over-taut at the thought
of losing Elfreda. But he took no
account of the possibility that I
might be over-taut from the same
cause. I kept a brave face, how-
ever, and never once interrupted the
marriage service with my striking,
though I ticked with my gravest
ictus to let Elfreda know that I ap-
preciated the solemnity of the occa-
sion.

I was sure she would be happy —
and yet — her father and mother and
brother were sure she would be
happy and yet — . Even Elfreda
herself, who was surest of all that
she would be happy, choked down
the sobs when her father in an un-
precedented moment of demonstra-
tiveness, took her in his arms and
kissed her twice on the forehead.

During such a stress of emotion,
it was not strange that nobody re-
membered to wind me. To tell the
truth, I didn't care if I was never
wound again and I £new from the
expression on the face of Elfreda's
mother, father and brother that they
felt much as I did. But it has been
one of my mottoes to "keep a goin',"
and I think I have lived up to it
as well as most people live up to
their mottoes.

The next evening I was wound
as usual, and after the winding,
something happened to bring back
the vanished atmosphere of romance
in which I had lived so long. Mrs.
Windmere had been looking out of
the window considerably longer
than anything in the landscape
seemed to justify when her husband
went up to her and awkwardly put-
ting his arm around her whispered

brokenly, "There, there, don't take
it so hard, mother; Elfreda will
come to visit us often and we shall
have each other and Timothy for
a long time to come, I hope."

And Elfreda did come back, again
and again, finally bringing two
chubby children, whose faces were
so illuminated with dimples and
laughter that they alone would have
been sufficient certificate of their
mother's happiness, if any were
needed, for only a very happy wo-
man could have been the mother
of children with such sun-lit faces.

Chapter III

After occupying for innumerable
evenings a box so close to the plat-
form where were enacted the scenes
I have described, -you can easily
imagine that time hung heavy on
my hands when the players were
gone and the stage deserted. But
my continual attendance at such
performances had cultivated my
dramatic perceptions to such a de-
cree that I was as astute in scent-
ing a romance as an antiquarian is,
in a neighborhood where there is a
rare bit of faience hidden away.

It was therefore but natural that
I was the first in the house to dis-
cover that Timothy was in love. I
had premonitions of the fact when
I saw him brush his clothes so very
carefully when he went out of an
evening. It did not seem to me
that he would be quite so particular
if he were going to see his friend
Henry. Neither did it seem prob-
able to me that the bouquets of wild
violets and hepaticas which he often
took with him when he went out,
were for his friend Henry. They
were just such bouquets as Vinton
used to bring Elfreda. I also
noticed that Timothy read a great
deal of poetry at this time and tried

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to write some which he always tore
up. He was likewise absent-minded
to an absurd degree, for one so
young. I distinctly remember one
occasion when his mother asked him
to get her gloves and he gave her
his mittens. Yet another of Tim-
othy's symptoms was a newly de-
veloped habit of looking at my face
a dozen or more times after I had
struck seven in the evening. I felt
certain that there was no new at-
tractiveness in my face and when
Timothy invariably left the house
after his last glance at me I under-
stood.

Once convinced of the true indi-
cation of Timothy's symptoms I
felt a great desire to see the young-
woman in the case. I had acted in

loco chaperoyiae for all the other love
affairs of the family and it did not
seem right that the last romance
should be conducted entirely with-
out my assistance. I wondered if
there were a friendly old clock like
me at her house and I wondered if
Timothy set it back as I had been
set back, and I wondered if it some-
times struck eleven or twelve, in
medias res, as I had done; I won-
dered if the girl were good and wise
enough for Timothy — it hardly
seemed possible that she could be —
and a clockful of other things I won-
dered while Timothy was out of an
evening.

Very anxiously, too, I studied the
expression on Timothy's face, when
he returned from his evening calls,
which grew longer and longer as
I had been tutored to expect. Some-
times his brows were knitted with
doubt, and perplexity, when he re-
turned ; and at other times he
looked so melancholy that I resented
it. What business had any girl,
however good she might be, to make
Timothy look sad, my Timothy who

was so brave and strong and tender?
What was the trouble? Did Tim-
othy undervalue himself, or was it
simply his words which hung fire?
How I wanted to drop a bit of
grandfatherly counsel. "There,
there ! Timothy," I should have said ;
"look cheerful. Won't the girl hear
you or can't you get it off. Why not
practice on me? I won't laugh. I'm
used to all kinds of declarations
from the most prosaic terms of bar-
ter and incoherent mumblings, to
perfervid eloquence which would
move any heart made of penetrable
stuff."

But the poor boy was wholly un-
aware of my sympathy, which he
could not read between my ticks,
and upstairs he went with a step
which did not belong to a healthy
young man of his parts.

So matters went on for several
weeks and Timothy grew paler and
thinner and I fidgeted till I gained
nearly half an hour a day one week,
so that I was obliged to have one
of those clock-doctors, whom I de-
test. Just as he had taken off my
pendulum and was about to remove
my upper case, in rushed a beauti-
ful girl who seized the clock-doctor
by the arm and cried :

"Quick! Quick! Timothy has
fallen from the ladder where he was
trying to mend my bird-house."

You will not need to be told that
not only the clock-doctor, but Timo-
thy's mother and father rushed wild-
ly out of the house, leaving me in
an agony of suspense, whose ner-
vous tension I could not even re-
lieve by ticking, as my pendulum
had been removed.

"I've seen the girl anyway," I
thought; "and if Timothy sees what
I saw in her face when she came in,
he won't mind a few broken bones";

REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD CLOCK

353

for I refused to believe that worse
had befallen him.

And I was right. The clock-
doctor lived quite near us and in
less than three minutes they all
came back, bringing Timothy, who
looked snow-white and lifeless as
they laid him on his mother's bed.
But restoratives were promptly used
and he came to in time to see the
whiteness of his own face so per-
fectly matched in the face of his
sweetheart that his heart read its
answer before, the question was put.
Then a swift flush of hope spread
over his brow and its afterglow was
reflected in the maiden's face. And
naught of all this escaped the eyes
of Timothy's mother, who went up
to the maiden and gently putting
her arm around her, whispered,
"You will stay with us till Timothy
is better."

And the maiden stayed. Thus
did it fall out that I was permitted
to witness at least a part of Timo-
thy's wooing.

I must own that at first I indulged
in a few disgruntled,, ticks, which
might have been interpreted,
"Humph! only a clock-tinker's
daughter!" But I was speedily
ashamed of myself; and when I had
seen more of Barbara Lyndon I dis-
covered, as Timothy had, that she
was a great deal more than a clock-
tinker's daughter — a woman with a
wonderful soul.

As for myself, my riper acquain-
tance with Barbara revolutionized

my attitude towards the entire race
of clock-tinkers and threw such a
high-light upon Barbara's father, in
particular, that I was only too happy
to get out of repair for the sake of
cultivating his acquaintance. It was
pleasant, too, to have Barbara stand
over her father while he doctored
me and ask all manner of questions
about me. But I must not interpo-
late a record of my own Platonic
palpitations into the history of Tim-
othy's romance, which made such
rapid progress during his illness that
I could hardly dare hope that we
might keep him beyond a few more
moons.

Nor were my conjectures wrong;
for I had acquired such skill in
making conjectures that I could
catch in my swaying pendulum the
subtle vibrations of coming events.
Even with the hour I had divined,
the event kept its appointment and
once more the old home surrendered
its sunshine to warm and illumine
a new household.

Ah me ! that was millions and
millions of ticks ago ; and yester-
day Almira, Melissa, Elfreda and
Timothy, with their children and
grandchildren, all revisited their old
home, filling the house with youth
and laughter, as they told the tales
of the vanished past.

I, meantime, ticked softly on in
my old corner, proudly conscious
that it was not in vain that I played
chaperone, in the love-lit evenings
of long ago.

The Japan of To- Day

By Hiroshi Yoshida, of Tokio, Japan

Editor's Note: — Hiroshi Yoshida is one of the best known among the younger
Japanese artists. He was represented at the Paris Exposition of 1900, to which
his pictures were sent by the Japanese government, together with those of other
artists. He received "Honorable Mention." He first visited America in 1900, hold-
ing an exhibition of his works 111 Detroit by invitation of the Director of the Art
Museum, and later at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The next year his pic-
tures were shown at the Boston Art Club, the Providence Art Club and the
Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington. This year he has again visited America,
where he is holding successful exhibitions of his work.

I HAVE been told by many peo-
ple that my country possesses a
great fascination for Americans,
who are never tired of hearing about
it. Hence, it is with pleasure that
I have responded to an invitation
to tell the readers of the New Eng-
land Magazine something about the
habits and customs of modern Japan.
It may be a good opportunity, too,
for correcting many mistaken im-
pressions about my country that are
common among foreigners, for, let
me say here, most of the books that
have been written about Japan con-
tain errors and wrong statements.

The customs of America and Jap-
an are not so widely different as
many people suppose, or as might
be expected, when it is remembered
that scarcely half a century has
elapsed since your distinguished
Commander Perry opened our land
to the inrushing tide of Western
civilization. Before that time, Jap-
an was a nation dwelling in proud
exclusiveness, quite content within
her own boundaries, holding fast to
her primitive ideals, and looking up-
on Europe with scorn and pity. But
behold the miracle! Now, her cities
are almost cosmopolitan (although
far back in the country, old customs

are not yet extinct) and her peo-
ple have adopted in their manner of
living all that has seemed good to
them of foreign ideas and improve-
ments.

For instance, the telephone is now
found in all business houses, and in
the private houses of the rich ; the
steam cars travel the length and
breadth of the land, and the busy
electric cars traverse the principal
towns. The streets of Tokio and
other large cities are lighted by
electricity, while many large build-
ings, and all the government schools
are heated by steam. A contract
was even made recently for an ele-
vated railway ! and soon, alas ! we
shall see its clumsy framework
erected in the centre of our beauti-
ful streets, seeming to deride, with
its aggressive ugliness our grand old
buildings. To such an extent has
modern commercialism invaded our
picturesque land! Automobiles,
too, will soon be whizzing over the
roads, leaving behind their smoking
trail. Yes, we Japanese are certain-
ly progressing along the line of
"modern improvements," but at the
sacrifice of much that is beautiful.

I suppose that cold compound
which we, like the Americans call

354

HIROSHI YOSHIDA, BY HIMSELF
DRAWN ESPECIALLY FOR THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"ice-cream," and which with many-
other foreign foods, can now be
found in all our restaurants may al-
so be classed under the head of
"modern improvements." But I am
afraid the term cannot be applied
with so much truth to the habit of
smoking cigarettes, for which our
young men have conceived a great
fondness. Already a few of us play
at that solitary game which we
learned from our friend, the sculp-
tor, Mr. Henry Kitson— the game of
golf.

Many of our people, too, wear for

355

business convenience, the European
dress, but we do not like it very
much, and in our own homes we
make haste to dress again in Japan-
ese clothes. But there is one great
American convenience that we do
not have — the dizzy elevator ; for, as
most of our buildings, especially our
dwelling houses, are only one story
high, there is hardly so much need
of this invention in Japan as in a
country where the buildings are so
high, they seem to have been erected
for the clouds to rest on.

I have found that among you

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Americans, education is a matter of
paramount importance ; your broad
land is thickly dotted with schools
and colleges ; and it is this fact, I am
sure, that has lent so much vigor to
your national life, that has produced
in your people of all grades and con-
ditions that alert intelligence and
high ambition that foreigners are so
quick to note.

And with us it is largely the same.
If there is one country in the world

building. As far as I have been able
to observe, our schools are very
much like those of America in disci-
pline and method of study. We have
all grades — Kindergarten, Primary
and High Schools, which are attend-
ed both by boys and girls; but for
the higher education we have sepa-
rate academies for the young girls
and colleges for the youths.

The schools in summer time, ex-
cept during the vacation of six

SUMMER SHOWERS AND WIND
FROM A PAINTING BY HIROSHI YOSHIDA

where the public school is thought
more indispensable than it is in
America, I believe that country is
Japan. Even the smallest towns
and villages have their school-
houses.

When the people are so poor that
they cannot build a schoolhouse,
they take some deserted temple and
arrange that for the convenience of
pupils ; and there is always pro-
vided a large playground around the

weeks, are opened at seven or eight
o'clock in the morning, and closed
at eleven, but in the winter season
the pupils enter them much later —
about ten o'clock — and stay until
four, taking always a luncheon with
them.

Before 1870, the education of chil-
dren was a serious effort for parents.
Then the teaching was done often in
the houses of the instructors, and
when a father took his child for the

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY

357

first time to such a house he offered
as a gift a keg of sake (rice spirit)
beside some fishes, and a large pack-
age of kawaneski, (a compound of
rice and beans). Each child had to
provide a small table, and some
writing materials, for then black-
boards and slates were not known.
The writing was done just as it is
to-day, with the little brush — fudi,
and a cake of ink which is made of

portunity for developing the reason-
ing powers. It does cultivate the
memory, and the faculty of observa-
tion ; it also develops great skill
in the use of the fingers, but the
years of study required for master-
ing the written language are so
many that there is little time for the
pupils' own ideas to assert them-
selves.

Our written language is a very

VIEW OF YOKOHAMA

lampblack, united with glue and
some water. To use this, it is
rubbed on an ink stone with water,
and from it many degrees of black-
ness can be obtained.

On the whole, and speaking can-
didly, I think there are still grave
deficiencies in the Japanese system
of education, which I hope and be-
lieve time will improve. The chief
trouble is that it gives so little op-

strange mixture of both Chinese and
Japanese. Seven or eight thousand
words can be used, and there are
different ways of spelling each,
which makes learning very difficult.
The boys, even in the elementary
government schools, are required to
know how to write perhaps three
thousand Chinese characters, and
that is very tiresome, considering

I. TRAVELLERS COSTUMES

2. DRESSING THE HAIR
3. BLIND BOY MASSEUR
THE OLD-FASHIONED METHOD OF GOING TO SCHOOL
5. PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

358

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY

359

that forty-seven symbols are all
that we need for ordinary use.

To strangers the fact that the peo-
ple in the far South speak a language
strange to the far northern people
is surprising, for the written charac-
ters are the same, but the expres-
sions are often unlike, and the ac-
cent is different. I myself have
had difficulty in understanding the
idoms of people not of my own sec-
tion of the country.

I have not failed to note the im-

case a woman of the better class
does so, it is because of some great
need, as for instance, when a wo-
man is left alone, without husband
or parents. The girls who are hired
to work are found in the fields, and
in the houses as servants; they also
weave silk on the hand looms, and
clean rice, and spin. Many girls
of the poorer class, also are hair-
dressers, and go from house to
house, arranging the hair of all the
women in the household. The cost,

RESTAURANT IN PARK OF HIKONE

portant and independent position
that woman occupies in the United
States. To us Japanese it seems
very remarkable. We would not let

I our sisters go out into the business
world to earn their own living, as so
many young girls do in this country.
We should think it ungenerous to
refuse them a share of home and
shelter here.

So it is only lower or poor class
women who work for money, or in

about two cents, is small enough,
and the hair, when once arranged,
keeps its own place, and has to be
done over again only once in two
or three days. The girls and wo-
men sleep on hard little pillows,
shaped with a hollow to allow the
head to rest, without disturbing the
hair. Men, however, are more com-
fortable on soft pillows, and, if it is
not a selfish feeling to express, I

360

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

4 •

^ ;2t* £ _u 2—

- •

)

... . 4. .

LITTLE MOTHER

cannot help being glad that I do not
have to sleep as women do.

The ladies of family learn many
domestic duties, and they all know

how to cook well, (tho' the servants
do the hard work always). They
know how to sew by hand — for sew-
ing machines are not found in Jap-
an yet — and they study a year or
more a course of lessons in the ar-
rangement of flowers — which we
consider a very important part of
their education. They also learn to
play on the koto, a fine musical in-
strument. These are all their ac-
complishments, although our girls,
like our boys, are instructed in the
usual branches of knowledge, too.

I cannot help feeling that there
is more real home life among the
Japanese than among the people of
this country. Domestic ties are
much stronger. Children are al-
ways in the company of their moth-
ers, going wherever they go, and
are seldom put in the care of ser-
vants. So, as a child grows older, it
shares all the hopes and interests of
its parents. Obedience to parents is
a strict law with us. Even a married
son obeys his mother as long as she
lives, even though he may have
children of his own. With us, old
age is honored more than in any
other country. Divorce is not com-
mon in Japan. I have never known
many husbands to separate from
their wives, for it is not the custom,
and perhaps this is because all peo-
ple learn from the time they are
babies to be most gentle and polite.
To be rude, or talk loud is con-
sidered a serious fault.

It seems to me that the men of
Japan are fonder of their homes than
American men. Clubs are not com-
mon, although there are a few for
those who wish to go to them and I
fear that club life for men is another
foreign custom that will one day be-
come more general in Japan.

Our houses are very simple when
compared with the elaborate homes

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY

361

in America. They consist of one
story, and instead of many rooms,
we have one large floor space, which
can be divided at will into many
small rooms by means of folding,
or sliding partitions. In every
house, a special place called the "to
konoma" is decorated and reserved
for honored guests. This is some-
what like a mantel-piece, but divided
into two parts, one for flower ar-
rangement, where fresh flowers are
often placed, and the other for vases
or ornaments. In front of this place,

pleasant it is to sit there with the
ornamental garden just beyond.
We like better to decorate a garden
than a house, so have many flowers
and stone lanterns there, and ponds
of clear water, and dwarf trees; and
we spend many hours listening to
the songs of birds. Indeed, I think
we like Nature better than Euro-
peans do, for many times we gather
friends into our houses; then all
start for a visit into the country
of a whole day, to see the iris fields,
or to spend time by the river with

CHILDREN TEA PICKERS

the oldest guest is always made to
sit.

Bedrooms used only to sleep in
are not known among us, for we
sleep in all rooms at night, and
then in the morning, the pillows and
coverings are put into closets out
of sight, and we have the entire
house for the uses of the day. One
part, however, is always reserved
for women, for hairdressing pur-
poses.

The long verandah, which is a
feature of all Japanese houses, ex-
tends along the front, and very

cherry blossoms over head, in the
Springtime. Although we are very
hospitable as a people, we do not
have so many social functions as
Americans because we make very
many calls on all our friends, near
and far away, and expect friends
any hour in the day to see us. As
soon as friends arrive we hasten to
offer them tea, and sweet meats,
and all kinds of little cakes. We
have dinner companies too, and
then wear all the fine costumes we
have, although this is a form of en-

362

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

tertainment that women care for
more than men.

A very popular card game which
we play when calling upon or en-
tertaining our friends is called
''flower cards." The cards are ar-
ranged to typify the twelve months
of the year. January has the sym-
bol of rising sun, and pine tree and
white birds ; February, plum blos-
soms; March, the cherry-blossom;

formed many fine plays, being most-
ly old tragedies. The prices for
seats in our theatres are very cheap
when compared to prices that
obtain in American theatres.
Twenty-five cents is the usual fee,
and many seats are something less.
The plays are very long, sometimes
three, and often four hours in per-
formance, but we rest between the
acts, and eat the luncheon that we

-//.

• . . ;.; .

JINRIKISHA AT

April, the iris ; May, the peony, etc.
There are four cards for each month,
and seven are given to each of the
three players. The game is not un-
like some of your card games here,
but more intricate, the object be-
ing to match the cards on the table
with those held in the hand.

One of our most popular amuse-
ments is the theatre, where are per-

MUKOJIMA, TOKIO

always take with us. We have rice
cooked in many ways, for this kind
of meal, also little sweet cakes, and
other things easy to carry with us.
Many of the plays are performed in
the afternoon, which is a sensible
time I think. We have music, too,
with our plays — several kinds of
instruments being used. Besides
the theatre, we have for amusement

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY

363

many festival days,
and gayeties for the
children.

I think we Japan-
ese are wise in the
especial care and at-
tention we give to
our children — the
future men and wo-
men of the nation.
Childhood is indeed
a very happy time in
Japan. The child-
ren have games and
sports without num-
ber and live a great
part of each day in
the sunshine. The
first of January, the
beginning of the
New Year, the boys
all prepare to fly the
kites which they
have perhaps been
making ready for
several weeks.
There are sometimes *

very large kites
made in the shape of
men and animals, some of them be-
ing fifteen or twenty feet long and
ten feet wide. These have long
tails of straw rope, and a tongue of
whale bone — which sings in a high
wind like some strange bird. The
kites, triangular in shape, are with-
out tails, and can, in skillful hands,
be made to dive and dash through
the air in a most wonderful manner.
The tops made for our children are
of very fine workmanship, and are
sometimes exceedingly intricate.
Top spinning is a profession that is
often practiced by jugglers.

The little girls have many dolls,
and these play things accumulate
frona one generation to the next,
owing to an old custom with us.
When a daughter is born in the

SPINNING

house, a pair of Hina, or images,
are purchased by the parents, and
when this child grows old enough to
marry she takes with her into her
new home, all her dolls. Once a
year, on the third day of March,
there is a festival of dolls and all
the treasures are brought from the
safe place where they have been
stored. The good work put into the
manufacture of dolls makes them
last sometimes one hundred years
or more.

In the training of our boys there
is practised an exercise that is a
great favorite with the students. It
is called the sword dance, and is
most often performed by only one
person. The music is furnished by
a friend who sings or recites a poem,

i^Lj.^

*&SF- —

^^■b '.

^mi

» 7ii

b3w5s8p

if 'W*

»Tfffcj* 1

J™

yl <r^

to which the dancer keeps time,
acting the poem as it is being re-
peated. Sometimes the performance
is gay and sometimes sad, but it
is always interesting to watch. We
have no regular dancing schools,
as you have here, for we prefer to
pay people to dance for our amuse-
ment rather than dance ourselves.
The famous Geisha girls are taught
by private lessons.

In my country we do not have
so many helpless people as you have
here. The blind, for instance, have
two professions that no other peo-
ple can enter. If they have an ear

ACTOR

lor music they are taught that from
earliest childhood, or if they have
no musical taste, they are instructed
in massage. The blind boys es-
pecially become masseurs or sham-
pooers and are the most skillful in
the world.

Food in Japan is much cheaper
than in America. We have three
meals a day, with tea at any time.
Our breakfast consists usually of
soup, made from vegetables, and al-
ways rice. In the middle of the day,
a light luncheon is served, and at
night we have a hearty meal of
soup, fish, meat and tsukemono, a

364

THE JAPAN OF TO-DAY

365

kind of salad. Men drink, at night,
a little rice wine, but women are
not expected to drink anything but
tea. Although we have all kinds of
meat, we do not eat much sheep,
because we do not like it, and the
animals do not grow in our country.
Chicken is a favorite dish with us.

The Japanese costume has been
always the same for hundreds of
years, and suits us very well.
It would be too cold to wear in
America. It is alike all over the
country, and the little children are
dressed the same as their big broth-
ers and sisters, but in brighter
colors. Red is worn only by per-
sons less than sixteen years of age,
or on the stage, and white is the
mourning color, instead of the black
meant to express grief elsewhere.
The women can make their own
clothes and sometimes also make
their brothers' or fathers', but im-
portant robes for the men are made
at a tailor's.

One thing we would be very sorry
not to have in Japan is our Jin-
rikisha, for it is safer and much
cheaper than the horse and carriage.
We can hire a Jinrikisha man for
the whole day for about one Ameri-
can dollar, and he will trot through
the streets with us, on his straw
shoes, without tiring himself very
much. He can go into small places
where carriages cannot go, and he
does not try to run away from us !
For the heavy work, such as haul-
ing big logs, or stone, we use often
ox carts, and a few horses are to be
seen also in carts. Then some, but
not many, wealthy families own
horses for their use in pleasure driv-
ing.

I suppose, being a painter of pic-
tures, that I am expected to say
something about the art of Japan,
and I have left this subject, upon
which space demands that I touch
but lightly, until the last.

I have been often asked by
Americans if the old style of art in
Japan is dead. Such however, is
not the case, for only a very few of
us, and those the younger artists,
paint in the Western, modern way.
The old style is universal and per-
haps will always remain so.

The government is much inter-
ested in artists, and provides for
their instruction very good schools.
These were arranged several years
ago, on the method of study in Euro-
pean art schools, one of the best
artists in the country being sent to
study for that purpose in France and
Germany. The course is long, —
four years, a thorough knowledge of
drawing being insisted upon before
we are allowed to use colors.

It is my opinion, however, that
too much art study hinders, rather
trhan develops the imaginative and
creative powers, and we all need
ideas more than technique.

I cannot help thinking that, after
all, we Japanese have the best coun-
try in the world. Indeed it is the
most beautiful of all, with its flower-
ing fields, and its wonderful temples,
and its many trees, and its noble
mountain — Fuji Yama — that has
snow crowning its peak, and flowers
growing at its feet. Yes, we have
all these, and all modern advantages
besides, except those we do not
need, — the elevator, the chiropodist
and divorce.

Newspaper Satire during the
American Revolution

By Frederic Austin Ogg

ONE has but to glance over the
dingy files of the "New York
Packet" or the "Pennsylvania
Journal," now preserved in some of
our larger libraries, to be vividly im-
pressed with the contrast between
the newspapers of a century and a
quarter ago and those of to-day.
Even the most aspiring of the form-
er were small, poorly printed sheets,
barren, for the most part, of illus-
trations, and altogether lacking in
numerous desirable qualities now to
be found in the commonest product
of journalistic enterprise. Yet in
proportion to their number and the
facilities which existed for their cir-
culation, the newspapers of the
Revolutionary era constituted no
less important an influence in the
life of the people than do those of
our own time.

They were not merely news-
papers. They partook largely of the
nature of controversial brochures
and became the clearing-houses of
the literary-minded. They were
utilized to the utmost by the lawyer,
the physician, the scholar, the poet,
and most of all by the politician.

In the year 1768 the number of
newspapers published in America
was twenty-five, to which several
were added before the close of the
Revolutionary period. As the
breach with the mother country
widened these newspapers became
the storm-centres of the contro-
versy.

Until 1775 one finds comparative-
ly little satire — of a political nature,
at least — in the volume of colonial
literature. But after the actual out-
break of the war such literature
grows voluminous.

The specimens which follow are
not chosen to represent any particu-
lar type but rather the range and
qualities of the satire which filled
the newspapers of the Revolution
and which had so much to do, on
the one hand with sustaining, on the
other with impeding, that move-
ment.

It was on Tuesday, December 16,
1773, that a party of fifty New
Englanders disguised as Mohawk
Indians put to a practical test in
Boston harbor the vexed question
as to how "tea would mingle with
salt-water." Of course the episode
created no little astonishment and
aroused a vigorous discussion in
governmental circles in England.
"To repeal the tea-duty now would
stamp us with timidity," declared
Lord North, the Prime Minister;
and the dominant political party
quite agreed. Following this line
of argument, it was determined,
though against much protest, that
the tea-duty should remain. Tea,
in other words, was to be made the
exclusive instrument of maintain-
ing the avowed parliamentary right
to tax the colonists. This decision
determined the direction in which
the spirit of resistance in America

366

NEWSPAPER SATIRE

367

should find its chief expression.
Obviously the British designs might
best be thwarted and the authors
of them most discomfited by a gen-
eral refusal throughout the colonies
to use tea in any quantity or under
any conditions until the odious tax
should be removed. Numerous
resolutions and considerable legis-
lative enactments were accordingly
passed to this effect. But there
were some whose patriotism could
not be stretched quite so far as to
deny themselves their favorite
beverage — particularly in the face of
the following somewhat urgent in-
vitation which went the round of
the British and Tory newspapers :

"O Boston wives and maids, draw near and

see
Our delicate Souchong and Hyson tea,
Buy it, my charming girls, fair, black, or

brown,
If not, we'll cut your throats and burn
your town."
The following, communicated by
"E. B.," is taken from the "Penn-
sylvania Journal" of March \, 1775,
and is, of course, directed against
the considerable number of people
who, as a contemporary put it,
placed "Hyson-tea" before "Liber-
tea" :

"The following petition came to
my hand by accident; whether it is
to be presented to the Assembly
now sitting at Philadelphia, the next
Congress or Committee, I cannot
say. But it is certainly going for-
ward and must convince every
thinking person that the measures
of the late Congress were very weak,
wicked, and foolish, and that the
opposition to them is much more
considerable and respectable than
perhaps many have imagined :

"The Petition of divers OLD WOMEN
of the city of Philadelphia : humbly shew-
eth: — That your petitioners, as well spin-
sters as married, having been long accus-

tomed to the drinking of tea, fear it will
be utterly impossible for them to exhibit
so much patriotism as wholly to disuse it.
Your petitioners beg leave to observe that,
having already done all possible injury to
their nerves and health with this delectable
herb, they shall think it extremely hard not
to enjoy it for the remainder of their lives.
Your petitioners would further represent,
that coffee and chocolate, or any other sub-
stitute hitherto proposed, they humbly ap-
prehend from their heaviness, must de-
stroy that brilliancy of fancy, and fluency
of expression, usually found at tea tables,
when they are handling the conduct or
character of their absent acquaintances.
Your petitioners are also informed that
there are several other old women of the
other sex, laboring under the like difficul-
ties, who apprehend the above restriction
will be wholly unsupportable ; and that it
is a sacrifice infinitely too great to be made
to save the lives, liberties, and privileges of
any country whatever. Your petitioners,
therefore/ humbly pray the premises may
be taken into serious consideration, and
that they may be excepted from the reso-
lution adopted by the late Congress, where-
in your petitioners conceive they were not
represented; more especially as your pe-
titioners only pray for an indulgence to
those spinsters, whom age or ugliness have
rendered desperate in the expectation of
husbands; those of the married, where in-
firmities and ill-behavior have made their
husbands long since tired of them, and
those old women of the male gender who
will most naturally be found in such com-
pany. And your petitioners as in duty
bound shall ever pray, &c."

Throughout the Revolution the
issuing of a British proclamation
was always the signal for the sharp
wits from one end of the country
to the other. The orders caused to
be published successively by Dun-
more, Howe, Clinton, Cornwallis,
and others of lesser note, were
parodied and satirized until the
originals had been made public
laughing-stocks. It would not be
an easy matter to estimate the in-
fluence which these parodies and
satires had throughout the colonies
in nerving the people to reject with
scorn the offers of conciliation held

368

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

out by the enemy. General Howe's
most noted proclamation was issued
June 12, 1775. It offered pardon in
the King's name to all (except
Samuel Adams and John Hancock)
who would lay down their arms and
return to their usual occupations.
Those who refused to do this, or
who gave any encouragement to the
two persons mentioned, were to be
treated as rebels and traitors. Two
weeks later the following version
of "Tom Gage's Proclamation" —
unique in meter and yet more so in
rhyme — appeared in the "Pennsyl-
vania Journal" :

TOM GAGE'S PROCLAMATION;

Or blustering denunciation
(Replete with defamation)
Threatening devastation,
And speedy jugulation,
Of the new English nation, —
Who shall his pious ways shun ?
Whereas the rebels hereabout,
Are stubborn still, and still hold out ;
Refusing yet to drink their tea,
In spite of Parliament and me ;
And to maintain their bubble, Right,
Prognosticate a real fight ;
Preparing flints, and guns, and ball,
My army and the fleet to maul ;
Mounting their gilt to such a pitch,
As to let fly at soldier's breech;
Pretending they design'd a trick
Tho' ordered not to hurt a chick;
But peaceably, without alarm,
The men of Concord to disarm;
Or, if resisting, to annoy,
And every magazine destroy : —
All which, tho' long obliged to bear
Thro' want of men, and not of fear;
I'm able now by augmentation,
To give a proper castigation;
For since th' addition to the troops,

Now reinforc'd as thick as hops ;

I can, like Jemmy at the Boyne,
Look safely on— fight you, Burgoyne;
And mow, like grass, the rebel Yankees,
I fancy not these doodle dances : —
Yet ere I draw the vengeful sword,
I have thought fit to send abroad,
This present gracious proclamation,
Of purpose mild the demonstration,
That whoso'er keeps gun or pistol
I'll spoil the motion of his systole:

But every one that will lay down
His hanger bright and musket brown,
Shall not be bruised, nor beat, nor bang'd,
Much less for past offences hang'd;
But on surrendering his toledo,
Go to and fro unhurt as we do : —
But then I must, out of this plan, lock
Both SAMUEL ADAMS and JOHN

HANCOCK;
For those vile traitors (like debentures)
Must be tucked up at all adventures ;
As any proffer of a pardon,
Would only tend those rogues to hard1

en : —
But every other mother's son,
The instant he destroys his gun,
( For thus doth run the king's command)
May, if he will, come kiss my hand.—
And to prevent such wicked game, as
Pleading the plea of ignoramus ;
Be this my proclamation spread
To every reader that can read : — •
And as nor law nor right was known
Since my arrival in this town ;
To remedy this fatal flaw,
I hereby publish martial law.
Meanwhile, let all, and every one
Who loves his life, forsake his gun ;
And all the council by mandamus,
Who have been reckoned so infamous,
Return unto their habitation,
Without or let or molestation. —
Thus graciously the war I wage,
As witnesseth my hand, — TOM GAGE."

The first continental congress,
assembled at Philadelphia in 1774,
declared in favor of a policy of com-
mercial non-intercourse with Great
Britain. To make the declaration
effective an "association" was de-
vised, the members of which were
to bind themselves to maintain no
sort of trade relations with the
mother country until there should
have been a redress of grievances.
Copies of the agreement were sent
to all the colonies and every person
was given an opportunity to sub-
scribe his name. To sign meant, in
many cases, forced adherence to the
cause of the Revolutionists ; not to
sign meant in every case to become
an object of suspicion and hatred.
Indeed the situation of the non-sign-

NEWSPAPER SATIRE

369

er, always uncomfortable, threatened
to become positively unbearable and
many found themselves under the
necessity of either signing or leav-
ing the country. The struggle
which this condition of affairs fre-
quently produced in the minds of
men who at heart were loyal to the
King is well exhibited in the follow-
ing unusually skillful parody which
appeared in the "Middlesex Journal"
for January 30, 1776, but which
there is every reason to believe had
been written, if not printed, shortly
after the formation of the associa-
tion two years before :

"To sign or not to sign? That is the

question,
Whether 'twere better for an honest man
To sign, and to be safe; or to resolve,
Betide what will, against associations,
And, by retreating, shun them. To fly —

I reck
Not where : And, by that flight, t' escape
Feathers and tar, and thousand other ills
That loyalty is heir to: 'Tis a consum-
mation
Devoutly to be wished. To fly — to want-
To want? Perchance to starv*e : Ay,

there's the rub !
For, in that chance of want, what ills

may come
To patriot rage, when I have left my all-
Must give me pause : — There's the respect
That makes us trim, and bow to men we

hate.
For, who would bear th' indignities o' th'

times,
Congress decrees, and wild convention

plans,
The laws controll'd, and injuries unre-
dressed,
The insolence of knaves, and thousand

wrongs
Which patient liege men from vile rebels

take,
When he, sans doubt, might certain

safety find,
Only by flying? Who would bend to

fools,
And truckle thus to mad, mob-chosen up-
starts,
But that the dread of something after

flight
(In that blest country where yet no
moneyless

Poor wight can live) puzzles the will,
And makes ten thousand rather sign — and

eat,
Than fly — to starve on loyalty. —
Thus, dread of want makes rebels of us

all:
And thus the native hue of loyalty
Is sicklied o'er with a pale cast of trim-
ming ;
And enterprises of great pith and virtue,
But unsupported, turn their streams away,
And never come to action."

One circumstance which made
satire inevitable was the marked
discrepancy between the boasts of
the British before the opening of
the war and the actual achieve-
ments of the king's forces in it. It
was commonly supposed among the
British soldiery that the American
provincials had no skill at all in
military affairs and, what was more,
no quality of courage to employ
such skill if they had it. It was
loudly boasted that the colonists
could never "look British regulars
in the face" ; that "the very sound of
a gun would send them off as fast
as their feet could carry them."
When, therefore, on the very first
day of actual conflict the British
regulars were found running in con-
fusion along the Concord road,
panic-stricken before an enemy
whom they could not see, but of
whose uncomfortable proximity
they were painfully aware, the
spectacle was one which the satiri-
cally inclined could not have been
expected to pass without due notice.
In the following stanzas, published
anonymously in the "Pennsylvania
Evening Post," March 30, 1776, un-
der the facetious title of "The
King's Own Regulars, and their
Triumph over the Irregulars" we
have a sort of mock heroic account
of the retreat at Concord as told
supposedly by one of the "Reg-
ulars" :

370

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

'Since you all will have singing, and won't

be said nay,
I cannot refuse, when you so beg and

pray;
So I'll sing you a song, as a body may

say,—

Tis of the King's Regulars, who neer

ran away.

'No troops perform better than we at re-
views,—

We march, and we wheel, and whatever
you choose ;

George would see how we fight, and we
never refuse ;

There we all fight with courage— you may
see't in the news.

"Grown proud at reviews, great George

had no rest;
Each grandsire, he had heard, a rebellion

suppressed ;
He wished a rebellion— looked around,

and saw none —
So resolved a rebellion to make — of his

own.

"The Yankees he bravely pitched on, be-
cause he thought they wouldn't fight,

And so he sent us over to take away
their right ;

But lest they should spoil our review
clothes, he cried braver and louder,

For God's sake, brother kings, don't sell
the cowards any powder.

"Our general with his council of war did
advise,

How at Lexington we might the Yankees
surprise;

We marched— and remarched — all sur-
prised— at being beat,

And so our wise General's plan of sur-
prise was complete.

"For fifteen miles they followed and pelted
us— we scarce had time to draw a
trigger ;

But did you ever know a retreat per-
formed with more vigor?

For we did it in two hours, which saved
us from perdition;

'Twas not in going out, but in returning,
consisted our expedition.

"Of their firing from fences he makes a
great pother :
Every fence has two sides, they made use
of one, and we only forgot to use the
other;

That we turned our backs and ran away

so fast, — don't let that disgrace us, —

'Twas only to make good what Sandwich

said, that the Yankees could not face

us !

"As they could not get before us, how
could they look us in the face?
We took good care they shouldn't — by

scampering away apace;
That they had not much to brag of, is a

very plain case —
For if they beat us in the fight, we beat
them in the race.

Oh! the Old Soldiers of the King, and
the King's Own Regulars."

Second only to the British com-
manders and promoters of the war,
the Tories throughout the colonies
constituted the most constant ob-
jects of ridicule by Revolution-
ary writers. The "New York Jour-
nal" of February 9, 1775, contained
a somewhat witty definition of the
term "Tory." "Yesterday," said a
correspondent of the paper, "some
gentlemen were dining together in
a house in New York, and in the
course of the conversation, one of
the company frequently used the
word Tory ; the gentleman at whose
house they dined, asked him, 'Pray

Mr. , what is a Tory?' He

replied, 'a Tory is a thing whose
head is in England, and its body in
America, and its neck ought to be
stretched.' "

Somewhat more than a year later,
after the British had evacuated Bos-
ton, another New York paper, the
"Packet," paid its respects to the
detested Tories who remained be-
hind.

"Yesterday," says the paper, "being the
Lord's day, the Reverend Mr. Bridge, of
Chelmsford, in Massachusetts, preached a
most animating discourse from these words,
2 Kings vii., 7 : 'Wherefore they arose and
fled in the twilight, and left their tents and
their horses, and their asses, even the camp
as it was, and fled for their lives.' Which
passage of scripture is a good description

NEWSPAPER SATIRE

371

of the late flight of our ministerial enemies
from Boston, for they left their tents and
their horses, and a number of Tories for
asses."

Feeling against them ran so high
in some quarters that a consider-
able number of the Tories, or Loyal-
ists, found it unsafe, or at least ex-
tremely inconvenient, to remain in
America throughout the war. Ac-
cordingly many of them abandoned
their property and went to England,
hoping, but having slight reason to
expect, sometime to regain what
they had lost. Several of the refu-
gees won royal recognition on ac-
count of their sacrifice of personal
interests for the sake of the king's
cause and quite a number received
honors and offices of various kinds
by way of reward. As a specimen
of the contempt which this aroused
among the Whigs in the colonies
may be quoted a few items from the
correspondence of the "Constitution-
al Gazette," May 4, 1776. „

. "His Majesty's right arm is lame, occa-
sioned by a sprain from flourishing his
sword over the heads of his new made
knights.

"The Rev. Mr. Peters [a loyal Episcopal
clergyman who had been forced to flee to
England in 1774], from Lebanon, in Con-
necticut, has obtained his Majesty's leave
to pick hops at 9d per day, a penny more
than the usual price, as a reward for his
past faithful services; and by this lucrative
business it is supposed he will soon acquire
a fortune equal to that he left behind him

"James Rivington, a Tory printer of New
York who fled to England in January, 1776
is appointed cobweb-sweeper of his Maj-
esty's library. There are many other posts
and rewards given to persons who have
fled from the colonies, equal to the above-
mentioned."

On the 15th of September, 1776,

t General Howe took New York, from
which city General Putnam beat a
hasty retreat by way of King's
Bridge, or Hell-Gate. A few weeks
later one might read in the "lost,

"Middlesex Journal" the following
item :

"LOST, an old black dog, of the Ameri-
can breed; answers to the name of Put-
nam;— had on a yellow collar with the in-
scription, 'Ubi libertas ibi patria, 1776.
Long Island': is an old domestic animal, —
barks very much at the name of North, and
has a remarkable howl at that of Howe.
Was seen in Long Island some time ago,
but is supposed to have been alarmed at
some British troops who were exercising
there and ran off towards Hell-Gate. As
he was a great favorite of the Washington
family, they are fearful some accident has
happened to him."

The "Middlesex Journal," as
might be surmised from the forego-
ing, was an organ of the Tories,
though by no means so radical as
some other publications in the
northern colonies. An evidence of
its conservative character is seen
in the keen thrust at the temporiz-
ing policy which so seriously com-
promised Howe's generalship. The
following verses on "The Prudent
Generals Compared," published
January 2, 1777, were unique in that
they went the round of all colonial
newspapers, Whig and Tory, alike,
— only that there was of course a
difference of interpretation, some
saying that "Billy Howe" was to
save the thirteen states for the
British power, others that it was
for independence that they were to
be preserved:

"When Rome was urged by adverse fate,
On Cannae's evil day,
A Fabius saved the sinking state,
By caution and delay.

"'One only state!' reply'd a smart;
Why talk of such a dunce?
When Billy Howe, by the same art,
Can save thirteen at once."

"In the country dances published in Lon-
don for next year," said the Pennsyl-
vania Journal, "there is one called 'Lord
Howe's Jig,' in which there is 'cross over,
change hands, turn your partner, foot it
on both sides,' and other movements ad-

372

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

mirably depictive of the present war in
America."

Perhaps as subtle a thrust as one
will find in the newspaper literature
of the period is contained in an epi-
gram published in "Freeman's Jour-
nal," February n, 1777, the point
to which lies in the fact that on the
Hessian standards captured some
weeks before at Trenton were en-
graved the words, "Nescit Pericula" :

"The man who submits without striking a

blow.
May be said, in a sense, no danger to

know ;
I pray, then, what harm, by the humble

submission,
At Trenton was done to the standard of

Hessian?"

The paragon of Tory printers in
America was James Rivington,
notice of whose "promotion" at court
has already been cited from the
"Constitutional Gazette." Riving-
ton's printing office and book shop
in New York were regarded through-
out the war as indeed the very cit-
adel of American Toryism ; and no
newspaper, Whig or Tory, could ever
go quite so far in ridicule and vin-
dictive abuse as "Rivington's Ga-
zette"— more properly called the
"Royal Gazette/1 Two of the milder
and one of the more malicious satires
on the American cause may serve to
indicate the general quality of the
organ most feared and hated by
those to whom the cause of Ameri-
can independence was dear.

The first deals with the retiring
of John Hancock from the presi-
dency of the continental congress,
October 29, 1777, after the congress
had moved its place of sitting from
Philadelphia to New York. Riv-
ington's account, published Decem-
ber 21, is as follows :

"Deacon Loudon, editor of the Whig
organ, the Vra- York Packet, has taken up-
on himse'f to give in his extraordinary

Packet a garbled account of the late squab-
ble among the Congress rapscallions, which
terminated in Easy John's leaving the chair.
As this production is calculated to mis-
lead the public, we are happy to present to
our readers a statement by an eye-witness,
who has been watching the Congress since
it left Philadelphia.

"As soon as the rebels learned that the
British fleet was at the head of the Chesa-
peake, a motion was made in Congress for
an adjournment to some place 'at least one
hundred miles from an}' part of God's king-
dom where the British mercenaries can
possibly land,' which, after some rapturous
demonstrations, was carried nem. con. Im-
mediately the Congress commenced the re-
treat, leaving old nosey Thompson to pick
up the duds and write promises to pay
(when the Congress should return) the
Congress debts. In the flight, as in the
rebellion, Hancock, having a just apprehen-
sion of the vengeance which awaits him,
took the initiative and was the first to carry
out the letter of the motion of his associ-
ates.

"In four days they met at York. At the
opening of the session, the President, hav-
ing performed his journey on horseback,
and much more like an express than a
lord, was unable to take his seat, and for
several days the chair was filled by a
pro tempore. On the return of Hancock,
he gave many indications of the intense
fright he had experienced, and was ob-
served to assume the chair with more than
usual care and quiet seriousness ; whether
from soreness or a desire for the further
remove of the Congress, his best friends
could not tell.

"Out of the silent discontent murmurs
soon sprung, and one day before the dinner
hour of the Congress, he offered a motion
that 'this body do adjourn until the troops
under the Howes, now pursuing the free-
men of America, retire altogether from the
state of Pennsylvania.' This was not
adopted. Hancock then arose and delivered
the following, which is a fair specimen of
rebel eloquence, and 'much to the pint,' as
the Yankee parsons say: —

" 'Brethren, Freemen, and Legislators : —
It's now more'n two years sence you done
me the honor of puttin' me in this seat,
which however humbly 1 have filled I was
determined to carry out. It's a responsible
situation, and I've been often awaken'd of
nights a hearin' them regulars a comin' for
my head. I can't bear it. It's worked on
me. and already I feel as though I was

NEWSPAPER SATIRE

373

several years older than I was. My firm-
ness, which has made up for all my other
infirmities, has been the cause of many
heartburnings, which I am sure the candor
of those among you who don't like it, will
pass over. As to the execution of business,
I have spared no pains, and shall return
to my family and folks with that satisfac-
tion. In taking leave of you my brethren,
let me wish that we may meet soon under
the glories of a free, but British, govern-
ment.'

"After requesting the Congress to pass
around his chair and shake his hand, the
afflicter of his country retired, satisfied as
usual with himself and the Congress, who,
with equal satisfaction, welcomed his de-
parture."

That considerable number of peo-
ple in the colonies who throughout
the war were Whig or Tory, "ac-
cording as the winds blew," met
only ridicule from both sides at once.
The second extract from "Riving-
ton's Gazette," entitled "The Am-
erican Vicar of Bray," sets forth the
boasting confessions of one of this
class :

"When Royal George rul'd o'er tliis land,
And loyalty no harm meant,
For church and king I made a stand,
And so I got preferment.
1 still opposed all party tricks,
For reasons I thought clear ones,
And swore it was their politics
To make us Presbyterians.

When Stamp Act pass'd the Parliament,
To bring some grist to mill, sir,
To back it was my firm intent,
But soon there came repeal, sir.
I quickly join'd the common cry,
That we should all be slaves, sir,
The House of Commons was a sty,
The King and Lords were knaves, sir.

Now all went smooth as smooth could

be,
I strutted and look'd big, sir;
And when they laid a tax on tea,
I was believed a Whig, sir.
I laughed at all the vain pretence
Of taxing at this distance,
And swore before I'd pay my pence
I'd make a firm resistance.

A Congress now was quickly call'd,

That we might act together.;

I thought that Britain would ppall'd

Be glad to make fair weather,

And soon repeal th' obnoxious bill,

As she had done before, sir,

That we may gather wealth at will,

And so be taxed no more, sir.

But Britain was not quickly scar'd,

She told another story ;

When independence was declar'd,

I figured as a Tory ;

Declar'd it was rebellion b"se,

To take up arms — I curs'd it —

For faith it seemed a settled case,

That we should soon be worsted.

When penal laws were pass'd by vote,

I thought the test a grievance,

Yet sooner than I'd lose a goat,

I swore the state allegiance.

The thin disguise could hardly pass,

For I was much suspected ;

I felt myself much like the ass

In lion's skin detected.

The French alliance now came forth,
The papists flocked in shoals, sir,
Frizeur Marquises, Valets of birth,
And priests to save our souls, sir,
Our 'good ally' with towering wing,
Embrac'd the flattering hope, sir,
That we should own him for our king,
And then invite the Pope, sir.

When Howe, with drums and great pa-
rade,
March'd through this famous town, sir,
I cried, 'May Fame his laurels shade
With laurels for a crown, sir.'
With zeal I swore to make amends
To good old constitution,
And drank confusion to the friends
Of our late revolution.

But poor Burgoyne's denounced my fate,

The Whigs began to glory,

I now bewailed my wretched state,

That I was e'er a Tory.

By night the British left the shore,

Nor cared for friends a fig, sir,

I turned the cat in pan once more,

And so became a Whig, sir.

I call'd the army butchering dogs,

A bloody tyrant King, sir,

The Commons, Lords, a set of rogues,

That all deserved to swing, sir.

Since fate has made us great and free,

And Providence can't falter,

So long till death my king shall be —

Unless the times should alter."

374

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

On the 1 8th of January, 1781, the
old Continental Congress ended its
existence, in view of the approach-
ing reorganization of the govern-
ment under the Articles of Confed-
eration. The next day "Riving-
ton's Gazette" published the follow-
ing account of the "Death of Con-
gress," together with the "Last Will
and Testament of that Body." Let
any one who is disposed to criticize
the modern newspaper on the
ground of scurrility and sensational-
ism consider how impossible it
would be for any respectable jour-
nal of to-day to publish such an
article as this :

"Yesterday, in the evening of the lustre
of their wretchedness, departed this life, to
the great grief of all wicked men, their
most exalted Excellencies the Congress of
America ; and about midnight their remains
were deposited in a vault prepared for
them in the most comfortable warm region
of infernal misery. By their death that
sweet babe of grace, Miss America Re-
bellion, who, from her birth (till the death
of her parents) had been nursed and
brought up with all the tenderness that
such delicate charms, such bewitching
beauty, and such perfect deformity, could
require, is now left a poor helpless orphan,
destitute of friends, and in want of the
necessaries of life.

"The following is the last will and tes-
tament of the deceased: — 'In the name of
the Devil, we, the Congress of America,
in Congress assembled, being weak in body,
low in credit, and poor in estate, but rich,
high, and strong in expectation, that by our
hellish, faithful behavior on earth, we shall
be advanced to the highest esteem and
favor of Satan in the kingdom which is his,
do make, publish, and declare this our last
will and testament in manner following,
that is to say, first and principally we do
(as by the strongest tie of duty bound)
consign our, and each of our souls, purely
vicious as they are, together with all, each,
and every, the faculty and faculties in-
separately adherent thereto, or to each of
them, unto the most highly damnerj serpent,
his Sovereign Majesty of Hell, he having
by many titles a just claim thereto. And
it is our will that our executor hereinafter
named, do, as soon as conveniently may be

after our decease, or even before it, cause
our names to be registered among the grand
infernal records of hell. And, as touching
our worldly wealth, which we have by so
many noble frauds, robberies, and murders,
amassed together and concealed, we give,
devise, and bequeathe the same unto and
between our two most dearly beloved and
most vilely great and good allies, the
French King, and King of Spain, to hold
the same as long as they shall continue to
act with the same uniform conduct, and
promote the interest of their brother
Sovereign, to whose kingdom we are
hastening in a swift course of rapidity. But
in default of such conduct in them or
either of them as aforesaid, then we give,
devise, and bequeath, all and whatsoever
is before specified, in the last before-men-
tioned bequest, or the share of each de-
faulter, to and among all, any, or either of
the potentates of Europe, who shall by his,
her, their, any or either of their zeal,
(manifested by real service to our most
noble benefactor Lucifer), whether under
the mask of armed neutrality, open or avow-
edly, or otherwise howsoever, cherish,
succor, help, and comfort all those Ameri-
cans who shall be inspired with the most
noble sentiments of rebellion, against that
great enemy to our constitution of Hell,
George the Third of Britain, whose sub-
jects in the most strange infatuation look
up to, love, and honor their king. In him
there is also the most surprising infatua-
tion, that he governs them by their own
laws, and wastes all his time to promote
their happiness ; nor does his infatuation
cease here, he loves his queen and family;
and, moreover, he is so righteously wifcked
that he loves and fears his God. Now, we
should make another bequest, that is, of
the land and soil of North America, by our
will, by our free will, it should go to, and be
divided between our two said great and
good allies; but doubts arising in our pure-
ly vicious breasts concerning the operation
of such bequest, we laid our case respecting
the same before the Devil in council, who
just now returned it with his opinion
thereunder wrote, in the words follow-
ing:— 'No part of the land and soil of
North America can be conveyed by your
will ; — it is as much out of the power of all
hell to prevent North America being sub-
ject to Britain, as it will be in the power
of the King of Spain to hold South
America, for Britain will most assuredly
extended her dominion over the whole.'
Now, we do nominate and appoint our most

NEWSPAPER SATIRE

375

infernally noble and clearly beloved Devil,
guardian to our dear and only daughter
Miss America Rebellion, trusting to him,
the sole care, maintenance, and education
of that most dutiful, beautiful child. And
we do also nominate and appoint him sole
executor of this our will, made and exe-
cuted in his presence this eighteenth day
of January, and in the fifth year of our
independence.

" 'Signed, sealed, published, declared, and
delivered, by order of Congress, (just now
expiring)' "

The surrender of Cornwallis, Oc-
tober 19, 1781, was the death-blow
to the British cause in America.
With it perished every hope of the
Tories. The importance of the
event was fully appreciated in the
colonies — now taking on the name
of states — and no small amount of
newspaper satire was called forth
by it. Some of the best of this was
written by Francis Hopkinson; and,
in view of the quotations which
have been made from "Rivington's
Gazette," perhaps this sketch can-
not be better closed than by citing
some selections from a mock adver-
tisement written by Hopkinson and
humorously labeled as if published
in Rivington's journal. Rivington,
as has been said, was probably the
best known and most royally hated
Tory in America. No one could
have had better reason for fleeing
from the country after Cornwallis's
surrender than he. Hopkinson's
advertisement, therefore, purporting
to have been written by Rivington
himself, begins by stating that the
late surrender of Lord Cornwallis
and his army, together with a va-
riety of other circumstances, "has
rendered it convenient for the sub-
scriber to remove to Europe." He
accordingly requests the favor of an
immediate settlement of all his ac-
counts and then proceeds to offer
at public sale his remaining stock
in trade, consisting of "books,"

"maps and prints," "plays," "philo-
sophical apparatus," and "patent
medicines." Here are some items
from his catalogue : —

BOOKS.

"The History of the American War ; or,
the Glorious Exploits of the British Gen-
erals, Gage, Howe, Burgoyne, Cornwallis,
and Clinton.

"The Royal Pocket Companion ; Being a
New System of Policy, founded on rules
deduced from the Nature of Man, and
proved by Experience, whereby a Prince
may in a short time render himself the
Abhorrence of his Subjects, and the Con-
tempt of all good and wise Men.

"Select Fables of Aesop, with suitable
Morals and Applications. Amongst which
are, — 'The Dog and his Shadow,' 'The Man
and his Goose which laid a Golden Egg,'
etc., etc.

"The Right of Great Britain to the Do-
minion of the Sea — a Poetical Fiction.

"A Geographical, Historical, and Political
History of the Rights and Possessions of
the Crown of Great Britain in North
America. This valuable work did con-
sist of thirteen volumes in Folio, but is
now abridged by a Royal Author to a single
Pocket Duodecimo, for the greater con-
venience of Himself, his Successors, and
Subjects.

"Tears of Repentance; or, the Present
State of the Loyal Refugees in New York,
and elsewhere.

"An Elegant Map of the British Empire
in North America upon a very small scale.

PHILOSOPHICAL APPARATUS.

"Microscopes, for magnifying small ob-
jects, furnished with a select set ready
fitted for use. Amongst these are a variety
of real and supposed successes of the Brit-
ish Generals in America.

"A Complete Electrical Apparatus, with
improvements, for the use of the King and
his Ministers. The machine should be
exercised with great caution; otherwise,
as experience hath shown, the operator
may unexpectedly receive the shock he in-
tends to give.

PATENT MEDICINES.

"Vivifying Balsam : excellent for weak
nerves, palpitations of the heart, over-
bash fulness, and diffidence. In great de-
mand for the officers of the army.

"Sp. Men. Or, the genuine Spirit of
Lying. Extracted by distillation from many

376

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

hundreds of the Royal Gazette of New
York.

"Anodyne Elixir, for quieting fears and
apprehensions. Very necessary for Tories
in all parts of America.

"N. B. — To every purchaser to the value
of five pounds will be delivered gratis one
quire of counterfeit Continental Currency.
Also, two quires of proclamations offering
Pardon to Rebels."

The Estrangement

By Mary White Morton

That you for this small fault should cast me off,
With narrow, hasty judgment rating me
Unfit your further care!
O blind one, go your ways ! Your murmured scoff
Is hard for me to bear
Because I hoped that you would larger be.

Yours is the loss. Had you but tarried here,

You might have watched beyond this little mist
The lofty mountain grow —
First a blurred shadow, then an outline clear
Warmed by the sunrise glow —
So strong and firm, rock-crowned and heaven-kissed.

Yea, perchance nearer, in its secret ways

You might have walked, and heard the glad streams rush
With thunder-pealing song
Down the foam-splashed ravines; the forest maze
Have threaded, with its throng
Of leaves and flowers, of winds and solemn hush.

I could have shown you — ah, what mysteries sweet ! —
The depth and highness of a woman true.
You slight such spirit-world,
O foolish one, wrapped in your own conceit!
As from me you are whirled,
I grieve, indeed, — not for myself, but you !

The Love of Libby Baxter

By Imogen Clark

THERE was a woman who
lived in this village once and
what I am going to tell you is
the story of her love for her son —
Jem Baxter he was called, though
he went mostly by the name of
"Black Jem" on account of his evil
ways. She'd been left a widow
when he was naught but a little
chap, mischievous as a puppy and
about as troublesome ; there were
some who looked to the betterment
of him as he grew older, same as you
do of a dog, but most folks remem-
bered his father and didn't hope
much for the son that was his image
down to the ground. The Baxters,
root and branch, have never come
to any good, and Luke — Jem's
father — was the wildest of thejn
all. 'Twas the talk of the country-
side when he married, but even if
folks hadn't known Libby Wed-
dersley — she that was the bride —
from childhood up, they'd have
known with just a look at her face
that she was different from the
Baxter tribe. Yet she wasn't a
psalm-singing woman, she'd a high
spirit and a quick tongue often, only
you felt through everything there
was an abiding goodness at the core
of her nature, as is the way with a
sweet sound Nonesuch. But the
child was all father; black-haired,
black-eyed, black-tempered and
black-souled too, almost to his un-
doing if it hadn't been for the moth-
er's love. There I am — getting
ahead of my story ! It's like taking
off the lid of the pot to see if the
377

potatoes are boiling. Some folks
are like that — cooking or talking —
they can't wait reposeful for the
end, but must look forward as they
go along.

She'd been left a widow early, as
I've said, and comfortable too. Luke
had put by a tidy sum — got, the
Lord knows how ! and Squire him-
self drew up the will, so fixing it
that Libby had her bit sum quarter-
ly ; and at her death, house and
land and money were all to go to
the boy. That was a wise provision,
for Jem wasn't but a baby at the
time of his father's taking-off and
Libby'd the name of a good man-
ager, so 'twas to be expected that
he'd be well provided for when, in
the fullness of her days, she'd quit
this world of ups and downs.
L. From the beginning she'd the ten-
derest love for the little lad and it
grew and grew till it seemed to be
as wide as earth and as high as
heaven. Folks counted it a mortal
sin on her part to worship a flesh
and blood creation as she did, and
they said something terrible would
happen, it being tempting Provi-
dence to carry all your eggs in one
basket. But Libby wouldn't hear
to reason. There might be other
things going on in the same world
that held her boy, only he came
first. And so she laid her plans
and dreamed her dreams about him
and slaved for him early and late,
pouring out the riches of her love
for his sake. But he didn't pay her
back as 'twas only human she ex-

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

pected to be paid back ; even the
most generous natures look for some
return of what they spend, though a
crumb is gold to the most of them.
However, Libby didn't get so much
as a crumb, but that didn't sour her.
She was always saying that to-mor-
row would bring the change in him,
and you know to-morrow is always
to-morrow ! — those who look to it,
hoping for the impossible, find it
far off and dim.

I don't know why Jem was so
hold-offish and cruel, unless it was
the contradictiousness in his blood.
Luke Baxter had been passing fond
of his wife when he could spare time
from thinking of himself to give her
a thought, but he'd cost his own
mother many a sore day and folks
said that he broke her heart at the
last, though that wasn't in my time.
Anyhow his father before him had
been terrible wicked too, as boy
and man, dying in his sins as the
whole countryside knew, so Jem
was noways different from his for-
bears. Wild and hard and fierce
he was, having no care for any-
thing, only p'r'aps the great out-
of-doors of God — the moors, and the
green growing things, and the sea
over there in the distance. He'd
no love for his kind and he wasn't
anyways tender of life in bird or
beast : it seemed as if he took de-
light in torturing all weak creatures,
and yet — the dogs followed him.
And Libby always held there's a
spot of goodness somewhere in the
man that a dog would follow, so
she set to work to find it out in
Jem. She meant to find it out!

Well, he grew to manhood, keep-
ing by himself, or up to some bedev-
ilment carousing with the lowest,
and leaving the heft of the toil to
his mother. What went on at their
house none of the folks rightly

knew, they only suspicioned.
Sometimes in passing they heard
Jem cursing or nagging Libby,
and once they knew he turned her
out of doors at night when it was
perishing cold, but they couldn't
interfere, not even then — feeling
'twould grieve her to have them
come between. Parson he did try
to bring Jem to reason, but 'twasn't
any use. And as for Libby, though
Parson made his parish visits reg'-
lar, he owned up that she taught
him more than he could ever teach
her. But she altered — oh! she al-
tered. She'd always been a terrible
little body, though folks held when
she was young she favored her
mother and would grow into just
such another cushion-shaped wo-
man when she came to middle age.
But life gave those words the lie.
Her earthly tabernacle wasn't much
to tell on — a little slendersome crea-
ture she always was, naught but
skin and bones and the great soul
inside. Not that she was ever ill.
We were her nearest neighbors and
though I wasn't more than a child
I can remember how my mother'd
say time and again that nothing
would kill Libby Baxter. Heart-
break and work clove their tracks
deep on her white face, but she'd
the strength of wire — nothing could
snap her, and she didn't ail any.
When the peddler came round with
his pack, however, she'd never let
him go without buying some of his
medicines — cures for coughs, and
rheumatism, and cholery, and every
other ill that is known to suffering
flesh. My mother, hearing from the
man what he'd sold up to the Bax-
ters, stopped Libby once when she
went by to know the true why and
wherefore.

"You ain't sick?" asked she.

"No," said Libby, smiling with

T II tt L () V E "OF'LIBB'Y BAXTER

379

her poor patient lips and hungry
eyes, "I ain't sick."

"Nor you haven't any symptoms ?"

"Not that I know, but then," and
she laughed very soft, "they may
come unlooked-for like, so I hold
'tis best to be prepared. I don't
want to die, Sally," says she.

"Life ain't been so rosy and tem-
pered to you that you should cling
to it," said my mother, "you'd be
a sight happier over there."

"No," Libby answered, "I
couldn't sleep quiet in my grave not
knowing how Jem would fend with-
out me. There'd no one under-
stands him then but God, and God's
very far away. It's the human he
needs first."

"That's downright blasphemy,
Libby Baxter," cried my mother.
"It's Jem that has made the distance
between himself and God, and I
don't mean to jibe you, but you
don't stand very near the boy either.
'Tain't human that will do it for
Jem, nor yet super-human, he's just
got to go the way to perdition."

"And won't a mother's love go
that far?" asked Libby sharply.
"Answer me that, woman."

"You poor creature," said my
mother, "you poor, loving, tender
creature, don't you know what we
all know, that Jem's out of reach of
your arms? Love him ever so,
you can't save him. And there's
no call that I can see for spending
good money for medicine just to
stand on your closet shelf and never
to be used. Peddler will say it's
right, of course, wishing to drive a
bargain, but I tell you to leave him
and his wares alone and go the way
of all flesh without trying to set up
obstacles at so much a bottle.
Jem's mouth's fair watering for
what your death will bring him.

Luke's last will and testament ain't
to be broke, nor yet tampered with,
but there ! — you know Jem's whole
being is set on the money that'll be
his some day, and oh ! you poor
creature, he wants that day to be
now."

"If I thought," Libby cried, not
wincing at the hard truths, "that
my bit of money would be to his
welfare I'd die this minute in
agonies untold so as to give it to
him, but ■ I know better. 'Twould
drive him to worse evils and that's
why I don't want to die and I don't
mean to die. I'm going to live till
he loves me and then, when he's
softened and moulded into properer
shape, I'll go, but not before — not
a minute before."

"Who are you, creature of dust,
to fling your say-so in the face of
the Almighty himself?" my mother
screamed, "I wonder _at you Libby
Baxter."

"I've settled it all with the Lord,"
Libby said softly, "He knows — ah !
don't he know everything? Didn't
He give me my child — didn't He
mean me to have all? And have I
had his heart? 'Tis stone in his
breast, but I will have it one day
and then He shall have it ; only it's
got to be mine first — if the human
ain't in the heart of man, there ain't
ever any room there for God. Ah !
He knows."

My mother was that scandalized
the breath clean left her body and
before she could get it again Libby
had gone on her way with that look
of spirit in her face that somehow
made you think of soldiers and war-
fare. Of course, after that, the
neighbors were told what Libby had
said, as was only fitting, and we all
agreed that she wasn't quite right-
minded — there'd been a queer streak
in her Grandmother's family, any-

380

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

way — and we concluded we'd leave
the Baxters alone.

So for a time we didn't concern
ourselves with their doings, but as
the days went on Jem grew worse ;
it seemed as if the evil spirits whose
name was Legion had taken up
their abode with him. We heard
of his devilments everywhere, 'cept-
ing from Libby. She was as still
as ever, only p'r'aps a little whiter
and frailer-looking, with eyes that
seemed worn with watching and
yet were so hopeful and undaunted
'twould have saddened you to be-
hold them. She just held on to life
with both hands, so to say. If she
died, who'd cook for Jem, mend for
him, nurse him if he was sick?
Who'd set the lamp in the window
to burn the night through to guide
his drunken footsteps safe to the
home-door? She was right — she
couldn't die. Then something
dreadful happened — we didn't know
how — we were never to know right-
ly how — but this is what fell out.

One afternoon, close on to sun-
setting, Farmer Hawkins, driving
home along the lower road, hap-
pened to cast his eyes over to the
Baxter house. There never was a
terrible deal of sense in Tobias
Hawkins' pate — yet somehow as he
looked he thought the cottage had
a queerish aspect. Any other per-
son would have stopped then and
there to find out, but Tobias was
made different. He went on his
way and all the while he kept think-
ing and wondering to himself un-
til at last he was fairly bursting with
curiosity and had to turn back.
When he reached the house every-
thing was very still and deserted-
looking; there wasn't even a sign
of smoke from the chimney, though
'twas nearing meal-time. By na-
ture he was a chicken-spirited man

and all on a moment he'd a great
sinkine seize him, so that he didn'*
know what to expect. But he went
close to the door that was half open
and, being well-mannered, he
knocked ; after a bit he knocked
again and this time he called Libby
by name. Answer there was none,
yet as he stood there, there came a
something very low that was half
moan, half groan and wasn't right-
ly either. He grew bolder (that
was the Lord's doings !) and pushed
the door wide. The kitchen was
all littered over, a chair sprawled
on the floor and the fire was dead
out; the whole place seemed terrible
lonesome and bare of life. Still
there came that dull sound and To-
bias, acting under the guidance of
Providence, crossed the room with
shaky knees to the chamber beyond.
And there on the bed lay Libby
with a face as white as chalk save
for a dark stain to one side. Her
eyes were shut tight. She was all
dressed even to her shoes, but her
gown had been torn open at the
throat and the whole shoulder of
it was dark too — dark red. Tobias
Hawkins wanted to run, only some
thing mightier than he kept him
stock still.

"Libby," he cried, "speak up, wo-
man. Who's done this? Was it
Jem?"

Her eyes flew open, she tried to
move.

"No — no — not Jem. I — I fell — "

At that she grew gray as the ash
on the ember and her eyes went to
again, then Tobias — blessed all of
a sudden with sense — ran out of the
house and tumbled somehow into
his cart and came galloping over to
our house for mother. She didn't
wait for anything, but climbed up
beside him and they were off in a
minute; and I, standing watching

THE LOVE OF LIBBY BAXTER

181

them, remembered that the night
before I'd looked in vain to see the
light up to Baxters'. It had been
pitchy black.

When mother reached the cottage
she thought Libby was dead sure
enough, but she worked over her
with restoratives and such-like, and
bimeby those hopeful blue eyes
opened slowly.

"I — I — did it myself," she whis-
pered, "I— I— fell—"

"Hush," says mother.

"And I couldn't reach peddler's
lotion for — for accidents," she went
on in a voice like a thread, " 'twas
too high up — but 'twill be all
right." Then she stopped to
breathe. "I ain't going to die," she
cried the next moment, "I don't
mean to die, Sally."

Farmer Hawkins left mother as
soon as he got her over there, and
went off for the doctor and more
women and then he and a lot of the
men got together and worked out
the sum. They waited first to hear
what the doctor would say — men-
folks being fairer minded than wo-
men— but when he said that Libby'd
been knifed and she couldn't have
done it herself, and 'twas ten to one
she'd die before daybreak, they
went off ma?i-hunt'mg over the
moors and to the near-by villages
to all the low houses, and even as
far as the sea. And the second day
later, while the doctor and the wo-
men were still fighting death with
Libby's help, they found Jem. He
looked more like a ghost than a
living, breathing man and he didn't
gainsay them when they took him
in the name of justice and brought
him back to the village.

They put him in jail and then
they waited. If Libby died, 'twas
their intention to punish him for
murder; for, though it wasn't right-

ly clear how the deed was done, the
village was one mind in thinking
the blackhearted crime must be
laid to his door. No one else in the
world would have hurt so much as
a hair of Libby Baxter's head, she
being so trustful and content with
her lot that folks had a sort of af-
fection for her they'd be hard put
to frame into words, still they felt
it deep down and along with it
they'd a horror for Jem and his
cruel ways. There wasn't one but
would have been more than un-
common glad to have him meet with
his comeuppance. Folks are terrible
fond of seeing justice portioned out
to their kind and, much as Libby
was liked, there was a feeling of
regret everywhere when the doctor
said she'd get well, for then they
knew Jem couldn't swing for mur-
der. But punished he must be. So
they brought him up before the
Squire himself; even though they
hadn't caught him redhanded, there
was no manner of doubt but that
he'd knifed his own mother with in-
tent to kill.

The prisoner sat by himself in
the little pen opposite the Justice,
white-faced and struggling hard to
hold his head high, while all around
were the folks who'd known him the
nineteen years of his life. Old folks,
middle-aged and young were there
and never a word was said by a
soul in his favor. First one told of
this unkindness he'd showed to his
mother and then another would up
and take on the tale; it seemed as
if the Judgment Book itself was
opened and we were having a
glimpse of Jem Baxter's account.
He didn't say anything, though the
Squire would ask him every little
while if he could deny this or that.
He just kept still, but he did kinder
stir when Silas Warren got up and

382

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

told how one winter's night, when
he was passing the Baxters' house,
he saw a little shape standing out-
side. At first he thought it was a
ghost and then, from the light shin-
ing through the window, he saw it
was Libby herself and he heard her
cry: "Let me in, boy, it's mortal cold
out here."

At those words the prisoner
crouched lower in his chair and
dropped his head on his chest and
his eyes went down as if he couldn't
bear to meet the looks on the faces
roundabout. There wasn't a sound
of speech in the room for some
minutes so that bimeby he raised
his head slowly, then the next mo-
ment something broke in his throat
with a tearing noise and he half
started to his feet, though he sank
down again staring wildly before
him. For there was Libby clinging
to the side of the Squire's desk fac-
ing the whole room. He hadn't
seen her crawl weak and slow up
along between the folks, and they
moving back as if she'd been the
Queen herself that they were proud
to honor; he saw her first standing
there looking over at him with her
heart in her eyes, and he heard her
say, same as we all did :

"So you saw me that night, Silas,
did you? But you didn't know that
the door'd banged to with that
plaguey newfangled spring and I
couldn't open it from the outside,
so I called to Jem and he — sleeping
that sound by the fire — didn't hear
me. You didn't know that, Silas?"

Farmer Warren heaved a big
sigh and looked back at her with-
out speaking. 'Twas common story
in the village that he'd loved Libby
when she was a girl and had bided
single for her sake, so he couldn't
give the lie to her words, though he
knew — as we all knew — she hadn't

a spring to one of her doors and
the only bar to her getting in that
night was Jem and his wrath.

"It was mortal cold," he said at
last, then he sat down and mopped
his forehead with his handkerchief,
"mortal cold."

"Not so cold as some nights,"
she answered quick, "and what with
stamping and walking about I didn't
feel it any more'n June. I didn't
have to wait long."

We didn't speak — we only re-
membered that the story had been
she'd stayed there till the sun rose,
but we kept still.

"Mr. Justice," she said then, "I'm
come for my boy. 'Tain't right
that he should be kept here with
folks sitting in judgment on him.
Who are folks that they can judge
any single creature? What does
any one know but God? Give me
back my boy."

"He's a guilty man," Squire
answered, "and the law's going to
punish him. He can't deny the
charges — "

"I don't deny 'em," Jem says,
speaking up for the first time.

"Don't you listen to him, Squire,"
Libby cried forgetful of her man-
ners, "that's his father all over
again. Oh !" says she turning to
the listening folks, "don't you re-
member how Luke would never
gainsay aught that was said of him?
He took a kind of glory in shoulder-
ing all the wrongs that were laid to
his credit, though he hadn't done a
tithe of them. Same way with Jem.
You all think him bad and he ain't
going to cheat you out of your
thoughts. But I deny them for him,
and I'm his mother — I ought to
know. Leave him go, Mr. Justice,
it's terrible lonesome and still up to
my house and I want him back for
company. Don't be cruel-hearted to

THE LOVE OF LIBBY BAXTER

383

me, Mr. Justice, he's all I've got in
the world — I can't live without him.
Give him back to me."

And at that the Squire said sort of
choked-like : ''Release the prisoner."
And when that was done, he says to
him:

"Go — go with the woman who
has plead for you, but mark this,
Jem Baxter, we'll have an eye on
you and if you do her harm we'll
wreak a vengeance on you that will
make the world stand still to see.
Go!"

Folks made way silently to let the
two pass, moving back from Jem as
if he'd got the leprosy, but he didn't
see them. He was staring straight
before him at the sunshine and the
waving trees outside the door not
heeding aught, and Libby pressed
close to him, clinging to his arm
with both hands; her face, that
showed against his dark sleeve like
a withered white rose, shining with
a joy that sent the tears to many
eyes. I was nearest the door and I
crept out behind the two. They
stopped for a minute ; it seemed as if
[em was mindful somehow that his
mother was breathing short from
weakness.

"Why are you so set on saving
me?" he asked.

"Because I love you," says she.

"But you know I meant to harm
you — to kill you — "

"You didn't kill me then," she
cried with a ring of triumph in her
voice, "you can't ever kill a mother's
love, Jem boy. That's the way God
made it. Come with me, lad, we'll
begin again."

He looked at her wildly for a mo-
ment, then something seemed to go
snap all of a sudden within him,
and his face broke up with misery

and shame. There was a sound in
his throat like a sob.

"Take me home, marm," he says
like a little child, "take me home."

And so they went along, she lean-
ing on him in her weakness, but
'twas as if she was leader and he
was led.

Oh, there wasn't any great mira-
cle happened. Jem didn't grow
saint all at once — he was as his na-
ture made him, moody and wild,
and passionate by turns and slip-
ping back often whenever he'd
gained a step, but she kept the white
arms of her heart close about him
and she won him to her at the last.
She'd the patience of God in some
things ; it seemed as if she was will-
ing to wait and trust that the little
good the dogs had found in him,
and which she'd always known was
there, should work out its own sal-
vation. 'Twasn't a day, or a month,
or a year that would do it, but it
was bound to come as sure as shin-
ing. And so it did! He grew into
a good man, better and kinder just
because of his youth I'm thinking,
and he came to be respected of men
— slowly, because once given a bad
name 'tis terrible hard to live above
it — yet he won that too, out of sheer
grit, right here in the place where
the worst was known of him. It
seemed too, that he couldn't make
up to her for all she'd done for him,
so he tried to better her in loving,
though he fell short there. And
when she went, he kept faithful to
her teachings. A good man — yes !
with a terrible easiness about him
for sinners that put a cheer into
their hearts and helped them more
than the upright-from-the-cradle
could ever have done.

The Old Mirror

By L. M> Montgomery

Dim-gleaming in the ancient room,
It hangs upon the oaken wall,
Where the pale lights of sunset fall
Athwart its mystic, changeful gloom,
While lagging seasons come and go
With bloom and snow.

No witching eyes of maid or dame
Linger before it now to look
At Beauty's own illumined book,
But mayhap from its tarnished frame,
At twilight, wavering faces gaze —
Fair in dead days.

All that the mirror saw of old

It holds in its remembrance still,
And summons forth at fancy's will
Dim shapes a watcher might behold,
As if uncertain wraiths should pass
Before the glass.

t>j

Perchance a girl in silken gown,
Smiling her loveliness to see,
Armored from Love's own archery,
Red-lipped, with mirthful eyes of brown,
And dimpled with the hidden thought
Her heart has taught.

Or a white bride may linger there,

Garmented in her marriage dress,
Outflowering in her tenderness,
To weave the roses in her hair,
Or muse a minute's space in mood
Of maidenhood.

Hush ! If we wait may we not see

A weakened shaft of sunlight smite
A snowy shoulder, or the bright

Gold of long tresses? It may be

For us the mirror's joy or pain
Will live again.

384

Copyrighted, 1903, by Aime Dupont, N. Y.

MME. NORDICA IN THE ZENITH OF HER GLORY

New England Magazine

June, 1904

Volume XXX

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Number 4

Farmington, Maine

By Mary Stoyell Stimpson

bearing

her years

exceeding grace and

THOUGH
with

beauty Farmington is by no
means a young town. It was fully
one hundred and twenty years ago
that the first families moved up the
shores of the Kennebec River, and
reached Sandy River Valley — a val-
ley whose luxuriant forests had, up
to that time, been the vast hunting i
grounds of the Red men.

Farmington is the shire town of
Franklin county and contains be-
sides the incorporated one, three
flourishing villages — West Farm-
ington, Farmington Falls and
Fairbanks. It was at the Falls
(Messee Contee-Herring place) that
early explorers found a small tribe
of Indians, but when the settlers ar-
rived in 1781, only two families re-
mained, that of Pierpole and that of
Phillips. The last named soon dis-
appeared, but Pierpole stayed on,
helpful and friendly to the white
man. Not so his black-eyed wife,
Hannah Susup — a daughter of the
Norridgewock tribe — she distrusted
the pale faces and showed them
scant courtesy. Not long after the
387

arrival of the English settlers, Pier-
pole, his wife and children, the last
of the aborigines, located on a lot
in Strong which had been reserved
for him by the state of Massachu-
setts. He built a frame house and
adopted many of the habits of his
white neighbors, but clung to the
dress of his forefathers, wearing a
blanket, moccasins and ornaments.
He was repeatedly urged to copy
the costume of the newcomers and
did, on one occasion, don a pair
of buckskin breeches, but soon re-
moved them with the remark, "Too
much fix urn."

Pie was singularly intelligent,
with good features and expressive
eyes. He had a gentle disposition
and performed many acts of kind-
ness for the pioneers. As the years
went by, the valley rilling ever
thicker with strangers, he perhaps
felt cramped for room, and dreading
further innovations, grew restless.
Thus it came to pass that after
twenty seasons of good comradeship
with the thrifty farmers, he one day,
with neither farewell nor explana-
tion, placed his family in their

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

canoe and paddled out of sight,
never to return.

"Where he went, no white man knoweth,
Whether to Canadian waters,
Whether to the rocking ocean,
Whether to the banks of Menan
No man knows, but down the rapids
Went the Indian forever."

The settlers along the Sandy
River, which is a confluent of the

ington — eight families in all. But
they were people of energy and in-
telligence. None of them were il-
literate. Most of the early settlers
came from Massachusetts towns
where the common school system
was in operation, and they lost no
time in having their children placed
under daily instruction. In a small

BIRDSEYE VIEW OF FARMINGTON

Kennebec, "chose an auspicious
period for their venture. The depre-
dations of the Indians had ceased;
the war for Independence was draw-
ing to a close ; our troops, weary of
bloodshed and strife, were glad to
enter upon the peaceful though
arduous task of founding new homes
in the wilderness.

It was a small band of pioneers
who passed that first winter in Farm-

log house, pupils of all ages gath-
ered, taught in the summer by
young women, men being employed
during the winter months.

The town was incorporated in
1794 and it was only a few years
later that its citizens built a church
and a school house. In 1794 Dr.
Aaron Stoyell began the practice of
medicine and in 1800 the first
lawyer, Henry Vassal Chamberlain,
settled in Farmington. The first

C^>£0 </\

j27&fS*^^i G^^^^r

^^4^ ^^kl^

*n^> cz~</ /^T??n

FOUR STURDY SETTLERS

389

390

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

religious services in the township
were held in the log house of
Stephen Titcomb, whose wife sent
for a Methodist minister to baptize
her infant son — the first white child
born in this wilderness. Mr. Tit-
comb began his explorations as
early as 1776, in the valley of the
Sandy River, and built the first log
house on the river. He soon had

cation, who had been engaged in
mercantile life in Boston, and who
had held a captain's commission
under Washington, moved to Farm-
ington in 1791 where he soon be-
came a conspicuous figure. It was
Captain Belcher who, acting as
agent for the township, went to Bos-
ton and secured the necessary act
of incorporation. He was a skilled

FARMINGTON STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

TEACHERS ROOM

ASSEMBLY ROOM

a farm of abundant yield and by
thrift and industry acquired a hand-
some property. This worthy couple,
both of whom lived past the age of
ninety, brought up a large family
of children who "have maintained
to the third and fourth generations,
the sturdy virtues of their ances-
tors."*

Supply Belcher, a man of fine edu-

:From Butler's History of Farmington.

musician, being a singer, composer,
and violinist, and was called the
"Handel of Maine." He was the
first choir-leader in town and the
accurate, stately music rendered by
"Squire Belcher's singers" was re-
garded with admiration. His wife,
a Boston girl of broad education, is
remembered as a woman of charm-
ing presence, and generous hospi-
tality.

In that same vear Thomas Wen-

FARMINGTON, MAINE

391

dell, a direct descendant of Evart
Jansen Wendell, "the immigrant an-
cestor of a family, long distinguished
in American life and letters," who
had arrived from Salem as early as
1786, began a clearing upon a farm
on which he afterwards passed a
long and busy life. He was deeply
religious and "was one of the foun-
ders of the Congregationalist church
in Farmington, serving it as clerk

and served on its board of trustees
until his death.

Enoch Craig, having done faith-
ful service in the Continental army,
laid down his arms to explore the
new country. He was among the
pioneer settlers, and, having much
skill in agriculture, was not long in
showing broad acres under success-
ful cultivation. Pretty Dorothy
Starling was nothing loath to occupy

GEORGE DUDLEY CHURCH
Principal of the Abbott School, Farmington, Maine.

from its organization in 1814 until
his death." He was of erect figure,
wore a long gray queue, and bore
himself with exceeding dignity. By
travel in his youth, and constant
reading all his life, he stored his
mind with such excellent material
that his conversation was always
listened to with interest and respect.
He was a liberal contributor toward
the establishment of an acucbmv

GEORGE C. TURINGTON
Principal of Farmington State Normal School.

"the best log house in the township,"
and so rode away, one day, with the
capable young farmer, to the near-
est Justice of Peace (who was more
than thirty miles distant) to have
their marriage solemnized. She
lived to preside over a fine frame
house and to see her husband oc-
cupy many important offices.

In 1812 the Farmington Academy
was ooened for instruction and

392

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

HON. NATHAN CUTLER

In whose memory the Public Library Building
was given.

great was the joy of the citizens
over an institution whose purpose
was "the promoting of piety and
virtue and the education of youth
in such of the languages and such
of the liberal arts as the Trus-
tees should direct." For more than
fifty years this Academy sent forth
students whose names in many
cases fill prominent places in
Maine's history. Its last four pre-
ceptors— Alexander H. Abbott, Rev.
Jonas Burnham, Rev. Horatio O.
Ladd, and Ambrose P. Kelsey, have
been widely known as educators in
and beyond New England. Among
the pupils of these years (1841 to
1863) may be quoted Dr. Edward
Abbott who has been rector of St.
James Episcopal Church in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, for twenty-
five years, and whose parishioners
have recently given a fund for the
erection of a church porch on the
west side of St. James Church, to
be called the "Edward Abbott
Porch," as a testimonial of the af-

fection they bear him who has
served them for a quarter of a cen-
tury. Rev. Samuel B. Stewart, who
was recognized at the Academy, at
Bowdoin, and at Harvard Divinity
School as a diligent student, was in-
stalled as minister of the Unitarian
Society of Lynn, Massachusetts, as
long ago as 1865, and still remains
its honored leader.

Prominent among makers of
books is D. C. Heath, president of
the D. C. Heath & Company publish-
ing house of Boston, which has
branch offices in New York, London,
and Chicago, and whose volumes are
widely used in schools and colleges
all over the country. He has a
charming suburban residence,
"Heathcote," at Newtonville, and
in spite of his business activity, finds
time for athletics, club life and
various charities. Major S. Clif-
ford Belcher, member of the Frank-
lin County Bar, of distinguished re-
cord in the Civil War, and high in
the Masonic Order, is not only re-

HON. FRANCIS G. BUTLER
Historian of Farmington.

FARMINGTO N, M A I N E

393

membered as a student at the Farm-
ington Institution, but as Principal
of the Foxcroft Academy in another
part of the state. Dr. Elbridge Ger-
ry Cutler is a medical practitioner of
repute, in Boston, and also instruc-
tor at Harvard Medical School.
Major Nathan Cutler, another faith-
ful servitor in the war of the rebel-
lion, filled the post as Commandant
at the U.S. Military Home at Togus,

ively. Moses C. Mitchell has for
many years been the Principal of the
Military School for boys at Biller-
ica, Massachusetts, one of the best
disciplined schools in New England.
U. S. Senator Washburn and Judge
Enos T. Luce, author of Maine Pro-
bate Law, were connected with the
old Academy days, while one of the
earlier pupils was Freeman Norton
Blake (brother to George Fordyce

CHARLES F. THWING, D. D.
President of Western Reserve University.

D. C. HEATH

President of D. C Heath & Company, the Boston
Publishing House.

Missouri, later practising law in
New York City. Horatio Quincy
Butterfield, a Harvard theologian,
has filled the President's chair at
Washburn College, Kansas, and
Olivet College, Michigan. Warren
Johnson, after conducting a family
school for boys at Topsham,
Maine, became supervisor of schools
in Maine and Massachusetts success-

Blake, one of Boston's wealthy in-
ventors) who was American Consul
to Canada under two Presidents —
Lincoln and Grant.

In 1863 the trustees of the Acad-
emy made over to the state all the
funds and other property for the es-
tablishment of a State Normal
School, which was opened for in-
struction the following year. Its

394

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

first principal was the late Ambrose
P. Kelsey, who was succeeded, in
turn, by George M. Gage and C. C.
Rounds. Since 1883 Mr. George C.
Purington, a Bowdoin man, has oc-
cupied the chair. The brick build-
ings have been enlarged and re-
modelled, from time to time, until
they now present a picture of archi-
tectural beauty, and are well-nigh
perfect in their furnishings and

On a site next the Normal School
Building, stands the Cutler Library
building, a recent gift to the town
from the late John L. Cutler and his
brother, Isaac Moore Cutler, as a
memorial of their father, the Hon.
Nathan Cutler, who became a resi-
dent of Farmington in 1804. The
giving of a store-house for books
was a fitting tribute to one who was
a man of broad culture, himself. All

CUTLER MEMORIAL LIBRARY

equipments. Although this was one
of the first schools of its kind to be
established in the state it has always
ranked high among the training
schools of the country. Prof. Pur-
ington is devoted to its interests,
and his reputation in educational
work is enviable. He is a friend to
music and has been a tower of
strength in the Maine Music Festi-
vals.

THE WILLOWS

his tastes were scholarly, and from
his college days at Dartmouth,
whence he was graduated in 1794,
to the day of his death in 1861, he
was a student of the classics, and a
lover of literature. It was imme-
diately after his admittance to the
bar that he settled in Farmington,
where, though devoted to his pro-
fession, he yet lent himself, with
vigor, to educational and political
movements. He was one of the

FARMING TON MAINE

395

founders of the Farmington Academy
and a member of the charter board
of trustees, so it seems eminently
suitable that his memorial should
adjoin the grounds of an institution
in the founding of which he played
so important a part. Situated in the
centre of the town — on Academy
Street — constructed of North Jay
granite and containing all the mod-
ern library fittings, it is a model edi-
fice of which the architect, W. R.
Miller, of Lewiston, may well be
proud. Both sons (the donors of
this handsome building) settled, in
middle life, far from their boyhood
home, but lost neither their affection
for nor their interest in Farming-
ton. John Cutler was, like his
father, an able lawyer, and all
through his life was a friend to
students and libraries. Isaac Cut-
ler of Maiden, (the other donor) has
been the unknown benefactor in
several worthy enterprises.

For more than a dozen years the
May School was a prominent fea-
ture in the educational life of the
young people. Miss Julia May is
an author and lecturer, still busy
with her pen. In her volume,
"Songs from the Woods of Maine,"
several of her tenderest verses are
dedicated to her sister, Miss Sarah
May, of hallowed memory.

"The Willows," known beyond
the confines of the state as a luxuri-
ous all-the-year-round hotel, was
used originally as a boarding school
for young ladies, conducted by Miss
Lucy Belcher (now Mrs. Nathan C.
Goodenow.) Among the pupils are
remembered Mrs. Alice Frye Briggs,
since prominent in educational and
club movements and for two years,
the President of the Maine Federa-
tion of Women's Clubs; and clever
Patience (Tucker) Stapleton who,
though living only the briefest time

beyond girlhood, left behind a series
of brilliant sketches and more than
one novel of merit. Yet had she
never written anything but that
story of subtle charm (whose scene
is laid on the island of Monhegan)
"Trailing Yew" — her genius would
have been established.

The famous Abbott School for
Boys has always been a notable in-
stitution and from first to last has
not only a pleasant history of its
own but had for its builder no other
than Jacob Abbott, and since it was
conducted from 1844 until 1902 by
some member of the Abbott family,
has interwoven with its existence
much that is interesting concerning
a family prominent in American
letters. The school has never been
a large one — perhaps fifty or sixty
pupils at the outside — but it has
exerted a wide influence and ranked
high among like establishments. A
few years ago fire destroyed the
dormitory and the closing of the
school became imperative. Later,
Mr. George Dudley Church, a former
teacher, purchased the property and
in corporation with a stock company
built a new dormitory after modern
design and restored the grounds.
Mr. Church assumed the principal-
ship and retained the name of Abbott
School in recognition not only of the
founder but of the long association
of the Abbott family with its life and
history. "Little Blue Boys" these
students have always been called
and will no doubt bear that name to
the end of the chapter. Among its
former pupils are included men oc-
cupying prominent positions to-day
in Congress, and in state and
municipal affairs. It was in the
early '70s when Col. Alden J. Bleth-
en (now an editor and publisher in
Seattle, Washington) was principal,
that Nat Goodwin, all round actor

396

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

and prince of comedians was en-
rolled as one of its students — show-
ing then, in declamation and mim-
icry, his remarkable histrionic abili-
ty.

"Little Blue" was selected by
Jacob Abbott as a family seat in
1837 or 1838 when he had gone to
Farmington to visit his father who
lived just opposite this unimproved

Blue out of respect to Mt. Blue
which towered in the horizon twenty
miles to the northward." For six
years he lived in a small cottage
which he had built in the midst of
these grounds, which were steadily
growing in beauty under his indus-
try and genius, and then he moved
to New York ; Rev. Samuel Abbott,
a brother, leasing the place for the

JACOB ABBOTT
Author, Historian and Clergyman.

tract of land. He foresaw its capa-
bilities and began developing its
natural beauties. He deepened a
brook into a pond, laid out paths,
and "a. rude sand bank where an in-
sane hermit had, not long before,
made his lonely cabin, was trimmed
into graceful proportions with the
scraper, soiled, sodded, planted with
trees, receivings the name of Little

purpose of opening a family school
for boys. At his death in 1849, Mr-
Alexander Hamilton Abbott, a na-
tive of Farmington, but belonging
to another branch of the Abbott
family, succeeded him and he spared
no time or expense in further de-
veloping the beauty of the twenty
acres. He coaxed choice shrubs
and exotics into luxuriant growth

FARMINGTON, MAINE

397

and planted rare trees until the spot
became the show place of the town
and chance tourists often printed ac-
counts of its unique charms.

Before going to Farmington to
reside, Mr. Jacob Abbott had begun
to write his "Young Christian"
series, the first volume being re-
ceived as enthusiastically in Eng-
land, France, Scotland and Germany
as in America. The popularity of

brothers, in New York, and when
he retired from the school he again
turned his attention to writing.
Previous to his visit to Farmington,
which culminated in the building of
Little Blue, he had been a remark-
able pedagogic power both by pen
and word of mouth. He was a fore-
runner of several progressive edu-
cational movements. When princi-
pal of the Mt. Vernon School in

FEWACRES
The Farmington Residence of Jacob Abbott.

these bool^s has never waited" and
some of them have been translated
into French, German, Dutch, and
several missionary languages.
While residing at Little Blue his
pen was unceasingly busy. The
"Rollo Books," "Lucy Books," and
the "Jonas Books" were written at
this period. From 1843 until 1851
he was engaged in teaching with his

I^QStPU "ne added an e$if a ■ year to
the regular course which made a
semi-collegiate training possible for
such girls as desired it; he was
largely instrumental in inducing
Lowell Mason to go to Boston to
teach music in the Mt. Vernon and
other schools, he caused some draw-
ing cards to be printed for children
to color, and in a volume called
"The Teacher" advanced sugges-

398

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

tions (then new) which today are
widely adopted. Always intelli-
gently devoted to the spread of
musical knowledge, he was the first
president of the Boston Academy
of Music, and did much for the be-
ginners of musical cultivation in
that city.

Jacob Abbott had four brothers

of achievement. All graduated from
the University of New York ; all but
Edward studied law; all became
authors and editors and each did
years of service as church organists
and choristers. Dr. Lyman Abbott
practiced law for some years in New
York City in partnership with his
brothers, Austin and Vaughan.

THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE
Built in 1844.

who like himself were all graduates
of Bowdoin College — all five men
studied theology at Andover, all
were at some time pastors and
teachers ; and all save Samuel be-
came authors. Jacob Abbott's four
sons who lived to manhood,
Vaughan, Austin, Lyman, and Ed-
ward, showed also a curious unity

THE ABBOTT SCHOOL
Showing the new Playground.

Later he studied theology with his
uncle Rev. John S/C. Abbott and
was ordained to the Congregational
ministry in i860. His first charge
was in Terre Haute, Indiana, and
since then he has filled the pastorate
at the N. E. Church of New York
City and the Plymouth Church of
Brooklyn, New York. For eleven
years he edited the Literary Record

FARMINGTON, MAINE

399

of "Harper's Magazine'' and for
some time conducted the "Illustrated
Christian Weekly." In 1876 he as-
sumed joint editorship of the
"Christian Union" with Henry
Ward Beecher, and eventually had
entire control of the paper. Two of
his sons, Ernest and Lawrence, are
on the staff of the "Outlook," while
the third, Herbert, is a brilliant
journalist of New York City.

Dr. Edward Abbott was ordained
to the Congregationalist ministry at
Farmington, in 1863. In 1879 ne
took orders in the Protestant Epis-
copal Church and has been rector
of St. James Episcopal Church,
Cambridge, as previously men-
tioned, ever since. He has been
editor of the "Literary World," one
of the foremost critical papers of
this country from 1877 up to 1903,
with the lapse between 1888 and
1895. Beginning in 1869 he was for
nine years associate editor of the
"Congregationalist." He has writ-
ten both prose and fiction. His
paragraph histories of the United
States and the American Revolu-
tion and his story in verse, "The
Baby's Things," are perhaps his best
known works. His descriptive writ-
ings have a peculiar charm. In his
library, at his home on Dana Street,
one finds wonderfully convincing
proof of the industry and ability of
the Abbott Family. Here are rare
and odd editions of his father's
works in every conceivable size and
binding; scrap books relative to the
activities, travels and writings of
this remarkable group of thinkers ;
original manuscripts in Jacob Ab-
bott's neat handwriting, and shelf
upon shelf of bound magazines
edited by Mr. Edward Abbott, who
remarks as he points to them,
"These are my play." Surely the
reading world has profited by what

he pleases to term his recreation.
Llis two daughters have the family
gift for writing and teaching. Mrs.
Madeline Abbott Bushnell has done
clever editorial work and her sister,
Miss Eleanor, has written charming
poems and is the present Secretary
of the State Normal School at Low-
ell, Massachusetts.

In the Dana Street library, in
spite of able works on history, the-
ology, law and literature, and the
embarassment of riches as to topics
for reflection and interrogation,
one's memory veers straight to-
ward the author of "Gentle Measures
with the Young" — Jacob Abbott —
that "ideal Christian gentleman"
who, from time to time, honored
Farmington by his presence and
who settled there quite permanent-
ly about 1870, on the old home-
stead, "Fewacres," which lay just
across the street from Little
Blue. He made many additions to
the original buildings and all over
the grounds delighted in laying out
new paths, making seats,. arbors, and
^terraces so that beneath his hand
the place grew in beauty and en-
chantment. Although the last ten
years of his life were spent in com-
parative leisure, he wrote one hun-
dred and fifty books and the entire
list of published works written and
compiled by him comprises more
than two hundred titles. Mrs. Clara
Cutler and Miss Salucia Abbott, his
sisters, who lived also at Fewacres,
took a deep interest in the young,
and planned many instructive enter-
tainments for the children of the
village.

John S. C. Abbott, widely known
as the author of "Life of Napoleon,"
and such of the "Red Histories" as
pertain to France, was acting pastor
of the Congregational Church in
Farmington for two years, where he

400

NEW ENGLAND M AGAZINE

was deeply loved. He had a fine
emotional nature and as a speaker
was eloquent and dramatic. He
graduated in the famous class of
1825 at Bowdoin College. His min-
isterial labors lasted forty years and
his eight pastorates were all in New
England. Aside from this he wrote
more than fifty volumes and with
his brothers was one of the pioneers
for the higher education of girls in
America. His sunny disposition and
exquisite courtesy won friends all
his life.

REV.. JOHN ALLEN

Known as " Campmeeting John," and Grandfather of
Mme. Nordica.

Farmington is the birthplace of
the famous prima donna, Nordica,
who has recently added to her
laurels by receiving from the Crown
of Bavaria a gold medal in recogni-
tion of her Wagnerian renditions at
the opening of the new Wagner
theatre. Mme. Nordica is the first
American to receive this honor. She
was born Lillian Norton and began
her musical study at the New Eng-
land Conservatory of Music. She
showed great talent at an early age,
inheriting it from both parents.

Her mother, a woman of strong
character, was the daughter of Rev.
John Allen — better known as "Camp-
meeting John," a man deeply re-
spected for his earnest piety. As a
youth he was converted at a camp-
meeting and ever after had a fond-
ness for such gatherings. Having
attended nearly four hundred he re-
cently won his quaint sobriquet.
Brilliant in repartee, uniformly
cheerful, he was a unique character
in the village life.

From the day Lillian trudged to
school with her primer 'neath her
arm, until the wealthy New Yorkers
presented her with her magnificent
tiara of diamonds, and crowned
heads were lavish with their gifts,
she has kept a loyal heart to her old
friends and birthplace. Her grand-
father did not have all the wit.
There was strong mentality on the
grand-mother's side as well. Annah
Allen's father, Nathaniel Hersey, of
Hallowell, was taxed in 1777 ten shil-
lings for his "faculty," the queer old
tabulation of that locality showing
that tribute was paid on live-stock,
real estate, poll, and facility (this
last being imposed upon such men
as had, from superior education or
native abilit)^, a better chance for
success than their fellows.)

Happy Nordica — paying neither
for her faculty nor wondrous voice,
her song delights the world and
makes Maine proud indeed!

Farmington's church history has
been, happily, one of peace, concord
and steady growth. From the build-
ing of the old "Center Meeting-
house," and the loving ministrations
of quaint "Father Rogers" down to
the present time, the citizens have
given loyal support to the religious
life of the community. Among the
younger Farmington-born men to
enter the ministry are the Revs.

FARMINGTON, MAINE

401

Charles Herrick Cutler, Oliver Sew-
all and Arthur Titcomb. Rev. Rol-
and B. Howard, Secretary of the
American Peace Society, who died
some years ago at Rome, was for
several years pastor of the Congre-
gational church.

The first president of a Farming-
ton bank was Hon. Samuel Belcher,
a citizen who held many town and
state offices. He was Representa-
tive to the Legislature, Speaker of
the House, County Attorney and
Judge of Probate. Other presidents
have been as follows : D. V. B.
Ormsby, Reuben Cutler, Francis G.
Butler, and Joseph W. Fairbanks.
The last named is still living, active-
ly busy in municipal affairs. Pri-
marily a merchant, he has "been
closely connected with the monetary
interests of the town; entered the
Legislature in 1865 as a representa-
tive from Farmington, was re-elected
the following year, and for the two
succeeding years was returned to
the Senate.*

Timothy Belcher, who served the
Sandy River National Bank as cash-
ier through a long period of years,
was a gentleman of unfailing court-
esy who, during a banking and mer-
cantile career of forty years, held the
esteem and affection of the people.
This pioneer bank is about to locate
in larger, more modern rooms, hav-
ing purchased the corner store on
Main and Broadway, long occupied
by the late Hiram Ramsdell, one of
Farmington's most respected mer-
chants, and a director of this insti-
tution.

The Franklin County Savings
Bank wras chartered in 1868, while
a more recent banking house is The
Trust Company, occupying fine
quarters on Main Street and found-

:Butler's History of Farmington.

ed by Messrs. George Wheeler,
George Currier, and Bonney Bros.
The Peoples National Bank is the
newest and largest bank of the town,
having been organized in 1901 and
having resources of nearly a million
dollars. Its president is Mr. George
W. Wheeler and Prentice Flint its
cashier.

It is an ever increasing satisfac-
tion to the inhabitants that an accu-
rate and comprehensive history of
Farmington was written by the late
Francis G. Butler, during the last
few years of his life. It was fitting
that his pen should transcribe the
annals of a town in whose affairs he
had played so conspicuous a part
during his life of eighty years. He
was a member of the Maine Histori-
cal Society, possessed a remarkable
memory, and was a reliable statisti-
cian ; thus his volume is a fine ex-
ample of historical work.

The broad strips of intervals
which stretch out from Sandy River
to merge later into hills and moun-
tains are constantly enriched by
freshets so that the soil has become
the richest in the state. A distinct
line of the farmers' work in this sec-
tion is the raising of sweet corn for
Burnham and Morrill of Portland
who have one of their many canning
plants in Farmington.

Agriculture has been the promi-
nent industry of this region but
there are a few manufacturing en-
terprises carried on. The wood-
turning factory of Russell Bros.,
gives employment to a number of
people. Sportsmen value the split-
bamboo fishing rods made by
Charles Wheeler (the only ones of
their kind manufactured in the
state) and Greenwoods' Ear Pro-
tectors find ready sale in the colder
states of the Union.

The Printing and Publishing

402

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

House of Knowlton, McLeary &
Company is a busy place to visit.
The publications are mostly of an
educational character. Mr. David
Knowlton, the senior member of the
firm, is a Bowdoin man who besides
being a trustee of the Normal
School has always had the interests
of the common schools at heart.

A local paper, the "Chronicle," be-
gan its existence nearly sixty years
ago and has been under the manage-
ment of many able men. Its pres-
ent editor is J. M. S. Hunter.

"Old Home Week" is no empty
sound to Farmingtonians. During
the summer months the town fills
with sons and daughters from all
points of the compass who take
quiet, abiding delight in reviewing
the familiar scenes. Prominent
among the annual visitors is Dr.
Charles F. Thwing, President of
Western Reserve University and
leading authority on College statis-
tics in America.

One of Farmington's most promi-
nent sons and present-day benefac-
tors is Mr. Edmund Hayes of
Buffalo, N. Y., who is a civil
engineer and bridge builder of
national reputation. He has been
connected with some of the largest
bridge building companies of this
country and is now engaged in
"harnessing Niagara Falls."

When weary Washington poli-
ticians and denizens of crowded
cities turn for their vacation toward
the fishing-grounds of Rangeley
Lakes, they leave at Farmington
the cars of the Maine Central R. R.
and take the little toy train of the
Sandy River R. R., which is narrow
gauge. There are a good many in-
teresting things about this road. At
the time it was built (1879) there
was no road in this country of so
narrow a gauge and people

shook their heads when it was pro-
posed, saying it wouldn't work,
wouldn't pay and would be danger-
ous. But they were wrong in all
three counts. George E. Mansfield,
builder of the road and father of the
narrow gauge system in this coun-
try, was not long in proving the
three things he claimed — economy,
safety, ease. The good points of the
system so commended themselves
to such as gave careful investiga-
tion that other similar roads were
constructed until Maine .now con-
tains eight of the two feet gauge
roads. The Sandy River R. R. has
the happy record of having never in
its existence of over a quarter of a
century, taken a life or maimed a
human being, and the wealthy capi-
talists who own it know they hold a
road whose stock brings the largest
price of any in the world. The
president of this road is Mr. Weston
Lewis of Gardiner, Maine.

A good many of the tourists like
to break their journey by an all
night tarry in Farmington, where
they find every evidence of prosper-
ity. The streets are wide and
regularly laid out. The offices and
stores are for the most part brick
blocks. Its six churches are all sub-
stantial edifices. In front of the
handsome court-house — in a bit of a
green park — a fine soldiers' monu-
ment, the gift of a soldier citizen,
has just been erected and will be
soon dedicated. A movement is also
under way whereby "Fewacres" will
be restored to its former beauty, and
preserved in memory of the author
of the Rollo Books, Jacob Abbott.

The schools — a source of pride to
the residents — have good buildings,
while the majority of the private
residences show an air of elegance.
As far as the eye can reach, beauti-
ful scenery stretches out before

THAT ANGEL BOY

403

one — scenery which is varied by
green interval, winding stream and
a sturdy background of wooded
hills. In all New England there is

no spot fairer than Farmington —
Farmington, in the valley of the
Sandy, nestled 'twixt Mount
Abram and the ocean.

That Angel Boy

By Eleanor H. Porter

$ i T AM so glad you consented to

stay over until Monday,
auntie, for now you can hear
our famous boy choir," Ethel had
said at the breakfast table that Sun-
day morning.

"Humph ! I've heard of 'em,"
Ann Wetherby had returned crisp-
ly, "but I never took much stock in
'em. A choir — -made o' boys — just
as if music could come from yellin',
hootin' boys !"

An hour later at St. Mark's, the
softly swelling music of the organ
was sending curious little thrills
tingling to Miss Wetherby's finger
tips. The voluntary had become
a mere whisper when she noticed
that the great doors near her were
swinging outward. The music
ceased, and there was a moment's
breathless hush — then faintly in the
distance sounded the first sweet
notes of the processional.

Ethel stirred slightly and threw
a meaning glance at her aunt. The
woman met the look unflinchingly.

"Them ain't no boys !" she whis-
pered tartly.

Nearer and nearer swelled the
chorus until the leaders reached the
open doors. Miss Wetherby gave
one look at the white-robed singers,

then she reached over and clutched
Ethel's fingers.

"They be! — and in their nighties,
too!" she added in a horrified whis-
per.

One of the boys had a solo in the
anthem that morning, and as the
clear, pure soprano rose higher and
higher, Miss Wetherby gazed in
undisguised awe at the young sing-
er. She noted the soulful eyes up-
lifted devoutly, and the broad fore-
head framed in clustering brown
curls. To Miss Wetherby it was the
face of an angel ; and as the glorious
voice rose and swelled and died
away in exquisite melody, two big
tears rolled down her cheeks and
splashed on the shining, black silk
gown.

At dinner that day Miss Wether-
by learned that the soloist was
"Bobby Sawyer." She also learned
that he was one of Ethel's "fresh-
air" mission children, and that, as
yet, there was no place for him to
go for a vacation.

"That angel child with the
heavenly voice — and no one to take
him in?" Miss Wetherby bethought
herself of her own airy rooms and
flowering meadows, and snapped
her lips together with sudden deter-
mination.

404

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

'Til take him !" she announced
tersely, and went home the next day
to prepare for her expected gue«t.

Early in the morning of the first
Monday in July, Miss Wetherby
added the finishing touches to the
dainty white bedroom upstairs.

"Dear little soul — I hope he'll like
it!" she murmured, giving a loving
pat to the spotless, beruffled pillow
shams; then her approving eyes fell
upon the "Morning Prayer" hang-
ing at the foot of the bed. "There!
them sweet little cherubs savin'
their prayers is jest the thing fur
the little saint to see when he first
wakes up ev'ry mornin'. Little
angel !" she finished softly.

On the table in the corner were
hymn books, the great red-and-gold
family Bible, and a "Baxter's Saint's
Rest" — the only reading matter
suited to Miss Wetherby's concep-
tion of the mind behind those soul-
ful orbs upraised in devout adora-
tion.

Just before Ann started for the
station Tommy Green came over to
leave his pet dog, Rover, for Miss
Wetherby's "fresh-air" boy to play
with.

"Now, Thomas Green," remon-
strated Ann severely, "you can take
that dirty dog right home. I won't
have him around. Besides, Robert
Sawyer ain't the kind of a boy you
be. He don't care fur sech things —
I know he don't."

Half an hour later, Ann Wether-
by, with her heart thumping loudly
against her ribs, anxiously scanned
the passengers as they alighted at
Slocumville station. There were
not many ; — an old man, two girls,
three or four women, and a small,
dirty boy with a dirtier dog and a
brown paper parcel in his arms.
He had not come!
Miss Wetherby held her breath

and looked furtively at the small
boy. There was nothing familiar
in his appearance, she was thank-
ful to say! He must be another
one for somebody else. Still, per-
haps he might know something
about her own angel boy — she
would ask.

Ann advanced warily, with a dis-
approving eye on the dog.

"Little boy, can you tell me why
Robert Sawyer didn't come?" she
asked severely.

The result of her cautious ques-
tion disconcerted her not a little.
The boy dropped the dog and bun-
dle to the platform, threw his hat
in the air, and capered about in wild
glee.

"Hi, there, Bones! We're all
right! Golly — but I thought we
was side-tracked, fur sure !"

Miss Wetherby sank in limp dis-
may on to a box of freight near
by — the bared head disclosed the
clustering brown curls and broad
forehead, and the eyes uplifted to
the whirling hat completed the tell-
tale picture.

The urchin caught the hat deftly
on the back of his head, and pranced
up to Ann with his hands in his
pockets.

"Gee-whiz ! marm, — but I thought
you'd flunked fur sure. I reckoned
me an' Bones was barkin' up the
wrong tree this time. It looked as
if we'd come to a jumpin' off place,
an' you'd given us the slip. I'm
Bob, myself, ye see, an' I've come
all right!"

"Are you Robert Sawyer?" she
gasped.

"Jest ye hear that, Bones!"
laughed the boy shrilly, capering
round and round the small dog
again. "I's 'Robert' now — do ye
hear?" Then he whirled back to his
position in front of Miss Wetherby,

THAT ANGEL BOY

405

and made a low bow. "Robert
Sawyer, at yer service," he an-
nounced in mock pomposity. "Oh,
I say," he added with a quick
change of position, "Yer'd better
call me 'Bob' ; I ain't uster nothin'
else. I'd fly off the handle quicker'n
no time, puttin' on airs like that."

Miss Wetherby's back straight-
ened. She made a desperate at-
tempt to regain her usual stern self-
possession.

"I shall call ye 'Robert,' boy. I
don't like — er — that other name."

There was a prolonged stare and
a low whistle from the boy. Then
he turned to pick up his bundle.

"Come on, Bones, stir yer stumps;
lively, now ! This 'ere lady's agoin'
ter take us ter her shebang ter stay
mos' two weeks. Gee-whiz ! Bones,
ain't this great!" And with one
bound he was off the platform and
turning a series of somersaults on
the soft grass followed by the
skinny, mangy dog which was bark-
ing itself nearly wild with joy.

Ann Wetherby gazed at the re-
volving mass of heads and legs of
boy and dog in mute despair, then
she rose to her feet and started
down the street.

"You c'n foller me," she said
sternly, without turning her head
toward the culprits on the grass.

The boy came upright instantly.

"Do ye stump it, marm?"

"What?" she demanded, stopping
short in her stuperfaction.

"Do ye stump it — hoof it — foot
it, I mean," he enumerated quickly,
in a praiseworthy attempt to bring
his vocabulary to the point where it
touched hers.

"Oh — yes; 'tain't fur," vouch-
safed Ann, feebly.

Bobby trotted alongside of Miss
Wetherby, meekly followed by the
dog. Soon the boy gave his trousers

an awkward hitch, and glanced side-
ways up at the woman.

"Oh, I say, marm, I think it's
bully of yer ter let me an' Bones
come," he began sheepishly. "It
looked 's if our case'd hang fire till
the crack o' doom ; there warn't no
one ter have us. When Miss Ethel,
she told me her'aunt'd take us, it
jest struck me all of a heap. I tell
ye, me an' Bones made tracks fur
Slocumville 'bout's soon as they'd
let us."

"I hain't no doubt of it !" retorted
Ann, looking back hopelessly at the
dog.

"Ye see," continued the boy, con-
fidentially, "there ain't ev'ry one
what likes boys, an' — hi, there ! —
go it, Bones !" he suddenly shrieked,
and scampered wildly after the dog
which had dashed into the bushes
by the side of the road.

Ann did not see her young charge
again until she had been home half
an hour. He came in at the gate,
cheerfully smiling, the dog at his
heels.

^ "Jimmy Christmas!" he ex-
claimed, "I begun ter think I'd lost
ye, but I remembered yer last name
was the same's Miss Ethel's, an' a
boy — Tommy Green, around the
corner — he told me where ye lived.
And, oh, I say, me an' Bones are
a-goin' off with him an' Rover after
I've had somethin' ter eat — 'tis mos'
grub time, ain't it?" he added
anxiously.

Ann sighed in a discouraged way.

"Yes, I s'pose 'tis. I left some
beans a-bakin', an' dinner'll be ready
pretty quick. You can come up
stairs with me, Robert, an' I'll show
ye where yer goin' ter sleep," she
finished, with a sinking heart, as she
thought of those ruffled pillow
shams.

Bobby followed Miss Wetherby

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

into the dainty chamber. He gave
one look, and puckered up his lips
into a long, low whistle.

"Well, I'll be flabbergasted! Oh,
I say, now, ye don't expect me ter
stay in all this fuss an' fixin's !" he
exclaimed ruefully.

"It — it is the room I calculated
fur ye," said Ann^ with almost a
choke in her voice.

The boy looked up quickly and
something rose within him that he
did not quite understand.

"Oh, well, ye know, it's slick as a
whistle an' all that, but I ain't uster
havin' it laid on so thick. I ain't no
great shakes, ye know, but I'll walk
the chalk all right this time. Golly !
Ain't it squashy, though !" he ex-
claimed, as with a run and a skip
he landed straight in the middle of
the puffy bed.

With one agitated hand Miss
Wetherby rescued her pillow shams,
and with the other, forcibly removed
the dog which had lost no time in
following his master into the
feathery nest. Then she abruptly
left the room ; she could not trust
herself to speak.

Miss Wetherby did not see much
of her guest that afternoon; he went
away immediately after dinner and
did not return until supper time.
Then he was so completely tired
out that he had but two words in
reply to Miss Wetherby's question.

"Did ye have a good time?" she
asked wistfully.

"You bet!"

After supper he went at once to
his room ; but it was not until Miss
Wetherby ceased to hear the patter
of his feet on the floor above that
she leaned back in her chair with a
sigh of relief.

When Ann went upstairs to make
the bed that Tuesday morning, the
sight that met her eyes struck ter-

ror to her heart. The bedclothes
were scattered in wild confusion half
over the room. The washbowl, with
two long singing books lay across
it, she discovered to her horror, was
serving as a prison for a small green
snake. The Bible and the remain-
ing hymn books, topped by "Bax-
ter's Saint's Rest," lay in a sus-
picious-looking pile on the floor.
Under these Miss Wetherby did not
look. After her experience with the
snake and the washbowl, her nerves
were not strong enough. She re-
coiled in dismay, also, from the sight
of two yellow, paper-covered books
on the table, flaunting shamelessly
the titles :

"Jack; The Pirate of Red Island,"

and
"Haunted by a Headless Ghost."

She made the bed as rapidly as
possible, with many a backward
glance at the book-covered wash-
bowl, then she went down stairs
and shook and brushed herself with
little nervous shudders.

Ann Wetherby never forgot that
Fourth of July, nor, for that matter,
the days that immediately followed.
She went about with both ears
stuffed with cotton, and eyes that
were ever on the alert for all man-
ner of creeping, crawling things in
which Bobby's soul delighted.

The boy, reinforced by the child-
ren of the entire neighborhood, held
a circus in Miss Wetherby's wood-
shed, and instituted a Wild Indian
Camp in her attic. The poor wo-
man was quite powerless, and re-
monstrated all in vain. The boy
was so cheerfully good-tempered
under her sharpest words that the
victory was easily his.

But on Saturday when Miss
Wetherby, returning from a neigh-
bor's, found two cats, four dogs,

THAT ANGEL BOY

407

and two toads tied to her parlor
chairs, together with three cages
containing respectively a canary, a
parrot, and a squirrel, (collected
from obliging households) she re-
belled in earnest and summoned
Bobby to her side.

"Robert, I've stood all I'm a-goin'
ter. You've got to go home Mon-
day. Do you hear?"

"Oh, come off, Miss Wetherby,
'tain't only a menag'ry, an' you don't
use the room none."

Miss Wetherby's mouth worked
convulsively.

"Robert!" she gasped, as soon as
she could find her voice, "I never,
never heard of such dreadful goin's-
on ! You certainly can't stay here
no longer," she continued sternly,
resolutely trying to combat the fatal
weakness that always overcame her
when the boy lifted those soulful
eyes to her face. "Now take them
horrid critters out of the parlor
this minute. You go home Monday
— now mind what I say !"

An hour later, Miss Wetherby
had a caller. It was the chorister
of her church choir. The man sat
down gingerly on one of the slippery
haircloth chairs, and proceeded at
once to state his business.

"I understand, Miss Wetherby,
that you have an — er — young sing-
er with you."

Miss Wetherby choked, and stam-
mered "Yes."

"He sings — er — very well, doesn't
he?"

The woman was still more visibly
embarrassed.

"I — I don't know," she mur-
mured ; then in stronger tones, "The
one that looked like him did."

"Are there two?" he asked in
stupid amazement.

Miss Wetherby laughed uneasily,
then she sighed.

"Well, ter tell the truth, Mr. Wig-
gins, I s'pose there ain't; but some-
times I think there must be. I'll
send Robert down ter the rehearsal
to-night, and you can see what ye
can do with him." And with this
Mr. Wiggins was forced to be con-
tent.

Bobby sang on Sunday. The
little church was full to the doors.
Bobby was already famous in the
village, and people had a lively
curiosity to see what this dis-
quieting collector of bugs and
snakes might offer in the way of a
sacred song. The "nighty" was,
perforce, absent, much to the sor-
row of Ann ; but the witchery of
the glorious voice entered again in-
to the woman's soul, and, indeed,
sent the entire congregation home in
an awed silence that was the height
of admiring homage.

At breakfast time Monday morn-
ing, Bobby came down stairs with
his brown paper parcel under his
arm. Ann glanced at his woeful
face, then went out into the kitchen
and slammed the oven door sharp-

iy.

"Well, marm, I've had a bully
time — sure's a gun," said the boy
wistfully, following her.

Miss Wetherby opened the oven
door and shut it with a second bang ;
then she straightened herself and
crossed the room to the boy's side.

"Robert," she began with as-
sumed sternness, trying to hide her
depth of feeling, "you ain't a-going
ter-day — now mind what I say!
Take them things upstairs. Quick
— breakfast's all ready!"

A great light transfigured Bobby's
face. He tossed his bundle into the
corner and fell upon Miss Wether-
by with a bearlike hug.

"Gee- whiz ! marm — but yer are a
brick! An' I'll run yer errands an'

408

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

split yer wood, an' I won't take no
dogs an' cats in the parlor, an' I'll
do ev'rythin' — ev'rythin' ye want
me to ! Oh, golly — golly ! — I'm
goin' ter stay — I'm goin' ter stay !"
And Bobby danced out of the house
to the yard, there to turn somersault
after somersault in hilarious glee.

A queer choking feeling came into
Ann Wetherby's throat. She
seemed still to feel the loving clasp
of those small young arms.

"Well, he — he's part angel, any-
how," she muttered, drawing a long
breath and watching with tear-
dimmed eyes Bobby's antics on the
grass outside.

And Bobby stayed — not only
Monday, but through four other
long days — days which he filled to
the brim with fun and frolic and
joyous shouts as before — and yet
with a change.

The shouts were less shrill and
the yells less prolonged when Bobby

was near the house. No toads nor
cats graced the parlor floor, and no
bugs nor snakes tortured Miss
Wetherby's nerves when Bobby's
bed was made each day. The kitch-
en wood-box threatened to overflow
— so high was its contents piled —
and Miss Wetherby was put to her
wit's end to satisfy Bobby's urgent
clamorings for errands to run.

And when the four long days were
over and Saturday came, a note —
and not Bobby — was sent to the
city. The note was addressed to
"Miss Ethel Wetherby," and this is
what Ethel's amazed eyes read:

"My Dear Niece: — You can tell that
singer man of Robert's that he is not go-
ing back any more. He is going to live
with me and go to school next winter. I
am going to adopt him for my very own.
His father and mother are dead — he said
so.

"I must close now, for Robert is hungry
and wants his dinner.

"Love to all,

"Ann Wetherby."

New England in Contemporary Verse

By Martha E. D. White

'Eastward as far as the eye can see,
Still eastward, eastward, endlessly,
The sparkle and tremor of purple sea
That rises before you, a flickering hill,
On and on to the shut of the sky,
And beyond, you fancy it sloping until
The same multitidinous throb and thrill
That vibrate under your dizzy eye
In ripples of orange and pink are sent
Where the poppied sails doze on the yard,

And the clumsy junk and proa lie

Sunk deep with precious woods and nard,

Mid the palmy isles of the Orient."

THE fine lines rolled sonorous-
ly from the lips of the Enthusi-
ast, awakening in us all the
eager attention that betokened the
happy phrasing of our common

The poems that are included in this article are reprinted by courtesy of their
authors. I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to them and to the editors of
The Atlantic Monthly and of the Century Magazine.

NEW ENGLAND IN CONTEMPORARY VERSE 409

thought. We were looking out to
sea from a New England headland.
The bare ocean sheathed its un-
broken expanse to the misty, un-
certain gray of the horizon, and our
garrulity had been checked for a
little by the exquisite sense of dis-
tance and mystery now so happily
expressed in the quoted lines.

"Ah, Lowell !" murmured the
Sympathetic One, "the New Eng-
land landscape and the New Eng-
land character withheld no secrets
from him."

"But," and the voice of the Pes-
simist sounded harsh and complain-
ing, "the secrets of New England
seem all to have been told to those
old fellows. She is as inarticulate
to-day as the Sphinx."

"None so deaf as he who will not
hear," laughed the Enthusiast. "It
is not poets that New England
lacks, but it is the appreciative
mind that makes poetry a publish-
er's necessity, that is lacking."

"Nor is the poetry all unpub-
lished," came in the voice of the
Reader from her corner, "for I have
been true to my grandfather's prac-
tice and no publisher's announce-
ment of 'Poems' has escaped me.
Now I have a shelf, not so very
short either, where are gathered all
the volumes of recent verse issued
in New England."

"All about Greece and Bacchus
and Provenqal songs I'll be bound,"
growled the Pessimist, "precious
little New England in the work of
young men — women I mean."

While this gay and caustic argu-
ment was still vivid to me, I
chanced to be indolently prowling
in the alcove of our public library,
that is devoted to poetry. A long
line of small books bound in the
thin muslin and inartistically ap-
plied gilt decoration of a decade ago,

invited my attention and I found
them to be that interesting series
edited so lovingly by Mr. Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, "Poems of
Places." With characteristic
Yankee instinct I instantly ran my
eye down the line to see what part
New England had in this verse
so patriotically inspired, and I was
deeply grateful to find two volumes
devoted to her landscape and life.
"Poems of New England" the little
books are called, and the New Eng-
land they enclose is the New Eng-
land of seer and enthusiast, or art-
ist and patriot. To have been so
sung is to have achieved place and'
distinction in the "Parliament of
Nations ;" it has given to New Eng-
land that spiritual worth that makes
her at once the pride and the regret
of all her people.

It has become trite to say that
poetry is a tradition in New Eng-
land and a practice in New York.
Even those who love the tradition
most, have wearily given over try-
ing to prove that it is not entirely
true. But the inspiring example of
those volumes that gray afternoon
and the memory of that evening's
talk incited me to break a lance, to
look into the matter and determine
if the New England of to-day and
recent yesterday, had not been cele-
brated in worthy song. While I
have found no broad stream of
poetry, my search has been re-
warded by many gleams of pure
and sparkling verse, reminding me
of nothing so much as a New Eng-
land meadow in a late spring after-
noon with its many gem-like pools,
reflecting with a certain precise ra-
diance, the sedges around them and
the blue sky overhead.

The quality and the amount of
verse contributed in recent years by
our young writers and our surviv-

410

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ing old ones in New England, indi-
cate that it is not the spirit of
poetry in our authors that is lack-
ing, but instead it is a sympathetic
and receptive public. We do not
care for poetry. It deals with spirit-
ual values. It is remote from actual
life. It is no business of ours. All
this the publisher knows, and manu-
script verses wander their vagrant
way from magazine to magazine
with never a welcome even if re-
ception is granted to them. Thin
gray volumes representing in their
makeup all the artistic zeal and
painstaking care that so distinctly
"did not characterize the "poetical
works," of a former generation, —
wide marginal volumes with a verse
or two to a page, black letter, deco-
rative type, head piece and margin-
al drawings, — these books lack noth-
ing but readers; their authors fre-
quently need nothing but apprecia-
tion.

Contemporary verse in New Eng-
land is necessarily characterized by
the formalism of immaturity. Its
reminiscent quality and its burden
of classicism are alike due to the
youth of our authors, for poetry has
become the happy practice of youth,
not the inspired vocation of mature
years. It is the harvest of the few
idle hours wrested from the work-
a-day practice of some remunerative
profession. The daily newspaper
habit, the more destructive habit of
omnivorous fiction skimming, has
determined the mould into which
the writing genius must finally
shape itself. The taste of the pub-
lic requires scant seasoning of verse,
and the taste of the public is a way-
ward determiner in matters aesthet-
ic.

Nevertheless there is verse excel-
lent in its technique, dainty in its
theme and sometimes inspiring in

its emotional appeal ; verse of so
good a quality that the poetry lover
need not despair for the art, nor for
that which is much deeper than the
art, the impluse to its production.
But I am not ambitious to treat of
New England verse comprehensive-
ly. I believe I purposed to group a
few verses to show the possibilities
of a not unworthy supplement to
the two little volumes that made
memorable one gray afternoon, to
pridefully illustrate that New Eng-
land places are still the inspiration
of verse, and that verse, even re-
peating itself, adds the final touch
of spiritual interpretation to the hill
and mountain, moor and shore of
her rugged landscape.

"Then hail, ye hills! like rough-hewn

temples set,
•With granite beams, upon this earth of

God!
Austerer halls of worship never yet
Had feet of Puritan or Pilgrim trod :
Abrupt Chocorua, Greylock's hoary height,
Kahtadin (name that Music makes her

own),
Storied Monadnock, and, in loftier flight,
Thou, rising to the eternal heavens,

alone —
Thy Sun-wooed sisters, less divinely

proud,
Bribed to compliance by their Suitor's

gold—
Thou, wrapt in thy stern drapery ot a

cloud,
Chaste, passionless, inviolably cold,
Mount Washington ! sky-shouldering, free-
dom-crowned
Compatriot with the windy blue above,
' around !"

Mr. Frederic Knowles in this
spirited salutation aptly character-
izes "the hills" most frequently cele-
brated by artist and poet. "Abrupt
Chocorua !" what epithet could more
perfectly bring this scene of ro-
mance before us. "It is," writes
Mr. Starr King, "everything that a
New Hampshire mountain should
be. It is named for an Indian chief.

NEW ENGLAND IN CONTEMPORARY VERSE 411

It is invested with a romantic tra-
dition." The story of Cornelius
Campbell, with his masterful spirit,
his physical superiority, his beauti-
ful domestic life so cruelly ended by
the revengeful hatred of Chocorua,
the fate that befell the Indian chief,
and the subsequent flight that fell
upon the settlement, has been told
in prose by Mrs. Child, but strange-
ly enough no poet has as yet made
the story his theme. The aspect of
the mountain, — its moods, its shift-
ing and evanescent beauty, — has
been the subject of many sonnets
written by Mrs. Whiton-Stone :

"'Again with August fires thou beckonest

me,
Chocorua, and at thy feet divine,
Where even gods might kneel as at a

shrine,
My soul is flooded with thy majesty.
The sun has broken from the morning

free,
And with the golden dust of heaven

ashine,
The noonday vapors glittering round thee

twine,
And thou art wrapt in amber radiancy.
And yet I saw thee once more tragic far,
When with the plaint of whip-poor-wills

athrill
The moon leaned over thee in white de-
spair
And spilled its silver agony, until
Imperial thou stoodst with bosom bare
And let its daggers stab thee at its will."

No better simple description of
Chocorua has been given than
this,—

"Before me rose a pinnacle of rock
Lifted above the wood that hemmed it in,"

but for the lover, this picture
is bare, and he will delight in the
many delicate fancies with which
Mrs. Stone has invested her impres-
sions. Contrast with Mrs. Stone's
glowing August scene these lines by
Mr. Frank Bolles who saw the
mountain in the winter :

"Oh, how silent are the forests !
Oh, how desolate Chocorua !
Listening ear can hear no music,
Yearning eye can see no color."

To Mr. Bolles I am indebted for
humanizing this mountain. Wheth-
er it was the influence of the tra-
dition of that baleful curse or some
more modern theory of malignancy,
Chocorua had seemed a region of
evil repute. Mr. Bolles' charming
tributes, his tender recitals in
"Chocorua's Tenants," have in some
subtle way removed the curse even
as it has been taken from the cattle
of its pastures. I cannot forbear an-
other stanza from this volume, for
it celebrates a spot dear to all who
frequent its locality :

"Where Chocorua water ripples
In its first half-conscious struggle
From its mother-mountain parting,
On its journey seaward starting,
Rises high a grove of pine-trees.
Graceful are they as the feathers
Bound about a chieftain's temple;
Graceful as the slender fern fronds
Swayed by every passing wind breath."

"Monadnock," says the lexico-
grapher, "is a mountain visible from
the State House in Boston, and is a
sentinel for ships at sea." To me it
is a delightful arrangement in delft
blue and white, when seen from my
hill-top in winter. To Mr. John W.
Chadwick at Chesterfield it is,

"The merest bulge above the horizon's rim
Of purplish blue which you might think

a cloud
Low-lying there, — that is Monadnock

proud,
Full seventy miles away."

Ralph Waldo Emerson appreciat-
ing its ethical purport saw that

"Monadnock is a mountain strong
Tall and good my kind among."

But for our final vision must al-
ways be reserved the beautiful ap-
preciation of Miss Edna Dean Proc-

412

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

tor who was in a sense kin to the
scenes of which she wrote:

"Uprose Monadnock in the northern blue,
A glorious temple builded to the Lord !
The setting sun his crimson radiance threw
On crest, and steep, and wood, and valley

sward,
Blending their myriad hues in rich accord.

Then holy twilight fell on earth and air,
Above the dome the stars hung faint and

fair,
And the vast temple hushed its shrines

in prayer;
While all the lesser heights kept watch

and ward
About Monadnock builded to the Lord."

Turning from Monadnock I look
for Wachusett; away to the South-
west, I see its crouching purplish
bulk low lying in the sunset or
triumphantly vivid at noonday, —
the touch of majesty, the tinge of
pride in my landscape. I remember
the tender lines it evoked from
Whittier who stood at the foot of
Wachusett looking toward Monad-
nock, in serene reverie :

"Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachusett laid
His head against the west whose warm

light made
His aureole."

It would be difficult to measure
the part Wachusett plays in the
life of the denizens of Eastern Mass-
achusetts. Mr. Philip Savage may
have been consciously ethical when
he named his little stanza "The
Anchor," or it may have been mere
sensitiveness to things as they are,
which is, after all, the higher ethics.
But the verse, the homely, simple,
singing lines, have given a needed
interpretation to our daily vision :

"As when these autumn days, I ride
Along the painted country-side,
Meadow and way and wood go by,
A never-ending race,
But yet, beyond their passing, my
Wachusett holds his place."

Some one has said that to know
a mountain one must hear its voice.
I remember once looking vainly for
a spot that had had particular mean-
ing to me in my youth ; despairing
to find it, I paused for a moment
listening and knew that I had found
it. Closing my eyes the memorable,
unmistaken song came to me across
my years and what my eye de-
nied, my ear joyously claimed. Per-
haps no description however subtle
could convey the sense of Katahdin
so plainly as does this sonnet of Mr.
William Prescott Foster.

"Would'st thou hear music such as ne'er
was planned

For mortal ear? Song wilder than the
tune

The Arctic utters, when its waters croon

Their angry chorus on the Norway strand,

Or where Nile thunders to a thirsty land

With welcome sound from Mountains of
the Moon,

Or lone Lualaba from his lagoon

Draws down his murmurous flood? Then
should'st thou stand

Where dark Katahdin lifts his sea of
pines

To meet the winter storm, and lend thine
ear

To the hoarse ridges where the wind en-
twines

With spruce and fir and wakes a mighty
cheer,

Till the roused forest from its far con-
fines

Utters its voice, tremendous, lone, aus-
tere."

In his sonnet, "The Wind Upon
The Summit of Mount Washing-
ton," Mr. Foster evokes the pe-
culiar meaning of this dominating
peak :

"But mightier harvests from this height are

blown
Of storm and shower; here with deep

organ tone
The tempest sounds — this is the wind's

demesne."

Our contemporary White Moun-
tain poet, Mr. Bradford Torrey, has

NEW ENGLAND IN CONTEMPORARY VERSE 413

chosen to use the medium of prose
for his sympathetic and poetical
observations. Nevertheless he has
been discovered "true poet" and we
all "own the mountains" in a more
particular possession since Mr.
Torrey answered his own enlight-
ened query. The pure poetry of this
description needs no metrical device
to mark its class. "There, straight
before me, over the long eastern
shoulder of Moosilauke, beyond the
big Jobildunk Ravine, loomed or
floated a shining snow-white moun-
tain top. * * * Once, indeed, in
early October, I had seen Mount
Washington when it was more re-
splendent : freshly snow-covered
throughout, and then, as the sun
went down, lighted up before my
eyes with a rosy glow, brighter and
brighter, till the mountain seemed
all on fire within. But even that
unforgettable spectacle had less of
unearthly beauty, was less a work
of pure enchantment, I thought,
than this detached, fleecy-looking
piece of aerial whiteness, cloud stuff,
or dream stuff, yet whiter than any
cloud, lying at rest yonder, almost
at my own level, against the deep
blue of the forenoon sky." Many
such rare and poetical pictures of
definite scenes are included in Mr.
Torrey's records of his pilgrimages.
They make one "fonder of 'old
Francony' sceptic or man of faith,
naturalist or supernaturalist, who
does not like to feel that there is
somewhere a 'better country' than
the one he lives in."

At Dublin, New Hampshire, Col.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson and
Mrs. Higginson have their summer
home, and their recent volume of
poems, "Such As They Are," owes
many glints of loveliness to their
local surroundings. The wood-
thrush "murmuring tender lays,"

the dance of the thistle-down, "float-
ing wee balloons," the cool wind,
"Monadnock's breath," and the
ghost-flowers, "W e i r d flecks of
light within the shadowed wood, — "
from such allusions recurring con-
stantly, comes the indigenous qual-
ity of this dainty verse. Two poems,
"Glimpsewood" by Mrs. Higginson
and "An American Stonehenge" by
Col. Higginson are more direct in
their application. The former is an
impression of their home at Dublin.
What more delightful vision of a
poet's home could be conceived!

"The water glimmering through the
leaves, —
One soft blue peak above, —
The murmuring quiet summer weaves, —
This is thy home, dear love !

The pewee's call awakes the day,
And in the twilight dim
The hermit-thrush's thrilling lay
Shall be thine evening hymn.

The forest birches wave and gleam
Through boughs of feathery pine,
Ah, no dead love! 'tis not a dream;
This fairy home is thine."

Col. Higginson has sympathetically
interpreted that inalienable feature
of a New England landscape, the
stone wall, in his aptly named lines,
"An American Stonehenge:"

"Far up on these abandoned mountain

farms
Now drifting back to forest wilds again,
The long, gray walls extend their clasping

arms,
Pathetic monument of vanished men.
****** ******
Nearer than stones of storied Saxon name
These speechless relics to our hearts

should come.
No token for a priest's or monarch's fame,
This farmer lived and died to shape a

home.

So little time on earth; so much to do,
Yet all that waste of weary, toil-worn

hands !
Life came and went; the patient task is

through ;
The men are gone; the idle structure

stands."

414

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

The habit of observation that is
inbred by cultivating a taste for
wayside poetry, is not the least part
of the value such verse may have
for its readers. Poetical recognition
of Mount Washington is to be ex-
pected. Majesty should inspire
poetry. There is a poetry of the
slighter scene, the incidental, not in
itself necessarily lesser poetry, that
touches the imagination to a quicker
recognition of the essential beauty
in the commonplace everywhere.

"Day after day I travel down
From Billerica to the town,
Day after day, in passing by
A cedar pasture, gray and high,
See shining clear and far, (a mile),
The white church steeple of Carlisle ;
And bright between Carlisle and me,
Daily a glowing maple tree."

It is to such verse that one is
indebted for a subtle enrichment of
daily life. Unconsciously the pic-
ture becomes a part of one's mental
gallery a spot of joy in a dreary, un-
lovely journeying. It will certain-
ly add to my pleasure in Waverly
Oaks if I see them with Mr.
Knowles' vision, as well as with my
own. His footnote to the scientific
statement of these venerable trees
makes vivid what otherwise is
meaningless:

"How many a fruitful season ye have

known, —
The planting, and the scything and the

sheaves !
While races throve and died, ye tower'd

alone,
Shedding the centuries lightly as your

leaves.

Yes, ye have watched the generations die
After their little day of mirth and toil,
And still stretch forth your brawny arms

on high,
Gigantic guardians of New England soil !"

The New England village dear
to song and story, particularly to
story, has a characteristic represen-

tation in these lines on Petersham:

* "Here, where the peace of the Creator

lies,
Far from the busy mart's incessant hum,
Where mountains in their lonely grandeur

rise,
Waiting unmoved the ages yet to come,
Thou dwellest under broad and tranquil

skies,
A green oasis with unfailing springs,
The undisturbed home of restful things."

Petersham has a special meaning
to Americans because it was the
chosen summer home of the his-
torian, John Fiske. These lines
were written by his son, Ralph
Browning Fiske, and the tranquil
picture they depict, speaks to us of
the depth and quiet of John Fiske's
rare nature. Happily many New
England villages are still "the un-
disturbed home of restful things,"
but because the type is yearly pas-
sing, we hail with joy and pride
every reincarnation in art and every
survival in life.

Whittier immortalized the Mer-
rimac in verse. We are taught in
our youth how many spindles are
turned by its beneficent power, but
there comes to our understanding
sometime that, added to its econom-
ic value, it has been potent in making
a poet, who, in turn, lovingly repaid
its inspiration in lines replete with
its individuality and charm. In re-
cent verse little has been added to
the river scenes of our earlier period,
but there is one poem that in its
excellence makes the desire for
any other seem superfluous. This
is a poem by Mr. Robert Underwood
Johnson, f"To the Housatonic at
Stockbridge:"

*Reprinted by courtesy of "The Atlantic
Monthly."

fAlso by courtesy of "The Atlantic
Monthly."

NEW ENGLAND IN CONTEMPORARY VERSE 415

"Contented river ! in thy peaceful realm
Of cloudy willow and of plumy elm :

Thou beautiful ! From every dreamy hill
What eye but wanders with thee at thy

will,
Imagining thy silver course unseen
Conveyed by two attendant streams of

green
In bending lines, — "

Satisfying as these apostrophes
are, the native meaning of a New
England river is best recorded in
these final lines of the poem :

"Thou hast grown human laboring with
men

At wheel and spindle; sorrow thou dost
ken;

Yet dost thou still the unshaken stars be-
hold,

And calm for calm, returns't them as of
old."

Mr. John Townsend Trowbridge's
earlier New England verse is well
known, his "Old Man of the Moun-
tain" poem having received very
special commendation from Long-
fellow who called it, "the best poem
of that region ever written." The
pretty suburb of Boston, Arlington,
has been distinguished by Mr.
Trowbridge's poetical descriptions.
His recent contribution to scenic
verse is inspired by the contrasts
and incongruities of Mount Desert.
The poem contains many lines of
sympathetic description :

"Panoplied with crags and trees,

And begirt
By blue islands in soft seas,

Which invert
Idle yacht's on glassy days, —
Who shall paint you in a phrase,

Mount Desert?

****** ******

Slim against the fringy line

Of the firs,
The outleaning birches shine,

Sheeny vapors ride the air

And the sea,
Touching, trailing, here and there,
Till each mountain seems to wear
A toupee."

Mr. Trowbridge observes in a
dual fashion — as a poet and as a
writer of fiction. To his latter hab-
it this stanza from the same poem
may be due :

"Rocks where dreamers half the day
Sit inert;
Where girls gossip and crochet,
Play lawn-tennis, and, they say,

Sometimes flirt;
Place to read or sketch, or row,
Town of hops and chops and show :
By these tokens tourists know
Mount Desert."

I recall that the Reader refuted
the Pessimist's theory of "Greece
and Bacchus and Provengal Songs"
with an argument mainly supported
by verse that had for its setting, if
not for its definite theme, the land-
scape of the North Shore. From Mr.
Woodberry's noble elegy, "The
North Shore Watch," she culled
many pictures of "The pine-fringed
borders of this surging sea ;" pictures
that were not only entirely convinc-
ing by way of argument but also
rather embarrassing to those of us
who suffered from pride of apprecia-
tion. Perhaps we had not hitherto
reflected deeply anent the warp of
Mr. Woodberry's distinguished
verse. So we were somewhat silent
before the conviction that he has
produced his idealistic program
against a background of the "brine
and bloom of that dear rememberest
shore ;" and that beautiful and intel-
lectual as his view of life is, it is per-
haps to the indigenous flavor of his
verse that we owe our chief delight.

"Still would we watch wave-borne from

dawn to dark,
The pools of opal gem the windless bay;
Or touch at eve the purple isles, and

mark
Where, by the moon, far on the edge of

day,
The shore's pale crescent lay ;
Or up broad river-reaches are we gone,
Through sunset mirrored in the hollow

tide."

416

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Lovers of the Beverly shore will
appreciate the suggestiveness of
these pictured scenes, and lovers of
poetry will rejoice in the fine art
that has reproduced the mood of the
old lament for Bion amid the scenes
of our local landscape. Mr. Wood-
berry's feeling is fine and true.
Leaning little upon details of ob-
servation he has in his own sugges-
tive way poetized his natural envi-
ronment. In a different manner
with much of concrete imagery and
with a wealth of detail, Mr. Moody
has pictured Gloucester Moors in
what is, perhaps, the finest poetical
production of recent years:

"A mile behind is Gloucester town
Where the fishing fleets put in,
A mile ahead the land dips down
And the woods and farms begin.
Here where the moors stretch free
In the high blue afternoon,
Are the marching sun and talking sea,
And the racing winds that wheel and flee
On the flying heels of June.

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The wild geranium holds its dew
Long in the boulder's shade.

Wax-red hangs the cup
From the huckleberry boughs,
In barberry bells the grey moths sup,
Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up

Sweet bowls for their carouse.

Over the shelf of the sandy cove

Beach peas blossom late.

By copse and cliff the swallows rove

Each calling to his mate.

Seaward the sea-gulls go,

And the land birds all are here;

That green-gold flash was a vireo,

And yonder, flame where the marsh-flags

grow
Was a scarlet tanager."

The picture is complete. The
flash and charm of the phrase, the
swiftness of the movement, the
grasp and proportion of detail create
an impression of freshness and joy,
of freedom and motion peculiar to

Gloucester Moors. Mr. Moody's
perception of this wonderful scene
leads into an universal view of life
touched with fine sympathy and im-
bued with an informing passion for
humanity.

"Boats and boats from the fishing banks
Come home to Gloucester town."

And the sharp, hopeless contrast
of the "racing winds" and the
"moiling street" that makes
Gloucester not another Beverly, is
finely imagined and faithfully renr
dered. The same enlightened sym-
pathy enters into Mrs. Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps Ward's poem, "Glou-
cester Harbor." Gloucester is not
a summer carnival to Mrs. Ward.
She does not see its harbor in the
dancing sunlight filled with the
white sail of pleasure yachts, but as
"they who go down to the sea in
ships :"

"Forever from the Gloucester winds
The cries of hungry children start.
Where breaks in every Gloucester wave
A widowed woman's heart."

The vision splendid of Cape Ann
has attended the genius of many an
artist and poet. Its stretch of
moors, its dunes and cliffs, its ever-
green and rose, its rocks and cruel
smiling sea are deeply incorporated
in our art. Its wayside poet, Lucy
Larcom, has in her volume, "Wild
Roses of Cape Ann," recorded many
appreciative descriptions unassum-
ing as the rose and imbued with her
gentle philosophy:

"God's sweeping garment-fold
In that bright shred of glittering sea,
I reached out for and hold."

Poems of the sea are not frequent
in our New England verse ; in fact
so infrequent are they that there is
unmistakably color for the Reader's
opinion that an age that makes its

NEW ENGLAND IN CONTEMPORARY VERSE 417

observations through a seven by
nine window pane can hardly expect
to enclose the sea — the universal.
It may be their rarity that accounts
for the pride we have in a few sea
pictures. This one from Campobel-
lo, "A Night Sketch" by Mr. Arlo
Bates, is characteristic :

"Upon the sea the pictured moon
Floats like a golden shell ;
On the dark sky their mystic rune
The constellations spell.

Afar a single sail

Has through the mist wreaths broke,
Like some lost spirit, wan and pale,
That strives toward heaven without avail,
To climb on incense smoke."

Or witness the contrast of the
tides in Mr. Bates' verses on Pulpit
Rock, Nahant :

"When the tide comes in cooing and woo-
ing sweet
With soft fond kisses in the summer
noon.

When the tide comes in in wrath of winter

night,
Beating with giant hands, and shouting

hoarse
Like viking in berserker rage, and might
Of all the whirlwinds rushing from their

source."

Of the same order are the many
sonnet pictures Mrs. Whiton-Stone
has produced of York Beach and
Harbor :

"I watched the amber sun sink noiselessly,
And drown in amber billows of the west;
And the great crescent moon sail forth in

quest
Of a new height to sentinel the sea."

The closing lines of an August
sonnet paint a picture full of the
languor and relaxation of mid sum-
mer:

"And a faint film of heat o'erspread the sky
As if the soul of August hovered there;
And in a sapphire drowse the ocean nigh
Hushes itself to slumber unaware."

A higher type of verse is exem-
plified in Mr. William P. Foster's
two sea sonnets. Perfect as sonnets,
with the austerity and purity of
classic verse, they also exhibit the
local and particular; one who has
heard the sea at Bar Harbor, or beat-
ing against the Maine headlands, will
realize the inspiration of these lines :

*"Around the rocky headlands, far and

near,
The wakened ocean murmured with dull

tongue,
Till all the coast's mysterious caverns

rung
With the sea's voice, barbaric, hoarse and

drear."

The second of these sonnets has
slight indigenous claim to quotation
at this time ; but as it illustrates not
only a rather unusual degree of
rightness in being merely a sonnet,
as well as exhibiting the finest lines
expressive of the sea produced by
our recent poets, I shall venture its
reproduction.

*"The sea is never quiet; east and west
/The nations hear it, like the voice of fate,
Within vast shores its strife makes deso-
late
Still murmuring, mid storms that to its

breast
Return as eagles screaming to their nest.
Is it some monster calling to his mate,
Or the hoarse voice of worlds and isles
that wait
While old earth crumbles to eternal rest?
O ye, that hear it moan about the shore,
Be still and listen! That loud voice hath

sung
Where mountains rise, where desert

sands are blown;
And when man's voice is dumb, forever-
more
'Twill murmur on, its craggy shores among,
Singing of gods and nations overthrown."

In grouping this very imperfect
anthology of verse relating to New
England, I have purposely passed

^Reprinted by courtesy of the Century

Magazine.

418

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

by the many poems of character and
characters, — such verse as that by
Mr. Foss of Massachusetts and Mr.
Holman Day of Maine. I have also
relunctantly omitted ballad poetry.
Miss Guiney's "Peter Rugg," Dr.
Hale's recent New England Ballads,
and many that may occur to the
enlightened reader, have been allur-
ing, but they unfortunately are an-
other story ; this story had merely
to do with scenic verse and that
to be of a definite character.

No writer wishes to be a mere
wayside poet. In an attempt to get
awTay from the purely local and in-
digenous in Art, the poet has been
tempted far afield for his inspira-
tion, finding an abiding joy in the
atmosphere of older scenes and a
more complicated emotional life.
The most promising note in our
verse today lies in the return to the
background that New England
offers for all beautiful structures of
thought and fancy. The practice of
Mr. Wcodberry and also that of Mr.
Moody, is a hopeful portent of our
future poetry. To be indigenous is
not to be commonplace ; indeed,
there can be no enduring art that is
not rooted deeply in the world of
sights and sounds that has nurtured
the artist.

I remember that the discussion
which occupied our intervals of

looking out to sea from a North
Shore headland ended in harmonious
agreement. The Pessimist conced-
ed that there was more of New Eng-
land and better than he had hither-
to known in our recerit verse. The
Reader gratefully acknowledged the
Pessimist's concession by deprecat-
ing the abstruse, and the feebly
emotional quality in some contemp-
orary specimens of poetry. And we,
because we were New Englanders
momentarily gathered together
within her boundaries, lifted up our
hearts in a chorus of acclamation,
while the Enthusiast with youth and
hope and patriotism glorifying their
utterance, recited those generous,
glowing lines of Philip Savage's
"New England :"

"Whoe'er thou art, who walkest there
Where God first taught my feet to roam,
Breathe but my name into the air,
I am content, for that is home.

A sense, a color comes to me,
Of bay bushes that heavy lie
With juniper along the sea,
And the blue sea along the sky.

New England is my home ; 'tis there
I love the pagan sun and moon.
Tis there I love the growing year,
December and young summer June.

I'd rather love one blade of grass
That grows on one New England hill,
Than drain the whole world in the glass
Of fortune, when the heart is still."

Mr. William Prescott Foster's sonnets are {reprinted by courtesy of the Century
Magazine.

Bog Plants

By Rosalind Rtciiards

THE value and beauty of bog and
water plants for all out-of-door
decoration is being more widely
recognized every year. Wet bot-
toms, swampy places and damp
hollows which in old days would
have been drained and filled in at
great expense, are now made the
most beautiful corners of the estate,
blossoming with iris and orchids,
not only on the great places, but in
the smallest of home gardens. Every
year, too, our native bog plants,
among the most brilliant and beauti-
ful of the v hole world, are being
more widely established and domes-
ticated. Many of our most lovely
and delicate species, hitherto seen
and loved only by campers and
fishermen, are becoming every year
more widely known, and still more
important, the growing interest in
their cultivation seems to be the
only hope of saving them from utter
extermination through forest fires,
the opening up of wood lands, and
above all through the carelessness
and greed of people, whose one idea
seems to be to tear up and destroy
the flowers that they love.

Most of our beautiful bog herbs
can be grown in the home garden,
some of them needing only a shady
corner and faithful watering, while
a corner of marsh, or boggy hollow,
can be turned in a few weeks into a
swamp paradise, glowing with color,
and an uninteresting stream can be
made to flame with cardinal flower
or marsh marigold.

One of the most interesting of our
419

native bog-flowers is the Pitcher
Plant, (Sarrcuenia purpuiea) The
blossom is exceedingly handsome,
deep maroon in color, with dusty
yellow stamens. It grows in wet
places, in sphagnum moss, but can
be grown easily in any damp, or
even merely shady, corner, if given
leaf mould (better still peat mould),
and watered freely. If there is
natural moisture it takes care of
itself.

The Pitcher Plant is one of the
curious carnivorous plants of which
the little Sun-dew is a common
example. Its leaves from which
it has its name, are strong and
tough, and most oddly shaped to
hold the dew and rain. The lip of
the "pitcher" is lined with fine
sharp hairs, pointing downward.
Flies and other insects crawl in,
find they cannot turn against the
tiny guardian spear-points, and
wandering farther in, are drowned
in the water of which the leaf is
always partly full, when the plant
slowly absorbs them.

Another very beautiful plant for
growing in wet places is the Wild
Calla (C. palnstris). It is singular
that this flower is so little known.
It is smaller than the familiar Calla
of cultivation (the so-called Calla
lily), but scarcely less beautiful.
The spathe is a very pure white,
tipped with green, the feathery spike
white also, instead of yellow, as in
the cultivated variety, the leaves
shining and brilliant. It is found in
most boggy places through New

420

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

England, often

under

the cat-tails and taller
swamp. It is strong
growths of an actual
and hardy, and most
easily grown, if planted
in a really wet place.
Mere shade and damp-
ness will not do, but in
a swampy open hollow
in lawn or field, where
water stands after a
rain, it will make a
beautiful sho wof white
and shining green.

The splendid cardi-
nal flower can be
grown freely in gar-
dens, making a border
of glorious color, while
any corner where water
stands, the merest road-
side hollow, can be
made beautiful with
that most delicately
lovely of water plants,
the Arrowhead.

Actual water plants
can be grown more
easily than is generally
thought. The common water lily
(Nymphaea odorata) the best known
and perhaps the most perfectly beau-
tiful of our native water plants, has
of course been grown for genera-
tions both here and abroad. Almost
any tiny place where water stands
can be kept white with it through
the later summer, or a tub or half
barrel, sunk in the lawn, with six
inches of peat mud, in which the
roots are placed, and then six inches
to a foot of water, will make
a beautiful show of blossoms. The
plants are perennial, and bear
transplanting easily. The yellow
Cow-lily, and the pretty little float-
ing .Bladderwort can be grown
easily in a- tank or tub of water.

pitcher plant (Sarracenia Purpurea)

The beautifying of streams and
borders of ponds, while an elaborate
undertaking, results in almost in-
finite interest and pleasure, besides
making fairylands of waste
stretches. Flowering shrubs can be
introduced among the alders and
scrub willows, lining the banks with
blossoming white all through the
flowering season. We have a great
variety to choose from. Perhaps
the most beautiful, and certainly
among the most easily grown, are
our two native azaleas, the white
and pink. Both are wonderfully
lovely, both very fragrant, with
slender flowers and long springing
stamens. They are entirely hardy,
and can be grown easily among any

BOG PLANTS

421

swamp shrubs as far north as
central Maine. The great Rho-
dodendron, too (J?. Maximus
is easily grown in wet places,
and where it thrives blossoms
in masses of pale rose color and
white, with a luxuriance o f
beauty that is beyond description.

For lower growth, Ledum, or
Labrador Tea, is very satisfactory,
a close growing shrub with very
dull glossy leaves and close masses
of feathery white flowers, of a de-
lightful resinous fragrance. This is
not found farther south than North-
ern New England, however, except
along the mountains.

A curious and interesting shrub
for growing in actual bogs is the
Button-bush, (Cephalanthus occi-
dentalis) . Its blossoms, white,
though not brilliant white, are
massed in spherical heads, with long
feathery stamens, beautifully fra-
grant, especially at night, and all
day the haunt of butterflies.

The glory of a swamp is its
orchids, the fragile meadow pinks,
Arethusa, Calopogon, and Pogonia,
in peat bogs, the beautiful fringed

CALYPSO BOREALIS

orchises, purple, white and yellow,
in open marshes, and in cedar
swamps and damper woods the
Lady's Slippers, and the delicate
Calypso. And here we come to a
difficult problem, not merely how
these most beautiful and interesting
of all wild flowers are to be intro-
duced into home gardens, but how
they are to be saved from absolute
extermination. Unlike most flowers,
orchids seem entirely dependent on
their wild surroundings. More
land is opened for cultivation every
year, timber is cut, forest fires
spread, and everywhere the same
thing is true, — that as the forest re-
treats, the orchids disappear.
Whole tracts where the magnificent
showy Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium
spectabile) and the shy and delicate
Calypso blossomed in masses are

LABRADOR TEA (Ledum Ldtifolium) AZALEA VISCOSA

water lily (Nymphea Odorata)

button-bush (Cephalanthus Occidentalis) showy lady's slipper (Cypripedium Sped

obilc)

422

WHAT ACADIA OWED TO NEW ENGLAND 423

now open country, and their orchids
are gone.

There are two hopes of saving
them. One, a strong one, is in the
intelligent preservation of forests by
the National Department of For-
estry. The other seems less hope-
ful, the chance of our native orchids
being domesticated and grown in
cultivation. Mere transplanting is
in most cases a failure. The yellow
Lady's Slipper, it is true, often bears
it well, but the others of the family,
the Pink {Acaule) and the Showy
(Spectabile) , though they may blos-
som a second time, dwindle and die

out after a year or two, so that the
result is only a slower method of
extermination. The true way seems
to be to study how to raise native
orchids from seed.

This suggestion was made in an
admirable paper on the subject in
the March number of Country Life
in America. It is to be hoped that
this study will be taken up generally
by all lovers of wild flowers. Its im-
portance cannot be urged too
earnestly, as without it it seems as if
the chief glory of our swamp and
marsh plants, even of our entire
flora, must soon be lost to us.

What Acadia Owed to New England

By Emily P. Weaver

THREE hundred years ago the
little company of Frenchmen,
gathered by De Monts to be-
gin the colonization of his vast ill-
defined territory of Acadia, sailed up
the Bay of Fundy, and gave the
name of Port Royal to the harbor
now known as Annapolis Basin, and
that of St. John to the great river,

called by the Indians the "High-
way."

This event, of which the tercen-
tenary is to be celebrated in this
present month, may be regarded
as the beginning of their history,
though no settlement was made at
Port Royal till 1605, nor at St. John

424

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

till about a quarter of a century
later.

The chequered story of the first
years of Port Royal is familiar to
all readers of Parkman's brilliant
account of the "Pioneers of France
in North America." In his pages,
De Monts and his associates — the
enthusiastic Poutrincourt, the up-
right and downright Champlain, and
the versatile L'Escarbot — seem to
live again. We see them planning
the building up of a "Greater
France," exploring, collecting the
products of the country, testing the
soil, sowing their gardens, making
friends with the Indians, writing
verses, fighting the demon of melan-
choly. We catch glimpses of
strange feasts held in the "habita-
tion" of Port Royal, of elaborate
mummery to welcome some return-
ing exploring party, and of whole-
sale baptisms in the river flowing
by the wooden walls. We follow
the founders of the settlement
through changing circumstances
and changing cheer. Now all seems
bright with the joy of much accom-
plished and the hope of an even
more brilliant future. Suddenly the
sky darkens. The monopoly, on
which the whole fair plan of coloni-
zation depends, is withdrawn, and
all crumbles into ruins. De Monts
gives up the struggle, Champlain
transfers his energies to other fields,
but Poutrincourt, ruined in fortune,
and harassed by enemies, still clings
to his well-beloved Port Royal.
At length, when the marauding
Virginians under Argall send up in
smoke and flame the "habitation"
and all its contents, Poutrincourt in
despair ceases his long toil to make
a new home in the wilderness. But,
even yet, his son Biencourt, refuses
to admit defeat. To his short life's
end, he holds doggedly on at Port

Royal, and in the hour of death be-
queaths his rights and powers (such
as they are) to his friend, Charles
de St. Etienne, better known to
history as La Tour.

This young man belonged to a
noble Huguenot family. When he
was a boy of fourteen, he and his
father, Claude de la Tour, left their
native land, hoping to find in Acadia
means to mend their sadly broken
fortunes, and they were as unwilling
as Biencourt himself to give up the
contest. After Argall's unwelcome
visit to Port Royal, the elder La
Tour moved to the mouth of the
Penobscot, and there began to trade
with the Indians ; but his son re-
mained with Biencourt, and succeed-
ed as we have seen, to the doubtful
dignity of "commandant in Acadia."
All his life, Charles de St. Etienne
was remarkable, it is said, for his
courtly, gracious manners. He
seems indeed to have possessed that
lucky faculty of pleasantly impress-
ing his will on those about him,
known in our day by the vague
term of personal magnetism. At
more than one crisis in his adven-
turous career his arrival amongst
half-hearted friends turned the scale
in his favor. His tact, energy, and
resourcefulness would doubtless
have fitted him to play a part on a
more conspicuous stage than that of
Acadia, but there was something in
the wild, free, half-Indian life in the
woods that appealed to him, and,
ambitious as he was, his aspirations
were bound up with his adopted
country. It was in Acadia that he
desired to hold power, to win
wealth, and to spend it. But his
plans were destined often to be
crossed and thwarted by one pecul-
iarly jealous rival, and by compli-
cations of an international sort.
The consequence is that his story

WHAT ACADIA OWED TO NEW EX(]LAND425

reads like some wild romance hav-
ing a conventionally "happy end-
ing," which in a work of fiction
would be deemed far-fetched.

But we must go back a few steps.
In 1620, several years before the
death of Biencourt, the Pilgrims had
landed on Plymouth Rock, and the
history of New England had begun.
Henceforth the Virginians troubled
themselves no more about the

wide sweep of the little known,
unoccupied continent.

The loneliness of their great
wilderness does not appear to have
oppressed them, but the presence at
Penobscot of' the handful of French-
men was a thorn in their sides. In
1626, an expedition was sent from
New England to drive them from
their post. Thus, before Boston
was founded, began the interlocking

ANNAPOLIS ROYAL FROM OLD FORT, SHOWING THE RIVER AND GRANVILLE FERRY

French settlements to the north, but
left them to the tender mercies of
the stern Pilgrims and Puritans.
At first the new-comers had enough
to do to make good their own foot-
ing in America. But in half-a-
dozen years the New Englanders
began to find the land too strait
for them, though to north and south
on the storm-beaten coasts were
hundreds of rarely visited harbors,
and behind them was the whole

of the fate of Acadia with that of
New England. It began, as for the
most part it continued, in fierce an-
tagonism, but was to show many
phases. It was, to a large extent,
the result of geographical position.

"Taking the seaboard settlements of the
English on the one hand, the inland river
settlements on the other, it is clear," says
Lucas, in his "Geographical History of the
British Colonies," "that Acadia naturally
belonged to the former; it was within the
sphere of which Boston was the centre, not

426

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

within that which was ruled by Quebec.
The Boston fishermen went faring north,
not into strange waters, for land and sea
was as their own. Between Quebec and
Port Royal, on the other hand, there was
no natural connection, yet the possession
of Acadia was of more vital importance to
France than to England. With Acadia in
French hands the New England colonies
•could still grow in strength ; but English
occupation of Acadia, Cape Breton, and
Newfoundland meant the beginning of the
end for New France, the closing of the St.
Lawrence, if England kept command of the
sea."

And England, without regard to
the French claims, backed though
they were by an attempt at settle-
ment, was already threatening Aca-
dia. In 1621, that region, under the
name of Nova Scotia, was granted
by James I. to a Scotch knight, Sir
William Alexander. After fruitless
attempts to form a settlement, he
sent out, in 1628, a small Scotch
colony to Port Royal, which had
apparently been deserted by the
French on the death of Biencourt.
In the same year, an English fleet
under Sir David Kirk captured
Claude de la Tour, who was return-
ing from a visit to France, and took
possession of all Acadia with the
important exception of a fort at
Cape Sable which Charles de la
Tour had made his head-quarters.

Meanwhile Claude was carried
prisoner to England, where he
"turned tenant" to the king, married
an English maid of honor, and was
rewarded for changing his allegiance
by the title of baronet and a large
grant in Nova Scotia. The same
favors were bestowed on his son,
but Claude had reckoned without
his host in imagining that they
would at that time, be acceptable.
The young man scornfully declined
to play the traitor to his lawful
sovereign. Persuasion and force
alike failed to move him, and in the

end his father changed sides again.
For a time Charles, it is said, would
not trust his father within the fort,
though he provided liberally for his
wants. Later they were fully recon-
ciled, for about 1630, the year when
Boston was founded, Claude super-
intended the building of a new
French fort near the mouth of the
St. John.

This is practically his last appear-
ance in the story, which without
him is sufficiently perplexing and
hard to follow.

A year or two later, Charles re-
moved from Cape Sable to the new
fort where with wife and children
he lived in rude state, surrounded,
like a mediaeval baron with his
fighting men. The huge, square,
four-bastioned building was at once
stronghold, trading-post, and mis-
sion station. To the end Lady La
Tour was a staunch Huguenot, and
her husband had many persons of
the Protestant faith in his employ,
but he himself had, by this time,
joined the Roman Catholic church;
and he always kept a priest or two to
minister to the Indians. These
missionaries often accompanied him
on his journeys into the wilds, but,
without leaving the fort, they had
rich opportunities to preach to the
heathen, for each summer brought
down the river from the limitless
"back-woods" a host of savages,
with canoes laden with furs to
barter for the goods of the French.

La Tour had perhaps pitched up-
on the best spot in all Acadia for his
wild trade, and his wealth grew
apace. But his prosperity provoked
the jealousy of a rival, cruel as the
grave, whom nothing but his abso-
lute ruin could satisfy.

This man, D'Aulnay Charnisay,
was like himself, a Frenchman of

WHAT ACADIA OWED TO NEW E N G L A X D 427

noble family, and a royal governor.
The situation could hardly have
been more complicated, had it been
specially devised by the home
government, (as perhaps it was) for
the purpose of creating dissensions
in the colony. D'Aulnay had in
some way succeeded to the posses-
sion of Port Royal, making it his
head-quarters. This was within La
Tour's government of the peninsula,

him, hurried across the Atlantic to
obtain troops.

Meantime La Tour was also pre-
paring for the conflict. He turned
for help to the Micmacs and also to
the people of Boston. The result
in the English colony, according to
the old historian, Hutchinson, was
"much division and disturbance."
La Tour had trade connections with
Major Gibbons and other merchants

GENERAL VIEW OF OLD FORT IN ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, NOVA SCOTIA

but, as a set-off, D'Aulnay held
the chief authority in western
Acadia, which division included
St. John. So far the position of
the rivals was nicely balanced,
but D'Aulnay had the, greater
influence at the ' court. ., He ac-
cused ' La Tour of treason, and ob-
tained an order for his return to
France. La Tour refused to obey,
and D'Aulnay, not daring to attack

of Boston, and in the autumn of 1641
he sent a French Protestant to try
to persuade his Puritan friends to
join in an attack on D'Aulnay, and
to agree to freedom of trade between
, New Engfcaml-and Acadia. 5 But the
"Bostonnais" were not then inclined
to bind themselves. In the follow-
ing year, La Tour sent another
embassy of fifteen men armed with
letters "full of compliments," but

428

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

again his proposals were rejected.
A few enterprising merchants, how-
ever, thought it a pity not to take
advantage of his wish to trade, and
sent a pinnace after his returning
men. By this vessel the persevering
La Tour sent to Boston a full state-
ment of his case and his desires.
On the way home, it chanced to
fall in at Penobscot with D'Aulnay;
and he sent his version of the dis-
pute, adding a threat to seize any
vessel that presumed to carry goods
to his rival.

In the following spring, D'Aulnay
descended upon Fort Latour with
half a dozen vessels and a little army
of five hundred men. He was just
in time to prevent the entrance of a
ship from Rochelle, which was
bringing supplies and reinforce-
ments to the beleaguered garrison.
But La Tour proved master of the
situation.

One dark night he slipped quietly
out of the fort with his wife, boarded
the French ship, and set sail for Bos-
ton. Its sudden appearance in that
port caused much consternation, for
the town was absolutely undefended.
Even the Castle was left without a
man to guard it. As it happened
the first act of the Frenchmen
excited wild suspicions. On enter-
ing the harbor, they saw a boat con-
taining "Mr. Gibbon's lady and
family, who were going to his farm."
One of the Frenchmen knowing her,
a boat was manned with the polite
intention of inviting her on board.
But the lady, in great alarm fled to
Governor's Island, with the too-
hospitable Frenchmen in hot pur-
suit. There they found Governor
Winthrop and his family. Mean-
while in the town men flew to arms,
and in the utmost haste three shal-
lops were got ready to guard the
governor home. Had La Tour been

inclined to pay off old scores for the
capture of the fort at Penobscot, he
might easily have carried off the
governor, and seized the Castle
(which, by the way, was rebuilt
during the next year) but he was in-
tent only on the overthrow of his
arch-enemy, D'Aulnay.

He prevailed on Winthrop to call
together the heads of the colony,
and though he obtained no aid from
them "as a government," he was
allowed to hire men and ships in Bos-
ton. Even this connivance seemed a
dangerous step to many. They
feared not only the ravages of D'Aul-
nay, but the ire of the French king,
"who would not be imposed on by
the distinction of permitting and
commanding force to assist La
Tour." They added that La Tour
was a papist, attended by priests
and friars, and that "they were in
the case of Jehoshaphat, who joined
with Ahab, an idolater, which act
was expressly condemned in Scrip-
ture." Others, who wished to
humble their dangerous neighbor,
D'Aulnay, laid stress on Lady La
Tour's "sound Protestant sentiments
and excellent virtues," and on the
fact that if her husband were left
to his fate, there was little prospect
of his ever repaying the sums he
owed to the different Boston mer-
chants.

It really was a most perplexing
situation for little Boston. Grave
warnings came from Gorges, deputy
governor of Maine. The promise
of aid to La Tour seemed to him
certain to bring down D'Aulnay as
a scourge not only upon Maine,
but upon "all the North-East."
After long waiting, at "an expense
of £800 a month," to crush his foe,
was it likely that he would submit
tamely to interference? Gorges'
expostulations were not prompted

WHAT ACADIA OWED TO NEW ENGLAND 429

by any tenderness for D'Aulnay
however. "If a thorough work
could be made, and he be utterly ex-
tripated, I should like it well," he
wrote, "otherwise it cannot be
thought but that a soldier and a
gentleman will seek to revenge him-
self." He fully expected that
D'Aulnay would prove more than
a match for the New Englanders,
they "showing the will, having not
the power to hurt him."

which La Tour and his English
auxiliaries had the best of it.

They returned to their home port
without the loss of a man, and with
a quantity of valuable furs taken
from a captured vessel of D'Aul-
nay's, but there opinion was still
divided as to the wisdom of attempt-
ing to weaken or to propitiate
D'Aulnay. In the end the Boston-
ians tried to do both. Lady La
Tour, who had been trying to ob-

OLD SALLYPORT IN FORT ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, SHOWING OFFICERS' QUARTERS

But Winthrop was less timorous.
On giving a mortgage on his fort
and its contents to secure the Bos-
ton merchants, La Tour was per-
mitted to hire four armed vessels
and one hundred and fifty men.
With this help, he suddenly re-ap-
peared in the Bay of Fundy, and
forced his enemy to fly to Port
Royal. Thither La Tour followed,
and, a sharp encounter occurred in

tain help for her husband in Europe,
was brought to Boston through the
bad faith of the master of the vessel
on which she was carrying supplies.
Bringing an action against him, she
was awarded damages to the amount
of two thousand pounds, and with
this, by the connivance of the
authorities, she hired in the harbor
three London ships.

Meanwhile negotiations were in
progress with D'Aulnay, but, from

430

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

first to last he treated the New
Englanders with extreme haughti-
ness, and high-handedness. He
agreed to free trade between the
French and English, but on falling
in with a Boston vessel bound for
Fort Latour, he made a prize of it,
kept the crew for ten days on a
desolate, s n o w-c overed island
(where they could not even make a
fire) and sent them home in a small
old boat, "without either compass
to steer by or gun to defend them-
selves." Nevertheless in the follow-
ing year, when he condescended to
send emissaries to Boston to treat
of peace, they were received with
honor, though one was suspected of
being a friar in disguise. A treaty
was agreed upon ; and in satisfaction
of all claims, D'Aulnay was to re-
ceive a "rich sedan-chair," made
for the Viceroy of Mexico, but
captured at sea by some freebooter,
and presented by him to the sober
Puritan governor, Winthrop.

Having succeeded by "his high
language" in depriving La Tour of
the assistance of New England,
D'Aulnay seized an opportunity to
attack the fort on the St. John dur-
ing the absence of its lord, and many
of its garrison. Though thus taken
at a disadvantage, it was only by
treachery, and on promise of good
terms that Lady La Tour consented
to surrender. But D'Aulnay basely
broke his word. He hanged every
man in the garrison but one, and
threw the lady into prison, where
she died in three weeks.

With the fort, D'Aulnay obtained
furs and merchandize to the value
of £10,000, and the Boston mer-
chants were proportionately the
losers. To one alone, Major Gib-
bons, La Tour owed £2,500, which
the unlucky creditor never recover-
ed. Yet, when La Tour visited

Boston soon after the disaster, he
was able to prevail on some of the
merchants to lend him another £500
for a new trading venture. He was
accused, on this occasion of sending
the English members of his crew
ashore, and of giving no account
of either vessel or cargo, but there
are reasons for doubting this dis-
creditable story.

Two or three years later, La Tour
was freed for ever from the vindic-
tive machinations of his enemy, who
was drowned in the river at Port
Royal. A little later La Tour
married his widow, and regained his
old position in Acadia. But his
troubles were not over. LeBorgne,
a creditor of D'Aulnay's appeared
on the scene, seized a number of
unoffending colonists, burned a little
settlement at La Heve, and was
plotting to get La Tour into his
toils, when an expedition from Bos-
ton created a most unexpected
diversion.

It must be explained that in the
spring of this year, 1654, when Hol-
land and England were at war, pre-
parations had been set on foot for
an attack on the Dutch at Manhat-
tan Island. An English fleet, and
five hundred stalwart colonists
under Sedgewick and Leverett, had
gathered at Boston, intending to
bring the Dutch to their knees.
Alas, for human hopes ! Warships
and transports were still in the
harbor, when news that peace had
been made in Europe dissipated
their dreams of conquest. But only
for a moment. Some brilliant gen-
ius suggested a descent upon Acadia,
that region where old claims and
conflicting grants gave perennial
excuse for border warfare, and the
eager warriors promptly set sail for
this new objective. Taken by sur-
prise, La Tour offered no resistance,

WHAT ACADIA OWED TO NEW ENGLAND 431

LeBorgue was speedily over-
powered, and every fort in Acadia
was soon in Sedgewick's hands.

Again La Tour proved himself
equal to the emergency. Appealing
to the Protector, Cromwell, he asked
to be put in possession of the Nova
Scotian baronies granted to himself
and his father a quarter of a cen-
tury earlier, and, in partnership
with two Englishmen, he received

From this time till the foundation
of Halifax in 1749, Port Royal was
again the most important Acadian
settlement, though as late as the
close of the seventeenth century it
was still a mere village of six or
seven hundred inhabitants, while the
population of Boston, its younger
New England rival, numbered at
least as many thousands.

For years after Sedgewick's

W:?m

iwisi

mm,

'MWA

ON THE LEQUILLE RIVER OUTSIDE ANNAPOLIS ROYAL

a grant of all Acadia. Very pru-
dently, he soon sold his rights, and
thus was able to pass his last days
in comfort. He died at St John
about 1666.

In the following year, Acadia was
restored to France by the Treaty of
Breda. This might probably have
occurred five years earlier had not
the people of New England, who
set a high value on the province,
petitioned for its retention.

attack, the relations between the
two places were peaceful enough.
Without let or hindrance the New
England fishermen plied their call-
ing on the Acadian coasts. Then
followed a period of savage raids
on ill-defended settlements, and of
daring privateering. Upon the
whole the French were the more
alert and ruthless in this border
warfare, but the slow-moving Eng-
lish were roused at last, and early in

432

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

1690 another expedition was made
ready at Boston to attack the Aca-
dian forts. Eight small vessels, and
seven or eight hundred men, were
put under the command of Sir Wil-
liam Phipps, who had been in suc-
cession, shepherd-boy, ship-wright,
and sea-rover. His title had been
won by his clever recovery of a
treasure of £300,000 from an old
Spanish wreck, and though his "edu-
cation was low," and his temper
hasty, he afterwards attained the
dignity of governor of Massachu-
setts.

After a month's absence, Phipps
and his fleet returned to Boston,
with a number of prisoners and a
quantity of plunder, which "was
thought equal to the whole ex-
pense." After the feeblest resist-
ance, Port Royal had fallen, and
Massachusetts henceforth consid-
ered Acadia her special property, a
claim duly recognized in her second
charter. The colonial authorities
appointed Tyng, a colonel of Maine,
governor of the new territory, send-
ing with him "to settle and estab-
lish him .... in the command of
Port Royal," a Boston merchant
named Nelson, who had "been con-
tinually conversant with the
French" for over twenty years. On
the way to Nova Scotia they were
captured by the French. Tyng died
in prison, but Nelson, during his
confinement of four and a half years
in Canada and France, contrived oc-
casionally to send valuable intelli-
gence concerning the projects of the
French.

Meanwhile the New Englanders
had left their conquest quite un-
guarded, but though the English
flag was speedily hauled down, Vil-
lebon, the French commandant of
Acadia, preferred to make his head-
quarters a little more out of the ene-

my's reach. Accordingly he estab-
lished himself some distance up the
St. John. He exerted himself suc-
cessfully to stir up the Indians and
"pirates" against the New England-
ers. From time to time they sent
out marauding expeditions in return
to ravage the country which they
claimed as their own. At last, real-
izing the futility of such ownership,
they petitioned the crown to take
their troublesome charge off their
hands. Two years later, in 1697,
this was done in a fashion little to
their taste, for by the Treaty of
Ryswick, Acadia was allowed to re-
vert to the French — a proceeding
afterwards characterized by a royal
governor of Massachusetts as an ex-
ecrable treachery to England, "in-
tended without doubt to serve the
ends of popery."

The outbreak of the War of the
Spanish Succession however soon
offered an opportunity to regain by
force what had been resigned by
treaty, and in the spring of 1704 a
force was sent from Boston to rav-
age the Acadian coasts and lay
waste the dyke-lands. Colonel
Church, a noted Indian fighter, was
in command, and great things were
expected, but when the fleet met at
the entrance of Port Royal harbor
a council of war decided that it
would be imprudent to attack the
fort. The Bostonians were much
enraged at this over-cautious be-
havior, and were by no means molli-
fied when it appeared that Church
had had orders not to attack. In-
deed some people accused the gov-
ernor, Dudley, of preserving the
place for the sake of unlawful
trade, in which he was to be a sharer.
Cotton Mather wrote an indignant
letter to the governor, declaring the
case too black for him to meddle
with. "The expedition baffled —

WHAT ACADIA OWED TO NEW ENGLAND 433

The fort never so much as de-
manded— An eternal grave stone
laid on our buried captives — A nest
of hornets provoked to fly out upon
us — A shame cast on us that will
never be forgotten — I dare not, I
cannot meddle with these mys-
teries."

There is no doubt that during
these years of warfare much illegal
trade was carried on between the
Acadians and the Boston merchants.
Under pretext of redeeming captives,
it was said that Samuel Vetch, and
other well-known men had supplied
the Queen's enemies with arms and
ammunition. The charge was in-
vestigated and the accused were
condemned by the General Court to
fines and imprisonment, but the
acts for their punishment were dis-
allowed by the Queen as ultra vires.

This year, 1706, was remarkable
for its Indian horrors, and once
again Massachusetts, undeterred by
former misadventures, resolved to
raise a force to ravage Nova Scotia
and "insult" Port Royal. A thous-
and men from three New England
provinces were accordingly gath-
ered at Boston, but unhappily a
commander was chosen whose only
known qualification for the position
was '"'mere natural bravery," and
when he found himself with "a raw
undisciplined army" before Port
Royal even this seems to have failed
him. The fort, though in bad re-
pair, was defended with spirit, and
March, after spending ten days in
desultory operations, retreated to
Casco. This lame and impotent
conclusion caused "a great clamor"
in Boston, where preparations were
already on foot, it is said, for cele-
brating the capture of Port Royal.
The New Englanders would not yet
give up hope of this result however,
and March, with three gentlemen of

the council to aid in lifting the load
of responsibility from his unwilling
shoulders, was ordered to try his
luck again. The rank and file, lack-
ing confidence in their officers,
signed a "Round robin" refusing to
return to the attack, but back they
had to go. Their unlooked-for re-
turn caused consternation at Port
Royal, but sick and dispirited, the
New Englanders were not then to
be feared, and Subercase again held
his own.

Yet the days of Port Royal, as a
French fortress, were numbered,
and Subercase himself was to sur-
render to a New England general.
In 1708, Vetch, lately convicted for
"traitorously supplying the Queen's
enemies," was sent by the colonies
to England to urge an attack on
Canada. He returned in the spring,
with promises of aid, and the New
Englanders flung themselves with
ardor into warlike preparations, but
the usual delays followed, and it
was not till late in 1710 that the
combined forces appeared before
Port Royal. Hopelessly outnum-
bered, the French were soon obliged
to surrender. On this occasion, the
fortress was not given back to
France, and though several times
threatened or attacked, it was never
re-taken, during the fifty years' con-
flict between France and England
which had yet to pass.

Nova Scotia was not again an-
nexed to Massachusetts, but, for
good and evil, the close intercourse
of the two provinces still continued.
On the one hand, the French rulers
of Canada still used the Acadians
and Micmacs as a deadly weapon
against the New Englanders. On
the other, it was mainly owing to
the courage and resourcefulness of
New Englanders (though a British
fleet co-operated with them nobly)

434

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

that the proud fortress of Louis-
bourg was humbled, and French
influence with the Acadians received
its first staggering blow. The ex-
pedition was planned in Massachu-
setts, was carried out by a New
England army, and was led by a
popular citizen-soldier of Maine, the
immortal Pepperell.

Again, one of the chief movers in
the terrible retribution that fell on
the ignorant and misguided Aca-
dians, was the Massachusetts
governor, Shirley. A force, com-
posed mainly of New Englanders,
put into execution the rigorous
sentence of banishment, upon a
whole people, whose mournful story
has been so sweetly sung by a New
England poet. In later years, New
Englanders occupied the deserted
farms of the simple exiles, and for a
time made it doubtful whether Nova
Scotia might not add a fourteenth

star to the new American flag. At
the close of the Revolutionary war
there was another notable immigra-
tion, largely from New England.
Many of these United Empire
Loyalists afterwards settled in
Upper Canada, but several thous-
ands remained in the Maritime
Provinces, and altogether a large
proportion of the inhabitants of the
eastern part of the Dominion trace
their descent from New England
families.

Since the invention of railways
and telegraphs, and the introduction
of commercial and political union,
there is no longer a separation be-
tween the seaboard and inland
provinces of the Dominion, but, on
the other hand, intercourse with
New England is far easier and more
friendly than of old, and Boston still
has its influence on the British peo-
ple inhabiting old Acadia.

Quatrain

By Will Ward Mitchell

We read God's thought in every minor part
Of life and, pigmy-like, would criticise
His plans, though none beneath the arching skies

May read aright one tome — the human heart.

Her Anniversary

By Harriet A. Nash

MRS. CARTWRIGHT re-
moved the wax fruit piece
from an inlaid card table, and
dropped the damask covering in a
careless heap upon the sofa.

"I believe I'll take this table home
with me," she said musingly. "They
are all the rage just now, and this
will exactly fill that vacant space by
the music room door. Ancient pos-
sessions give one a legitimate ex-
cuse for introducing one's family
history, where it would be the ex-
treme of bad taste to sit down in a
room full of modern furniture and
'apropos of nothing whatever, an-
nounce that our direct line of ances-
try runs back to William the Con-
queror or that the blood of royalty
trickles down to us through the
most exclusive colonial channels. I
wonder if there's an upholsterer at
the village who could be trusted to
pack it. I wouldn't have it scarred
for the world."

Her sister laughed as she ran a
jewelled finger admiringly along
the polished edge.

"You spoke just in time, Julia,"
she declared. "I was about to
'choose' that table for myself, as the
children say. Let me remind you,
my dear, that the village upholsterer
is the blacksmith as well and would
not hesitate to drive nails into that
table top in his conscientious efforts
to pack it securely. Be warned by
my experience with Grandmother
Webster's mulberry platter which
reached my china closet in four
pieces. It was such a disappoint-

ment ! I wept until Henry in de-
spair bought me a Royal Worcester
dinner service in the hope of consol-
ing me."

"If you have decided to take the
table, Julia," said a quiet voice from
the bay window, "I have no doubt
Jason can pack it for you so that it
will go unharmed."

The second sister looked inquiring-
ly about the room.

lkI ought to have something to off-
set," she said half complainingly.
"I don't know why I haven't
thought of that table before. I be-
lieve I will take the coffee urn which
was mother's wedding gift from the
vice-president. It will make a fine
display among our anniversary pres-
ents next month and give an excuse
for expressing my. preference for the
colonial pattern in silver. I do so
hope someone will give us that
candelabra at Waring's. Dear me,
how I wish the fuss and bother was
over. Is the urn in the silver closet,
Margeret? I believe I'll ask Sarah
to rub it up a little ; silver tarnishes
so quickly in the country."

Miss Margeret, youngest of the
three sisters, arose from her seat.
"I will polish the urn for you,
Annette," she said. "Sarah is cook-
ing this morning."

She carefully folded the damask
cloth as her sisters left the room and
crowded the books nearer together
upon the centre table to make room
for the deposed wax fruit piece.
Then she moved the card table from
the corner where it had stood since

435

436

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

her earliest remembrance, and drew
chair and sofa nearer together in an
attempt to fill the vacant space. It
would not do ; for the sofa's position
had been carefully arranged to con-
ceal a darn in the carpet. Margeret
considered with a troubled face. "I
don't believe there's a thing left in
the house, that can be put in that
corner," she decided. She was very
thoughtful, as, sitting alone in a cor-
ner of the large dining room, she
polished the coffee urn with
loving fingers. It was exactly
twenty years since Margeret Rich-
ards had come home from boarding
school, to assist in the elaborate
wedding preparations of her sister
Julia, and to patiently take up the
triple burden which awaited her in
the care of an invalid mother, the
direction of household affairs, and
the management of an estate sadly
impoverished by the starting in life
of three sons and the substantial
marriage portions of two daughters.
To Margeret had fallen the remnant
of property as a compensation for
"carrying the old folks through life."
Not that the family regarded it in
the light of compensation. To them
the youngest sister was still a child
dependent upon her parents and
rather to be envied in her comfort-
able possession of the "home place."
The constant strain of economy
necessary to purchase household sup-
plies and pay the interest on a large
mortgage was laughingly stigma-
tized "Margeret's prudence." The
brothers on rare and hurried visits
strolled fondly about the farm, re-
visiting favorite haunts of their boy-
hood, but quite forgetting to notice
that the woodland was diminished
and the fields becoming barren.
The sisters, on long summer visits,
sat about under the fine old trees,

remarking upon the beauties of the
place and regretting that Margeret
could not be content to enjoy life
quietly, instead of disturbing her
own peace by constant anxiety for
the corn-field or potato crop. The
children, to whom Hillside farm was
a refuge whenever it was not con-
venient to have them elsewhere,
learned to look upon the farm and
Aunt Margeret as their own partic-
ular property, and still talked of
"grandpa's farm," although both
grandparents were long since gone
from earth.

"Margeret," called Mrs. Wilcox
from the wide stairway, "where's
Grandmother Richards' sampler?
Frances told me to bring it for her
den."

"In my room," Margeret replied
briefly. It was some minutes later
that the twelve year old daughter
of her youngest brother, entered the
room impetuously.

"Are you going to let Aunt An-
nette have everything in the house?"
she demanded.

"Louise!" said Miss Margeret in
a tone that would have silenced a
child of her own generation. Louise,
not having finished her remarks con-
tinued.

"I should think you'd like to have
a few things left for yourself," she
declared. "It is really too bad, ior
you never seem to have new things
given you like the rest of the people
I know. Mama has hosts of pretty
silver and china things."

"They were wedding or anniver-
sary presents," explained the aunt
absently.

Louise considered. "I suppose
they were," she said reflectively,
"I never thought of that. And you
can't have a wedding because no-
body wants to marry you. But you

HER ANNIVERSARY

437

might have an anniversary, I should
think."

Mrs. Wilcox entered the room
with Grandma Richards' sampler in
her hand.

"Really Margeret your room is the
most unprogressive spot I've seen in
years," she declared. "I believe you
have got the identical books and
knick-knacks there, which you had
when I was married. You un-
married women are so curious in
clinging to old things. What a
funny picture that is on your mantel
of you and Henry Thornton taken
together. Rather poor taste in the
present day, don't you think?"

Margeret polished the handle of
the coffee uvn, carefully.

"Perhaps so," she replied tran-
quilly, "It seemed all right at the
time I remember. We were en-
gaged, you know."

"Were you? I'd quite forgotten,
if I ever knew. What a funny boy
he was. James says he's getting to
be quite famous nowadays. Spe-
cialist, you know — throat or ears or
something. See if you can't get
that spot off the side, Margeret.
The urn isn't as good as I thought
it was, after all."

"I found the funniest old-fash-
ioned ring in your jewel-box,
Margeret," continued her sister,
"two hearts joined with a pearl set-
ting. I believe I'll take it to Clarice,
if you don't mind. I'm afraid she'll
expect something, if Frances has the
sampler."

Margeret reached forth her hand.
"I will send Clarice my pearl neck-
lace," she promised, "but I would
rather keep the ring."

Two days later, standing on the
dingy platform of the little Plain-
ville depot, Mrs. Cartwright turned
to her youngest sister for a last

word. "If we take that Montreal
trip I shan't be down until August,"
she explained with foot upon the car
step," but I shall send the children
as usual in July."

Margeret hesitated. I haven't
told you Julia," she said hurriedly
and with manifest embarrassment,
"but I don't know how things will
be this summer. I am thinking of
making a change — in my life."

A clanging of the engine bell and
the warning cry of "all aboard," cut
short Mrs. Cartwright's exclama-
tions. "For goodness sakes, An-
nette, whatever did the girl mean?"
she demanded as she dropped into
her comfortable seat and whirled
about to face her sister.

Margeret went slowly back to
where the old white horse and family
carryall waited in Louise's anxious
care ; for Louise was a temporary
resident of Plainville, while her par-
ents made a leisurely journey west.

"I'm glad they're gone." the child
said candidly, as her aunt took the
seat beside her. Miss Richards
made no reply but sat in perplexed
thought, while Louise guided the
horse out of the village streets and
into the muddy country road which
stretched away between brown fields
in the April sunset. "What a
coward I am," she thought. "I
should have told the girls about it
long ago."

Far away across a level country,
the comfortable brick walls of her
home shone through leafless trees.
A longing for sympathy overcame
Miss Richards' habitual reserve. "I
am going away from 'Grandpa's
house,' Lulu," she said softly, "to
another home."

Louise nodded comprehensively,
as she guided the white horse around
a pool of water in the road. Only

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

last autumn her mother's youngest
sister had departed smiling through
tears, for a far western home of her
"very own." Louise herself had as-
sisted at the departure in white mus-
lin with a basket of roses.

"Is the day set, Aunt Margeret?
And can I be your bridesmaid?" she
questioned eagerly.

Miss Richards laughed, wiping
away a sudden tear as she did so.
"It isn't a wedding, dear," she ex-
plained, already regretting her brief
confidence. "Just a change, that is
all. But — yes — the day is set; it is
the twentieth of May."

"An anniversary ?" inquired
Louise cheerfully.

Miss Richards' face grew troubled
again. "Yes an anniversary," she
replied. "And I am very much per-
plexed and troubled because I must
keep it all alone. I am sure I can
trust you to be a good girl and
not trouble me with questions. I
have not the courage to tell the
others until it is all over."

It was indeed an anniversary, she
reflected as they rode on, that day
on which years earlier her father had
signed the mortgage upon Hillside
farm. She had kept it faithfully,
gathering with more difficulty each
year, the money for the interest,
until this year the most careful
management had not availed to save
the needed sum.

"Either one of the boys would
send it to me, if I asked," Miss
Richards assured herself, "or the
girls' husbands, for that matter.
But it wouldn't be my very own, and
would all have to be gone over with
again next year and all the years
following. I don't care what they
say. It is mine and I have as clear
a right to do as I please with it as
Frank has to direct his business, or
Annette her household."

There was plenty to occupy heart
and hands those last weeks. Mar-
geret conscientiously looked after
ploughing, planting and necessary
repairs, and made some guarded in-
quiries concerning a little house in
the village. "For I will have a little
home of my own and keep my inde-
pendence whatever they may say,"
she determined.

"But you don't need to go yet,"
her bluff creditor, a neighboring
farmer declared. "The law gives
you plenty of time after I foreclose,
and I shouldn't never hurry you."

"Thank you, Mr. Collins," Miss
Richards replied steadily, "but I
should not wish to stay after the
place passes out of my possession.
The day the interest is due I wish
you to foreclose and I shall begin to
pack my household goods. Only —
if it will make no difference to you —
I would rather no one in Plainville
should know of it before I move."

Miss Richards quite neglected her
niece in those days which followed,
but Louise being a resourceful child,
found entertainment for herself.

It was on the twelfth of May that
Mrs. Cartwright, at her pleasant
breakfast table, tore open a labori-
ously written note from her young-
est niece.

"Girls ! Joseph !" she gasped.
"Just listen to this, will you? I told
Annette that was what she meant."

"Dear Aunt Julia.

It isn't any harm for me to
tell you because Aunt Margeret didn't say
I musn't. She only said she didn't have the
courage to tell you herself until it was all
over. But I think it is too bad for her to
miss all the presents and everything and
she is a good many anniversaries behind
the rest of you now and never can make it
up even if she has one every year. The
day is set. It is the twentieth of May. She
says it will be the quietest possible going
away to a home of her own but I mean to

HER ANNIVERSARY

439

trim the house with flowers and throw
some rice after her.

Your Affectionate niece

Margeret Louise Richards."

"I declare I never expected it,"
Mrs. Cartwright declared sitting in
Mrs. Wilcox's luxurious morning
room an hour later. "But I can
readily understand dear Margeret's
reticence ; at her age an unmarried
woman is so apt to be self-conscious.
She expects to surprise us, I pre-
sume, but I propose that we should
surprise her instead. I have already
written the boys and sent word to
all the cousins far and near. Not
one of them but has visited the farm
since Margeret was left alone and
they can all afford to do well by her.
Dear girl, to think of her marrying
after all. Annette, who do you sup-
pose it is?"

Mrs. Wilcox shook her head.
"There are so few eligible men in
Plainville," she said thoughtfully.
"Is Elder Noon a widower, Julia?
I can't remember ever having seen
his wife, and Margeret was very
much interested in the Easter ser-
vices when we were down home in
Lent."

"I hope it isn't he," objected Mrs.
Cartwright, anxiously. "With Mar-
geret's advantages she should do
better than a country minister. Still
unmarried women of her age do
often have ridiculous ideas. We
shall have to wait and see, I suppose.
Louise gives promise of unusual
brilliancy, don't you think so ? I have
always thought she resembled my
Lillian."

"She is precisely what Frances
was at her age," declared Mrs. Wil-
cox.

On the eighteenth of May Miss
Richards received a characteristic
note from her oldest brother.

"Dear Sister : —

Enclosed please find check
for one hundred dollars, which kindly ac-
cept with love and best wishes. Will run
down on the 20th if possible, but the outlook
is now uncertain.

Yours, &c,

Chas. F. Richards."

Margeret smoothed the check
fondly. "Dear Charlie," she said
with deep self reproach. "How nar-
row and bigoted I have become to
doubt the affection of my brothers
and sisters. And I thought they
had all forgotten the mortgage long
ago, even if they ever knew of it."
She hesitated a long time, check in
hand, then went quietly on with her
preparations. With this she might
perhaps succeed in paying the inter-
est once more, but it would be only
a postponing of what must come.
If Charles objected she could give
him back the check. She decided
not to cash it until she knew.

On the evening of May nineteenth,
the limited resources of the Plain-
ville livery stable were taxed to
their utmost, to carry a large party
of brothers and sisters, nieces and
cousins, out to Hillside farm, and
Margeret hastily summoned to the
front veranda, beheld with mingled
emotions, the avalanche of guests
decending upon her.

"We were not going to miss the
opportunity for a last merry-making
at the old place," declared a cousin,
while Mrs. Cartwright, with arms
about her youngest sister, kissed her
with more tenderness than the
Richards family were wont* to dis-
play one to another.

"Dear child, you didn't suppose
we would leave you to go through a
time like this alone, did you?" she
, asked fondly.

Any dismay Miss Richards might
have felt, shrivelled in a warm glow

440

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of affection for her own. "I am so
glad you all came," she said.

Mrs. Wilcox drew her aside at the
first opportunity. "Do tell me who
the man is, Margie dear," she urged.
"Julia and I haven't dared to let the
cousins know, we were so ignorant
of your affairs, and the evasions we
have been guilty of are innumerable.
We met Doctor Thornton coming
down — his specialty is eyes, Mar-
geret, not ears — and really he is very
much improved. I had to admit to
him that I didn't know, for he has
a dreadful way of holding one to the
point. I invited him over for to-
morrow, but he is leaving on the
early train. Do tell me who it is,
dear."

And Margeret with thoughts
upon the all important mortgage,
answered readily, "It is Jason
Collins, Annette — father's old friend
— I thought you knew that, all of
you."

A sudden call sent the hostess
kitchenward, and Mrs. Wilcox
sought her other sister.

"Jason Collins? Why he's old as
the hills," gasped Julia.

"And rich as Croesus," added her
husband quickly. Margeret's doing
well financially and she's no longer
young herself, you must remember."

It was evening. Margeret had,
with much planning and careful
economy of space, provided sleeping
accomodations for her guests and
was intent upon preparations for
breakfast, when a bevy of nieces and
young .cousins fell upon her and
escorted her, under protest, to the
library.

The long room seemed a confused
medley of silver and cut glass, rugs,
pictures, chairs and tables. Mar-
geret's bewildered brain refused to
grapple with the task before it. She
turned to her youngest brother who

stood beside her, resting her hand
appealingly upon his arm. Louise
with face full of radiant satisfaction
beamed upon her from the window
seat.

"What does it all mean, Frank?"
Margeret asked helplessly.

The brother laughed. "Only that
family and friends have seized the
opportunity to express their regard,"
he answered. "Sade and I got home
from the west just in time, didn't
we?"

Mrs. Cartwright deposited a long
box upon a vacant chair; Annette
upon her knees before a huge pack-
age was struggling with its stiff
wrappings.

"I've brought your dress, dear,"
the older sister explained, as she
shook out a mass of shimmering
satin before Margeret's dazzled eyes.
"Wasn't it fortunate you and Fran-
ces are so nearly of a size? I don't
know what I should have done if I
couldn't have had it fitted to her.
Do you think it is too young for
Margeret, Sadie?"

Annette held up an elaborate
mound of confectionery. "And this,"
she announced triumphantly, "is the
wedding cake."

"I never said she was going to be
married," protested Louise, standing
in deep disgrace before the family
tribunal half an hour later. "But
it was an anniversary, and she'd
never had any chance before to get
pretty things given her. You've all
been taking things out of the house
for years and years and having
plenty of your own besides. I
thought it was time she got a little
something back."

"By Jove! little one, I don't know
but you're right," declared her
father.

Louise, at the first note of sympa-

HER ANNIVERSARY

441

thy, subsided into tears in his arms.
"I knew she wasn't going to be
married," she sobbed from the safe
shelter. "Is it only married folks
that can have things I should like
to know? I didn't see any reason
then nor I don't now why she hadn't
a right to be a silver old maid."

"The child is not to blame, Julia,"
declared Margeret. I should have
given her my full confidence or none
at all."

"You've disgraced the family be-
tween you," declared Mrs. Cart-
wright, drearily. "I invited a lot of
people to whom I owed some atten-
tion, down for the day tomorrow.
They thought a country wedding in
apple blossom time would be beauti-
ful."

"And .1 arranged with Bishop
Lawrence to perform the ceremony
— he has married all of us girls so
far," said Mrs. Wilcox in a tone of
despair. "And all of Henry's people
were coming. I have always want-
ed them to see the old place. Imag-
ine getting them all down here to
celebrate the foreclosure of the
mortgage on it."

"There must have been gross
mismanagement somewhere, Mar-
geret," declared her brother James
severely.

Margeret reflected sadly that the
mortgage had been given to provide
James with' money for his factory,
but made no reply.

"Let's all stay tomorrow any-
way," urged Lillian Cartwright, "the
apple blossoms and the country
are here anyway and weddings are
common enough affairs after all. I
don't care a whiff, Aunt Margeret,
though Clarice and I planned to be
your bridesmaids. You can come
and be mine next year instead."

Long after her guests had retired,
Margeret worked in the library, re-

packing the gifts and laying aside
those articles which had been
marked. "Frank will have to figure
the cost of those for me," she decid-
ed. "I won't ask one of the others
to help, but as Louise's father, he
seems inclined to share in a meas-
ure the responsibility of the mis-
take."

It was early next morning before
her guests were astir that Miss
Richards was summoned from the
cook stove by Louise.

"There's a peddler waiting to see
you in the parlor," announced the
child in a subdued tone. "He's sell-
ing rugs and I wanted to tell him
you had rugs to burn already, only
papa says I'd better be seen and not
heard for the rest of my visit."

The "peddler" with watch in hand
like one who has no minutes to
spare, stood in the middle of the par-
lor, surveying doubtfully a heavy
rug spread at his feet. Miss Rich-
ards had time to recognize the rug
as a long cherished treasure of the
village furniture store, and to ob-
serve that the gold watch was not of
a style common to peddlers, before
she recognized him.

"Dr. Thornton?" she said doubt-
fully.

He shook hands briskly. "Just
ran over for a minute before train
time," he declared with another
glance at his watch. "Brought a
trifling remembrance ; they swore it
was the real thing, but someway in
your parlor it looks a trifle highly
colored. Such a time as I had se-
lecting it ! Plainville stores don't
appear to be overstocked with arti-
cles suitable for wedding gifts, and
I only chanced to hear of it on my
way down."

Margeret hestitated, half inclined
to accept the gift and let him go his
way unenlightened. But his keen

442

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

eyes so like after all to the dreamy
ones of her girlhood friend, were
fixed upon her in a truth-compelling
gaze. She grew distinctly irritated.
What right had her sisters to chat-
ter so of her affairs, and bring this
additional embarrassment upon her?

"I am sorry," she said. "It was
very kind of you, and I appreciate
the remembrance, only — it was all
a ridiculous mistake you see, grow-
ing out of the fact that I am about
to leave the farm. I am not to be
married/'

The caller's eyes took swift notice
of her embarrassment. "Most natu-
ral things in the world— mistakes of
that kind—," he declared. "They're
always occurring." He slipped his
watch in his pocket with a final air
but made no movement towards the
door. "So you're leaving the farm?"
he inquired. "For the city, I sup-
pose?"

Margeret hestitated. "I shall not
leave Plainville," she replied.

Dr. Thornton stood in some per-
plexity looking down at the red and
green horror at his feet. "I don't
know what to do with this thing,"
he said, touching it with his foot.
"You couldn't marry just to give me
a method of disposing of it, I sup-
pose. I hope you are not making a
mistake. Matrimony is by far the
most satisfactory state, after all/'

"Yet you have never married
yourself, I believe," replied Miss
Richards. It was the one thing of
all others she would have preferred
not to say, but the past twelve hours,
added to the weary weeks preceding
them, had left her little of her own
self-control.

"No," he replied thoughtfully. "I
have been engaged to one woman
for twenty years and I am waiting
for her still. She promised to send
me word when she was free to mar-

ry, or to send back my ring, if there
ever should be someone else whom
she preferred. I have been wonder-
ing for the past twelve hours why I
didn't get the ring. If I must con-
fess, I am afraid I came here this
morning with more thought of de-
manding it, than I had of offering
congratulations. There were inva-
lid parents and farms and all sorts of
hindrances between us when I saw
you last, but now — how is it, Mar-
geret?"

Margeret's eyes were fixed upon
the rug. Its gaudy colors had sud-
denly become a blur of rainbow
hues.

"It was so long ago," she faltered.
"And so few things last for twenty
years."

"There are some things which last
throughout eternity," Dr. Thornton
answered gravely. "Must I still go
on, spending my life upon the high-
way, and making professional suc-
cesses supply the lack of dearer
joys, Margeret? I have forced my-
self to leave you . undisturbed all
these years, because I believed you
had forgotten me in a multitude of
other ties. Now — forgive me — I
can but see that your life is no more
complete than my own. You are
free at last, Margeret ; by your own
confession, there is not even the
farm to come between us longer.
Will you marry me — now?"

Margeret steadied her voice with
an effort. "It has been too long,"
she said. "We are like strangers to
each other now. You are very kind
to remember after all these years,
but believe me, it is much better for
us both to go on as we are."

Dr. Thornton rose, looking at his
watch again. "Kind !" he said.
"You are using the word out of its
proper connection."

Halfway to the door he turned

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

443

with a brisk professional air. "Don't
you think you had better give me
back my ring?" he suggested.

He waited, standing in the centre
of the forgotten rug, while she went
for the ring, and laid the slender cir-
cle thoughtfully upon his palm
when she returned with it.

"I walked over to Colburn to buy
it, Margeret, do you remember?" he
said musingly. "And you met me
at the Pines as I came back."

Miss Richards reached out her
hand impetuously. "It was mine,"

she said, "give it back to me. I will
marry you — or anybody else, rather
than give it up."

"Margeret's wedding has been postponed
until June thirtieth," Mrs. Cartwright
wrote her friends in explanation of a some-
what hysterical telegram. "It is a disap-
pointment, of course, but a professional
man is always at the mercy of his practice,
and Dr. Thornton — did I mention that it
was Dr. Thornton of Evergreen Avenue? —
is no exception to the rule. There will be
no other change in the arrangements save
that roses will take the place of apple
blossoms in decorating."

Alexander Hamilton

By William Dudley Mabry

Author of " When Love is King"

JULY 12, 1904, marks the one-
hundredth anniversary of the
tragic death of Alexander Ham-
ilton.

Never has this country produced
another such brilliant genius. Nor
was he wholly an American product,
being born on the island of Nevis
in the West Indies, January 11, 1757.
At the age of fifteen he was trans-
planted to the larger field of the
American continent, in the con-
genial soil of which he rapidly grew
into the stature of an intellectual
giant.

In August, 1772, a hurricane of
frightful violence syept over his na-
tive island, leaving widespread dev-
astation in its track. A newspaper
account of the disaster appeared, so
graphic and powerful in its descrip-
tion that even the governor of the
island exerted himself to discover

its unknown author. The article
was traced to the fifteen year old
lad in the counting house of Nicho-
las Cruger, a merchant at Santa
Cruz. Better opportunities for the
development of the boy's genius and
a wider field for its exercise were
felt to be imperative. Accordingly,
in the autumn of 1772, Hamilton
was sent to the American Colonies
and placed in a grammar-school at
Elizabethtown, New Jersey. In less
than a year, the master of the school
declared the boy fitted in every re-
spect to enter college.

Hamilton presented himself to Dr.
Witherspoon, president of Prince-
ton College, and asked to be admit-
ted with the understanding that he
should be allowed to advance as
rapidly as he was able, without re-
gard to the established curriculum.
Being refused, he made the same

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

proposal to Kings (now Columbia)
College in New York, and was ac-
cepted. Under a private tutor, he
went through the regular course at
an amazing pace, taking such extra
studies as he desired.

Meantime the revolutionary
storm was brewing. Clashes be-
tween patriots and the British
soldiers were frequent in New York
City, while, throughout the country,
the controversy was rife between
the Colonies and Great Britain.
The voracious student in Kings
College seemed to pay but little
heed to all this turmoil. Being a
British subject, sojourning in a
strange land, naturally his sympa-
thies were with England.

Early in 1774, however, Hamil-
ton had occasion to visit Boston.
The celebrated "tea party" and its
possible consequences were being
discussed on every hand. The stu-
dent, unable longer to remain in-
different to the trend of events,
plunged into the study of the con-
troversy with that avidity and
thoroughness characteristic of all he
did. When he returned to New
York, his decision was made.

In July of the same year, a mass-
meeting of patriots was held in the
suburbs of the city. Hamilton
listened in rapt attention to the
chosen speakers. Uninvited and un-
announced, he mounted the plat-
form and began to address the mul-
titude. At first the people listened
with amused interest to the student,
so slight of form and of youthful
face. Soon, however, they felt
themselves under the spell of one
who was master of his subject and
able to tell what he knew. Thus it
was that Alexander Hamilton first
came to the public notice of the
American people.

This youth proved himself a

champion of the patriotic cause, not
only on the platform, but even a
stronger one with the pen. During
the winter of 1774-5, a coterie of
Tory writers, mostly clergymen and
educators, issued a series of essays
presenting the British side so
strongly as to threaten great harm
to the popular cause, unless ably
answered. These essays were soon
met by anonymous replies so ex-
haustive and convincing as to excite
the admiration of the Tories them-
selves. On every hand eager search
was made to discover this new
"Junius." The reputation of Mr.
John Hay and of Governor Livings-
ton was augmented in no small de-
gree by the supposition that they
were the authors of the patriotic
answers. Great was the surprise
at the discovery, after some weeks,
that the real author was the youth-
ful student from the island of Nevis.
Oddly enough, it turned out that
one of the Tories with whom the
lad had been conducting his news-
paper controversy was Dr. Cooper,
president of Kings College.

It now becomes necessary to take
leave of Alexander Hamilton, the
youth ; for while he was little more
than a boy in years and in stature,,
he had, ere this, become a man, and
a strong man at that in intellect and
in character.

The storm broke at last, and
something more serious than patri-
otic speeches and essays was de-
manded. Hamilton, as prompt with
his sword as he had been with
tongue and pen, now devoted him-
self to the study of the science of
war with the same serious ardor
that had characterized his work in
school. When the Convention of
New York ordered the raising of an
artillery company, Hamilton was
appointed its captain. The high

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

445

pitch of discipline to which he
brought his company quickly at-
tracted the attention of General
Greene, who thought it worth the
while to bring the young artillery
officer to the notice of Washington.

Hamilton was with the Conti-
nental Army in its unfortunate
movement on Long Island, in its
operations in the Jerseys, and
shared in the laurels won at Prince-
ton and at Trenton. Washington,
in going the rounds one day, ob-
served some earthworks constructed
with unusual skill. Upon inquiry
he learned that they were planned
by Hamilton and erected under his
supervision. On March I, 1777, at
the age of twenty, Hamilton was
appointed aide-de-camp to General
Washington with the rank of lieu-
tenant colonel, and became the sec-
retary and confidential adviser of
the Commander in Chief of the
Revolutionary Army.

Nor was he puffed up by this rare
distinction. Washington was then
forty-five, and some members of his
staff were old enough for Hamil-
ton's father; yet so genial and af-
fable was the young aide, and with
such becoming modesty did he wear
his honors, that he quickly won his
way to the hearts of his elder com-
rades. He was not spoiled by arro-
gance or conceit; but had his truest
friends among those who knew him
best.

Nine months after his appoint-
ment as aide-de-camp, he enjoyed
the singular experience of being the
trusted adviser of General Washing-
ton and of celebrating the day when,
under the law, he ceased to be an
infant and became a man.

It would be pleasing to pursue
an inquiry into the conditions and
causes which brought Hamilton, at
so early an age, to this remarkable

maturity. But it must suffice to
suggest that he inherited his keen,
penetrating intellectual powers from
his Scotch father, his ardent tem-
perament and his singularly fasci-
nating vivacity from his Huguenot
mother; and that he spent the first
fifteen years of his life in a climate
where everything matures rapidly.
Furthermore, the stirring events of
the revolutionary period had in
them that which transformed boys
into men and men into heroes.

At the end of four years, the of-
ficial relationship between Wash-
ington and Hamilton suddenly came
to an end. Passing Hamilton on
the stairs at headquarters, Wash-
ington expressed a desire to speak
to him. "I will wait upon you im-
mediately," Hamilton replied. He
then went below and despatched a
letter to the Commissary. On re-
turning, he paused a moment to
speak to the Marquis de Lafayette.
At the head of the stairs he met
Washington who angrily said,
"Colonel Hamilton, you have kept
me waiting at the head of the stairs
these ten minutes. I must tell you,
Sir, you treat me with disrespect."
Hamilton replied : "I am not con-
scious of it, Sir; but since you have
thought it necessary to tell me so,
we part." In less than an hour,
Washington sent one of his aides
to Hamilton, expressing a de-
sire for "a candid conversation, to
heal a breach which could not have
happened but in a moment of pas-
sion." But Hamilton, while con-
scious of the honor attaching to his
position on the General's staff, had
long desired to be in the line, as
affording better opportunities for
distinction. He therefore declined
Washington's offer, but remained
with the army.

Hamilton was present at York-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

town in command of a corps under
Lafayette. Here it fell to his lot to
lead an assualt upon a British
redoubt which enfiladed the Ameri-
can entrenchments. It was Hamil-
ton's first opportunity. Napoleon's
feat at Lodi was not more brilliant.
Hamilton led the way, his troops
following with fixed bayonets. So
impetuous was the onslaught that
the British were swept before it,
panic-stricken. The redoubt was
taken at the point of the bayonet
without the firing of a single mus-
ket. Lafayette was high in his
praise of the feat, while Washing-
ton wrote, "Few cases have ex-
hibited greater proof of intrepidity,
coolness and firmness than were
shown on this accasion." What
Hamilton's achievements as a mili-
tary leader might have been, had
opportunity afforded, it is impossi-
ble to tell. That he was an ardent
student of the science of war is
well known ; that he possessed in a
high degree the military instinct is
certain, while his courage won for
him the sobriquet of "the Little
Lion." Later, when war with
France seemed imminent, Hamilton
was made second in command of
the armies of the United States with
the rank of Major General; and at
Washington's death, became, by
seniority, the head of the Army.

After the surrender of Cornwallis,
and when it became evident that
the end of the struggle was at hand,
Hamilton resigned his commission
and took up the study of law at Al-
bany, New York. With such avid-
ity did he apply himself, that, in
four months, he was admitted to the
bar.

In the fall of 1782, he was elected
to the Continental Congress, where
he exerted all his splendid abilities
in a vain endeavor to bring order

out of the financial and political
chaos into which the Confederation
had fallen. His efforts only served
to convince him that a stronger and
more centralized general govern-
ment must be formed, or that the
American people must lose all they
had gained by eight long and dubi-
ous years of war. He therefore
returned to New York and threw
himself with all his ardent soul into
the work of creating such a govern-
ment. No other man did as much
to bring together the Convention
that wrought out the Constitution
of the United States. No other
toiled so tirelessly or so effectively
to secure the adoption of the Con-
stitution by the various states.

When at last the Government of
the United States was formed, and
Washington was elected President,
he chose Hamilton to be the first
Secretary of the Treasury. It was
then Hamilton's genius shone forth
in greatest splendor. The task be-
fore him was herculean. He was
Secretary, but there was no treas-
ury. The United States was with-
out pocketbook or money. Nay, it
was woefully in debt with nothing
to pay. So far, the new Govern-
ment was an arch without a key-
stone, in danger of falling into
ruins of its own weight. It re-
mained for Hamilton to place the
stone that should give to the arch
strength and permanency. That
stone was public credit.

American citizens held obliga-
tions of the old Confederation to
the amount of forty million dollars,
and were glad to dispose of their
holdings at fifteen cents on the dol-
lar. Twelve millions were out-
standing abroad, while the various
states owed twenty millions more
on account of the war. Hamilton
proposed that the new Government

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

44'

assume the whole of this indebted-
ness, dollar for dollar, principal and
interest, and that it pledge the re-
sources of the United States for its
payment. He well knew that, as
the creditor is vitally interested in
the solvency and prosperity of his
debtor, so every individual Ameri-
can and every state whose debt
should be assumed by the general
Government would feel a strong
and abiding interest in the stability
and financial success of the Union.
He succeeded without much diffi-
culty in inducing Congress to pledge
the payment of the home and
foreign debts, but lacked two votes
of enough to secure the assump-
tion of the state debts. Then fol-
lowed the celebrated bargain be-
tween Hamilton and Jefferson, by
which Hamilton threw the weight
of his influence in favor of locating
the national Capital on the Potomac,
in exchange for Jefferson's help to
carry through Hamilton's financial
measures. Thus the state debts
were assumed by the narrow margin
of two majority. By these meas-
ures and by invoking the implied
powers of the Constitution, Hamil-
ton succeeded in binding the states
into a Union of such cohesive force
that the fires of civil war, burning
with ever increasing fury for four
years, overcame it not. That Lin-
coln was able to hold the Union to-
gether against an armed force of
600,000 men was owing to the fact
that Hamilton, under Washington,
had done his work so well.

It was Hamilton who laid down
the fundamental principles over
which the political battles of a cen-
tury have been fought. Without
invidious comparison, it may truly
be said that Alexander Hamilton
did more than any other man to lay
broad and deep and strong the

foundations of our Government, —
the foundations upon which others
have built so grand and fair a struc-
ture.

Hamilton at last felt that the
time had come when duty to his
family demanded that he quit pub-
lic life and devote himself to his
profession. So meagre had been
his pay while Secretary of the
Treasury, that he left that office
£3,000 poorer than when he en-
tered it. New York, noted for its
able lawyers, has never produced a
more brilliant one than Alexander
Hamilton. Chancellor Kent said :
"He was a very great favorite with
the merchants of New York, and
was employed in every important
and every commercial case." His
was the dangerous reputation of be-
ing able to win any case he under-
took, right or wrong. But he never
took a case without first convincing
himself that it was just.

His social popularity was second
only to his reputation as a man of
affairs. He was the favorite of a
numerous following of personal
friends who were fascinated by his
generous nature, his engaging man-
ners and his brilliant conversation.
How unutterably sad that such a
man, with so proud a record behind
him and with so bright a future be-
fore him, should have his life snuffed
out in an instant by the dastardly
deed of a disappointed rival.

For fifteen years Alexander Ham-
ilton and Aaron Burr had been po-
litical opponents. Hamilton had so
often and so signally foiled Burr's
political ambitions that the latter's
jealousy and enmity finally ripened
into a deadly thirst for revenge. In
a political correspondence between
Dr. Cooper and General Schuyler,
(Hamilton's father-in-law) the for-
mer used this expression : "I could

448

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

detail to you a still more despicable
opinion which General Hamilton
has expressed of Mr. Burr." This
correspondence found its way into
the Albany newspapers. On June
18, 1804, Burr wrote to Hamilton,
demanding "a prompt, unqualified
acknowledgement or denial of any
expression which would warrant
the assertion of Dr. Cooper." On
the 20th, Hamilton wrote a con-
ciliatory reply, in which he said:

"I stand ready to avow or disavow
promptly and explicitly any precise or defi-
nite opinion which I may be charged with
having declared of any gentleman. More
than this cannot fitly be expected of me;
and especially it cannot be reasonably ex-
pected that I shall enter into an explana-
tion upon a basis so vague as that which
you have adopted. I trust, on more reflec-
tion, you will see the matter in the same
light with me. If not, I can only regret the
circumstance and must abide the conse-
quences."

A challenge followed. Hamilton
accepted. "I should not think it
right," he wrote, "in the midst of a
circuit court to withdraw my ser-
vices from those who may have con-
fided important interests to me, and
expose them to the embarrassment
of seeking other counsel, who may
not have time to be sufficiently in-
structed in their cases. I shall al-
so want a little time to make some
arrangements respecting my own af-
fairs." While Hamilton was devot-
ing his few remaining days to the
interests of his clients and to the
arrangement of his own affairs, Burr
was busy in his garden, firing with
a pistol at the figure of a man.

In an ante-mortem statement left
by Hamilton, he said:

"I was certainly desirous of avoiding
this interview for the most cogent reasons :

1. My religious and moral principles
are strongly opposed to dueling. * * *

2. My wife and children are extremely
dear to me, and my life is of the utmost
importance to them. * * *

3. I feel a sense of obligation to my
creditors.* * *

4. I am conscious of no ill-will to
Colonel Burr. * * *

Lastly, I shall hazard much and can
possibly gain nothing by the issue of the
interview. * * * I have resolved * * *
to reserve and throw away my first fire,
and thus give a double opportunity to
Colonel Burr to pause and to reflect. * *
* To those who, with me abhorring the
practice of duelling, may think that I ought
on no account to have added to the number
of bad examples, I answer that my relative
situation, as well in public as in private,
enforcing all the considerations which con-
stitute what men of the world denominate
honor, imposed upon me, as I thought a
peculiar necessity not to decline the call.
The ability to be in future, useful, whether
in resisting mischief or effecting good in
those crises of our public affairs which
seem likely to happen, would probably be
inseparable from a conformity with public
prejudice in this particular."

The fatal day, — July 11, 1804,
dawned bright and warm. The
spot chosen for the meeting was a
secluded ledge beneath the heights
of Weehawken, overlooking the
Hudson, — the spot where, three
years before, Hamilton's oldest son
had perished in a duel. The word
was given. Burr took deliberate
aim and fired. Hamilton fell for-
ward on his face, his pistol going
off in mid-air as he fell. Burr's
deadly bullet had pierced the vic-
tim's right side, inflicting a mortal
wound. The stricken man lingered
until two o'clock the next day, when
he expired, surrounded by his family
and friends.

Not until Lincoln died was the
nation again so stricken with horror.
Burr, Booth like, fled from the
scene of his crime, pursued by the
anathemas of his stricken country-
men.

In Statuary Hall of the Capitol
at Washington, stands a splendid
figure in marble, before which
thousands pause in reverent silence
to pay their tribute of grateful ad-
miration to the memory of Alex-
ander Hamilton and to execrate the
blighted name of Aaron Burr.

Jamaica as a Summer Resort

By Maurice Baldwin

PART I

IT is a true boast in the Islands of
the West Indies that he who has
visited them once always comes
back or wishes to. The British
colony of Jamaica — the most beauti-
ful and the most civilized of the
Antillian group, and the Mecca for
thousands of New England visitors
in recent years — might assume justly
the sobriquet that the people of Mar-
tinique bestowed on their beautiful
and ill-fated island — " Le Pays dn
Revenants" — the land of the comers-
back.

The peculiar charm which Jamaica
possesses for northern tourists is the
result of a very unusual combina-
tion of happy conditions. The diffi-
culties and discomforts of travel in
tropical countries are generally so
great and so many that the pleasure
or health-seeking traveler seldom
has the courage to undergo them.
Thousands of visitors from Europe
and the United States have found
these disadvantages markedly ab-
sent from travel in Jamaica.

The unparalleled beauty of her
scenery; the remarkable and never
varying healthfulness of her climate ;
the hospitality and charm of her
people; the English that is spoken;
the ease and inexpensiveness of
transportation to her shores; the
facilities for the enjoyment of travel
over her perfect and beautiful roads ;
the fascination of living with Ameri-
can comforts in the tropics, with
none or few of those banes of the

*(Copyright, 1904, by Maurice Baldwin).

tropics, fevers, insects and serpents,
— all these things must inevitably
attract the attention of those who
love the beautiful in nature or who
are in search of health or rest or
pleasure.

Whatever may be Jamaica's possi-
bilities for future commercial activi-
ties, and barely a tenth of her area
is now under cultivation, she is un-
questionably destined to be preemi-
nent as a Resort. Not only during
the winter months, but the summer
months, as well.

That this statement will be met
with incredulity by all who are not
familiar with the West Indies goes
without saying, but that the sum-
mertime in several of these islands,
and particularly Jamaica, is far less
hot and uncomfortable than the
same season in New England, is
known to those whom chance or the
wanderlust have taken to the tropics
of the Caribbean.

The explanation of the happy
weather conditions is simple. The
summer change in the sun's position
appears to have little effect relatively
on the temperature; the increase of
heat during June, July, August and
September being but five to ten
degrees above the average tempera-
ture for the rest of the year.

Jamaica lies in the sweep of the
Atlantic trade winds, that blow for
months at a stretch in one direction
— a vast draught that carries the
sea mists to the mountains of the
island, to fall in a heavy dew that
nightly cools the heated lands and
renders necessary on the highlands

449

450

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

at night the use of light overcoats
and blankets.

Now, where there be cool nights
it matters little how warm the days
may be. Sleep is possible and sleep
is strength. It is the suffocating
heat of northern summer nights,
when the struggle for a cool breath
continues through the night hours
and makes slumber but the uncon-
sciousness of exhaustion, that ener-
vates the body and destroys all
pleasure in nature's most beautiful
season.

It is delightful enough, in the
midst of the inclemencies of a New
England winter, to know there is a
land which Spring never forsakes,
but it is almost impossible, when the
fierce northern summer is beating
upon one, to believe that the same
region possesses a climate that is a
changeless caress of refreshing
nights and perfect days ; without
sunstrokes, without prostrations,
without the exactions of civilized
living under distressful conditions.

In some of Jamaica's coast towns
and others denied the beneficence of
the wind from the hills the warm
humidity of the atmosphere may
prove uncomfortable, but as by far
the greater part of the island is a
succession of elevations rising
almost immediately from the sea,
there would be little excuse for
lingering in such places.

The first land that is sighted by
the traveler after leaving the Ameri-
can coast is San Salvador, now
known as Watling's Island, where
Columbus first landed after his long
voyage from Spain four hundred
years ago. The next morning, that
of the third day out of Boston, the
eastern extremity of Cuba and the
light of Cape Maysi are sighted —
a mountainous coast whose terrace-
like slopes are covered by dense

jungle; a silent and lonely prospect,
for there are few inhabitants in this
part of Cuba. It was nearly three
months after the surrender of
Santiago that the little band of
Spanish soldiery who guarded the
light were made aware of Spain's
defeat.

All the afternoon this olive-col-
ored land is in sight, fading to a dim
blue ridge as the steamer retreats.
Already the warmth of the tropics
is felt and as the day wanes one be-
gins to know the differences that
exist between northern and southern
nights.

These changes have been rapidly
made after coming from the Atlan-
tic ocean into the Caribbean sea.
The water is intensely blue — a
stretch of vivid indigo. We see
our first really tropical sunset — a
collossal glorification of color and
light that is the daily wonder of
these lower latitudes. The air is
sweet and balmy — warm like a hu-
man breath. As the skies darken, the
stars blaze out with sudden bright-
ness, a brilliancy indescribable. Off
to the south-east, low in the horizon,
the Southern Cross is visible — a
beautiful but not impressive con-
stellation, for the effect of the sym-
bol is somewhat marred by the un-
equal brilliancy of the stars which
form it.

Sometime in the very early morn-
ing one may be roused from sleep
by the stopping of the engines and
this sudden cessation of their
throbbing seems like a stilled heart-
beat. Out in the darkness a little
boat rowed by negro boys has
brought us a pilot and in a few min-
utes the steamer has been guided
through a narrow pass between
Fairfield Island and the Jamaica
mainland and is lying at anchor in
the harbor o£ Port Antonio.

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

451

Should curiosity urge us on deck,
we shall see, in the clear light of the
morning stars, a shore and a little
town lying under abrupt mountains.
An absolute silence hangs over the
place. The air is deliciously cool
and sweet-scented. At the tiny dock
burns a single electric lamp — all the
rest of the town is in darkness.
Then in the east a frosty silver light
begins to spread across the heavens,

the cackling of poultry, the barking
of a multitude of dogs. Fishermen
are leisurely drying their sails pre-
paratory to going out to the fishing
banks or to make brief voyages to
some tiny town along the coast for
a cargo of produce.

Back of the town rise the abrupt
foothills of the range of mountains
that lie to the south — a rampart of
green frondage fading into the blue

ON THE ROAD FROM PORT ANTONIO TO PORT MARIA

softening to a glow of palest rose,
and when it brightens to the in-
creasing radiance of day one learns
the value of the gift of vision.

The harbor and town of Port
Antonio lie before us — a revelation
of color and light and beauty; a
quaint * exotic charm prevading
everything. From the shore come
the song of happy-hearted negroes,

of distance. Everywhere are the
colors and sounds and fragrances
that belong to the tropics only.
They deluge the senses with their
intensity. The sky and sea are
bluer,. the flowers more fragrant, the
sounds more melodious than any we
have ever known before.

As the steamer draws up to the
dock and is made fast, an amusing

452

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

multitude of black people gather
about the dock, laughing, chatter-
ing, gesticulating with tireless en-
ergy, and before the trunks are
passed by the courteous customs of-
ficials, this crowd has formed itself
into a procession, bearing upon
their heads to open ports of the
steamer great bunches of green ba-
nanas. They sing crude melodies
that remind one of the Chicago mid-
way, and above the mellow din of
their voices can be heard the sing-
song of the tallyman, keeping count,
by fives, of the bunches taken in.

Later, on the drive to Port Maria,
one sees from the top of Severn's
Hill in what a beautiful position the
town is situated. Fairfield Island,
a small flat of green-covered land,
protects the little double harbor
from the roughest storms and the
town lying along a narrow peninsu-
la looks down upon waters of liquid
rainbow, iridescent in the white
light of a vertical sun. Across a
wilderness of cocoanut palms and
sugar cane gleams a harbor, where,
a century and more ago, many a
"dark low rakish craft" has anchored,
for this little town was one of the
favorite stopping places of the pi-
rates and freebooters who once in-
fested the western seas, and many
a dusky inhabitant of Port Antonio
owes his touch of white blood to an
ancestry of lawless loves in the days
of the black flag.

The hotel, the Titchfield House,
situated on the end of the peninsula,
is reached by a short drive through
a winding narrow street margined
by quaint, almost barbaric little
houses, of one or two stories. The
architecture is of the simplest.
There are no sidewalks, no street
cars, no electric lights. Everything
seems primitive and strange. Along
the streets pass a mixed people

among whom few white faces are
seen, though there are all intermedi-
ate shades between white and black.

The hotel, built on a rounded
bluff overlooking the bay and sea,
is surrounded by well kept lawns
filled with tropical shrubs and
plants, and is generously shaded by
palms and oaks. In appointments
and table it is far ahead of the aver-
age summer hotel.

It was here that during the Span-
ish war a large number of the cor-
respondents had their quarters.
Last winter the buildings were
nearly destroyed by the fierce hur-
ricane which swept over the island,
but they have since been replaced
by more extensive structures. The
view from the long verandahs of the
hotel is a beautiful one.

Impatient to see the novel sights
about him, after a day's rest from
the swing of the ship the traveler
wTill visit the little shops where
native curiosities are sold, and
whose easy-going proprietors greet
him with effusive cordiality and
with serene cupidity, overcharging
as they smile. The market place ;
the old English fort, now used as
a school ; the ruined Spanish church
on the hill ; the coral reefs, where
hundreds of marine wonders are
to be found ; the narrow streets ;
the happy-go-lucky crowd of na-
tives, afford endless study and
amusement. The custom of carry-
ing burdens on the head is general ;
everyone has something on his or
her mind, from a cake of soap to a
barrel of flour.

While in Port Antonio the tourist
should not omit to make several
visits to the banana estates of the
fruit company, whose business real-
ly appears to be the one sure in-
dustrial hope of the island. Every-
where there are splendid roads.

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT.

453

Their beauty and excellence cannot
be too highly praised. They are
perfect, and their ever-changing
loveliness, the safety with which
one may travel over them by night
or day, and their splendid condition
in every part of the island, render a
carriage or bicycle tour of the island
especially delightful. Wheelmen
declare Jamaica an ideal place for

filled by water of an unknown
depth, having a narrow connection
with the sea. The wonderful rich-
ness of the colors shining on its
surface is fascinating. Molten tur-
quoise, emerald, ruby, poured into an
exquisite crucible of volcanic rock,
margined by dense green and filled
with fish as varied in hue as the
water.

NATIVE HOUSES IN THE HEART OF A BANANA PLANTATION

the bicycle and assert that our own
country has no better roads for this
diversion than the smooth, palm-
shadowed avenues of the island.

On the way to Golden Vale — one
of the largest banana plantations in
the island — is Blue Hole, a phe-
nomena of the island formation.
It has the appearance of having been
the crater of a volcano, but is now

The difference between an Ameri-
can dollar and its equivalent in
Jamaica money is a mental and a
moral difference. The natives of
the West Indies own the most fertile
lands in the world — latent but veri-
table gold mines, but it remains for
the Yankee investor to make these
lands give forth harvests that turn
to money. The Jamaican, by the

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

inactivity of his temperament, lets
the coin he has lie in his hand ; the
American keeps it rolling, and
chases it as far as it will go.

The British Colonial Office con-
ducts the government of Jamaica,
but the backbone of its commercial
importance, the meat and bread of
every one of its 700,000 inhabitants
is not British sovereingty but the
American capital, American brains
and energy, that are being exercised
throughout the island.

Fruit-bearing in the tropics is a
continuous performance. Nature's
inexhaustible fecundity forces to
development without cessation
every form of vegetable life. The
banana plant, the staple product of
Jamaica, grows to an average height
of ten or fifteen feet. The stem
which bears the fruit, usually two
or three bunches at once, is cut
down or dies down, after the fruit
is matured. Within a few weeks
a new stem starts up to bear more
clusters, and so on for many years.
The fruit is cut green, carried to the
carts on the heads of negroes or by
donkeys, thence to the docks, from
which almost daily a steamer leaves
for America.

This superb industry, furnishing
employment to thousands of natives,
and to about 40,000 coolies from
Burma, constitutes the chief com-
merce of the island, is owned and
managed by Boston men, and has
done more for the island and the
people who live on it than 200 years
of British rule.

Only a small portion of the island
is covered with railway service and
much of the loveliest part is re-
moved from the advantages of such
transportation. The best way in
which to see the beauties of the coun-
try is by carriage. For a tour of the
island one is able to secure a car-

riage, two horses and a driver at a
charge that would cause a Boston
liveryman to blush with shame,
were it not that he is past doing or
feeling either.

There are now about 175 miles
of railroad in the island, connecting
Kingston with Port Antonio on the
north, and Montego Bay on the
west. The original line, from
Kingston to Spanish Town, was but
fourteen miles in length, built by
English capitalists — small ones —
and was operated in such a way that
if one were in a hurry he could more
quickly reach the termini by car-
riage.

A novel feature in the making
of the roadbeds for the new lines
has been the employment of women,
a large number of whom have done
most of the arduous labor of break-
ing rock and carrying it on their
heads to the point of construction.
The women, indeed, do the greater
part of the hard work of the island ;
the men, as everywhere else in the
world, are a lazy lot and loaf about
their little thatch huts, tend the
babies, and dream of the ameliora-
tion of their sex.

The carriage road to Monteg'o
Bay, the western extreme of the
island, is one of the most excellent
pieces of road construction to be
seen in any country. The Span-
iards made the first trail through
the almost impenetrable tropical
jungle. Jamaica, after the English
conquests, became a penal station
like Australia, and thousands of
convicts lost their lives in the la-
bor of constructing the wonderful
roads of which the island is today
so justly proud.

Fairly good food may be had every-
where at little lodging houses, which
"of late years have increased in num-
ber and excellence with the increase

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

455

of travel. The native cooking is
not always satisfactory to the
northern taste ; many of the dishes
are entirely unknown to the Ameri-
can cook. Those preparations for
the table in which the native fruits
and vegetables enter are usually ex-
tremely appetizing. It is when the
negro cook tries to prepare her
viancls a la Delmonico that she dis-

off like that of the banana, disclos-
ing a flesh like that of a melon, pis-
taschio-green on the outer layer and
salmon-colored within, and encloses
a large seed about the size of a
lemon. This remarkable fruit, too
perishable for shipment, is delicious
in all of its uses. It may be eaten
plain, used instead of crackers in
soup ; as a substitute for potatoes in

JAMAICA ROADMAKERS. WOMEN BREAK THE STONES FOR THIS WORK

concerts one's appetite and diges-
tion. Bread fruit is good baked in
the coals and served with butter.
The akee is a vegetable that grows
on a tree with brilliant red flowers.
It looks and tastes like scrambled
eggs and is usually served with salt
fish. The alligator pear grows on a
tree, but is more vegetable than
fruit. It has the shape of a huge
Bartlett pear. Its green skin peels

meat hashes, and as the head and
front of salads it is beyond descrip-
tion. It has an odd neutral taste
that renders it the natural comple-
ment for any other more pro-
nounced flavor with which it may
be associated and its beautiful col-
ors add to the charm of its presence
in salads and other dishes.

One morning we are called earlier

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

than usual, though rest is at an end
— the deep delicious sleep that pure
cool air brings one in these tropical
nights. It is five o'clock. Our car-
riage is at the door and after a de-
jeuner of coffee and eggs, both na-
tive, we start westward. The air is
fresh and sweet; almost cold. On
the drive to Port Maria the mind is
a chaos of bewildering impressions
of beauty. The simple and pictur-
esque people, the odd little houses
that nestle in the shade of broad-
leaved trees, the wonderful exuber-
ance of vegetation, the strange
charm and beauty and plenitude of
nature fill the memory with pictures
and impressions that only days and
days can bring any order into.

Near Port Maria the road passes
through a cocoanut valley — a plan-
tation 1400 acres in extent of graceful
palms laden with nuts. For a three-
pence a little black boy climbs up
one of the slender stems and throws
down a dozen young nuts, which,
when cut through at the top, pre-
sent a quart of deliciously cool co-
coanut water, most refreshing to
the thirsty.

Along the roadway masses of
trailing jasmine show their white
stars and fill the air with fragrance.
Giant growths of convolvulus throw
their green mantles over miles of
bush. The yellow nightshade, the
butterfly creeper — the blossoms of
which look like purple little butter-
flies hovering with outstretched
wings above the green leaves — the
Ponciana Regia, with its vermilion-
hued clusters of bloom, the Akee,
with its crimson-clad fruit — all
these make the changing views
along the road an intoxication of
color, beauty, perfume. And there
are long reaches of white road mar-
gined by cocoanut palms, tall and
oriental in effect, of dense growths

of bamboo, rustling in the breeze
with a sound like the distant clap-
ping of hands. Through intervales
shoreward the blue wonder of the
sea glistens, every wavetop gleam-
ing with a touch of sunlight.

The road passes through valleys
of bamboo — a wilderness of dark
green trunks and feathery pale
green foliage ; through glades of
fern, where the air is cool and moist,
twilit even at noon ; or round hill-
sides where on the one hand the trop-
ical forest towers and on the other
the sea smiles through the island
fringe of cocoanut palms.

The eye never tires of the pano-
rama which every turn of the road
discloses in new aspects of loveli-
ness, and, as the day wanes, we are
driven into Port Maria in a fleet
twilight in which the sunset colors,
like a dissolving pyrotecnic, fade in
a few minutes against a dull purple
canopy bright with stars. Little
fishing boats loll on the quiet bay,
the cool air comes in from the sea
with the boatmen's songs, a million
little insect voices break into shrill
cries that blend with the world's
vast nocturne, fireflies blaze among
the leaves of the trees and over the
fields, forming rapid constellations
in the dusk ; and it is all beautiful
and unreal, and a little sad for very
excess of beauty — that mysterious
and langorous pageant of a tropic
night.

The native life is quite as inter-
esting as the scenery of the island.
Negroes form the bulk of the
island's 700,000 population. There are
about 16,000 white people, English
and Americans, and about 60,000
half-breeds. The lives of the peas-
antry are simple and primitive in the
extreme. They are light-hearted,
vain, superstitious, law-abiding, and
are much superior in physique and

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

457

disposition to the negroes of the
southern states.

Physically the present generation
is stronger than that just passing,
worn out by slavery; the female
portion in particular. The men are
already succumbing to the effects of
dissipation and idleness, but the
women, upon whom falls the great-
est labor, are fine-looking, muscular

without picturesqueness. Inaclimate
of perpetual June there is little need
of anything more than protection
from the sun and rain. Most of the
native villages are hidden away in
a mass of greenery through which
one almost requires a guide to find
them. The houses are made of lat-
ticed bamboo with a thick thatch of
cocoanut fronds, making a perfect

SCENE IN A JAMAICA GARDEN

creatures, and in those instances
where there has been an admixture
of white blood are often handsome.
The native women all walk like
queens. Their muscular development
in youth is superb. The custom of
carrying burdens on the head gives
their figures an erect, natural and
most graceful bearing.

The places of dwelling are amus-
ingly small and uncouth, but not

roof, cool in the heat of the day and
shedding water like a duck's back.
While education has not advanced
very far with the native population,
they sometimes show considerable
wit, in which the characteristic of
primitive minds, cunning, holds a
place. The following anecdote told
me by Dr. Johnston, of Brownstown,
illustrates both the negro's humor
and power of argument.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

An old Calvinistic minister of
Jamaica happened early one morn-
ing to see a black man walking out
of his stable-yard with a saddle.
Later in the day he met the negro
and stopped him.

"Look here, David," said he, "I
want you to bring back the saddle
you took from my yard this morn-
ing."

"Fore de Lord, Massa, me nevah
see yo' saddle, sah !"

"Well, never mind talking about
it, David, but if that saddle isn't
returned tonight I shall have you
arrested."

"Now, minister, yo' jes' listen ter
me, sah. Yo' is a old Calvinis' min-
ister, no so, sah?"

"Yes."

"Well, minister, yo' alius done
teach me 'bout de doctrine of pre-
desperation, sah?"

"Yes, David, that is so. What
has that to do with it?"

"Well now, massa, mek me tell
you, sah. Dere am a certain amount
of saddle dat am predesperated to be
teefed, (stolen) an' ob course a cer-
tain amount ob nigger to teef dem,
an ef I should be de nigger predes-
(perated to teef yo' saddle — I not
'sponsible, am I, sah?"

The minister, feeling himself
somewhat cornered, replied evasive-

ly-

"I don't care so much about the
saddle, David, as I feel sorrow to
know you should tell me a lie."

"Hi, minister, yo' too funny, sah!
Dere am a certain amount of lie to
be telled in dis world an a certain
number of nigger to tell dem. Ef I
should be predesperated to told yo'
a lie, I'se not 'sponsible fo' dat
eider."

"I don't care for your arguments,
David, but let me tell you one thing
— if that saddle is not in my yard

tonight, you'll be sent up, that is
all."

"Now, minister, yo' no rough me
so, sah! Because dere am a certain
amount of teefed saddle that am pre-
desperated to be took back, an ef yo'
saddle am one of dem yo'll find it in
yo' yard tonight, sah. Good day,
minister."

The natives are not wholly de-
pendent upon the planters for a live-
lihood. Many of them own the land
on which their houses are built, and
are thrifty in a simple way, for the
few wants of their mode of life can
be satisfied by a small exertion.
Along the roads, under the shade of
a guava or a bread-fruit tree, one
may see native women pounding
chocolate, making baskets, sorting
coffee, sewing, or cooking their
bread-fruit or yams. In their little
communities someone will have a
crude sugar mill to which girls
bring upon their heads bundles of
cane for crushing. The sap is
boiled down into syrup and sugar to
sweeten the bread of honest lazi-
ness.

The language of the native Jamai-
can is an amusing English patois,
with many words of Spanish and
African derivation, somewhat differ-
ent from the dialect of the southern
states, and if anything, more musi-
cal. In a land where throat and
lung troubles are almost unknown
the voice gains a rich fullness of
tone seldom heard in the voices of
the American negro.

These simple people have a great
deal of social pride, and the inter-
mixture of races has brought about
a strong feeling of caste.

A yellow girl and a black girl
were disputing over some matter,
when the black maiden, growing
angrier, said with disgust :

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

459

"Go long, wid yo' ! I can't talk a favorite song among these black

wid yo' sort of color!" and tan people is that fine old

"Why yo' no talk wid my color, church hymn in which the refrain

yo' fool nigger?" retorted the half- occurs:

breed. "I shall be washed whiter than

"Yo' nothin' but a yaller gal ! snow."

I'se above talkin' ter yo'." From Port Maria, we enter the

ONE OF THE THOUSAND LITTLE CASCADES THAT BEAUTIFY JAMAICA STREAMS

"How yo' done mek dat out, yo'
black buzzard!"

"How I mek dat out!" said the
black girl with contemptuous sar-
casm. "Yo' nothin' but a yaller gal.
Yo' aint white; yo' aint black.

What

yo'? Yo' aint nothing;

dat's what yo' is !"

And at all their religious meetings

garden-spot of Jamaica — the Parish
of St. Ann. One must borrow his
similies from the lapidary, the artist
and the alchemist, in order to de-
scribe the wonderful and varied col-
or display which bursts at every
turn of the road upon the enchanted
vision. The whole island, indeed,
durinof the summertide, seems to be

460

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

a primitive worshiper of the sun,
and rises to his light in efflores-
cences of emerald and gold, of lus-
ters incomparable ; an iridescent
sheen of vivid and luminous verd-
ure, dotted with millions of flow-
ers, the colors of which no king's
casket of jewels can rival. To the
highest mountain peak this extrav-
agance of beautiful green stretches
in multiform loveliness. On the
mountain tops the convexity of the
sea produces a peculiar optical illu-
sion ; it seems instead, to rise, a solid
wall of purest turquoise, shutting
the island and its exuberant beauty
from an ignorant and incurious
world beyond the horizon.

The road to St. Ann's Bay winds
in and out among the hills, now
skirting the shore for a few miles,
then disappearing beneath the tow-
ering forest, in a clear green twi-
light that is only comparable to that
seen by divers in the depths of the
sea. Like fantastic fishes, birds of
brilliant plumage fly before the car-
riage from one shadowy recess to
another. In the emerald dimness it
is cool as if one had wandered into
a cavern's mouth, a cavern of green
glass, through which the light faint-
ly makes its way.

Four miles from the town of St.
Ann we cross Roaring River bridge,
one of the beauty spots of the road.
The bridge covers the river at its
narrowest point, where in a deep
chasm the white water rushes to the
sea a mile away with a tumult and
roar indescribable. Dense growths
of bread-fruit and guava trees, cab-
bage palms and laurel, shadow
either bank of the stream.

In a field across the bridge there
is a banyan tree, under the wide
shade of which a thousand people
might stand. The branches of the
parent trunk have dropped roots

along their growth, which in turn do
their part toward the sustenance of
this genuine family tree. Here, at
the suggestion of the driver, who-
proves to have also excellent powers
as a philospher and guide, we leave
the carriage, follow him over a nar-
row path, through a virgin forest for
a mile, and come out upon a mass of
greenery over which is visible the
falls of Roaring River. This magnif-
icent cascade has a fall of over one
hundred feet. The humid atmos-
phere, the warmth and moisture and
the fertile silt brought down by the
river make the vegetation rankly
luxurious. Giant lianas trail down
from the branches of lofty cotton-
wood trees, garlanded with wild
growths of convolvulus and Bour-
ganvilliers, dotted with blossoms.

The tremendous noise which this
river makes along its entire course
is clue to a peculiar habit it has of
damming itself at every possible
point. The water is strongly im-
pregnated with lime and silica,
which are deposited in walls that
constantly break the course of the
stream.

In the tropics the activity of
nature is untiring. Life and decay
go hand in hand with awful intens-
ity. Dead tree trunks are quickly
covered with enshrouding vineage;
over every stone and broken limb is
woven a robe of living green, in-
sidious in its destructive and obliter-
ating power. Nature has no
memory, no heart; she leaves no
monuments, she cherishes no past.
Inexorable, cruel, fruitful — in the
tropics her boundless energy exhibits
itself in a supreme perpetutation of
her forms, with no regard for the in-
dividual exhibition, but with a tiger-
like ferocity for manifestation, for
renaissance. It comes to one often,
during this summer communion with

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT.

461

her, as a thought full of fright, of
impotent and immense regret — that,
after all, in the scheme of material
creation man plays a very small and
ephemeral part, and that when his
petty world successes are at an end,
Nature, implacable, anti-human, in-
solently triumphant, will quickly
obliterate the records of a self-made
greatness beneath the somber ma-

yan trees. The water is deep and
cool ; clear as crystal. Shafts of sun-
light break through the sheltering
green and play upon the surface, or
are broken into prismatic colors by
the foam of a dozen cascades that
fall into the pool.

High up in the mountains, eight-
een miles from St. Ann's Bay, in
the heart of the pimento region, is

diana's pool, near st. ann's bay. twelve cascades empty into this beautiful basin

jesty of a voiceless and encroaching
Decay, that comes, garlanded with
green leaves and flowers, bearing
the slow erosive poisons of death.

One of the most charming spots in
this beautiful river is Diana's Bath
— truly a fitting place for hamadry-
ads and nymphs — a veritable pool in
fairy land, screened by a dense wall
of cabbage palms, of fern and ban-

Brownstown. It is sometimes hard
to find a Jamaica town until one is
really in it, so dense is the surround-
ing forest.

The road to Brownstown passes
extensive estates where the aromat-
ic Allspice, or Pimento, is grown,
a product peculiar to Jamaica.

The pimento trees have trunks of
dingy silver and a foliage dark green

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

and richly odorous. Twice a year
the little berries are plucked, dried
on broad cemented areas called bar-
becues, and are sent in sacks, like
coffee, to the shipping points. Cof-
fee is also one of the products of
this region. A coffee orchard is
very beautiful in the season of
bloom. Along the slender branches
the blossoms grow thickly, looking
like a light fall of snow and filling
the air with an exquisite fragrance,
somewhat like that of frangipani,
also a native of Jamaica.

A sudden turn in the steep road
that winds up from the sea — which
has gradually changed in color from
the sandy yellow of the coast roads
to an Indian red — and the little
mountain town comes all at once in-
to view. It is very beautifully situ-
ated, this village in the hills, with
its English houses and its vistas of
mountain scenery. In the center of
the town is the market place, as is
the case with nearly all Jamaica
towns, a substantial and attractive
building with a high iron fence and
all necessary facilities for the barter
that is carried on by the country
people.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays
the market court presents a fascinat-
ing spectacle of moving figures, of
little over-loaded donkeys, of gestic-
ulating buyers and sellers, of varied
and strange fruits. Bananas, oranges,
plantains, pineapples, mangoes,
cocoanuts, yams, vegetables known
and unknown to northern eyes and
taste, lie in heaps about the market
areas, and beside them are seated
sad, bedizened old aunties, in clean
white dresses and with heads bound
in bright-hued bandanas, inviting
the public to buy. Most of the busi-
ness of the market is transacted by
women, who, long before the dawn
of day, have left their little farms

among the mountains and walked
miles with tireless feet to sell their
humble goods in the town. And
when night comes they trudge back
to their distant homes, singing or
talking to themselves, content if
they have made thirty or forty cents.

The water in this town, as in
many other of the mountain vil-
lages, comes almost wholly from the
clouds. This, during the torrential
rains, is caught in well-kept cisterns.
There are few springs and no wells
of any worth at this elevation. A
few years ago the credulous citizens
of Brownstown brought out from
England a water-diviner, an odd old
Yorkshireman who caused his cli-
ents no end of useless expense bor-
ing wells where his willow switch
made its mysterious dips. The hills
about Brownstown are dotted with
the monuments of this amusing and
costly experimentation, but the cis-
terns have not yet been abandoned.

One of the most beautiful estates
in this Parish of St. Ann's is that of
the Rev. Dr. James Johnston, one of
the unlaureled heroes of the world.
His home is situated on a hill-top,
having a wide view of the mountains
on every side, and is surrounded by
tropical shrubberies and flowering
trees. Dr. Johnston is a man of va-
ried activities. During the greater
part of his residence in Jamaica he
has been a healer alike of body and
soul among the poor and untutored
negroes of the island. He maintains
at his own expense a hospital and a
church on his land, and in other
parts of the Parish has built ten or
twelve little mission churches. Once
a month he preaches in the home
church, and at different hours of the
Sabbath preaches three or four
times in as many districts. His
capable wife also conducts several
services, and together these two de-

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT.

463

voted and unselfish workers have
brought the people among whom
they live to a practical knowledge of
better living.

Beside being a preacher and a
physician Dr. Johnston's explora-
tions in Africa won for him a dozen
years ago high standing in scientific
and ethnological circles. He is also

about get their best drinking water.
They row out to where the subter-
ranean river rises to the surface of
the sea and fill their tubs and cala-
bashes.

Every little way along the coast
road the traveler passes small rivers
of great beauty; rapid flowing
streams, seaward bound. It is a

RAPIDS OF THE LANDOVERY RIVER

a member of the Legislative Coun-
cil of Jamaica.

From Brownstown the westward
road returns to the sea at Runaway
Bay, so called from the fact that it
was here Don Arnaldo Sasi, the last
of the Spanish governors, after a
desperate struggle with Cromwell's
troops, made his escape to Cuba.
Out in the bay, about half a mile
from the shore, is a huge fresh water
spring, from which the people here-

constantly recurring temptation to
leave the carriage and follow up the
sources of these picturesque and
lovely rivers. The rapid descent
from the highlands enhances the
charm of the waters by the creation
of beautiful little cataracts at every
turn of their courses. The Land-
overy falls are especially charming,
margined by dense and beautiful
vegetation, and in its green pools,
beneath the leaves of lilies and

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

water hyacinths, lives the mountain
mullet, a fish that furnishes as good
sport for fishermen as does our
brook trout.

Along the banks of these streams
grow masses of fleur-de-lis, purple
and yellow ; water hyacinths, beauti-
ful and richly fragrant; pond-lilies
of great size, and many other flow-
ers of unusual forms and beauty. To

the over-hanging boughs of trees
cling many varieties of the orchid
family, bearing bizarre and lovely
blossoms. And over these swift
streams and among the flowers
whole fleets of butterflies spread
their gaudy sails to the sunlight in
a bloodless piracy of sweets.
(To be continued.)

A Garden Party

By Emilia Elliott

MISS KITTY was weeding the
sweet alysium border. It
was the first of June, and the
garden was full of sweet odors.

Miss Kitty pushed back her white
sun-bonnet, letting the soft breeze
fan her flushed cheeks. It was a
day for loitering; her eyes went be-
yond the garden to the long white
road, — once, when she was a little
girl, on just such a day as this, she
had been set to weed the garden
borders, and instead, had wandered
off to spend a long idle morning in
the woods.

Miss Kitty sighed a little sadly; it
was hard to be thirty-five and ex-
pected to live up to the traditions of
lady-like behavior, handed down to
one from one's great grandmother —
who, judging by the portrait in the
best parlor, must have been an ex-
ceedingly uncomfortable person to
live with.

"Kitty, your bonnet!" her sister
Hannah called from the porch.
Miss Kitty had a thin delicate face,
framed by soft brown hair, blue
eyes, and the complexion of a girl.
Kitty's complexion was the source

of much pride, also much worry to
Hannah.

Miss Hannah was sweeping the
sitting-room, coming, now and then
to stand at open door or window, for
a moment's chat with her sister.

"Deacon Day's coming," she
called presently. "Summer's here for
sure — he's got on that old linen
duster. Sally Palmer says she
never lets her young ones leave off
their flannels, until the deacon
comes out in his duster."

The deacon stopped his old horse
before the gate. "Anything I can
get for you, down to the store?" he
called.

It was two miles to the village,
and the sisters kept no horse; the
deacon was very obliging in the
matter of errands, including mail —
the latter consisting mainly of a
weekly religious paper, a Woman's
Magazine, and an occasional letter.

Miss Kitty pulled off her garden
gloves, and went down to the gate.
"Nothing this morning, thank you,
except to ask for the mail. Pretty
day, isn't it?"

"Fine," the deacon answered.

A GARDEN PARTY

465

" 'Duster Day's' come round again,
rather late this year — Yes'm that's
what my grandson's named it —
'Duster Day,' ' and the deacon
chuckled. "Went out to the old
mill yesterday ; saw your folks as I
drove past. They're down early
this year. Nice place that."

Miss Kitty drew herself up a little
proudly, "Oh, but you should see it
inside, Deacon."

She went back to the house.
"Hannah," she called, "the deacon
says John and Elizabeth are at The
Maples."

The news brought Miss Hannah
out to the porch. "In June ! Well,
I want to know !"

"Perhaps they've come for the
Summer."

Miss Hannah shook her head.
"Elizabeth would never be content-
ed there a whole Summer." There
was both pride and disapproval in
her voice.

Cousin John's wife — pretty, fash-
ionable Elizabeth — was a very won-
derful creature in the sisters' eyes.
They could not always approve of
her ways — "But you know, my dear,"
Miss Hannah would say, "she did
not have our advantages in the up-
bringing. I fear her mother was a
very worldly woman." Neverthe-
less, they found those ways an end-
less subject of conversation.

During his boyhood, John Win-
throp had frequently passed his va-
cations at his uncle's; he and Miss
Kitty were about the same age, and
had been great chums. Some years
since, soon after his marriage, he
had bought up considerable proper-
ty, out on the old Mill Road, and
built a country home. He was the
same frank generous fellow that he
had been as a boy, but the old famil-
iar intimacy had never been re-
newed. The John Winthrops were

seldom at The Maples except for a
few weeks in the Fall, when there
was always a houseful of guests and
much gaiety. The sisters were in-
vited to tea, once or twice, accord-
ing to the length of Elizabeth's stay.
Not tea in their sense of the word —
a generous comfortable meal, but an
unsatisfactory, five o'clock affair;
with people coming and going, as
they liked; and always the danger of
spilling the tea over one's best gown
— the cup being held in one's hand,
instead of being placed sensibly on
the table.

On their part, the Misses Win-
throp furnished a little well con-
cealed amusement to Elizabeth's
guests, who voted Miss Hannah
quite a character, and Miss Kitty a
pretty, quaint thing.

As they rode home, there was al-
ways a sore feeling, at the bottom of
Miss Kitty's heart, and an indignant
light in Miss Hannah's grey eyes.
"Poor John!" she would say, shak-
ing her head, "I may be country
born, and country bred — but I was
brought up to remember that com-
pany is company, and to be treated
as such."

Still, they never refused to go
when invited — it would have hurt
John's feelings — besides, they had
not many outings, and it was some-
thing to be seen riding through the
village in the handsome turnout,
with two men in livery on the box.

The day following one of these
teas saw more than one caller open
the sisters' front gate. Last Fall
had come no invitation. Elizabeth
had called as usual, during the early
part of her stay, John had been over
with the children — but there had
been no invitation. The sisters had
wondered, hurt and disappointed.
What would people think?

They were talking it over this

466

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

morning, Miss Kitty on the steps,
Miss Hannah leaning against the
railing, dust-cloth in hand.

"You know Hannah," Miss Kitty
declared, "we never did anything to
vex Elizabeth, when she was here
last; every thing was the same as
usual."

"It was just some whim of hers,"
Miss Hannah answered. "I don't
see why you worry so much about
it, Kitty."

"I wonder" — how often Miss Kit-
ty had "wondered" since last Fall —
"if she'll ask us this year?"

"I hope we'd have self-respect
enough to refuse, unless suitable ex-
planation had been made."

Just before dinner, Deacon Day
drove up to the gate. "Mail!" he
cried, and Miss Kitty hurried out.

She brought back three letters.
"All for you Hannah ; one from the
S. P. G., one a bill, and the other—
from Elizabeth! Never mind wait-
ing to make the tea, do see what she
says !"

Miss Hannah put down the tea-
pot, and opening Elizabeth's letter
read it aloud.

"The Maples.

Dear Cousin Hannah,

I hope you and
Cousin Kitty will be able to take tea with
us tomorrow. Excuse my not sending the
carriage, for once. We brought down only
the saddle horses, but you are good walkers,
and John will see you home.

Forgive this hurried note, I am rushed
to death. We leave here on Saturday.

Hoping to see you both,

Yours,

Thursday. Elizabeth A. Winthrop."

"Well?" Miss Kitty cried.
"Well?"

"It's rather short notice."
"It is, and the roads are abomin-
ably dusty."

"Still, perhaps — "

"There is no explanation offered."

"N— o, but I think Elizabeth will
expect us.'

"Oh, if you really wish to go, Kit-

ty-"

"Not unless you wish to, Han-
nah."

Miss Kitty cut the bread, and set
out the strawberries. If Hannah
would only say, one way or the
other — they would have to hurry, if
they did go.

Miss Hannah was in the pantry,
bending over the big stone crock, in
which the cookies were kept. "It's
good I baked yesterday," she called,
"the whole batch turned out beauti-
ful."

Miss Kitty's doubts vanished.
Ever since that tea at The Maples,
when John, passing the cakes, had
made laughing reference to the
cookies of those vacation days, pro-
testing he had never seen their equal,
before nor since — it had been the
sisters' custom on these visits, to
take with them a box of Hannah's
cookies. Ostensibly, for the children
— but the knowledge had reached
them, in due time, that John had
been known more than once to par-
take of a nursery tea, in "cookie
time !"

As she helped out the strawber-
ries, Miss Kitty said, "I'm going to
take some to John, I'll pick them
right after dinner; no one about
here has berries as fine as ours."

"Keep your face well shaded.
Suppose I step over and see if we
can have Deacon Day's buggy?"

"Oh, Hannah, it's so shabby! By
the upper road it isn't so very far."

Miss Hannah sipped her tea.
"The buggy is shabby. We must
walk slowly then. We'll wear our
dimity gowns; it's too warm for
our black silks."

The dimity gowns had been new
only last Summer; Miss Hannah's

A GARDEN PARTY

467

had tiny lilac sprigs, on a white
ground; Miss Kitty's the slenderest
thread of pink. They had been
made by Miss Miranda Black, the
village dress-maker, in quite the
latest fashion — a little modified in
Miss Hannah's case, in the matter
of what she considered unnecessary
furbelows. There had been new
bonnets to go with the dresses;
Miss Kitty's had pink rose-buds in
it, Miss Hannah had insisted on her
having them — had equally insisted
on purple lilacs, for her own.

At four o'clock — tall, slender, a
little prim, they walked slowly down
the box-bordered path, to their
front gate. Each carried a neatly
covered paper-box and an open par-
asol; from each right wrist dangled
a black silk bag. With much inge-
nuity, they contrived at the same
time to hold their ruffled skirts well
up from the dusty road, showing
thereby the whitest of tucked petti-
coats, beautifully laundered.

"There's Mrs. Palmer," Miss Kit-
ty said, as they saw a phaeton stop-
ping at Deacon Day's. "She's wait-
ing to speak to us."

Mrs. Palmer was short and stout,
and the phaeton was low. Her
manner of alighting from it was
certainly novel — she simply slid
from the broad, low seat to the floor,
wriggled a bit, until her feet
touched mother earth, then stood
slowly up — "And a mighty sensible
way it is," she said with a laugh as
the sisters reached her.

"Going a-visiting?" she asked.

"We are invited to take tea with
our cousins," Miss Hannah an-
swered a little stiffly. She thorough-
ly disapproved of Mrs. Palmer's
manner of alighting from her phae-
ton.

"What has brought them down
this time of year?"

"Our cousins have not explained
their reasons to us, as yet."

"Dressing up in your best clothes
always did have a bad effect on you,
Hannah Winthrop — I reckon you'd
like to put your cousins, and all
their belongings, under a glass case.
How comes it you're walking — why
didn't they send the carriage?"

"Cousin John did not bring down
the carriage horses this time."

"Well, I won't keep you," Mrs.
Palmer said. "You've got a good
walk before you, and it's a terribly
hot day. To my mind, the game
wouldn't be worth the candle. If
this phaeton would hold three, I'd
drive you over myself."

"Thank you, we much prefer
walking. Kitty and I do not feel the
heat as much as stout people."

"The Winthrops always did run
skin and bone. Good-bye, remem-
ber me to John and Elizabeth."

"John and Elizabeth !" For fully
five minutes, Miss Hannah walked
in silence, then she said emphatical-
ly: "Sally Palmer always was too
familiar."

It was very hot out on the broad
high road. It seemed a long while
before they turned into the shady
woodland path, with its far-off
glimpses of blue sky, flecked with
white clouds. Below was the steep
bank; on one side, a little brook
murmured merrily, while all around
them was the soft rustling of leaves,
and the calling of birds.

The wood road brought them to a
wide lane, bordered on the one hand
by fine old trees, on the other, by a
hedge of wild roses, coming into
bloom.

Miss Kitty broke off a spray of
the delicately tinted blossoms. Isn't
it pretty here?" she said. I wonder
if Elizabeth will have tea on the
lawn."

468

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"There's the house, at last," Miss
Hannah said.

As they reached a low gate in the
shrubbery. Miss Kitty suggested
going in that way, and across the
lawn ; it was nearer than round by
the drive.

"Certainly not," Miss Hannah an-
swered. "It was a new departure,
our walking over; we do not wish
Elizabeth to feel that we are ready
to dispense with all ceremony.
With Elizabeth, it is necessary to
maintain a certain amount of for-
mality."

Those few rods, from the little
gate to the big one, seemed sudden-
ly the longest part of the way;
their best shoes made every step an
effort by now, and their hands
ached, holding up their gowns and
parasols.

"It's odd we don't hear any one
about," said Miss Kitty.

"Probably Elizabeth did not
bring down a large party."

"The carriage gates are locked,
and the lodge is closed," Miss Kit-
ty cried, a moment later. "Mrs.
Turner must be living up at the
house."

They stood a moment uncertain,
then opening the gate leading to the
foot path, bordering the drive, they
made their way up to the house. It
stood with inhospitably barred
doors and windows, a silent mass of
grey stone.

"It's closed!" Miss Kitty sank
wearily down on the steps. "What
shall we do Hannah?"

Miss Hannah put down her box
of cookies and closed her parasol.
"There's a mistake somewhere."

"Elizabeth's note was dated
Thursday, and said to-morrow —
which would be to-day, Friday."

"I know," Miss Hannah answered,
'it's very puzzling. John must have

had news calling them back to the
city immediately. I'll go look for
Mrs. Turner."

She soon returned. "There isn't a
sign of any one about the place. Mrs.
Turner must have gone to the
village."

"Elizabeth ought to have let us
know."

"Kitty, either Deacon Day made
a mistake, or else John and Eliza-
beth only ran down a day on busi-
ness— you can see that the place
has not been opened lately."

"But— the note?"

"That was our last year's invita-
tion, I've studied it out — that the
days of the week came the same,
was merely a coincidence. I remem-
ber it turned suddenly cold, about
the time Elizabeth left The Maples.
Probably the deacon wore his old
duster the last time for the season,
the day we should have got that
note. It was like a man to stick it
in his pocket and forget all about it.
There it has lain ever since, until
to-day. Being 'Duster Day' and we
chancing to get other mail, it got
taken out with the rest."

Miss Kitty drew a long breath.
"How clever you are, Hannah, —
Father always said you should have
been a man and followed the law.
So we've been wronging Elizabeth
all this time."

"I'll write her to-morrow."

"You won't tell her of our coming
here?" Miss Kitty exclaimed.

"No indeed," Miss Hannah an-
swered, "but Sally Palmer's sure to
find out all about it — it will give her
food for gossip for a month, unless,
which isn't likely, something more
interesting happens to divert her."

Miss Kitty stretched out her poor
tired feet. "However are we to get
home?"

"As we came," replied her sister.

A GARDEN PARTY

469

"But I'm so tired, hungry, and
thirsty."

Miss Hannah untied the box of
cookies. "We might as well eat
some of these, with those straw-
berries, and there's a spring down
yonder."

They went down the sloping lawn
to the little spring. Just beyond
stood a grove of young maples. The
lawn itself was dotted here and there
with fine old trees, beneath them
fat red-breasted robins hopped
tamely about, scarcely disturbed at
the intrusion. From the rose
garden, at one side of the house,
came the low steady murmur of in-
sects.

"Hannah," said Miss Kitty, "you
and I are going to have a garden
party."

Miss Hannah looked doubtful.
"You ain't planning to eat, here on
the grass?"

"Yes, I am."

"We'd be a deal more comfortable
on the piazza."

"No, we wouldn't."

And though inwardly protesting,
Miss Hannah, with much careful
arranging of her draperies, settled
herself on the grass and with a sigh of
weariness untied her bonnet strings,
throwing them back.

Miss Kitty took off her bonnet
and black mitts. She spread out the
white napkin, from the cookie box,
on the grass, and put a bunch of
pink roses in the centre. The cook-
ies and strawberries were laid here
and there, on little plates made of
interwoven maple leaves.

"You are taking a heap of trouble,
seeing you're so tired."

Miss Kitty looked up. "I couldn't
bear we should have all our getting
ready, and walk, and every thing for
nothing. All the morning, I was
wishing we could go somewhere, or

do something, it was such a perfect
day — Elizabeth's note seemed like
an answer to the wish — and I'm de-
termined to have my good time some
how."

She stuck a rose in her belt and
sat down opposite Miss Hannah. "I
wonder what Elizabeth would say,
to see us?"

"That we were — my gracious,
who's this coming!"

Miss Kitty sprang up. "It's the
minister!"

Mr. Gray came hurrying towards
them, then he stopped, astonished.
"Miss Winthrop ! And Miss Kitty !"

For the first time in her life, Miss
Hannah failed in due outward re-
spect to the Cloth. But it was the
first time she had been discovered
by this or any other member of it,
occupying such a lowly position. It
was all very well for Kitty to spring
swiftly up — she was young and light
on her feet.

"Good afternoon." Miss Hannah
held out her hand. "You will ex-
cuse my not rising?"

"Is it a picnic?" Mr. Gray asked,
"and may I join? I'm very fond of
picnics."

"It's a garden party," Miss Kitty
answered, blushing a little.

"We shall be most pleased to have
you join us," added her sister.

It was a very pleasant little affair.
Before she knew it, Miss Kitty
found herself explaining the why's
and wherefore's of this very modest
garden party.

"I too heard that Mr. Winthrop
was at The Maples ; and, as I want-
ed particularly to see him on a mat-
ter of business, I came over," Mr.
Gray explained.

"I am sorry you should have been
disappointed," Miss Hannah said.

"I assure you, I am very glad that
I came. Do you know, Miss Win-

470

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

throp, that I have been your pastor
for six months, and this is the first
time you have asked me to take tea
with you?"

Of course Miss Hannah knew it,
and in her hospitable soul had often
deplored the necessity for this lack
of hospitality. But Mr. Gray was
good-looking, forty, unmarried — she
was not going to give people a
chance to say that she was trying to
catch him for Kitty. She could
hardly explain this to Mr. Gray,
however.

Unconsciously, Miss Kitty came
to her rescue. "We've not asked
you to tea with us today," she said,
and her voice had a ring of laughter,
pretty to hear. She was pretty to
look at too, under the flush of ex-
citement. Her look of primness
had disappeared, and something of
her shyness.

Mr. Gray took out his note book.
"Then you are going to ask me —
What day shall it be, Miss Win-
throp? Suppose we say Monday —
that, you know, is clergyman's
leisure day — and you will have
cookies for tea — and strawberries?"
"We shall be very happy to see
you on Monday, sir," Miss Hannah
said, and the words if a little formal,
were perfectly sincere.

Far away, through the stillness,
they caught the sound of the village
clock, striking the hour.

"Six o'clock," Miss Hannah said.
"Kitty, suppose you show Mr. Gray
the rose garden before we go. I'll
wait here, thank you sir," as the
minister offered a hand to assist her
in rising.

Miss Hannah only waited, how-
ever, until their backs were turned,
then she scrambled to her hands and
knees, and from thence to an upright
position. "There," she gasped,
smoothing down her skirts, "that's

a deal better than being hauled up
by a man." She gave a little laugh,
the words reminding her of Mrs.
Palmer. "Maybe it's just as well
Sally wasn't about, just now. After
all, I don't know which is worse —
to be short and stout, or long and
stiff?"

The walk home did not seem so
long to Miss Kitty. Whether the
fact that Mr. Gray insisted on ac-
companying them had anything to
do with it is not known — assuredly,
his presence in no wise lessened the
distance for Miss Hannah.

Mrs. Day was out on her porch,
as the three passed. Mrs. Palmer
was there also ; possibly she had
staid to tea, for the express purpose
of seeing the sisters' return.

Miss Hannah felt the curiosity in
their eyes pursue herself and her
companions, all the way to the Win-
throp gate. "I reckon, they're ask-
ing themselves how the minister
happens to be walking home with
us," she said to herself. "They, and
all the rest, are bound to find out
about that invitation. Somehow,
that eating on the grass business
doesn't seem quite so foolish, the
minister being there — and I guess,
when folks hear of his coming to tea
on Monday, they'll be too busy over
that to bother about any thing else."
Certainly, there were times when
a man did come in handy.

"Kitty," Miss Hannah said later
that evening, "it's as I thought, that
envelope has the last September
post-mark. I never before neglect-
ed to thoroughly examine the out-
side of a letter — I never will again."
Miss Kitty was guiltily conscious
of the fact that down deep in her
heart, she was glad that Hannah had
failed to observe that post-mark.
For once she had really enjoyed a
tea at The Maples.

JACOB ABBOTT

471

Nor did Mr. Gray, smoking a
quiet pipe on his porch, in the
twilight, review less pleasurably the
events of the afternoon. For the
firct time in forty years he began to
realize — what, for six months, had
been quite patent to more than one
lady in his congregation — that it
was time he married.

"Elizabeth" — John Winthrop
tossed a letter into his wife's lap.

"Here's news ! Cousin Kitty's going
to marry the parson — the wedding's
to be in September — we must give
them some kind of a blow-out after-
wards, at The Maples."

"A garden party would be nice, if
the weather kept warm," his wife
answered. "I don't suppose Kitty
ever went to a garden party."

Which shows, that in this
instance, Mrs. John Winthrop was
wrong in her suppositions.

Jacob Abbott, A Neglected New
England Author

By Fletcher Osgood

IN the beautiful cemetery of
Mount Auburn, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, is a granite head-
stone, bearing the inscription :

JACOB ABBOTT
1803 — 1879

and nothing more.

One who knows the spirit of the
man whose body crumbles below,
feels a propriety in the choice of
New England granite for the ma-
terial of the headstone. For this
man, Jacob Abbott, was of the
New England cultus, in all but every
atom of his spiritual compounding
and the substructure of his lofty
nature was laid in spiritual granite.
Jacob Abbott was not only a deep-
founded and lofty man but he was
also pre-eminently just and wonder-
fully calm, gentle, sagacious and un-
pretending. In its sheer simplicity,

the headstone eminently typifies the
man.

I pause here to say what forty
years ago would not have needed
- saying ; that Jacob Abbott was a
writer, New England born, whose
influence with youth and with
thoughtful adults in America, and
to a large extent abroad, was
very great and very sound from
1830, or somewhat earlier than that,
to thirty or thirty-five years later.
No doubt his influence was potent
after this and doubtless in various
recondite disguises it is strongly
operant now; but its open manifes-
tations were greatest in the period
named.

Jacob Abbott came of good New
England stock.

Born at Hallowell, Maine, in 1803,
he graduated at Bowdoin, taught in
Portland Academy and (as Profes-
sor of Mathematics and Natural
Philosophy) at Amherst College.

472

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

In the early eighteen thirties, he
opened, in Boston, the Mount Ver-
non school for girls ; an advanced
institution for those days, which
proved eminently successful.

Meanwhile, Abbott wrote the
famous Rollo Books, following them
by numerous works of juvenile fic-
tion, with others on pedagogy,
physics, ethics and religion.

Such books he continued to write
up to an advanced age. He was al-
so for a while connected with the
Abbott Institute, a successful school
in New York City, and for a brief
period was pastor of a church in
Roxbury, Massachusetts. His life-
work, however, was mainly literary,
and to further it he travelled exten-
sively abroad.

His educational ideas were well
in advance of his time and, to say
the least, fully abreast of ours.
They looked always to inflexible
firmness and consistency of method
combined with gentleness and
masked, for the young, by playful-
ness.

They were amply illustrated and
justified in the case of his own
sons, all of whom, I believe, have
attained professional prominence
and one of whom (Lyman Abbott)
to what may well be termed profes-
sional eminence. The Abbott fami-
ly is, in fact, comparable to
the Adams and Beecher families —
all three of New England — in the
large number of able members
which it has contributed to Ameri-
can life.

Jacob Abbott lived to see his
works extensively read abroad and
died, serenely and nobly as became
him, in 1879, at his home in Farm-
ington, Maine.

Jacob Abbott was not long a
settled pastor and it is not in his
character of a cleric that I now de-

sign to speak of him. Neither,
though he was eminent as a teach-
er— and emphatically so in the
Puritan Boston of sixty or seventy
years ago — do I care to dwell upon
his pedagogic life ; but I do assured-
ly believe that he holds of right to-
day, though without general critical
assent, a lofty place among Ameri-
can writers.

I suppose that many literary per-
sons will, at the very outset, feel
disposed to regard this claim for
Abbott with something more than
doubt if not with something like
contumely; assuming possibly that
Mr. Abbott's title to remembrance
as a writer is all summed up in The
Rollo Books or other like archaic
"juveniles."

A recent writer, for instance, up-
on American literature (in a book
which claims to be inclusive) gives
serious consideration and honorable
space to Lydia Sigourney, Frances
Osgood, Percival, Drake, Halleck,
Sylvester Judd, the author of "The
Lamplighter" and to others of their
range — and disposes of Jacob Ab-
bott in a few weak words, as a
writer of books for children ; not
even taking pains, I think, to index
him among American authors !

On the whole, then, the time
seems to be ripe for putting forth
those stronger claims for Jacob Ab-
bott as a writer, which this article
will embody.

The greater part of his works are
still in print, and if what I am now
to say obtains for some of them a
greater share of strictly literary at-
tention than they have hitherto re-
ceived, I shall feel myself amply re-
warded.

First, it should be said that the
mere fact that a large share of Jacob
Abbott's work bears special refer-
ence to the needs of youth ought not

JACOB ABBOTT

473

to affect at all its place in litera-
ture. "Robinson Crusoe" and "The
Pilgrims' Progress" are none the
less English classics because they
are read more by young people than
by the older ones.

It is fair, then, to judge the work
of Jacob Abbott, not by the readers
for whom it was done, but by the
qaulity of the doing. Thus judged, I
undertake to say that Jacob Abbott's
style, eminently deserves the title,
literary, because of its really won-
derful directness and clearness; I
doubt if any American author quite
equals Abbott at his best, in sheer lu-
cidity. Abbott again, it seems to
me, sets an example for many highly
accredited writers of our time in the
noble calmness, poise and absolute
sincerity of his style. These virtues,
combined, should be especially dis-
tinguished, be it noted, from what
I am going to term the modern
Literary Pose ; which, in its self-con-
scious strivings, so painfully con-
torts much of the ambitious writing
of today. Take in illustration, al-
most at random, this extract from a
chapter in "The Way To Do Good,"
which Mr. Abbott addresses to the
maturest minds : —

"There is no disguise so thin, at least
there is none more easily seen through
than affectation of piety. * * * Let us
be honest, open, direct in all we say or do.
If we feel no emotion, let us never feign
any: — never. * * * It is only honest,
frank, open-hearted, unaffected piety which
can gain any great or permanent ascendency
in such a world as ours."

Abbott, in another chapter of the
same book, shows the utter hopeless-
ness of church union so long as each
denomination insists upon its own
fixed perfection and the erroneous-
ness of all others.

"This makes each denomination hopeless-
ly rigid and tenacious in its position. It
gives to party spirit a perverted conscience
for an ally."

Then follows a finely phrased ac-
count of the breakdown of a typical
effort to force church union through
controversial argument:

"This fruitless struggle being over, it is
succeeded, perhaps, after a short pause, by
one of a different kind. A fit of love and
co-operation comes on. Union in measures
and plans is proposed. * * * But while
each portion of the church considers its pe-
culiarities essential and all other organiza-
tions schismatic what kind of union can this
be? It is inevitable that each party will be
watchful and jealous. If they mean to take
a high-minded and honorable course they
will be anxious and watchful lest they
should themselves do something to offend
their allies and if, on the other hand, they
are narrow-minded and envious, they will
be on the watch lest the others should do
something unjust toward them. The very
nature of the case shows what all ex-
perience confirms; that such alliances be-
tween the denominations while each con-
siders itself the only true church, will al-
ways be of the nature, not of a peace
among friends but of a temporary and
jealous truce between foes. Accordingly,
after this phase has been tried a little
while, the lurking alienation creeps in
again. * * * Then, perhaps comes on
another controversy, in which the same old
argument, the same old texts, the same old
quoting of precedents and straining of
words and emphasizing of particles are
brought forward against one another for
the thousandth time, to prove what never
can be proved. Thus the disease alter-
nates. It is an intermittent. There is the
cold stage and the hot stage; — the chilly
fit of controversy and the fever fit of forced
and pretended love."

This is not ideal literature. Re-
dundances possibly occur. A formal
grammatic error of the lighter sort
may here and there perhaps be
traced out in it. But, on the whole,
it seems to me that here we have
at least real literature. Writing ex-
tremely clear, entirely to the point,
calmly sincere to the core and so
without a trace of the self-conscious
straining that underlies the modern
noxious Literary Pose.

Judged by the higher test of char-
acterization, Abbott does not fail.
Llis knowledge of the sort of human
nature he chooses to depict is more

474

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

than accurate and thorough : it is
profound, — or often so. And Abbott
has creative genius of no mean or-
der. His "Beechnut/' in whom
centres the main interest of the
Franconia juvenile books, is an orig-
inal and even masterly creation, un-
like any other that I recall in our
literature for young or old, except-
ing, indeed, the very numerous
penumbrae of him that appear and
reappear, we must admit, in other
works of Abbott.

This "Beechnut," as a certain
number of the readers of this
critique may recall, is a Swiss youth,
Paris educated, of the artisan class,
who, emigrating with his father to
America, finds himself soon in the
employ of a gentleman of means
who lives in a village in the White
Mountains. Beechnut's philosophy
is supreme, his sagacity phenomenal,
his good nature unassailable, his
judgment, tact, manners and knowl-
edge of human nature wonderful to
think on. Add to this a shrewd, dry
humor, lit up with imaginative
drollery, an irreproachable character,
and a naive self-recognition of his
powers which makes him "no repub-
lican" but a beneficent despot
among the boys of the village, over
whom he deliberately assumes and
steadfastly maintains an ascendency
wholly for their good.

That a creation of this sort should
be accepted by discerning readers
and enjoyed, instead of being in-
stantly rejected as preternatural,
seems perhaps a little strange, but
so it is. Those of us who know
Beechnut somehow in a way believe
in him, after the literary fashion, as
well as altogether like and admire
him. There is certainly a saving,
genuine life in Beechnut and I sus-
pect— if the comparison may be tol-
erated in such a connection — that

we take to him in his way some-
what as we accept in its way the
Apollo Belvidere, — as the ideal rep-
resentation, that is, of a barely pos-
sible person whom, under some
happy fortuity or other, nature
might, once in long aeons, actually
evolve.

Always excepting Beechnut and
his more or less dessicated protypes
and repetitions, Jacob Abbott, for
the most' part, is in all his character-
izations a realist before realism.
His Phonny, Rodolphus and Caro-
line in the Franconia Stories are
cases in point. If we take at a ven-
ture his booklet "Jasper" — now out
of print, I fear, but accessible
through libraries — which details
the spoiling of her child by a very
rich, very soft hearted and very soft
headed mother, we shall find it, in
its admirable fidelity to actual na-
ture, a type of Abbott's ordinary
work considered in the mass.

I have said that Jacob Abbott's
characterization is frequently pro-
found and so it is; even when it
bears especially on the life of youth.
But in "Hoaryhead and M'Donner"
we have a work that especially ap-
peals to minds that are mature and
this work I believe to be — especial-
ly in the chapters dealing with
M'Donner — a masterpiece of Ameri-
can literature. The Hoaryhead
chapters are full of happy charac-
terization, accurate descriptions,
and keen, sagacious insight. Take,
for instance, the Fergus episode at
the very beginning. We are intro-
duced to a plain New England home
amid the northern hills. A crippled
father bends over the cradle of his
infant son who moans in the grasp
of a terrible fever. Without, a vio-
lent snow storm increases every in-
stant. The father and mother must
decide whether to risk their boy

JACOB ABBOTT

475

Fergus in an attempt to reach the
distant doctor through the fearful
storm, or let the baby die. And the
decision must be speedy. After a
brief but thorough consideration of
chances, Fergus is dispatched and
through the ominous delay that fol-
lows— Fergus not for long returning
— the father, unshaken by the moth-
er's desperate anxieties, awaits re-
sults in a supreme resignation. "His
will" says Abbott — referring to the
father — "stood aside." There are pe-
riods of the waiting when this father
can even feel "pure and heartfelt en-
joyment" in this surrender of his son
to the absolute disposal of the Most
High. And this long before Chris-
tian Science had set forth the first
word of its lofty claims ! Indeed,
I know of no one in our literature
who develops the splendors of resig-
nation with the superb touch of this
granitic old-school Calvinist, Jacob
Abbott.

But it is in the chapters treating
of M'Donner that we find Abbott at
his literary best. Here he gives us
in magnificent treatment, the his-
tory of a human soul. Incidentally,
the country-life of New England as
it was seventy-five years ago is
treated also, with a fine fidelity to
fact both as to physical environ-
ment and character drawing: not
however by atomic analysis. Ab-
bott does not thus proceed either
with the principal or the accessories.
His touches are not super-micro-
scopic but they are enough. We
sense the scenes and know the char-
acters as if they were under our
very eyes. Abbott is here at his
best not only in delineating M'Don-
ner the hero, but in his portraitures
of Squire Stock, Terry, "The Mas-
ter," Colonel Shubael, Mr. Josey,
and of the imbecile mother of
M'Donner. Scenes worthy of repro-
duction throng in the leading chap-

ters. It is truer of these scenes
than of most literary episodes that
they need for full appreciation, the
vital, interpenetrative force of the
whole story with which they are
conjoined. Nevertheless, in the
hope of sending the reader straight
to the reading of "Hoaryhead and
M'Donner," let me try the effect of
a few extracts. Take, for instance,
the highly wrought-up cabin scene
where M'Donner, who has passed
counterfeit money, threatens "the
master" with a butcher knife, while
the daft mother potters about; the
mind-storm and its violent effects —

"Attracting her attention in about the
same degree as the movements of thieves
in a stable at midnight would arouse that
of an intelligent horse, feeding in his stall.

"M'Donner seized a butcher knife which
lay upon a table near and advanced toward
his visitor. The master sat unmoved and
looked steadily into the criminal's face
without a change in any muscle of his own.

" 'You don't know me, master, or you
would never come into my cabin here and
threaten me with the State's prison to my
face. I would put this into you * * *
as readily as I would split a shingle bolt
if, — you don't know me master. You
haven't seen but one side of my character
yet, and I advise you not to bring out the
other.'

" 'I am in no danger,' said the master,
calmly.

" 'No danger ! * * * Yes, you are,
in pretty hot danger. You have threatened
to have me sent to State's prison.'

" 'No,' said the master, 'not exactly.'

" 'You have threatened to do all you
could toward it.'

" 'No, not exactly that.'

" 'Well, at any rate, if I get into any dif-
ficulty about this I tell you now that I
shall know who to lay it to. * * *
You'll rue the day you ever moved a finger
against me. So take warning.'

" 'Mr. M'Donner,' said the master, '* *
* You know perfectly well that I am
really your friend * * * and would do
anything in my power to help you. You
know, too, very well, that I should do all
in my power under any circumstances, to
bring a criminal to justice. Your threats
have no effect. — Yes, they have one effect;
they make me feel mortified to find that
you don't know me any better than to sup-
pose you can frighten me with that butcher
knife. I've been in far greater danger
from you than your threats put me in now.'

"'When?' said M'Donner.

" 'When you lay there,' said the master."

476

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

The 'there' was the corner in
which M'Donner lay, the winter be-
fore, sick with small pox, abandoned
by almost every one save the master,
who faithfully watched over and
nursed him.

I have not, by the way, found in
American literature, yet, the nether-
most hells of drunkenness pictured
with the quiescent power that in-
forms these few, plain words of the
deep-knowing Calvinist, Jacob Ab-
bott.

"And then, Terry had a little bright-eyed
but pale boy, whom he used to whip when
he was intoxicated, as the means of inflict-
ing the severest suffering upon the mother."

Unless my sense is wrong, I ac-
curately feel in this a little, at least,
of the terrible potency of Cole-
ridges' "who now doth crazy go," in
the great, weird sea tale.

The powerful scene in which the
arch scoundrel, Shubael, entices
M'Donner to his store in order to
deliver him up to a constable and
posse ought all to be given here but
is too long. A few extracts must
suffice : —

"M'Donner stepped into the road softly
and followed Shubael, calling at the same
time : 'Colonel !' Shubael * * * started
and turned around abruptly, grasping his
cane for an instant a little more firmly and
answered the challenge by calling in pre-
cisely the same tone, 'M'Donner, is that
you?'

"'Is that you?' rejoined M'Donner. 'You
don't often honor me with a visit at this
time of night.'

" 'I have been to see if I could find out
from the old woman where you were,' re-
plied Shubael, 'but I could not get any-
thing out of her. You are crazy to loiter
about here. They say they have got good
proof and if you are brought in guilty it
will be a ten years' business at least and
that would about do you up for this world.
You had better be off.'

"M'Donner said nothing in reply but his
blood boiled with indignation. The Colonel
* * * had laid the temptation before
him and encouraged and urged him on and
had forced upon him all the work and all
the danger yet taking himself a full share
of all the profitable proceeds, and now,

when he was encompassed with the most
imminent dangers and ruin stared him in
the face, his cold-blooded accomplice, in-
stead of having a word of kindness or
sympathy for him or proffering the slight-
est aid, contented himself with telling him,
with a sneer, that he had better be off.
M'Donner paused an instant and then to
Shubael's astonishment and terror, broke
forth upon him with a torrent of reproaches
which made the cold-blooded hypocrite turn
pale. 'You drive me mad,' he concluded,
' 'tis as much as I can do to keep off of
you. * * * I could chuck you down in-
to a chasm close by and in half an hour
pitch in so many stones and logs that even
the worms could not find you.' "

Presently a nominal reconcilia-
tion is patched up, broken soon,
however, by M'Donner, who in ef-
fect sums up Shubael's character in
the following ferocious verbal on-
slaught.

" 'Ten years ago, Terry was a prosperous
and happy man and you have ruined him.
All his property has gone through your
money-drawer, every cent of it. You have
got it by cheating him and giving him
rum. You have cheated him so often that
you have got so as to boast of it. You
have broken his wife's heart and killed I
don't know how many of his children and
now you are a rich man and Terry is a
miserable vagabond and you'll both prob-
ably die so.' Shubael winced and writhed
as he walked along under this cutting re-
buke. Most men would have been roused
to furious resentment but Shubael's anger
was always of the typhoid type and vented
itself in low, inarticulate mutterings."

M'Donner enters the store, and at
the approach of the posse by the
road at its front, batters down its
back door with a beetle.

* * * "He then pitched the beetle toward
the Colonel who was retreating slowly back-
ward. The head of it struck the floor just
in front of him and the handle flew over
and grazed his knee. * * * M'Donner
stalked off deliberately into the back yard,
thence climbed leisurely over the fence
and walked across the field while the
Colonel was rubbing his knee and recover-
ing from his astonishment. * * * The
Colonel described the circumstances of the
escape to the staring [posse], occupied
while he talked, in bringing back the door
into its place and readjusting the splinters,
impelled by the universal feeling which
leads us to put the fragment of a broken
vessel together again as if to see if they

JACOB ABBOTT

477

will not adhere as before. As usual, how-
ever, he found that the parts would not
stay' as he put them and accordingly he let
the door and the splinters drop again to
the ground. The party then walked back
into the front shop, the Colonel limping
and often putting his hand to his knee.

If this is not fine realism then I
do not know what realism is. The
extract embodies also Abbott's pe-
culiar, grave, elusive humor which
again is very happily shown in an-
other part of the book, where two
collegiates dispute upon the meta-
physics of 1825. Interpolating
italics, I briefly quote:

"* * * Herman could not answer the
question very well, so he was silent,— con-
trary to the usual custom of metaphysical
disputants."

I can but name, in passing, the
perfectly handled, keenly realistic
scene of the confounding of Squire
Stock; where M'Donner brings
home to the snarling religionist an
irrefutable charge of practical athe-
ism. Briefly, too, must I deal with
the episode, well worthy of perma-
nent literary preservation, which in-
volves the vanishing — at the mere
sight of the sheriff's baton — of
M'Donner's determination to give
himself up to the law.

"M'Donner hesitated. His resolution was
like a great bubble which had been grow-
ing thinner and thinner and verging to-
ward its dissolution while it still retained
perfectly its appearance and form and even
increased rather than diminished in size
and beauty, so that when he approached
the door, his mind was completely filled
with what bore every semblance of deter-
mination; but it was a mere phantom, — a
shell— hollow and delusive, the substance
being gone. It required but a touch to
cause it to burst and disappear. . * * *
Just then his eye fell upon the baton of
the sheriff, standing in the corner of the
entry,— the painted badge of his office—
the symbol of disgrace and ignominy and
miserable solitude. * * * It furnished
just the touch necessary to burst the
bubble."

Finally I must, with especial em-
phasis, urge attention to the chapter

called "The Mother" which relates
the wanderings of M'Donner's old
demented mother from village to
village after her lost "boy." The
portrayal of the mind malady, with
its progression into mania, seems to
me perfect, and (waiving for the
time an admissible question as to the
probability of the final finding of
M'Donner) the entire chapter, in
its subdued force, and its convey-
ance of a sense of aboslute reality,
is not overmatched, I think, (unless
by Hawthorne) in any single chap-
ter of American literature. I will go
a little further than this and, weigh-
ing my words as I say it, undertake
to declare that the last scene of all,
where the mother finds her "boy"
and in an instant of restored reason
knows him for hers, then perishes
almost in his very arms, is un-
matched for profound and melting
pathos by any American writing
whatsoever.

Let me give a hint here and there
of this "Mother" chapter.

"In the meantime the crazed mother rode
on, seated upon some bags of wheat which
lay in the back part of the wagon. * * *
Her mind was evidently running upon her
early years of life, when her son was a
boy. * * * 'Oh how fast he grew,' she
muttered to herself, her head hanging
down upon her bosom ; 'he weighed eight
pounds and three quarters exactly, Fri-
day morning, handkerchief and all. Josey
got the steelyards in the store. Then six
years after he reached up to the great latch.
If he had only learned as fast as he grew —
but he would not go to school. And one
day he went a fishing away up the Beaver
Brook.' * * *

"'What are you talking about old lady?'
called out the wagoner from his seat be-
fore.

" 'I believe he's gone away,' continued
the mother in the same tone as before. 'I
must whip him if I can get him. * * *
He plagues me all but to death.'

" 'Old lady !' said the wagoner, in a
louder tone. She moved her head a little
so as to hear more distinctly, but without
raising her eyes.

" 'What say?' said she.

"'What is it you're talking about?'

" 'About my boy.'

478

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"'Your boy? Where is your boy?'

" 'I don't know where he is.'

" 'Don't know ? What is his name ?'

" 'Amos.'

'"How old is he?'

" 'I don't know how old he is.'

"'Well, how big is he then?'

" 'Oh, he's a pretty big boy, he grew up
very fast; the last I remember of him he
was a very large boy. * * * I believe
he's run away. * * * And I am going
after him. * * * Let's see — did he run
away? No, I've run away; it's I that have
run away.' "

The poor mother wanders from
town to town, sometimes enter-
tained roughly, sometimes kindly;
always, however, urged onward by
the persistent impulse to seek
and find her "boy." Toward the
end, they lock her up, but she cun-
ningly escapes and — still dragging
from her ankle a remnant of the
chain she has filed away — attains
and enters at last, in a snow storm,
the lonely cabin of M'Donner.

"It was not very cold and the exhausted
traveller was in no immediate danger of
freezing. * * * The atmosphere of the
room fell upon her cheek as if it had been
partially warmed by a fire. She laid her-
self down in a corner and soon fell into
a troubled sleep. For the first half hour
she occasionally shuddered and shivered
and again and again attempted to draw her
feet up closer and to cover them with her
scanty dress. Afterward she slept more
quietly. Her nervous system was losing
its sensibility and the powers of life were
fast ebbing away. * * * M'Donner en-
tered the cabin. The first glance startled
him. The second revealed to him the
form and features of his mother. He fell
in an instant before her, upon his knees,
and put his hand gently upon her cheek.

* * * Though terribly shocked he ut-
tered no exclamation."

M'Donner proceeds to every
available, gentle office for warming
the poor mother and heats some
milk for her.

"After these arrangements were made,
he turned around to look at his mother
again, to see if she was sleeping quietly.
Her eyes were wide open and fixed

* * * upon him.

" 'Mother,' said he, taking up his dipper
and kneeling down before her with it in
his hand, 'my dear mother, here is a little

milk for you.' She kept her eyes fixed
upon him with a wild stare, which was
almost terrifying. * * * 'Mother,' said
M'Donner, 'this is Amos. Don't you know
Amos ? Here is some milk for you, mother,
take a little milk.' She permitted the milk
to be put to her lips and drank of it, stop-
ping once or twice to gaze at her son.

" 'Amos,' said she, feebly, 'Yes, I knew I
could find you, Amos.' * * * 'No, you
are not Amos. You are a man.' She shut
her eyes and remained a few minutes si-
lent and motionless. Presently she opened
them again. * * * Her recollection was
gradually returning. Either the sudden
shock which her mind had received at the
sight of her son or else that mysterious
influence under which the reason is so
often restored during the half-hour that
precedes dissolution, threw for a few mo-
ments, her distorted intellect into right and
healthy action. 'Amos,' said she, 'is that
you ? Where am I ? Oh, what a terrible
dream I have had !'

" 'Never mind it, mother,' said her son,
'you are safe here at last, and I will take
care of you, now.'

" 'What did you go away from me for,
Amos?'

"The man of iron turned his head away;
his eyes filled with tears. 'Oh, my mother/
said he, 'what an ungrateful, undutiful son
I have been.'

" 'Oh no, Amos, you have not been un-
grateful ; you have always been a kind,
good boy. Don't be troubled about it; that
makes me feel worse than all the rest'
* * *

"After a few minutes' silence she said
again, her eyes fixed steadily upon her son,
'Amos, my boy, where are you, Amos?'

" 'Here I am, mother, — here,' — looking
her full in the face — 'Don't you see me,
mother ?'

" 'No,' she answered, feebly, T can't see
you. I can't see anything. But be a good
boy, Amos, and always say your prayers
and I shall see you again some day or
other, I know.'

"Amos brought her hand down from her
forehead so as to close her eyes. 'Go to
sleep now, mother, a little while. * * *
And then you will feel better.' Her eyes
remained closed and her respiration con-
tinued regular, like that of a person in a
natural sleep. Amos sat breathless by the
fire, watching her. * * * His agitating
thoughts were interrupted by a movement
at the couch of the patient. He was at her
side in an instant. The audible breathing,
however, ceased and the anxious son's
hopes were revived on perceiving that the
sleeper was more quiet than before. 'She
rests,' he said. 'She will awake better.
Thank God!' * * * He crept softly
back to the fire and began to prepare more
food for her, to be ready when she should
again open her eyes.

THE STAR OF LOVE

479

"He waited half an hour and the sleeper's
rest continued undisturbed. 'She sleeps
very quietly,' he said to himself, at length,
looking toward her; 'too quietly. I wish
I could hear her breathe a little. It would
not seem so lonely.' He crept softly to her
side. He listened attentively. He put his
ear close to her face. He laid his hand
upon her cheek. She was dead. She had
been dead for half an hour."

Perhaps this scene, abbreviated
thus and out of its connection, will
fail to make the impress which I
claim for it. For myself, I read
"Hoaryhead and M'Donner," as a
classic, once a year or so and to this
day this scene retains with me all
its first power; indeed, upon the
whole, intensifies with time. I am
ready to believe — I do believe — that
it is even great.

Of course it is quite true that
Jacob Abbott's purpose in his typi-
cal writings was not chiefly literary
but foundationally ethical, philo-
sophic or religious; true also that

he frankly avows and consistently
maintains this. But the fact, I
think, has not a whit to do with the
question of the literary excellence of
his workmanship. It is again true
that Jacob Abbott's theologic views
— exhibiting, if I may say so, in
some of their assumptions, the mag-
nificent naivete of old-school Cal-
vinism— are hardly in accord with
what we name the advanced thought
of our time. But this again, it seems
to me, is absolutely of no moment in
a literary question.

To help restrain our literary
straining, to give repose (not pose)
to what we write, to make our
writing genuine to the core and very
limpid, to aid our characterizations
to be strong and true — and yet not
super-microscopic, — we need to-day
— we sorely need, I think — a Jacob
Abbott literary cult.

The Star of Love

By Clarence H. Urner

Black hang the heavens above;

Below the dark, swift waters roll;
But bright the star of Love

That lights the portals of my soul.

A French Peace Advocate

By Elizabeth Foster

IT is a curious fact that while a
number of remarkable books
have been published during the
past decade on the abolition of war,
English and American writers have
contributed nothing of any impor-
tance on the subject.

It is true that our small standing
army and England's relatively small
army prevent either America or
England from teeling the vast and
crushing burden of military expense
as it is felt by the Continental na-
tions, but this cannot wholly ac-
count for the silence on this subject.

France and Russia have made the
greatest contributions to the litera-
ture of peace. Jean de Bloch's
monumental work is too well known
to need more than a passing refer-
ence. His theory is that the increas-
ing cost and destructiveness of war
will bring about its abolition.
While many parts of de Bloch's
book are of absorbing interest he no-
where states the philosophy and the
causes of war with the clearness and
simplicity of Paul Lacombe whose
"La Guerre et L' Homme" deserves
to be far more widely known and
read than it is at present.

According to M, Lacombe,
primitive fighting almost always
proceeded either from a desire for
procuring the means of life — an
economic reason — or for securing
captives to work for the victor; this
plainly shows that "man fears daily
toil more than death."

Tribal man soon learned that he
detested the individuals of another

tribe, and that intense pleasure
arose from the fervent sympathy
with his tribesmen which he felt
while in conflict with strangers.
This is the genesis of what we call
national feeling.

National feeling, national vanity
or national pride, for M. Lacombe
thinks we use the terms synony-
mously, will always predominate
over economic motives in a democ-
racy. In a democracy also national
pride or vanity is always seconded
by international hatred. It used to
be said that international antipathy
passed away with closer intercourse
and clearer knowledge. Such does
not however appear to be the case
for the rapid growth of the habit of
reading newspapers and the influ-
ence of the daily press probably
greatly increases the strength of in-
ternational hatred, living as we do
in "a perpetual atmosphere of gos-
sip" about foreign nations.

We all recollect the disastrous in-
fluence of the German press during
the Boer war and during our own
Spanish war, and the more recent
delicate situation caused by the
English and American anti-Russian
newspaper statements which char-
acterized the first weeks of the Rus-
so-Japanese conflict. Such mischief
is always slowly mended and we
need only take a brief look back-
ward into our own history to see
how lasting is the bitterness which
it creates.

With each war international ha-
tred grows ; as the national feeling

480

A FRENCH PEACE ADVOCATE

481

which knits together the individuals
of a nation increases so also in-
creases the jealousy and dislike for
other nations. A curious example of
national feeling is given us by the
gradual change of the Latin word
hostis which once meant simply a
stranger — a foreigner — into enemy,
which later became its chief mean-
ing.

M. Lacombe gives a most logical
and entertaining answer to those
who advocate war as a great regen-
erative moral force.

All will agree, he says, that an un-
just war cannot be good for the
morals; but for a war to be just
either we must be attacked or justice
must be in jeopardy — that is to say
we must have an unjust adversary.
So therefore if we desire war for our
own regeneration we must be wish-
ing for the degeneration of our
neighbor. Can this be moral?

Duruy says : "War strengthens
the masculine virtues which peace
stifles." Lacombe asks why is it
then that comparatively few nowa-
days go of their free will to war
which nourishes these virtues?

Valbert says : "War not only en-
nobles individuals but whole na-
tions." "That is to say," says La-
combe, "war even ennobles those
who do not fight."

We are told, he says, that noth-
ing is more beautiful than the devo-
tion of a soldier who dies for his
country, and therefore war which
permits the display of this virtue
must not be abolished. But the de-
votion of a doctor or nurse who
catching diphtheria or cholera from
a patient meets death is beautiful ;
shall we therefore perserve with care
the germs of these diseases, or would
it even be better to cultivate them
and scatter them? The devotion
of firemen who risk their lives

in fires is noble, so perhaps lest the
opportunity for their courage should
be found lacking, it would be well
for us to kindle incendiary fires ; ad-
mirable also is the courage of the
sick who go through surgical opera-
tions without a murmur, would it
not therefore be well to prohibit
ether in order to encourage endur-
ance?

Loti calls war "the one and only
school of self-abnegation, vigour and
courage." It is a school in which
however these virtues must always
be exercised at the expense of some
one else. Is this justifiable? Man
braves death in war and so gains
perhaps moral strength but he only
does it at the cost of trying to inflict
death. "Is it permissible to seek to
acquire a personal advantage — even
if this advantage is as purely moral
as heroism — by shedding blood?"

Lacombe goes even farther : "The
desire to be a hero is after all only
egotism and the most seductive, fas-
cinating and delicately depraved of
all forms of human egotism."

War does not make heroes, but it
brings out the heroic quality in
those in whom it already existed
just as this quality is developed in
all great calamities, flood, famine
and pestilence. On the other hand
war always causes many characters
who were neither actually bad nor
positively good to comit crimes. "It
is the most dangerous of all atmos-
pheres for the poor inconsistent vir-
tues of humanity, a terrible atmos-
phere in which we ought never to
risk the morality of our race so
painfully acquired and so fragile in
its character."

M. Lacombe believes that the fi-
nal destruction of war may be
brought about by some one of the
following reasons :

First: The increasing murderous-

482

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ness of weapons.

Second : The increasing cost of
war.

Third : The practice of arbitra-
tion.

Fourth : The fear of socialism and
of Revolutions.

Fifth : The propaganda of social-
ism in favour of international peace
which influences the working
classes.

Sixth : The ascendency of women.

Seventh : Some accidental cause
not now foreseen.

The fourth and fifth possible
causes for the abolition of war are
chiefly of interest to those countries
where conscription and huge stand-
ing armies bring the subject home
to every citizen ; in the United States
we are happily free from their con-
sideration and our socialists concern
themselves more with local than
with international subjects. In
spite of de Bloch's opinion that the
first cause, that of the increasing
murderousness of weapons will be
one of the chief factors in the de-
struction of war, that factor has
been but little referred to in the
present Russo-Japanese struggle.
In every discussion the cost has
been the subject chiefly referred to,
and we have heard more of bond-is-
sues than we have of recruits.

The practice of arbitration has

gained greatly in the public estima-
tion. The recent signing of the
French and English treaty of arbi-
tration is a stride forward and
rumors of other treaties of arbitra-
tion fill the air.

M. Lacombe's sixth possibility,
that of the ascendency of women, is
one which so far has been negative.
Women have through nursing
organizations and sanitary commis-
sions done much to mitigate the
horrors of war, but whether they
are ready to throw their influence
in the scale of peace is doubtful.
Not long since a number of women
were discussing whether or not effi-
ciency in war was the test of a
nation's greatness. Not only the
majority of women present believed
efficiency in war was the test, but
they considered war to be a great
moral and intellectual quickener and
therefore on the wrhole to be benefi-
cial to the National life.

It is to combat such ideas and
theories that Lacombe, Letourneau,
Anitchkow, Noricow and a whole
school of French and Russian
authors are working, and it is a
subject which in view of our in-
creasing naval and military ex-
penses and our daily growing con-
cern in world politics becomes of
more and more vital importance to
us.

JAMES BLACKSTONE MEMORIAL LIBRARY, BRANFORD, CONN.

A Model Public Library

IN almost no other phase of mod-
ern life have education and art,
the intellectual and aesthetic,
found such . pronounced expression
and made such rapid progress as in
the Public Library. If one wishes to
gain a correct idea of the general
knowledge and life of the people,
and form an accurate estimate of the
status and character of art in Amer-
ica, he can best do so by a study of
her modern libraries. In their cata-
logues and records he will find evi-
dence of wide information and intel-
lectual progress, and in the struc-
tures themselves some of the finest
specimens of architecture and art.
So pronounced is this fact in the
present day that our more recent
libraries seem rather the home of the
beautiful than of the purely literary
and educational. It is in truth a far

cry to these days of model libraries
from the year 1732, when Franklin
put in operation his first subscrip-
tion library scheme and called it
"the mother of North American
Subscription Libraries." It still ex-
ists in the Quaker city in the Phila-
delphia Public Library Company.
The first real free public library in
America was founded in Philadel-
phia by James Logan, Secretary to
William Penn.

The largest library in the United
States is the Congressional in
Washington, D. C, while the Bos-
ton Public Library is the first monu-
mental one in the great library
movement of recent years. The ex-
ample and influence of this library
has been pronounced, and its style,
methods and decorations are much
in evidence in many of the more

484

486

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

recent ones. Some of these, notable
for their size and beauty, are the
libraries in Newark, New Jersey,
Providence, Rhode Island, Duluth,
Minnesota, Tacoma, Washington,
and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Perhaps the finest recent example
of a model library, notable for its
architecture, the completeness of its
equipment, and for its art decora-
tions, is the Blackstone Memorial
Library of Branford, Connecticut, of
which the architect was Mr. S. S.
Beman of Chicago.

The extreme outside dimensions
of this building are 162 feet by 129
feet, the plan approximating the
form of a Latin cross. The con-
struction is fireproof throughout,
steel beams, tile arches and parti-
tions being used. The exterior, in-
cluding the roof of dome, is entirely
of Tennessee marble of a very light
tone. The main front is toward the
south, in which is the vestibule with
its bronze doors. On one hand are
the stack-room with its encircling
book galleries of iron and marble,
librarian's room and catalogue
room ; on the other hand, students'
rooms and reading rooms; while in
front are the grand staircase, the
side entrance and the lecture hall.
The view is enhanced by the pol-
ished marble columns in the fore-
ground, which add distance to the
remoter rooms. On the second floor
the edifice assumes the plan of the
Greek cross, and on that floor are art
galleries, reception rooms and direc-
tors' rooms. There is a charming
vista from the art galleries across
the rotunda to the proscenium arch
of the lecture hall, and the variation
of light and shade, form and color
will long be remembered. On this
floor also is the rotunda gallery, a
pleasant lounging place from which
to view the series of eight panels

which comprise the pictorial decora-
tion of the dome, "The Development
of the Book," and while the whole
has been so treated as to supple-
ment and become an integral part
of the architectural idea, the literary
and historical sides of the subject
have received careful consideration
and study.

In the first of the series, "Gather-
ing of the Papyrus," is shown two
Jewish slaves^ — a man and a woman
— toiling in the marshy lowlands
along the banks of the Nile, gather-
ing papyrus. "Records of the
Pharaohs," the second of the series,
and also Egyptian, represents an of-
ficer of the court of Pharaoh, dic-
tating from a papyrus roll to a
worker, who is transcribing the
records to the base of a monument.
In "Stories from the Iliad," the in-
cident taken is that of a minstrel re-
citing to an interested group of
listeners, while one of them, a Greek
youth, with stylus and tablet, :s
transcribing to enduring form the
words as they fall from his lips.

In "Mediaeval Illumination" is
illustrated the illumination of books
by white-robed monks. In the soft
tones of this picture and the quiet
earnestness of the three figures in-
finite patience is suggested.

In "Venetian Copper-Plate Print-
ing" is shown the beginning of the
modern tendency toward mechanical
reproduction. Printing from en-
graved or etched plates with the
clumsy hand-press was very early
brought to a high state ol perfec-
tion, and for certain kinds of work
has never been superseded, nor. in-
deed, materially improved upon.

The next important point in the
development of the book is taken to
be the introduction of movable
types, and the sixth panel supposes
the instant when the German in-

A MODEL PUBLIC LIBRARY

489

ventor, Gutenberg, inspects the first
proof of the now famous "Gutenberg
Bible" as it is handed him by his
assistant.

The scene of the seventh picture
is laid in America, and supposes a
printing room, in which two men,
dressed in the costume of Colonial
times, are operating what is known
as the "Franklin Press," an improve-
ment on the old-time machines of
Gutenberg and his contemporaries.
In front of the low, broad window
at the back of the room, is seated a
man at a table correcting proof, and
in the foreground lies a pile of
books.

The eighth and last picture deals
entirely with that part of book-
making which may be, and indeed
often does, amount to a fine art in
itself. But the dress of most modern
books is put on amid the buzzing of
wheels and the clicking of machin-
ery. Such bindery is here repre-
sented as far as the artist's necessi-
ties would permit realistic represen-
tation. Shafts, pulleys and belts,
steam and electricity, would hardly
seem hopeful materials from which
to build a decorative composition,
but a careful adjustment of tones
and arrangement of line, together
with its pictorial illustration of the
subject, "A Book Bindery, 1895,"
bring it into harmony with its
neghbors and make it a fitting end-
ing to the series. A simple, quiet
harmony pervades the whole, giving
the effect as if the dome had grown

up — pictures and architecture to-
gether being a unit in their appeal
for recognition to the sense of
beauty in the beholder.

In the intervals between the
arches are medallion portraits of
New England authors : Mrs. Stowe,
Longfellow, Holmes, Hawthorne,
Lowell, Whittier, Bryant and Emer-
son. The dome pictures and the
portraits are of great artistic merit,
and are the work of Oliver Dennitt
Grover, who also painted the decora-
tions in the dome of the Blackstone
Library at Chicago.

An interesting feature of the hall
is the solid marble staircase. This
is monumental in character and built
self-supporting, on the arch prin-
ciple, after the manner of the
ancients. Descending this circular
stairway, we come to the lecture
room, entrance hall and the two side
entrances of the building. Continu-
ing down, we reach the basement,
with its lavatories, gymnasium,
boilers and pumps, gas machines,
electric switches, heat-regulating
apparatus, etc.

The lecture-hall, a room 40 feet
by 50 feet, is the only portion of the
building finished in wood through-
out. Its carved oak pilasters and
wainscoting run up to the arched
and paneled ceiling, and their em-
blematical carving, while not pro-
fuse, is enough to give an air of rich-
ness to the whole.

The cost of the building was
$285,000.

Hermit Thrushes

By Grace Lathrop Collin

IT was the first Thursday in the
month, the appointed day that
Regina Billings should spend
with Rhoda. As she drew near her
sister's domicile she might have
fancied that in her journey through
the town she had circumnavigated
the globe, and that the house she
had left behind her was now risen
up before her, so close was the simi-
larity between the two dwellings.
Each was painted a gray, with white
outlines, not unlike the gray ging-
ham with white braid edging which
Regina wore. Behind the house was
a trig gray barn, with a barnyard
proportionate to a small Jersey cow,
even as the porch seemed adapted to
the kitten curled at the head of the
steps. Across the road ran a little
brook, where a flock of gray and
white geese were disporting them-
selves, part in the water, part, owing
to the limited accommodations,
waiting their turn on the bank.

Rhoda, with beaming face, ap-
peared in the door. "You know how
I've been looking forward to your
coming," said she. 'Sure you aren't
tired with your walk? Then sup-
pose I finish splitting those kind-
lings."

"I'll stack," offered Regina, loosen-
ing her bonnet strings.

"That will be real sociable. Here,
I'll hang up your bonnet. We were
smart, weren't we, to start off shop-
ping by ourselves, and out of all the
head-gears in Putnam, to come
home, each of us, with a black straw
with red berries."

They turned the corner to the
scrupulous square of grass forming
the back yard. It was bordered with
petunias, and on the clothes-line a
row of towels was snapping briskly.
Rhoda took her place before the
chopping block and with apparently
no greater expenditure of energy
than if she were knitting, split the
yellow sticks, which Regina bore off
to the dark inner wall of the wood-
shed. In amiable taciturnity they
continued this modified form of
"Anvil Chorus," until Regina gave
the conclusive v/hack to a stick cleft
upon the axe. She brushed the chips
into a pan, while Rhoda hung the
axe in its place. Then the sisters
turned to the house, and without
comment fell into the customarily
agreed division of the labor of pre-
paring dinner in the shining kitchen,
and of setting the table in the blue-
painted dining room. After the
meal, in the same social abstraction,
they set the rooms "to rights,"
spread the table with white netting,
and with wildly crackling besoms of
split paper, drove out an intrusive
bumble bee. The final chord of the
duet was the lowering of the shades,
introducing a cool gloom that in-
tensified the perfume from a vase of
heliotrope.

"And now what?" Regina in-
quired.

"What would you say to blue-
berrying? There's an extra sun-
bonnet right on the nail there."

Each woman took in her shapely,
tanned hand a bright tin pail, whose

490

HERMIT THRUSHES

491

foolish inadequacy made manifest
the constant disparity between their
daily tasks and their daily vigor. In
preparation for the childish errand,
there was a Roman directness of
purpose, and the gingham skirts
were gathered into a peplus-like
effect. They might have been on
their way to the amphitheatre, as
they strode off in single file across
the warm soil. Their path was dis-
cernible in its perspective, but
under foot lost itself in a tangle of
purplish white bayberries, polished
scrub-oak, twin leaves of winter-
green and low huckleberry bushes.
Beyond stretched the open hillside,
where cream-colored grasses, inter-
spersed with crimson clover-heads,
rose and reclined with the breeze.
At the sky-line were stationed three
elms, in shape like upright morning
glory blossoms, outlined against a
sky streaked with the pale rays of
"the sun drawing water." From
somewhere came the cawing of
crows, not a marauding sound, —
rather the tranquility of enough and
to spare. Rhoda swung round on
her heel, and with an inclusive ges-
ture, extended her arm statuesquely
toward the landscape. Regina,
dowered with a similar silence,
nodded appreciatively. The two ex-
pressed themselves further only by
the sound of blueberries bobbing
against pail bottoms.

Not until this sound had been
dulled by successive layers of
berries did Rhoda speak. "Seems
to me I never could have endured to
pick those berries without someone
to talk to. But I reckon we have
enough now. Let's sit down for a
spell in the way Nature intended,
instead of hunching ourselves over
those diddling little bushes." She
turned to a clump of birches behind
them, with tremulous leaves and

smooth, speckled trunks silvered in
the sunlight. "The day's getting on,
and there are ever so many more
matters I feel I'd like to turn over
with you."

Conversation when indulged in at
all between the Billings sisters was
no idle chatter. It had the form and
substance of dialogue. As was their
custom, they proceeded to review
their own situation, which would
then serve as vantage point from
which to survey surrounding affairs.

"I've never regretted that we
spoke to Lee that very first night.
Of course, he and his wife expected
that we'd go right on in the front
bedroom that we'd had since we
were girls."

"Ida said she was disappointed."

"And Lee said he'd build us a
house."

"Being our brother, he didn't
mean to show it, but he was sur-
prised when we said each of us
wanted a house."

"Ida asked if we weren't afraid
we'd be lonely."

"We said we'd never had a chance
before to be lonely. And if for a
few minutes now and then we should
feel a mite solitary, we shouldn't
blame anybody."

"From the time mother used to
buy full dress-patterns and cut them
in two for us little girls, and take
two of the hats with crowns stuck
into each other from the pile at the
milliner's, we've never known what
it was not to have enough of any-
thing. But we'd never known what
it was to have all there was of any-
thing."

"We'd always divided things, —
the hooks in the big closet, the four
poster, the high-boy, the sweet-pea
bed. At our age, one would think
we might try a change."

"Some people thought, when we

492

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

separated, it was because we wanted
different things."

"Well, as we told the builder, we
needn't take up his time describing
what each of us wanted, for our
tastes were always alike, and they
weren't different just because we
weren't planning to look out of the
same window and go through the
same door."

"Ida was afraid that people might
think we were just a little bit
queer."

"Then they'd be mistaken."

"And she was afraid we'd take to
heart what people thought about
us."

"No danger. We've too much on
hand, thinking about people."

"Ours is a mighty comfortable
way to live."

"Sometimes I wonder what I've
done that I should be so comfort-
able."

"What have you done that you
shouldn't be comfortable?"

"Well, it isn't the usual lot of old
maids."

"And that's what we are. When
I was a girl, I supposed, of course,
I'd marry. I remember I used to
think, 'It's no use planning as far
ahead as that; I'll be married before
that, to somebody or other.' If I'd
been told I'd never marry, I'd have
been disappointed."

"The closest to a disappointment
I've had was being disappointed that
I wasn't disappointed. When I was
a girl, I'd have pitied a woman like
me, — living all by herself, and never
having had an offer in her life. And
yet here I am, perfectly comfort-
able."

"Maybe we'd feel differently if
we'd ever seen a man we'd have
cared to marry, — or who cared to
marry us."

"If the Lord had raised up a twin

brother of any of the men our
friends have married, how would1
you—"

"Oh, come now. Putnam is full
of good men. Most men are good,
I guess."

"Most men strike me as being the
same kind, anyway."

"Well, there's one good thing. If
there weren't enough made to go
'round, it's lucky you and I don't
seem to need them."

"I tell you, there's nothing like
our way of living, to get the real sat-
isfaction out of things. Now — "

"Rhoda !" shrilled a voice from
the house. "Rhoda!"

"That's Abby Stetson. I'd know
her voice anywhere. So it would
appear she's the one we've been
picking berries for. I suppose she
thinks it's a real favor in her to
come. I declare, Regina, there are
times when it's a task to take the
deed for the will."

They trudged back, and greeted
with philosophic cheerfulness the
figure of Mrs. Stetson, standing in
the sunlight of their doorway. "So
there you are," she said, her large
light blue eyes in their hollowed
sockets roving in futile curiosity
about the familiar rooms. "I called
through the house and I didn't get
any answer. Been out in the field?"

"Yes," said Rhoda briefly, "but
we've come in now."

Regina, feeling at ease as hostess
in a parlor furnished with hanging
baskets in the windows, haircloth
furniture and scrolled carpet exactly
like her own, took charge of the
guest.

"I can't get over the way you two
sisters live. There's nothing under
the canopy that's queerer. Each of
you living in a little house as if she
was all alone in the world, with her
own sister in another little house,

HERMIT THRUSHES

493

just like it, two miles off. And each
thinking there's nobody quite as
wise as the other, and yet preferring
her own society. And setting cer-
tain days to come and visit, and yet
not making any company of each
other. But now I suppose you
don't see anything queer in all
this?"

"No," replied Regina, with un-
troubled, reliant gaze at her sister,
emerging from the cellarway.

"Well, well," said Mrs. Stetson,
resorting to rocking.

"Won't you lay off your bonnet
and stay to tea?"

"That is an idea. My daughter
has driven over to East Weston on
an errand, and I said she might
leave me here and call for me on her
way back this evening, while I
stopped and cheered you up a bit,
for I thought you must be lonely."

"Don't move, Regina," said Rhoda,
appearing at the door. "I set an
extra plate when I sorted the
berries."

On the daughter's return, the
"Billings girls" escorted Mrs. Stet-
son on her progress, each stage
marked by a monologue, from the
piazza, across the lawn, and up the
steps of the buggy, waiting with
•cramped wheels. "Now I -hope that
when either of you feels lonesome,
and if the day hasn't come round for
you to go and see each other, you'll
come and visit with me," she called
between the buggy curtains. "Good-

*>y."

The sisters turned to each other.
^One gets to studying over Mrs.
Stetson, doesn't one?" remarked
Rhoda, unperturbed.

"Yes," returned Regina, serenely.
"She's splendid company after she's
gone."

Ruminating on their neighbor's
eccentricities, they watched the
dusk fall. "There's my star up
above the elm," sighed Regina.
"That means I must go home. I've
had a lovely time. I'll just be count-
ing the days till you come to spend
the day with me."

"You know how I feel," said
Rhoda. "Good night."

The hostess was left alone. As
the darkness gathered, the katydids
in the elms, the frogs in the pond,
joined in louder chorus. But the
human voice was stilled. The quiet
was like balm. The pleasure of the
day, deepening from anticipation
into realization, was now consum-
mated in reminiscence. Neverthe-
less, it had been a departure from
the habit of her days, and the re-
curring sense of an encompassing
isolation was as the sense of donning
a familiar garment. Rhoda knew
that Regina, pacing the village
street, either hastening or loitering
at her own whim, was expanding in
the same freedom. In a tacit fellow-
ship, the two sisters resumed the full
indulgence of their capacities for
solitude.

Rhoda roused herself. "I guess
Regina must have reached home by
this time," she said. "And as we've
always agreed about bedtime, I may
as well go in, too. Sometimes, if it
wasn't for knowing that Regina
lived within two miles, and I was
going to see her twice a month, I
believe I might feel a bit lonely,
after all."

A Dream of Emancipation

By Anna B. A. Brown

SOME persons there are who
come into the world a century or
so too late, and find the work
they would do already under way or
even completed ; others there are
who come a century or so too soon
and find that no matter how hard
they struggle, no matter how earn-
est their efforts may be they are per-
petually hindered and discouraged
by an incredulous people. For the
former there is a life of quiet sub-
mission to the decrees of fate, an un-
eventful and prosaic career; for the
latter there is a life full of sorrow,
of keenest disappointment, some-
times of persecution, and always of
heart-break and suffering.

In this latter class belongs Fran-
ces Wright, lecturer, writer, free-
thinker, reformer, agitator and abo-
litionist, who established in West
Tennessee the first industrial train-
ing-school for negroes that was ever
attempted in this country — or any
other. She anticipated the work of
Hampton Roads by nearly half a
century, of Tuskeegee by nearly a
century, and because the time was
not yet ripe for such an innovation,
and because reformers were then,
as always, misunderstood, her work
failed and she was made the object
of much derision and more injustice.
It is one of the peculiar contra-
dictions that Fortune loves to use
in surprising her skeptical world that
in the very heart of a slave-holding
country should be established the
first institution that was to work
toward the emancipation of negroes.
And a woman was its head.

A tract of land in south-west Ten-
nessee about ten miles east of Mem-
phis and lying along Wolf River was
purchased by Frances Wright in
1825, fourteen years after Nicholas
Roosevelt had brought the first
steamboat down the Mississippi.
There were 1240 acres in the tract
and it was given the musical name
of Nashoba after the Indian tribe
that had lived there and also for the
river, (Wolf) which had formerly
borne that name. This land was to
be cleared and on it was to be estab-
lished a manual-training school with
the added advantages of plantation
life. Houses and cabins were to be
erected and negro families installed
with the understanding that as soon
as each negro proved himself or her-
self capable of self-support and
ready for the responsibilities of free-
dom, this freedom would be given.
In fact each person was to purchase
himself with his own labor.

The trustees of this institution in-
cluded many of the most prominent
men of the times. Among them
were members of the industrial
settlement at New Harmony,
Indiana. As given in the original
documents they were the Marquis
de la Fayette, William McClure,
Robert Owen, Cadwallader D.
Owen, Richardson Whitby, Robert
Jennings, Robert Dale Owen,
George Flowery, James Richardson
and Sylvia Wright, the sister of
Frances Wright.

One of the most valued supporters
of the movement was the Marquis
de la Fayette, whose family the

494

A DREAM OF EMANCIPATION

495

Wright sisters had visited from time
to time in France, and who became
an ardent and enthusiastic supporter
of the philanthropic and quixotic
enterprise. When he came to the
United States in 1824-25, to visit a
delighted nation, he was a guest for
a short while at Nashoba, coming
by boat by way of Nashville. He
showed keenest interest in the plans
of the colony and shortly before he
sailed for France he wrote Miss
Wright the following letter, send-
ing it in the care of General Jack-
son, Nashville, Tenn.
(Translation.)

Washington, 26th August, 1825.

"I have returned from my Virginia trip
without finding here a letter from you, my
dear Fanny. My table was covered with
correspondence, American and French,
particularly from La Grange, which an-
swered to your ship-wreck and your fall,
charging me with much love for both of
you.

"I sent before leaving here the answer
of Mr. Jefferson, whom I found very ailing.
Our mutual adieus were very sad, as you
may believe.

"My conversations with Mr. Madison,
going and coming, have demonstrated to me
that you have no better friend in the United
States, and make me wish that you would
cultivate the friendship. Mr. Madison is to
address his answer to Nashville. These
two friends seem to augur well of your
plans, though not believing in so prompt a
success of which the indispensable condi-
tion is its Southern origin and colonization.
I have showed your paper to Mr. Monroe,
who has approved of it under the conditions
just stated. He is going to sell his Alber-
marle Plantation and would like to intro-
duce on that of Lansdowne free white labor ;
perhaps these circumstances might lead to
something done with him.

"Chief Justice Marshall has, under seal
of secrecy, your prospectus, and will shortly
write me his opinion confidentially. You
know he is nominal president of the Coloni-
zation Society. They say their approbation
will do more harm than good, but I found
their good-will sincere and my daily con-
versations during the Virginia trip indicate
a gradual amelioration of public opinion.

"The loss of my pocket-book (which has
since been recovered), and therefore of your
address, does not prevent me from think-
ing that the two letters addressed care of
Mr. Rapp near Pittsburg, will have reached
you ; the third has been sent to General
Jackson.

"We dine with the President of the
United States on the sixth of September
when I enter on my 69th year. Next morn-
ing we will go in the steamboat to visit the
frigate, Brandywine, at the nearest point
where she can await us, and from there
we leave for the far shores of Europe.

"This is not yet an adieu, dear daughters.
You know I need no such sadly solemn an
occasion to embrace you with all my heart.

La Fayette."

Another whose encouragement
Miss Wright counted on was Jeffer-
son, whom the Marquis believed to
be favorably inclined toward her
idea, and who had already thought
much and deeply on the negro ques-
tion. Jefferson was more of a pro-
phet on this subject than is generally
known. In his autobiography
under the date of 1822 he discusses
a bill for the emancipation or depor-
tation of slaves. He writes of cer-
tain features of the proposed bill,
and concludes :

"It was thought better that this should
be kept back and attempted only by way of
amendment whenever the bill should be
brought on. The principles of the amend-
ment, however, were agreed on, that is to
say, the freedom of all born after- a certain
day and deportation at a proper age. But
it was found that the public mind would
not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear
it even this day. Yet the day is not far
distant when it must bear and adopt it, or
worse will follow. Nothing is more cer-
tainly written in the book of Fate, than that
these people are to be free ; nor is it less
certain that the two races, equally free, can-
not live in the same government. Nature,
habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of
distinction between them. It is still in our
power to direct the process of emancipation
and deportation, peaceably and in such slow
degree, as that the evils will wear off insen-
sibly, and their place be, pari passu, filled up
by free white laborers. If, on the contrary,

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

it is left to force itself on, human nature
must shudder at the prospect held up. We
should in vain look for an example in the
Spanish deportation or deletion of the
Moors. This precedent would fall far
short in our case."

For two years the little negro
colony at Nashoba carried on a
shiftless, unsatisfactory existence.
The country was new and strange
and thinly settled. Memphis, at
that time a little village seven years
old, was carrying on a trade with
the Indians and with the few early
settlers, laying then the foundations
for the great commercial interests
she now holds. Forty miles to the
east of Nashoba was a group of three
or four houses and newly cleared
plantations called La Grange as a
compliment to La Fayette's home
in France. Between these two ham-
lets lay a new, almost unsettled
country, a forest region where
wolves were still plentiful and
where deer and other wild animals
awaited the exterminating processes
of civilization. But the land was
wonderfully rich ; it offered then
the advantages that have been
realized today — those of a prosper-
ous, productive and healthy planta-
tion life.

Even though the tract she chose
was forest-crowned, Frances Wright
realized its possibilities and with
her own private funds as the sole
capital, set about a philanthropic
task that would have discouraged
any one else but a woman of her in-
domitable will, launching a new en-
terprise that was the first of its kind
in this country. She installed fifteen
negro families in temporary quarters
that they themselves hastily erected
under the supervision of an overseer
and then set them to work to clear
the land. The rich alluvial soil near
the river and some of the land on the

hill-sides was cleared, log-cabins
were built for the slaves and more
pretentious cottages for Miss
Wright and her overseer.

The work for the colony was
planned on the lines that obtain
nowadays in most industrial train-
ing schools and that always obtained
on the Southern plantations before
the war. Farming, stock-raising,
carpenter-work, shoe-making, black-
smithing, meat-curing, cooking,
house-work, sewing, weaving, and
spinning were to be taught, accord-
ing to the sex of the pupil, with
some rudimentary knowledge of
reading and writing. The entire
plan was patterned unconsciously
after the plantation life in Virginia
and North Carolina where most of
the simple and useful crafts were
taught the slaves.

There was, however, this differ-
ence : where the other slaves worked
for their master's gain as well as for
their own, these worked with the
knowledge that whatever they
earned was credited to their account
and all over and above thei:' board
and living expenses was to apply to
their own purchase. It was meant
to give an added incentive to them
for working, for while Miss Wright
realized the gravity of freeing them
and throwing them at once on their
own resources, she believed that they
would be more ambitious, try to
learn more, try to improve them-
selves in every way, so when the
desired freedom came they could
make their own way in the world.

Bravely and hopefully the venture
was begun by Miss Wright amid the
sneers and discouraging criticisms of
the Northern Pro-Slavery party and
the smiles of amusement of the
Southern planters — who knew the
negro. Obstacles met her at the
start. The negroes were a shiftless

A DREAM OF EMANCIPATION

497

lot, totally untrained, thoroughly in-
competent when put on their own
resources, though docile and tract-
able and willing to obey. The land,
poorly cultivated, yielded little the
first year; the overseer sickened and
there was none to look after the
plantation but the beautiful, un-
practical young philanthropist.
Finally the malaria crept up the
river and attacked these people who
were unused to it and unprepared
to cope with it. All sickened
though none died. Such discourage-
ments proved too many and the
colony was a failure.

Weak in body and sick at heart
over the bursting of her rainbow
bubble with its many hopeful tints,
Frances Wright consulted with her
trustees and concluded to give up
her cherished plan. Her slaves
were still her first care, however, and
at her own expense she took them
down the Mississippi and charter-
ing a small vessel set out for Haiti.
There were thirty-one negroes in all,
thirteen adults and eighteen chil-
dren. After an eventful passage
they arrived at the island and Miss
Wright was granted a tract of land
by the Haitian government. She
freed them all, established them on
this land and left them there, a few
sentiments of individual rights, and
of liberty planted in their hearts, a
dim sense of gratitude in their happy
irresponsible minds.

And so failed the first industrial
training school for negroes that the
civilized world knew.

Frances Wright might be termed
a contemporary of Wilberforce; she
anticipated the enthusiasm of Sum-
ner, Brown, Wendell Phillips and
Garrison by nearly thirty years, and
offered a plan of gradual emancipa-
tion so entirely foreign to that of any
offered by these that it seemed ab-

surd to them when their day came
and they made themselves familiar
with its principles. It is the plan in
practical operation under Booker
Washington now when the negro
is being taught self-emancipation
from ignorance and narrowness by
the fostering of the principles of self-
reliance, self-help, self-knowledge,
self-control.

The big Nashoba plantation still
lies' almost intact not far beyond the
ever-widening boundaries of Mem-
phis. For nearly half a century . it
has been in litigation, French "and
American heirs contesting its title.
There are long wooded slopes,
stretches of cultivated fields, and
dark cypress swamps down by the
river. Here and there are negro-
cabins occupied by the "share-
hands" and near the center of the
estate is a cottage built for the man
n o w managing the plantation.
There is a tiny log chapel there built
a few years ago by the daughters
of Frances Young who died last
summer at a venerable age ; in one
Qf the little dips between the hills is
a great spring that was known to the
Nashoba Indians long before the
coming of Frances Wright and her
colony. The buildings erected so
hopefully for the little settlement
have been swept away long ago by
the ravages of time, but the see<l
sown by the ardent young philan-
thropist may be flowering today in
the other training schools for
negroes that are now being put in
operation. Who knows?

Her venture came too soon, not
sooner perhaps than it was needed,
but sooner than even the most hot-
headed abolitionist wished. The
woman herself was a century ahead
of the times. At that day she was
an anomaly, an affront to the con-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

servatives who belived women were
only meant

"to bake and brew,
Nurse, dress, gossip and scandalize,"

and never to think for themselves,
or be factors in the great social,
political and literary movements of
the age. She belonged among the
women of to-day and would possibly
be considered only an average pro-
gressive woman.

She was born at Dundee, Scotland,
on September 6, 1795, the daughter
of a socialist of advanced ideas
though high birth. Through her
father she was descended from the
Campbells of Inverness, the Argyle
branch, and the Stewarts of Loch
Arne. On her mother's side she
came of the lettered aristocracy of
England, Mrs. Montagu being her
grand-aunt, and Baron Rokeby,
"Friend Robinson," her great-uncle.
General Duncan Campbell was her
grandfather and General William
Campbell her uncle; Archbishop
Campbell of Baltimore was another
near relative. Left an orphan at an
early age she was educated with her
sister, Sylvia, under the guidance
of Gen. Duncan Campbell, whose
ideas on the education of girls were
much the same as those held by pro-
gressive men of today. It is said
by some of her biographers that
many of her theories of life were
imbibed from Jeremy Bentham who
was, so it is alleged, one of her in-
structors. At any rate the manner
in which the Wright sisters were
educated was highly scandalizing to
the good people of the early times.

The result of Gen. Campbell's ex-
periment in Frances Wright's case
was this queer contradiction, — a
beautiful young woman with the
logical brain and ambitions of a man,
and with a womanly sentiment strong

enough to dominate her at times.
Naturally the world went hard with
her. She was continually misunder-
stood, persecuted, slandered and de-
rided by the very persons in whose
interest she labored. The church
called her an infidel, preachers and
politicians made her one of a trio
against whom they waged wordy
war — "Tom Paine, Fanny Wright
and the Devil." Yet the paper she
published and edited was not overly
radical in its policy; her editorials
were ever in defense of the weak and
oppressed, her philosophy was
clear and logical, her lectures elo-
quent and forceful, her poetry pure
and lyrical.

In a letter to Mrs. Shelley she gave
this keynote of her faith : —

"I have devoted my time and fortune,"
she wrote, "to laying the foundations of an
establishment where affection shall form
the only marriage, kind feeling and kind
action the only religion, respect for the
feelings and liberties of others the only
restraint, and union of interest the bond of
peace and security."

Robert Dale Owen, one of her co-
workers in philanthropic enter-
prises, and one who admired her
courage and convictions, wrote of
her once in all kindness : —

"Her courage was not tempered with
prudence and her enthusiasm lacked the
guiding check of sound judgment."

Mrs. Trollope, who knew her and
heard her lecture wrote this of
Frances Wright: —

"Her tall and majestic figure, the deep
and almost solemn expression of her eyes,
the simple contour of her finely formed
head, her garment of plain white muslin,
which hung around her in folds that re-
called the drapery of a Grecian statue, all
contributed to produce an effect unlike any-
thing that I have ever seen before, or ex-
pect to see again."

Even her marriage was a failure

MY CREED

499

in its cry for happiness. She mar-
ried William Casimir Sylvan Phi-
quepal D'Arusmont, a French physi-
cian and nobleman, but found it
necessary to secure a divorce in a
few years. The trustees deeded
Nashoba to her and at intervals for
many years she came back to the
place to live for awhile, and her un-
usually tall figure was quite a fami-
liar spectacle on Memphis streets
for many years, though most of her
time was devoted to lecturing in the
North and East.

Her influence throughout the
country was at one time marked.
There were "Fanny Wright Socie-
ties" founded in her honor, and
while she labored for socialism, free-
thought and pure living, her crusade
against slavery was not stayed and
her dream of emancipation was nev-

er forgotten, nor did she cease to
hope for its realization. She died,
however, before its realization came,
and possibly she would have been
grievously disappointed to see its
more successful termination forty
years after her own venture, when
freedom for the negro was bought
with the best blood of the North
and of the South.

Sumner did not have her in mind
when he wrote the following para-
graph but it is curiously appropriate
to her life : —

"I honor any man who in the conscien-
tious discharge of his duty dares to stand
alone; the world, with ignorant, intolerant
judgment, may condemn, the countenances
of relatives may be averted, and the hearts
of friends grow cold, but the sense of duty
done shall be sweeter than the applause of
the world, the countenances of relatives, or
the hearts of friends."

My Creed

By Cora A. Matson Dolson

I DEEM it matters little what betide,
If but our souls reach for the perfect Guide ;
Feel the deep wounds on cross of Calvary made,
And own the vastness of the debt He paid.

I deem it matters little what our creed,
If we but follow Him in thought and deed;
Scanning the flawless pattern He has shown,
And making it, as best we may, our own.

The Passing of a Soul

By Lucretia Dunham

THE doctor's buggy was coming
slowly along the road in the
heat of the June day. The sun's
rays beat down on its black, shiny
top, and on the well-worn reins
dangling loosely over the old mare's
back. Great patches of sunshine lay
athwart the road, stretching its long,
dusty length, with now and then a
welcome bit of shadow from some
overhanging tree or bush. The air
held in it a brooding stillness ; it was
as though all nature had succumbed
to the first scorching breath of sum-
mer. Even the life of the fields was
hushed. A hawk, wheeling and
circling overhead in the blue ex-
panse, glanced for a moment across
the sun like a dark speck.

In the lazy hush the old horse
jogged slowly along, with eyes half-
closed, and kicking up great clouds
of dust. From within the black
depths of the old buggy, the doctor's
genial face peered forth. Beneath
his wide-brimmed hat, a few locks
of white hair fell over his temples;
now and then he raised his hand
and brushed them back. An old
linen duster served as a protection
against the storm of dust. He let
the reins hang loosely over the dash-
board, and allowed the mare to jog
along at will.

"A shower wouldn't come amiss,
just now," he mused, as he pulled
out his handkerchief and mopped
his red face.

The road turned abruptly, and the
horse in response to a sudden, quick
jerk of the right rein, turned with it,
and in the same pervading stillness,

ambled along its half-mile length.
It ended in a short lane, and pres-
ently the doctor felt the grateful
shade of an avenue of pines, their
slender tops bending and touching
over the carpet of needles beneath.

"Old Si would 'a been proud of
these trees, could he just 'a lived a
few years longer. Strange, how
short the span o' human life is when
we come right down to it.' Don't
seem much more'n yestiddy, when
he sat in the porch yonder, smokin'
his old pipe and pointin' to 'em. T
set them trees out myself, when I
wuz a boy, an' I've growed right up
along with 'em; seem's though the
sun's rays teched 'em fust thing in
the mornin' and left 'em the las'
thing at night.' "

The doctor leaned forward out of
the buggy. "The tops didn't come
anywheres near to meetin' then.
Why, I wa'n't much more'n a boy
myself, an' Si's been dead this many
a year. Yes, an' he left a goodly
heritage."

His eye traveled off over the
broad meadow-lands stretching
away to the setting sun; over the
shimmering fields and the orchards
with their gnarled and knotted
limbs and the sunshine sifting
through the green. It represented
years of labor; years of sweat and
toil. " 'Mandy need never want fer
nothin',' " he said to me that day,
" 'neither her nor her children. An'
when I'm gone, Jim can carry on the
farm. He's a good worker, Jin; is.' ,!

And with the passing of the years
the old place had prospered. In the

;oo

THE PASSING OF A SOUL

501

heat of summer suns the great fields
of grain waved to and fro ; in the full
of harvest moons the great barns
were filled to bursting. The house —
a broad, square, many-windowed
structure, with low, gabled roof —
had come to Mandy, together with
the broad acres and orchards. Its
weather-beaten sides bore evidence
of many a summer's sun, and many
a winter's storm. Beneath the pro-
jecting eaves generations of swal-
lows had built their nests and reared
their young.

But all around there showed the
touches of a woman's hand. Rows
of hollyhocks bordered the walk that
led to the porch in the rear. There
was a scent of lavender; of wild
thyme, pansies and mignonette. A
great bed of flaming tulips made a
bright patch of color. The roses
clambering over the porch were in
full bloom, and here in the shadow
of the vines, Mandy often sat with
her pan of peas to shell or potatoes
to pare, and here, too, she and Jim
sat alone in the cool of the summer,
evenings, with the scent of the roses,
the faint, far cry of the whip-poor-
wills and the croaking of frogs in
the meadow-pond.

A man's heavy step on the porch
roused the doctor from his reverie.
The old mare had come to a stand-
still.

"Thet you, doctor? Glad to see
ye. Come right in now. Sun's a
little hot to-day, ain't it?" Jim's
great stalwart form and frank, good-
natured face stood framed in the net-
work of vines.

" 'Twas only this mornin' thet
Mandy was askin' ef ye weren't
comin' to-day. Better set right ther
in thet easy chair an' rest an' cool
off a bit 'fore ye go up stairs. I'll
fetch a drink."

The doctor took off his linen

duster and laid it carefully over the
arm of the shiny, haircloth sofa ; put
his hat and gloves on the table, with
his well-worn leather case beside
them, and leaned his head against
the chintz-covered cushion of the
chair.

"Well, how does she seem to-
day?" he asked, as he held out his
hand for the glass.

"Seem'd quite bright an' cheerful
like this mornin' ; more like her old
self. 'Bout 'leven o'clock I give her
the medicine and then went down to
the ten-acre lot. 'Ye ain't goin' to
be gone long, be ye Jim?' she asked,
so when I come back agin I jest took
a look in at the door, an' she seemed
to be sleepin'. I'd hed to stay a little
longer'n I me'nt to, givin' some
orders to the men, so I tiptoed acrost
the room to pull the curtains, so's
the sun shouldn't shine in so, an' she
opened her eyes. I went over to the
bed an' took her hand. 'Be ye
asleep, Mandy?' I sez. She looked
up at me, but she didn't say nothin'.
I thought her face looked turrible
white an' pinched like, but I s'pose
she'll look like thet now the fever's
left 'er an' she's a-gettin' well. But
ain't it kind o' queer, doctor, thet she
ain't never asked 'bout the baby?"

He paused, and his eyes half-
troubled, searched the doctor's face.
The latter rose quickly from his
chair.

"I guess I'll be going up now,"
he said, shortly, and picked up his
case from the table. It left an out-
line on the polished wood. Jim
smiled as he saw it.

"Wonder what Mandy'd say to
that?" he observed. "It's 'stonishin'
how the dirt begins to creep into the
corners an' the dust to settle on
things, when the wimmen folks ain't
'round."

He followed slowly on up the

502

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

stairs. In the dark passageway
above the doctor caught his foot in
something and stumbled. Pushed
back against the wall was an old-
fashioned, hooded cradle. One end
of a small red and white quilt fell
over the side. Jim stooped and
gently laid it back. His hand
touched the little pillow and lingered
for a moment.

The door of Mandy's room stood
ajar. The doctor was dimly con-
scious as he stepped in of a large
room, plainly furnished. The bed
was the large, old-fashioned four-
poster, hung with curtains of chintz.
It, too, had come down to Mandy on
the wings of the years, and each
generation of the Harlow family had
drawn his first and last breath
within its depths. The light muslin
curtains moved slowly back and
forth in the breeze that came in
through the open windows. It bore
with it all the faint, sweet scents of
the summer afternoon, and seemed
laden with the drowsy stillness.
Now and then a swallow brushed its
wings against the shutter.

Jim stepped across the room,
placing first one heavy boot and
then the other softly down on the
rag-carpet. The doctor's face had
lost some of its ruddy glow as he
bent over the bed. Mandy's face, as
it lay among the big pillows looked
white and drawn. Her left hand,
with its plain gold band, rested out-
side the counterpane. The doctor's
broad palm closed over her wrist,
and his eyes beneath their heavy
brows looked long and searching.
Then he straightened up and met
Jim's eyes.

"She wuz sleepin' jest thet way,
the last time I looked in, doctor.
Poor little girl; it'll do 'er good, I
reckon. She's ben through consid-
able."

But the other did not seem to be
listening. He turned toward the
table at the side of the bed and
picked up the two glasses that stood
side by side, each covered with a
white envelope and a spoon on top
of that. The liquid in one was half
gone ; there was barely a third left
in the other. Presently his voice
broke the stillness.

"You gave her the medicine, this
morning, you say, Jim? It was from
this tumbler you poured it, was it?
And you gave her, — how much?
Two tablespoonfuls?" Jim nodded.
He crossed over from the window
and stood by the doctor's side. He
did not notice the hand that grasped
the edge of the table with a tighten-
ing grip, nor the drops that burst
out on his forehead. He took no
note of the voice, husky and hesi-
tating.

"Yes," he answered eagerly. "It
wuz 'bout 'leven this mornin' when
Mandy said it wuz time to take the
medicine. Tour out jest two tea-
spoonfuls, Jim,' she sez. T don't
hev to take any o' the other till the
doctor comes. 1 took one teaspoon-
ful o' thet las' night.' She seemed
real bright an' cheerful like, an' they
wuz two little spots o' red in her
cheeks. I joked 'er a little as I
poured it out.

' 'Guess I won't hev to turn out
much more o' this fer yer ter make
a face over, Mandy. This pretty
near finishes her up. Ye never wuz
much on medicine, anyway, wuz yer,
little woman?"

There was a moment's silence.
Something in the other's face ; a look
that a father, perhaps, might give to
his son, caused him to take a step
forward. His great bronzed face,
half-boyish, was troubled.

"It wuz all right, wa'nt it, doctor?
I poured it out — two teaspoonfuls —

THE PASSING OF

SOUL

503

not a drop more. They wa'nt nothin'
wrong 'bout it, wuz they?"

In the pause that followed Jim
looked first toward the bed, then
back again to the doctor's face. But
the latter had turned away, and his
eyes were wandering to the window
and out across the meadowlands to
a small strip of woodland on the
edge of which was a tiny mound,
with the sod freshly turned. Beyond
the sun was just dipping over the
distant hills. His eyes came back to
those of the man at his side. And
again the other was conscious of
that pitying light.

"How long is it, Jim, that you and
Mandy have been livin' here in the
old house?"

"Eight year, come nex' October."

"An' you've been happy together,
these eight years, haven't you?
Nothin' to come between you;
nothin' that you might think of some
day an' be sorry for. Nor you ain't
been lonely, nor missed anything,
lest maybe it was the smile of a little
face and the sound of little feet."

A ray of sunlight fell athwart the
rag-carpet. Jim looked at the still
figure deep within the shadow of the
big four-poster. Then his gaze came
back to the other's face.

"She's been a good wife to you,
Jim, but' you never thought, did you,
that some day, perhaps, she might
leave you, an' for the sake o' that
very same little face an' those same
little feet, — leave you as lonely and
alone as I am. Don't you see, — don't
you know now, Jim, why Mandy
never asked about the baby? Per-
haps she knew that after all her
arms would hold it, — her arms fhat
have been empty all these years.

And you don't begrudge it to her
now, do you, Jim?"

As in a mist the doctor saw the
white face of the man before him.
He saw the great frame begin to
quiver, the shoulders heave, and
heard the dry sob, deep down in his
throat.

"You need never have any call to
reproach yourself, Jim, — nobody
could 'a done any more for her than
you did. An', — an' as for the medi-
cine," the words came slowly, —
"Jim, all the medicine in the world
wouldn't have made any difference."

He laid his hand, tender as a
woman's, on the bowed shoulders.
Two great tears dropped on the
white hand that lay outside the
counterpane. Through the window
came the scent of the old-fashioned
roses. He turned and closed the
door softly, and left him, alone with
his dead.

^ jK * ^ ^ >k

In the soft stillness of the late
afternoon, the doctor's buggy w-as
^coming slowly along the road. The
shadows of sunset lay, long and
wavering. The tops of the pines
were tipped with crimson. Now
and then the call of a bird came
across the fields and was answered
by its mate. The reins dangled
loosely over the old mare's back. In
the hush of the summer night horse
and buggy turned into the home
gate.

"Human life's a queer thing," the
old doctor mused. "I've lived a good
many years, an' it's the first time I
ever lied to a livin' soul. I've been
pretty lonely, too, but there's lots
worse things than lyin', too, some-
times."

The Doubts of the Fathers
Concerning Democracy

By Frederic Austin Ogg

IN that most interesting address
of President Eliot on "Five
American Contributions to Civi-
lization," delivered at Chautauqua
seven years ago, four of the five con-
tributions discussed were of such
a character that they could hardly
have been made — some of them not
at all — except by a democracy.
Nevertheless we all know that de-
mocracy as a mode of government
is still on trial before the world
and that there are not lacking those
among the more shrewd observers
and critics who are scarcely even
hopeful of the outcome.

Democracy as a practical mode of
government must be tried by two
measures — that of space and that
of time. "To succeed," said Presi-
dent Eliot in the address referred
to, "democracy must show itself
able to control both territory and
population on a continental scale."
If the Athens of Pericles, the
Italian free cities of the Middle
Ages, or the Switzerland of to-day,
must mark the limits of a working
democracy, the world would better
look elsewhere for a panacea in gov-
ernment. The unmistakable ten-
dency of the age is toward national
aggrandizement and if democracy
is not compatible with territorial ex-
pansiveness, so much the worse for
democracy. And again democracy
cannot be deemed a success unless
it prove to be so permanently. Ex-
periments and make-shifts are well

enough in some fields of human
activity, but not in that which per-
tains to government. "The first
duty of a government," said Mr. E.
L. Godkin in one of his political
essays, "is to last. A government,
however good, which does not last
is a failure." Of course this dictum
must be interpreted with common
sense. In the nature of the case
no government devised by men can
be, or ought to be, absolutely per-
manent. But if a government really
be worthy in the first place it ought
to be expected to live through sev-
eral centuries; and a form of gov-
ernment— as the democratic form —
if once right, ought to have such
elements of strength as to be very
nearly eternal.

In the United States democracy
for the first time in the world's
history has established itself
throughout a land of extensive pro-
portions. It remains to be seen
whether, having proved its ability
to comprehend widely separated
areas in space and to keep pace at
least reasonably well in efficiency
with repeated enlargements of boun-
daries, it can also defy the corrod-
ing effects of time and maintain it-
self steadily under the weight of
the accumulated centuries that may
crowd themselves into its experi-
ence.

In respect to the very important
subject of popular government the
framers of the Constitution failed to

=;o4

THE DOUBTS OF THE FATHERS

505

harmonize their efforts with the trend
of American political life since their
the very important subject of popu-
lar government the framers of the
Constitution failed to harmonize
their efforts with the trend of
American political life since their
day. It should be acknowledged at
the outset that it was no fault of
theirs that there has been this dis-
crepancy between the system they
set in operation and that under
which we have come to live. It
was quite as impossible for them
to foresee the unparalleled growth
of democracy throughout the Anglo-
Saxon world in the nineteenth cen-
tury as for the men of the last gen-
eration to foresee our recent en-
trance of the field of world-politics
through the Spanish war and the
Philippine acquisition. But the fact
remains that while we have de-
termined that we will have a full
political democracy the fathers made
strenuous efforts to save us from it.
And the fact also remains that in
several important respects we are
paying the penalty for our fathers'
fears and misgivings by inconsist-
encies and inefficiencies in our gov-
ernmental system.

It is not easy to realize how large-
ly experimental was democracy
when our government was being
given form. If it is still in ques-
tion it was a hundred fold more so
then. In 1787 the explosion in
France had not yet set the world
ringing with the cry of liberty,
equality, and fraternity. Through-
out the European world monarchy,
and in most cases absolute monar-
chy, prevailed. By the middle and
upper classes democracy was looked
upon as the prelude to anarchy, if
not actually identical with it. Eng-
land nominally had parliamentary
government, but that government

was almost as far from being a de-
mocracy as is that of Russia today,
the only difference being that in the
latter case sovereignty is vested en-
tirely in one person, the Czar, while
in the former the country was ruled
by, and in the exclusive interest of,
a clique of landed aristocrats. Nor
did recent experience in America
lend much encouragement to be-
lievers in democracy. Of course
amid the strain and stress of the
Critical Period no form of govern-
ment could be fairly tested. But
yet the great need of the country
was relief from this same strain and
stress and no device of a political
sort was likely to commend itself
unless it gave promise of promoting
such relief. Although a decade had
elapsed since the Declaration of In-
dependence and half a decade since
the establishing of peace, conditions
seemed to show no appreciable im-
provement. The Articles of Con-
federation drawn up in 1777 and put
into operation in 1781 had been
solemnly declared to be "Articles
of Confederation and perpetual
Union." Yet they had never even
approached success and within six
short years had broken down com-
pletely. Had the men of the colo-
nies fought for and won their in-
dependence for the privilege of liv-
ing in anarchy? Had they succeed-
ed in breaking down an old system
only to fail in the construction of a
new one? So it seemed to many
men in those troublous times.

It would be a difficult matter to
determine to what extent the dis-
trust of democracy undeniably
cherished by many of the fathers
was due to the unusual conditions
of the time and to what extent it
represented abiding conviction. It
is fair to assume that the former

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

was the weightier force. Except
for recent distressing and humiliat-
ing experiences it is not likely that
much would have been said against
the practicability of popular govern-
ment. For a quarter of a century
before our Constitution was formed
there had been a rising tide of re-
form in England which, had it not
been checked by the horrors of the
revolution in France, would doubt-
less have made England much more
democratic before the century
ended. As it was, political reform
was postponed a full generation and
k was not until 1832 that the move-
ment had gained sufficient strength
to achieve its initial success. But
the postponement did not come un-
til the Reign of Terror, six years af-
ter the making of our Constitution,
and the political leaders of America
had no doubt been previously influ-
enced by the democratic tendencies
of the mother country fully as much
as by the writings of the French an-
ti-revolutionary philosophers.

Little was it thought, however, by
the framers of the Constitution that
the democracy which they wrought
into the political texture of the new
nation was but part of their English
heritage. They rummaged through
all history, ancient and modern, for
ideas and models — and then made
use almost exclusively of those
which were peculiarly their own.
As President Woodrow Wilson says
in his essay on "The Character of
Democracy in the United States" :
"We started on our national career
with sundry wrong ideas about our-
selves. We deemed ourselves rank
democrats, whereas we were in fact
only progressive Englishmen." The
Achaean League, the Roman Re-
public, and the French philosophers
of the day, were all laid under
requisition. The government which

was finally established, however,
was not Greek or Roman or French.
It was characteristically English by
reason of a law of heredity too rigid
to be thrust aside by a people who
rather foolishly thought they were
rebelling against their past. "The
acorn from which the American De-
mocracy sprang," said James Russell
Lowell, "was ripened on the British
oak." It was this that gave the
framers of the Constitution their
safe conservatism.

The most fundamental question
before the Convention of 1787 was
one about which little was said di-
rectly: namely, to what extent
should the principles of democracy
be allowed to control in the gov-
ernment about to be instituted?
Scarcely a day of the proceedings
passed on which the great question
of popular government did not
thrust itself forward over and over
again in the debates and ex-
changes of opinion, and this for
the simple reason that after all
the most irrepressible of all ques-
tions when a government is being
formed for a people is whether that
government shall also be a govern-
ment by the people. The discus-
sion of nearly every subject before
th'e Convention elicited views on the
character and practicability of de-
mocracy, but in connection with
three of these subjects the discus-
sions bore with special force along
this line. These were (1) the
method of choosing representatives,
(2) the character and constitution of
the Senate, and (3) the choice of
the Executive. A brief examina-
tion into these issues will help re-
veal the nature and extent of the
fathers' doubts concerning democ-
racy.

II.

As soon as it was decided that

THE DOUBTS OF THE FATHERS

507

the national legislature should be
bicameral, on the plan of state legis-
latures except that of Pennsylvania,
the question at once presented itself
as to how the members of the houses
should be chosen. Under the
Articles of Confederation the man-
ner of election of the delegates to
Congress was left to be decided in
each state by the legislature. The
result was that the delegates were
generally elected by the legislature
itself. The Congress consisted of
only one house and was constituted
upon the plan of representation by
states exclusively, so that there was
no room for a direct election by the
people. Had it not been for the
elevation of the national govern-
ment at the expense of the state
governments and the consequent
bifurcation of Congress, the election
by the legislatures would probably
have gone unquestioned in the Con-
vention. The adoption of the bi-
cameral plan, however, opened pos-
sibilities for a variation. Since all
of the states had been accustomed
from the beginning to the election
of their own lower houses by popu-
lar vote it might be supposed that,
whatever schemes should have been
suggested for the constitution of
the upper house under the new plan,
■it would at least have been con-
ceded by all that the lower house
should be made up of members
elected by the people at large on
such basis of suffrage as the various
states might prescribe. But as a
matter of fact the plan of popular
election of representatives was op-
posed, and opposed vigorously.
Within a week after the debates had
begun Roger Sherman of Connecti-
cut, whose services in the Conven-
tion were subsequently very valua-
ble, put himself on record as an
opponent of popular election of rep-

resentatives. He favored election
by the state legislatures. "The peo-
ple," said he, "immediately, should
have as little to do as may be about
government. They want informa-
tion, and are constantly liable to be
misled." This sentiment was hearti-
ly seconded by Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts, one of the three
members who finally refused to sign
the completed Constitution. He
avowed himself still a republican,
but not so strong a one as he had
been before being "taught by ex-
perience the danger of the leveling
spirit."

A week later when the subject
was again under discussion Charles
Pinckney, of South Carolina, argued
that the representatives ought not
to be elected by the people because
the people "were less fit judges in
such a case." General C. C. Pinck-
ney, of the same state, contended
against popular election as being
"totally impracticable" owing to
the scattered condition of the peo-
ple, in many of the states. He re-
ferred to the notorious majority of
the people of South Carolina who
favored the making of paper money
legal tender and cited the refusal
of the legislature to acquiesce in the
demand as an evidence that the peo-
ple, directly, were not the best
judges of men and measures and
that the legislatures would make the
better choice of representatives.
Governor Patterson, of New Jersey,
declared himself strongly attached
to "the existing system whereby the
Legislatures chose the federal rep-
resentatives." John Rutledge, of
South Carolina, affirmed his sym-
pathy with the same system. "An
election by the legislature," he de-
clared, "would be more refined than
an election immediately by the peo-
ple, and would be more likely to

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

correspond with the sense of the
whole community." He believed
that the Convention itself would
have been lacking many of its
"proper characters" if its members
had been chosen directly by the
people.

But the opponents of popular elec-
tion did not in this case prevail.
The sentiment of the majority, in-
cluding most of the ablest men of
the Convention, such as Madison,
Wilson, Mason, Dickinson, King,
Hamilton, and others, was that as
a clear guarantee of free govern-
ment, as a means of securing the
best representatives, and as a safe-
guard against the overdue encroach-
ment of the state governments up-
on the functions of the national gov-
ernment, the people must be al-
lowed directly to choose the mem-
bers of the lower house. "Without
the confidence of the people," de-
clared James Wilson, "no govern-
ment, least of all a republican gov-
ernment, can long subsist. * * *
The election of the first branch by
the people is not the corner-stone
only, but the foundation of the
fabric." And Hamilton, despite his
well-known leaning toward aris-
tocracy, asserted that it was "essen-
tial to the democratic rights of the
community that the first branch be
directly elected by the people." The
remarkable thing is not that the
plan of popular election was adopted
but that the opposition to it showed
so much strength. It must be said,
however, that with the exception of
Roger Sherman and the Pinckneys
the opponents were not men of the
greatest calibre. They were part of
the rank and file which John Fiske
considered necessary to make the
Convention an "ideally perfect as-
sembly."

Then came the question of the

upper house. In the Virginia plan,
as set forth in the resolutions pre-
sented by Edmund Randolph, May
29, it was proposed that the "second
branch of the National Legislature
ought to be chosen by the first
branch out of persons nominated by
the state legislatures." Discussion
of this proposition was opened May>
31, by the motion of an amendment'
by Richard Spaight, of North Caro-
lina, to the effect that the "second
branch ought to be chosen imme-
diately by the ' State Legislatures."
This was quickly followed by James
Wilson's avowal that the second
branch, like the first, ought to be
chosen directly by the people. And
a little later George Read, of Dela-
ware, proposed that the senators be
chosen by the Executive from per-
sons nominated by the state legis-
latures.

Thus were brought forward at
the very outset the four plans among
which choice was to be made. Un-
til the adoption of the so-called Con-
necticut Compromise comparatively
late in the session, by which the rep-
resentation of the states in the Sen-
ate was made equal, the question of
method of election was inextricably
involved with that of number o
senators and proportion to the popu-
lation of the states. The Senate as
we know it, is almost entirely the
product of the memorable struggle
of the small against the large states.
In the final adjustment the large
states won proportional representa-
tion in the lower house and the
small states equal representation in
the upper house. By this arrange-
ment it was the states as such,
rather than the people, that were
to be represented in the Senate —
thus perpetuating the plan of the
Congress of the Confederation. In
order that this feature of the upper

THE DOUBTS OF THE FATHERS

509

house might be the more manifest,
and also that the government might
be saved from an extreme of de-
mocracy, it was finally decided that
the members should be chosen in
the states by the legislatures and
not by the people.

By all except a few men like Wil-
son democracy was considered to
have won triumphs enough when
the lower an-1 more numerous house
was constituted on the basis of popu-
lar election. During the course of
the intermittent debates on the com-
position of the Senate we encoun-
ter numerous expressions which be-
tray a decided lack of faith in a
full democracy. For instance, John
Dickinson, of Delaware, declared
that "in the formation of the Senate
we ought to carry it through such
a refining process as will assimilate
it, as nearly as may be, to the House
of Lords in England." He believed
that "the sense of the states would
be better collected through their
Governments than immediately
from the people at large." He
wished the Senate to be made up
of men most distinguished for "their
rank in life and their weight of
property" and he thought such char-
acters more likely to be selected
by the legislatures than by the peo-
ple. He held, too, that their num-
ber ought to be large, "else the
popular branch could not be bal-
anced by them." Read's proposal
that the Executive choose the sen-
ators from the legislatures' nomi-
nees faced squarely away from de-
mocracy toward monarchy. Sher-
man of Connecticut, Mason of Vir-
ginia, Gerry of Massachusetts, and
Pinckney of South Carolina, were
the leading advocates of election by
the legislatures.

The third subject in the discus-
sion of which the fathers mani-

fested most open1" their distrust of
democracy was L .e election of the
Executive. Since the ending of the
colonial regime the people in the
various states had grown accus-
tomed to the election of the gov-
ernors directly by themselves and
it might be supposed that this
method would have been adopted by
analogy for the national executive
without further question. But it
was not to be so. Scarcely any
matter before the Convention was
so prolific of suggestions and plans.
At least eight methods of election
were brought forward. Of these the
three of chief importance were elec-
tion by the national legislature (pro-
posed in the Virginia plan), elec-
tion directly by the people (pro-
posed first, as one might expect, by
James Wilson), and election by a
body of electors constituted for that
particular purpose. There were
several modifications of this last
plan, dependent on whether the
electors were to be chosen by the
state executives, by the state legis-
latures, by the people, or by the
drawing of lots among the mem-
bers of the national legislature.
There were not many in the Con-
vention who looked with any degree
of favor upon the plan of a direct
popular election. Mr. Wilson, in-
deed, when proposing it apologet-
ically affirmed that he was "almost
unwilling to declare the mode which
he wished to take place, being ap-
prehensive that it might appear
chimerical." Gouverneur Morris and
James Madison were Wilson's
strongest coadjutors in the advo-
cacy of election by the people.
However commanding these men
were personally they were but an
inconsequential minority numerical-
ly. It was quite generally agreed
among the delegates that the Ex-

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ecutive . must be chosen by some
smaller and more select body than
the people at large — in other words,
by legislatures or an electoral col-
lege. Mason, of Virginia, declared
the plan of popular election equiva-
lent to a proposal that "an act which
ought to be performed by those who
know most of eminent characters
and qualifications, should be per-
formed by those who know least."
The extent of the country, he urged,
precluded the possibility of the peo-
ple being well enough informed "to
judge of the respective pretensions
of the candidates." Charles Pinck-
ney declared an election by the peo-
ple "liable to the most obvious and
striking objections," chief among
which was the activity of unscru-
pulous and designing men who
would victimize the ignorant and
unsuspecting public. Elbridge
Gerry "was not clear that the peo-
ple ought to act directly even in
the choice of electors, being too
little informed of personal charac-
ters in large districts, and liable to
deceptions." And so we might con-
tinue to cite expressions of opinion
exhibiting opposition to the popular
election of the President, but it is
not necessary to do so, for they do
not differ much from one another,
and enough have been brought for-
ward to make clear the grounds on
which it was finally decided to pass
by the scheme of election by the
people and adopt that of election
by a college of electors, chosen in-
deed by the people, but possessing
full discretionary powers in the ul-
timate selection of a man for the
Presidential chair. Election by the
few was believed to have a decided
advantage over choice by the many.

III. "

From all this it appears that the

democracy of the fathers was rather
severely limited. It was based on
the idea that while the people might
be depended on in their local com-
munities to choose such officials as
appertained exclusively to these
communities they had not the
knowledge and skill to choose the
higher officials of the nation.
Therefore the President was to be
chosen by an electoral college, the
senators were to be selected by the
state legislatures, and the Judiciary
was to be almost wholly appointive.
By this sort of sifting process it
was believed that better men would
be selected for the more important
offices than if the people were to
choose directly.

Since attaining their political ma-
jority, however, the people of our
country have shown a decided in-
clination . to take into their own
hands several powers that the fa-
thers feared to let them have. It is
noteworthy that the two respects in
which there is the most demand for
this extension of prerogatives are
the two with regard to which the
greatest mistrust was expressed in
the Convention of 1787, i. e., the
election of the President and the
choice of senators. The fathers de-
cided, though by no means unani-
mously, to allow the people to elect
the members of the lower house di-
rectly. So far as the present actual
workings of the governmental sys-
tem are concerned, they might just
as well, indeed better, have put the
Executive and senators on the same
basis. In the case of the Executive,
popular election has long been our
practice, although it is not contem-
plated by the Constitution. The
electoral college, presumably
made up of members chosen by the
people and charged with the duty of
considering the various candidates

THE DOUBTS OF THE FATHERS

511

and exercising judgment of selec-
tion among them, we know is at best
but a means of registering the peo-
ple's will. The electors have long
since ceased to have any individ-
uality or to exercise the right of
choice. Custom makes it as obliga-
tory upon each elector to cast his
vote for the candidate of the party
which elected him as if there were
a binding law that he should do so.
The electoral college as a delibera-
tive body is as archaic a feature
of our system as the office of the
Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds
in the English system. The people
of the electoral districts do not
choose persons to choose a Presi-
dent; they choose the President and
employ as their agents in the elec-
toral college men who they know
will faithfully register their choice.
An elector who would take it upon
himself to do otherwise, as he cer-
tainly would have a full legal right
to do, would awaken no end of
vituperation and forever blast his
political career. That is, frankly,
he would not only be called a trait-
or, but as things now are would
actually be one, if he should do the
very thing which the fathers in
framing the Constitution intended
that he should never fail to do. The
Constitution stands unchanged; we
will not commit the sacrilege of
tampering with the letter. But, as
respects this matter at least, we will
nevermore think of being obedient
to the spirit behind it. If the fathers
had not been afraid of a direct popu-
lar choice of the Executive we
should be spared this anomalous
condition of things.

The way of escape from the limi-
tations placed upon the popular
choice of the President was easy and
manifest. All that was necessary
was to eliminate the free will of the

elector and make him an automaton.
As things now are the electoral
college is not a positive harm ; it
is merely a superfluity. If we were
making a new constitution we
would not provide for such an ex-
crescence. But since we have it,
and it cannot be shown to thwart
the will of the people, we are likely
to retain it many years longer by
reason of the inertia of the Anglo-
Saxon which leads him to care al-
most nothing about symmetry and
consistency in the structure of his
state. But the case of the choice
of senators by the state legislat-
ures is altogether different. The de-
mand of the people for the imme-
diate election of senators has come
somewhat later than that for the
immediate election of the President,
but the two are of a piece and one
is scarcely more pronounced than
the other. In respect to the elec-
tion of senators there has thus far
been only an extremely precarious
escape from the dilemma imposed
by the fathers. The legislatures
still elect and must continue to do
so> not merely until the purpose of
the Constitution in this regard is
subverted, as it has been in respect
to the election of the Executive, but
until the letter of the document
shall have been formally amended.
The Constitution does not say that
the electors shall exercise their per-
sonal discretion in the choice of the
President ; it does say that the
legislatures shall elect the senators.
We amend the implied meaning
merely by custom. The expressed
meaning we cannot so easily evade.
Few disinterested observers will
deny that present conditions relative
to the election of senators are ex-
tremely unsatisfactory — in some
cases little less than intolerable. If
the elections were free and open by

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the legislatures the matter would
not be so bad, though even then
the people would prefer to do the
work directly. But it is a notorious
fact that election by the legislatures
is almost as grand a farce as the
choice of the President by the elec-
toral college, and an infinitely more
deleterious one. In all too many
cases it is not the legislatures that
elect, but rather the bosses who dic-
tate. And the bosses have reduced
the business to a fine art. Rarely
do they control the legislature by
forcing the members against their
will. Such a course is too conspicu-
ous and too apt to occasion unpleas-
ant notoriety. The plan is rather
to control in the election of the
members throughout the state — and
the rest is easy enough. The legis-
latures are thus frequently elected
to carry out the will of the party
managers outside. The result is one
of the greatest sources of discredit
attached to our political system.
The only obvious cure lies in throw-
ing back the senatorial elections up-
on the people. In view of the re-
cent augmented importance of the
Senate as unquestionably our lead-
ing deliberative body, the sooner the
change is made the better. If pos-
sible, it is even more essential that
there be absolute righteousness in
the election of our senators than in
the choice of our representatives.
Only political selfishness and mis-
taken conservatism can long perpet-
uate the present system. We are
not now such sticklers for the rights
of the states as distinguished from
those ot the people as we once were,
so that this matter need not enter
into the question at all. This is not
the only obstacle that has been re-
moved. The fathers feared that the
people scattered over Massachu-

setts and New York and Virginia
could not be well enough informed
as to the character and acquire-
ments of the various senatorial can-
didates to make a wise choice.
Perhaps this was true in 1787. Cer-
tainly it is not so now. Although
the area of the country has since
then been multiplied by ten and the
population by twenty, the use of
steam and electricity has made our
people vastly more compact to-day
than were our ancestors who lived
simply between the Alleghanies and
the Atlantic. So far as mere ease
and speed of communication are con-
cerned, democracy ought to succeed
as well in the United States of to-
day as in the smallest state of an-
tiquity. The newspaper, telegraph,
railroad, and other facilities for in-
formation and travel, have wrought
a complete metamorphosis in the
conditions of political life. There
is much yet to be desired in the
way of popular intelligence, but
even now the people can better be
trusted than the bosses to deter-
mine the membership of our Senate.
It is only a question of time until
the present anomalous method of
choosing members of the highest
legislative body in the land must be
abandoned. Popular demand will
result, before the lapse of many de-
cades it may be hoped, in a consti-
tutional amendment. In this mat-
ter, as in that of choosing the Presi-
dent, the work of the fathers must
be undone. Democracy must be
granted a fuller sweep than was
originally marked out for it." For
no nation with the political instincts
and resources which abound in the
United States can long consent to
remain a democracy half real, half
fictitious.

m ti

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P 1/5'

New England Magazine

Volume XXX

July, 1904

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Number 5

Block Island's Story

By Charles E. Perry

FROM Eastport, Maine to Cape
Hatteras every promontory,
every long, low sand spit pro-
jecting out into the ocean has more
or less of a local reputation as a
danger point, at which mariners
look askance, and concerning which
song and story repeat and perpetu-
ate its uncanny record. Of these,
Point Judith, the southeastern ex-
tremity of the main land of Rhode
Island, is by no means the least
famous, and yet, in the open sea, ten
miles southwest of it, lies a little
green hummock, containing only ten
square miles, upon which the ocean
surges beat with a continuous, rest-
less violence unequaled by any point
or rocky headland, for these are
sheltered, in some directions at least,
by the land of which they form a
part, while Block Island, located in
the open ocean, is the battle ground
of the angry sea, blow the wind from
whatever quarter it may. Ten miles
from the nearest land, which par-
tially encircles it from northeast to
northwest, it lies more unprotected
from the west to the south, while to
the southeast the broad expanse of
515

the Western Ocean stretches out,
with no land nearer than Spain and
the Dark Continent. When the
deep, heavy swells, driven before a
fierce southeast gale, come tumbling
in at the foot of Mohegan Bluffs on
its south shore, vast walls of green
water, breaking at their foot with
the boom of a thousand cannon and
rushing up their concave face, dash
the spray in a blinding whirl over
their summit, a hundred and fifty
feet above, the power of the mighty
waters and of Him who holds them
in the hollow of His hand, is won-
derfully impressive.

The average individual who has
never visited Block Island seems to
be pervaded by the impression that
it is sandy, barren and desolate,
where a few hardy fishermen by in-
dustry and privation manage to
wring a scant sustenance from the
waters that surround it. The facts
are that the soil is, for the most part,
unusually good, the crops abundant,
the people enterprising and well-to-
do, and the Island a veritable para-
dise from June to November, albeit

51G

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

bleak and forbidding much of the
time during- the rest of the year.

"Dreary the land when gust and sleet
At its doors and windows howl and beat,
And winter laughs at its fires of peat ;

But in summer time, when pool and pond

Held in the laps of valleys fond

Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond,

When the hills are sweet with the briar

rose
And hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose
Flowers the mainland rarely knows,

When boats to their morning fishing go,
And held to the wind and slanting low,
Whitening and darkening the small sails
show.

angry mood. Its highest point is
Beacon Hill, an elevation of less
than three hundred feet, but from
whose summit, on a clear day, por-
tions of four states, New York, Con-
necticut, Rhode Island and Massa-
chusetts can be seen.

In its valleys are countless ponds,
from those only a few rods in area
to the Great Salt Pond of a thousand
acres, which has been connected
with the sea by a 600 foot channel,
forming one of the finest harbors
and yacht rendezvous on the coast.

The Island has been practically
denuded of trees and it is so exposed

VIEW FROM BEACON HILL.

Then is that lonely Island fair,

And the pale health seeker findeth there

The wine of life in its pleasant air."

— Whittier.

Block Island is situated at the
entrance to Narragansett Bay on the
north, and to Long Island Sound on
the west ; it is shaped much like a
pear, the stem being represented by
Sandy Point, its northern extremity ;
it is, approximately, six miles long
and from one to three and a half
miles wide. Its surface is very
irregular, being a series of hills and
valleys, resembling, in no small de-
gree, the ocean by which it is sur-
rounded, when that ocean is in an

to the fierce winds of winter that
only the hardiest varieties can be
made to thrive or even to live by
constant care ; it is also practically
free from boulders — there were
never any outcroppings of ledge
formation, but the miles upon miles
of stone fences that intersect the
fields and make the surface, viewed
from an eminence, to resemble a
vast seine or net, bear indisputable
evidence to the original character of
the surface and to the patience and
industry of its early settlers.

The Island was first discovered, so
far as we have any reliable histori-
cal evidence, in 1524, by Verrazano

BLOCK ISLAND'S S T ORY

517

(or Verrazani), a Portuguese navi-
gator sailing under the flag of Fran-
cis I, King of France. Apparently
he did not land, although he refers
to it in his log-book as a "small isl-
and, triangular in form, about three
leagues from the main land and
covered with trees," and adds that it
was inhabited as he "saw fires along
the coast." He calls it Claudia, in
honor of the mother of King Fran-
cis; the Indian name of the Island
was Manisses, its meaning being
"Island of the Little God."

Ninety years later, Adrian Blok,
a Dutch explorer and fur trader, re-

teen men who divided it into seven-
teen shares, setting aside one of
these shares for the support of an
"orthodox minister." These pur-
chasers set themselves to the task
of subduing the wilderness, cutting
down the forest, removing the
boulders from the surface of the soil,
at the same time holding in check
the savages which outnumbered
them twenty to one. Gradually the
land was brought under cultivation
and at the same time the rich har-
vests of the sea were not neglected.
Through a species of "natural
selection" and "survival of the fit-

CRESCENT BEACH.

discovered it ; his vessel had been
burned in what is now New York
harbor, the previous winter of 1613-
14 and he built another, a "yacht"
as he called it, which he named the
Onrust (Unrest) and went sailing
along the coast. He does not say,
in the record of his trip, that he
landed on the Island but there is
strong inferential evidence that he
did, and at any rate it has ever since
borne his name — on the old Dutch
maps as Adrian's Eyland — and later,
as Block Island.

The Island was first settled by
colonists from Massachusetts in
1661, having been purchased by six-

test," the hardy Islanders evolved
a style of fishing boats which, for
more than two centuries, served
them well. This type was unique
in its way, and was well adapted to
the peculiar conditions which ex-
isted. The cod fishing banks lie at
from six to more than twenty miles
from the Island and it was neces-
sary to have boats which could sur-
vive rough seas and heavy gales ; at
the same time, as there was no har-
bor, the boats had to be small and
light, so that in bad weather they
could be hauled up on the shore.

The typical Block Island boat has
almost gone out of existence ; a few

518

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

only are left and it is improbable
that any more will ever be built.
The construction of harbors, where
larger craft can lie in safety, has
rendered this peculiar type obsolete.
They were lapstreaked, open cedar
boats from twelve to twenty-five
feet in length, though a few were
slightly larger. The cedar was
fastened with copper nails to strong
but light oak ribs; the boats were
deep and sharp and were rigged with
two masts, carrying a foresail and
a mainsail. The foremast was
stepped well forward and furnished
all the head sail necessary, having

crew on board, it is next to impossi-
ble for anything afloat to do so.

Farming and fishing were practi-
cally the sole industries of the peo-
ple up to the middle of the last
century, when the beauty of the
place and its unparalleled hygienic
attractions began to draw attention
to it as a summer resort and it is
now celebrated all over the world,
and the thirty or more hotels, and
the cottages of summer residents,
add an important factor to the old
industries.

For a century or more after the
forests had disappeared, the inhabi-

PART OF EAST HARBOR VILLAGE AND THE BAY.

no boom, but double sheets leading
aft of the mainmast. The masts had
no shrouds or stays and so were
springy, easing the boat in seaway.
They were "wet" boats, the spray
flying over them in clouds when
they were "on a wind," but, handled
by the hardy Island fishermen, they
were exceedingly seaworthy as is
evidenced by the fact that not one
has ever been lost by any accident
due to bad weather. When a large
Block Island boat, unprotected
though they are by any deck, cannot
beat to windward when it is properly
handled and has a good working

tants depended upon peat for their
fuel, but although large beds still
exist, coal has almost wholly super-
seded it.

Large quantities of seaweed drive
ashore and this is not only valuable
as a fertilizer, but that species known
as "sea curl" or "Irish moss" is
bleached and sold for commercial
purposes.

Formerly the fishing industry was
almost exclusively dependent upon
the catch of cod which were salted
and cured, and the excellence of
Block Island codfish made them

BLOCK ISLAND'S STORY

519

bring a higher price in the market
than the best Bank cod.

The advent of a different type of
fishing vessels, however, has served
to make the fresh-fish catch more
important, and at the present time,
scarcely any fish are salted and
dried.

The principal fish taken by the
regular fishermen as a business, are
cod, haddock, bluefish, swordfish,
flounders, sea-bass and that denizen
of the deep which, under the differ-
ent aliases of yellowfin, chiquit,
squeteague, sea-trout and succoteeg,
furnishes an important article of
food through the summer and fall
months.

Block Island, albeit it has fur-
nished no great military or naval
heroes to history, has not been
unknown to fame in the record of
some of its sons and daughters.

Among its first settlers, Simon
Ray and James Sands were the most
prominent and their descendants
through several generations were
not only the leading men in local
matters but were well and honora-
bly known elsewhere.

Simon Ray, Sr., who was one of
the original settlers, was born in
Massachusetts, probably in Brain-
tree, in 1635 ; nis father, of the same
name, having come from England.
The latter died in 1641, leaving a
large estate in Braintree. The son
was twenty-five when he became
one of the sixteen original pur-
chasers of Block Island. He was a
man of great physical endurance, of
even temper, mild disposition, sound
judgement and deep religious con-
victions. He lived to be one hund-
red and one years of age and is
buried in the Island cemetery which
crowns a hill near to and overlook-
ing the new harbor, as it is called.
For nearly half a century he was

Chief Warden of the town and for
about thirty years its representative
in the General Assembly.

He was succeeded in his local
affairs, and in the love and respect
of his fellow townsmen, by his son,
Simon Ray, who had a large estate
and whose daughters were noted for
their beauty and high character.
He was born April 9, 1672, was
twice married, and died at the age of
eighty-six, outliving his. father but
eighteen years.

His children were Judith, born
October 4, 1726, married Thomas
Hubbard of Boston; Anna, born
September 27, 1728, married Gov-
ernor Samuel Ward of Rhode Isl-
and; Catherine, born July 10, 1731,
married Governor William Greene of
Rhode Island ; and Phebe, born Sep-
tember 10, 1733, married William
Littlefield of Block Island. The
latter and her husband both died
at an early age, leaving a daughter
Catherine, who was adopted by her
aunt for whom she was named,
the wife of Governor William Greene
and subsequently married Major
General Nathaniel Greene of Revolu-
tionary fame. After his death she
married Phineas Miller and resided
in Georgia until her death She was
an intimate friend of Mrs. Washing-
ton and of Benjamin Franklin and
his wife. Franklin frequently refers
to her in his letters.

James Sands, another of the first
settlers, was born in Reading, Eng-
land, in 1622; he was the son of
Henry Sands, the first of the name
in New England, who was admitted
freeman of Boston in 1640. He was
a descendant of James Sands of Staf-
fordshire, England, who died in 1670
at the age of one hundred and forty
years, his wife living to the age of
one hundred and twenty. The
family can be traced back in English

520

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

history for about eight centuries and
one of its members, Sir William
Sands or Sandys, was conspicuous
during the reigns of Henry VII and
Henry VIII and had much to do
with securing the downfall of Cardi-
nal Wolsey and in sustaining
charges against Pope Clement VII.
Capt. James Sands, who was one

He died in 1695 and he, too, is buried
in the Island cemetery.

His descendants have been numer-
ous and have been, almost without
exception, recognized as men of high
character and of unblemished honor.

The name of "Ray" as a surname
has died out in the Island, but the
innumerable families of other sur-

MOHEGAN BLUFFS ON SOUTH SHORE.

of the sixteen purchasers of Block
Island, was, during his life, one of
the foremost of its citizens and stood
shoulder to shoulder with Simon
Ray as typical representatives of the
best blood that settled New Eng-
land. He and Simon Ray, Sr., were
intimate friends of Roger Williams
and their descendants intermarried.

names, who have christened their
sons with the "Simon Ray" prefix,
bear evidence to the fact that the
blood of the old settler descended
through many channels on the
female side, and also to the high re-
spect in which he was held.

Rev. Samuel Niles, the first Rhode
Island graduate of Harvard College,
was a grandson of James Sands.

BLOCK ISLAND'S STORY

521

The sixteen first settlers of Block
Island were John Ackurs, William
Barker, William Billings, William
Cahoone, Samuel Dering, Trustarum
Dodge, Thomas Faxun, David Kim-
ball, John Rathbone, Simon Ray,
Thormut (Thomas) Rose, Thomas
Terry, William Tosh, Edward Vorse,
Nicholas White and Duncan Wil-
liamson. But two of the descend-

of his descendants in the male line
now reside on the Island.

One can scarcely think of Block
Island without recalling the in-
numerable wrecks that have occured
there. Only a few of these can be
alluded to, but among these are the
Ma rs , an English merchantman
stranded here in 1781, while en-
deavoring to escape from an Ameri-

CARTING SEAWEED.

ants of these families in the male
line are now represented on the Is-
land, but the Dodges and the Roses
are among the most numerous of
the family names that are still found
there. James Sands appears to have
been one of the first purchasers
though not one of the first bona fide
settlers, coining to the Island with
his family a little later. Only three

can crusier ; the Ann and Hope, an
East Indian ship, belonging to
Brown & Ives of Providence, and
named for their wives. She struck
under Mohegan Bluffs in a snow
storm in the year 1806 and her cap-
tain, whose name was Lang, and
several of the crew were lost. The
ship went to pieces and the cargo
of coffee, spices, etc., was almost a

522

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

total loss. The Warrior, a schooner
packet, plying between Boston and
New York, was lost on Sandy Point,
the northern extremity of the Island,
in a northeast gale in the spring of
1831. The crew and passengers,
numbering twenty-one in all, were
drowned and but little of the cargo
was saved, The steamer Palmetto,
bound from Philadelphia to Boston,
struck Black Rock off Mohegan

port on the same day for the same
destination, and on the 21st of the
month the former came ashore at
Block Island at 7.30 p. m., and half
an hour later the other struck only
a few yards from her. They were
both got off and towed into port by
the Island wrecking companies.
Twice at least, during the last half
century, six vessels have come
ashore in a single day, but the sto-

MOSS GATHERER.

Bluffs in 1857 and, with a valuable
cargo, sank to the bottom a few
minutes later, the crew escaping in
their boats. In the spring of 1876
there was a strange coincidence or
series of coincidences. In the
month of May of that year the Cath-
erine May, Capt. Davis, a two-mast-
ed schooner, and the Henry J. May,
Capt. Blackmar, a three-masted
schooner, sailed from the same

ries which might be told of these
wrecks, many of them very interest-
ing, must give place to one which,
owing to the mystery which sur-
rounds it, the strange legend which
has been connected with it, and to
the fact that the poet Whittier has
embalmed it in verse, stands out
from all the rest with startling dis-
tinctness.

It is the ironv of fate, that of the

BLOCK ISLAND'S STORY

523

story of this wreck, so interesting
and so weird in many of its sur-
roundings and in its sequel., so little
is actually known.

About the year 1750, a ship came
ashore on Sandy Point, the north-
ern extremity of the Island. It was
a beautiful Sunday morjiing in the
holiday week between Christmas
and New Year's, and there was

Islanders, most of them being taken
to the houses of Simon Ray (2) and
Edward Sands, grandson of James
Sands previously referred to. Most
of them were too far gone to be
saved, even by the tender ministra-
tions of the hospitable Islanders ;
they died and were buried near the
house of Simon Ray, and their
graves may still be seen. One of

MOSS BLEACHING.

scarcely a ripple on the waters that
surrounded the Island.

The vessel simply drifted ashore,
with all sails set; the Islanders went
off to her in; boats and found a few
famine- sfr4ak en passengers, speak-
ing a foreign language, the crew
having deserted the ship on the pre-
vious day.

They were in the last stages of
starvation but were taken ashore
and carried to the homes of the

them, a woman servant of one of
the passengers, recovered, however,
and subsequently married a negro
slave belonging to one of the Island
families, and some of her descend-
ants still reside on the Island.

The ship was the Palatine, and
tradition says that the passengers
were well-to-do Dutch emigrants,
who were coming to settle near
Philadelphia, having been driven
from their homes by the ravages of

524

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Marshall Turenne through the re-
gion known as the Palatinate. They
brought with them much wealth in
a portable form, and the officers and
crew of the ship conspired to rob
and then desert them. They put
them on a shoi-t allowance of bread
and water though there were plenty
of provisions on board, and com-
pelled them to pay the most exorbi-
tant rates for such a miserable pit-
tance as would support life.

When they had, at last, secured
their last florin and the ship, which
had been standing "off and on" for
several weeks near the coast, had
reached the vicinity of Block Island,
the officers and crew deserted in the
boats.

To go back to the story of the
wrecked ship, if indeed that term is
applicable, the Islanders towed her
off the point on which she first
stranded, in their boats, and beached
her in a cove a mile or two farther
south, near to the present entrance
to the new harbor.

One of the passengers, a woman,
who had become insane through her
sufferings and her losses, refused to
leave the wreck, and the first night
after the ship came ashore, in some
unknown manner, she took fire and
was burned, with the woman on
board.

For perhaps a hundred years a
peculiar light, which no scientist has
yet been able to explain satisfactori-
ly, was seen from time to time in the
vicinity of Block Island, and the
credulous and superstitious believed

that it was an apparition of the burn-
ing ship, and scores of reputable
men, whose word in ordinary mat-
ters would be beyond question, have
declared that they have sailed close
enough to this supposed apparition
to see masts, sails and ropes and
even persons in the flaming rigging.

Such an apparition needed some-
thing to explain its origin, and so a
story of the ship's having been lured
ashore by false lights was invented
and Whittier, with poetic license,
enlarged upon and emphasized it to
the great injustice of the Islanders,
though it served to make the place
known to thousands who had never
before heard of it, and every sum-
mer hundreds of visitors go to visit
the Palatine graves and hunt
among the old farm houses for Pala-
tine relics.

But the Island no longer needs
the aid of legend or of poetry to
bring people to its shores ; it is in-
deed, in its delightful climate, its
freedom from heat, from mosquitoes
and from malaria, its cool winds
which come from the ocean blow
they from whatever quarter they
may, its accessibility from New
York, New London and Newport or
Providence, its telegraphic and tele-
phonic cables, its two mails a day
and its world-famed Crescent Beach
with its delightful surf bathing, a
Mecca for the invalid in mind or
body, and a delightful summer
home for those who would recuper-
ate from the maddening whirl of
modern life.

Toedium Vitae

By Jeannette A. Marks

THE waves rolled in with a
mournful noise and receded in
a melancholy roar. The heavy
south wind, now and then dropping
to a plaintive tremulo, blew in a
blast past the south-east corner of
the house. The white light from
the surf flared intermittently upon
the window panes, making the flame
from the rusty brass lamp glimmer
dully by comparison. There was a
solemn rhythm even to Sarah's
knitting needles. Click-click: click-
click, click-click ; like the swinging
of the pendulum of a grandfather
clock, these needles passed to and
fro, Sarah's rocker moving to the
same measured motive. No muscle
of Sarah's face changed, and scarcely
her lips, as she spoke.

"Charles, he went to sea an' wuz
never heard on again, 'Zekiel he's
dead an'," Sarah yawned wearily,
"an' now the clock's run down."

At the sound of his sister's voice,
Hiram Eldredge did not raise his
head from the kitchen table. His
long, lank legs hung limply from the
chair seat, his elbows covered half
the length of the table and his back
had the curve of a napping balloon
jib;

"An' there," he continued, "wuz
'Maftdy. She baant dead, but she's
wuss an' on the county. Uncle
Hiram he went looney over the
Bible an' Father ain't never come
home from that v'yage an' ain't
never been heard on."

Hiram, gathering up the length of

525

his legs, slouched over to the stove.
He took off the lid, spat in the fire
and returned to his chair. Mrs.
Eldredge sitting with the Bible in
her lap, rocked slowly.

"An' here," she said, "is the Bible
yer Uncle Hi lost his wits on; yes,
a-studyin' on this here Bible thet
yer Grandfather guv him when he
come twenty-one, yer Grandfather
Linnell who wuz drownd-ded off'n
East Orleans Point. Ye reelect
yer Father's tellin' ye his watch wuz
still a-goin' whenjiis body, stiff and
stark, come ashore. These here
verses wuz fav'rites of yer Uncle
Hi's. He quoted 'em nigh every
day : T am the man that hath seen
affliction by the rod of his wrath. He
hath led me, and brought me into
darkness, but not into light. Surely
against me is he turned ; he turneth
his hand against me all the day.'
These are tumble words of the
Lord's an' Hi wuz remarkable fond
on 'em."

Mrs. Eldredge sighed, the click-
click of Sarah's knitting needles be-
came more measured and Hiram's
head remained impassively upon his
arms. The old kitchen seemed for
the time being to have suspended all
life. The surf light flared upon the
small window panes. No one spoke.

"I cal'late I might's well move on
to bed." Mrs. Eldredge lighted a
yellow tallow candle. "Good night,
Sary; good night, Hiram."

Hiram lifted his head and mut-
tered wearily, "Night, Mother."

526

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"Good night, Ma-aw," sighed
Sarah.

There was the sound of axe-blows
on the sand-dune ; undoubtedly
wood was being split. In between
the blows other sounds could be
heard, undoubtedly the notes of a
family melodeon. Hiram gave one
long sweep with his axe blade, split-
ting his piece of mast driftwood
from end to end ; then he stopped to
mop his forehead. As he was pass-
ing a red handkerchief over his face
he started. There was to all appear-
ances nothing to make him start.
The cranberry bog, a soft, fresh
green, lay placidly below at his feet;
out on the water a few sea-gulls
mewed, the ocean was tranquil and
smoke curled lazily out of the house
chimney. Except for the changes
wrought by the processional of the
seasons these things were as Hiram
had always known them.

Yet Hiram's face betrayed excite-
ment. In loud, vigorous notes,
"Pull for the shore, boys, pull for the
shore," floated over to him. This
song was followed by "Hold the
Fort," sung in militant fashion.
Then the melodeon began softly
with "The Last Sweet Words of
Mother." Hiram's face was just as-
suming its customary expression
when the tune was rudely broken
off, and "Fling Out the Banner,"
with a snap and a lash unfurled upon
the air.

"Wa-al," drawled Hiram, sitting
down on the pile of kindling wood,
"Wa-al, I swan !"

"Hi, Hi!" came in shrill, cheerful
tones. Hi jumped as if he had been
shot.

"Hi, come to yer breakfast."
Hiram, looking dazed, gathered him-
self together.

"There's a clean cloth on the table

an' some of them marsh marigolds in
er glass. Looks kind of cheerful,"
concluded Sarah. "Come, Maw."

Mrs. Eldredge gazed at Sarah.
Hiram gazed at Sarah.

"Everything's on 'cept them pop-
overs. Set down."

Sarah drew the pan of fragrant
pop-overs from the oven, tumbled
the contents out on a stout plate and
gaily slammed the plate upon the
table. Both Mrs. Eldredge and
Hiram jumped.

This was Wednesday morning,
and when pop-overs came at all,
they came on Sundays. Sarah sat
down.

"Nothing like a change, Maw.
Help yourself, Hi. Good weather,
ain't it, for swellin' the berries?"

"It's er bit too warm," replied
Hiram.

"Well, but the cold ain't much
better," Sarah added briskly.

"That's so," drawled Hiram;
"there ain't much weather as is good
for berries."

"Come, Maw, eat more; ye're
picky, awful picky, ye aire. Eat
hearty."

Mrs. Eldredge looked sharply at
her daughter and Hiram stopped in
the midst of a pop-over bite. And,
after breakfast, when Sarah began
to rattle the plates about in the dish
pan, Mrs. Eldredge grew even more
anxious. Rattle, rattle, clatter, clat-
ter ; such a swash and a stir this par-
ticular Cape Cod dish pan had never
witnessed or endured before. All
the morning there was the same stir
and swash ; out came the parlor rug
on to the brown grass of the dune, in
went the sunlight into the first floor
bedroom, out went the very last par-
ticle of dust from the kitchen, and
every mattress in the house was
shaken up. Hiram, meanwhile, was
spending a thoughtful morning

TOEDIUM VITAE

527

caulking a boat, and Mrs. Eldredge
following her daughter about with
troubled eyes.

The noon dinner hour soon came.
Turnips, onions, fried cod, brown
pudding were in lavish quantities
upon the table.

"What'd ye get done, Hi?" asked
Sarah.

"Caulked only one side; she's a-
heelin' on now."

"She'll be a-heelin' off ter-morrow
and you kin finish the job," cheer-
fully replied Sarah.

"The fish house is a bit under-
minded," drawled Hiram.

"Oh, never mind; ye kin prop it
up easy," encouraged Sarah.

"D'ye hear about Cap'en Eames?"
queried Hiram lugubriously. "He
wuz er-shinglin' the roof on his barn
in that fog yesterday, an' the fog
wuz so thick he shingled out too far,
an' jest caught hisself when he wuz
a-fallin' off'n the end of the ridge
pole. They had to get a ladder to
get him where he wuz a-hangin' to
the weather-vane post."

"Aha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed
Sarah; "aha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Mrs. Eldredge and Hiram both
started; Hiram- recovering himself
first, thrust his hands into his
trousers pockets and stared at his
sister.

"This puddin's first rate," said
Sarah, precisely as if nothing had
happened. "Sauce just about right.
Hev another plate, Hiram."

Hiram passed his plate, eyeing his
sister as if she might be a dangerous
infernal machine.

"Hev ye heard about Mrs. Eden
Butterfield's baby?" asked Sarah.
"Only sixteen months old an' talkin'
like a little parrot."

"It comes by talkin' honest. Eden
Butterfield'd never selt that neu-

ralgy cure by the ton without a gift
of gab."

"Aha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Aha, ha, ha,
ha, ha !" laughed Sarah. "Aha, ha,
ha ! Maw, ye're dretful clever."

Mrs. Eldredge's face was the pic-
ture of perplexity.

"I guess we've eat all the dinner
there is," said Sarah cheerfully,
pushing back her chair.

"D'ye feel well, Sary?" asked Mrs.
Eldredge.

III.
Sarah stood in the doorway, look-
ing out upon the sea. It seemed to
her, this August Thursday morning,
very beautiful ; little waves lapping
brightly upon the sand, sea-gulls
glinting in the sunlight, the breeze
blowing over the long dune grass
and far out beyond the bar winged
sails coming and going. Then she
looked down at her garden by the
cottage door; that was dry and
colorless. Blue Love-in-the-mist
looked gray, golden marigolds were
shadowed with brown, the dahlias
were too heavy-headed and the
sweet peas were languid, with no
suggestion of their crisp butterfly
flight.

"What ye lookin' at, Sary?" asked
her mother.

"At my garden, Maw; it don't
look very cheerful. I've seen them
as wuz brighter. There's Mrs. But-
terfield's."

"Yes; but she ain't hed all our
troubles."

"I dunno, Maw ; she's hed her
share. There wuz her brother what
hanged hisself, an' her sister that
died of the dippertheria, an' her first
baby that didn't live, an' her mother
that broke her leg, an' — "

"Well, I s'pose she hez hed some,"
grudgingly assented Mrs. Eldredge.

"That ain't neither here nor there,
Maw. Some talk's like some people's

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

work, the kind that takes all day
workin' 'round a peck measure. You
don't get nowhere."

Sarah hurried briskly out to the
shed and came back with a hoe.

"Sary, d'ye feel well?" asked Mrs.
Eldredge for the tenth time at least.
Mrs. Eldredge was thinking of
'Mandy and how she "wtiz took."

"Yes, Maw, I do ; never better.
You an' Hiram might's well know
I've made up my mind to somethin'.
P'r'aps ye'll understand me then.
Tuesday night I wuz thinkin' about
things an' I d'cided," Sarah dug her
hoe in deep, "I d'cided we wuz all
goin' crazy with gloom. I never seen
Grandpaw when he wa'n't blue ;
Uncle Hi wuz alwuz moanin' over
the judgments of the Lord; Paw
didn't enjoy nothin' ; ye're alwuz ex-
pectin' trouble ; Mandy's out'n her
head, an' Hi's that glum he ain't
never set eye on a girl, an' I dunno's
I ever heard him laugh. An', Maw,
I've been the worst of ye all. 1 wuz
thinkin' Tuesday night, after ye wuz
in bed, supposin' Grandpaw, Uncle,
Paw, Mandy, Hiram, you an' I hed
all laughed real hearty every day,
d'you s'pose we'd be what we are?
I jest made up my mind to laugh
every day as long as I live, an' laugh
I'm a-goin' to."

"Sary Eldredge!" was all poor
Mrs. Eldredge could say.

"Yes, Maw."

Mrs. Eldredge knew there was no
use in talking with Sarah. This
daughter had never done anything
by halves, and now the signs were
ominous. Mandy was mildly out of
her head and "on the county," but
Sarah — Mrs. Eldredge's heart sank
down, down, down into a hitherto
unknown abyss of melancholy.

IV.
Jigs, even jigs, on the melodeon
were now every-day occurrences to

which the mother and brother had
resigned themselves. No one knew,
of course, that Hiram sat down on
the wood-pile oftener to listen to the
jigs than had been his wont with the
mournful psalm tunes of the past.
Once he came into the house
whistling, actually whistling the
liveliest jig; seeing Sarah, he
stopped short. Various aside con-
versations went on between Mrs.
Eldredge and Hiram, all with the
mournful conclusion that it was
"dretful queer, an' it seems to be
a-growin' on her." The mother did
not confess that she herself stood
more frequently by the door looking
into the flower garden or that she
noticed the brightness of lamp chim-
neys, milk pans, windows and other
household articles ; it was all merely
"dretful queer."

When Sarah, laughing, told about
the midnight teas held by Captain
and Mrs. Eames, in which the cat
Dixie took an extraordinary part,
Hiram felt strange shivers run up
and clown his backbone, the corners
of his mouth bothered him and he
had a suffocating sense in the pit of
his stomach of suppressing some-
thing. Mrs. Eldredge also experi-
enced peculiar sensations. For
weeks, however, they continued with
lamentations to console each other
for the laughter of Sarah. But one
day the unexpected happened.
Sarah was telling of Sophia Brown
and her father, the Deacon.

"They wuz both opposed to the
puttin' in of thet stove. Sophia said
— you know how Sophia talks — if
the Lord wanted stoves in churches
in winter he'd put 'em there. But
the new preacher t' Orleans wuz in
favor of a stove, partic'larly as his
wife wuz kind of sickly, an' soap
stones piled up 'round her didn't
seem to make thet church less of a

TOEDIUM VITAE

529

tomb. But Sophia and the Deacon
held out ; an' there wuz a split in the
church in no time. Last they wuz
'bliged to vote upon it, an' it went
agin the Deacon's an' Sophia's fac-
tion. First Sophia said she wa'n't
goin' no more to church, but her
father kind o' got her out'n thet no-
tion, an' she went. It wuz the first
Sunday they'd hed the stove; some
of the folks wuz rubbin' their hands
cheerful like, an' some wuz fannin'
themselves an' actin' faint. When
Sophia struck the front door of the
church she kind o' gasped like, but
she marched right along to her pew
and set down. Thet pew wa'n't so
far away from the stove. Sophia
fanned herself with her psalm-book
and managed to make out pretty
well, speakin' once in a while to Ga-
maliel Eames, who sat next to her.
You know she ain't never been back-
wards in speakin' to Gamaliel, an'
folks hez said she hed intentions if
Gamaliel hedn't. Well, Minister
Jones wuz in the midst of thet spe-
cial part of the prayer where he
alwuz said, 'We, Lord, we thank
Thee, O Lord, thet we are the
spared moniments of Thy mercy/
when Sophia let out a screetch an'
fell right into Gamaliel's arms in a
dead faint. Of course, everybody
run to get things; Gamaliel didn't
seem to know what to do, 'specially
as Sophia'd fainted with her arms
tight 'round his neck. They fanned
her an' sprinkled her with water, an'
finally she come to, a-moanin', 'The
stove! Oh, the heat! O-oh, the
stove !' So everybody runned for
the stove to see what they could do to
shet off the heat. Deacon Brown he
pulled open the stove door with a
jerk, an' — there wa'n't a smitch of
fire inside, not even a stick. Aha,
ha, ha, ha, ha! Aha, ha, ha, ha!"
laughed Sarah.

"Oh, ho, ho ! — " broke in Hiram.

Sarah stopped short and stared at
her brother.

"There wa'n't no stovepipe up,"
she added.

"Oho, ho, ho, ho, ho !" guffawed
Hiram.

"Hee, hee, hee!" tittered Mrs.
Eldredge.

"An's soon's Sophia saw there
wa'n't none, she come to complete,
an' let go Gamaliel, an' — "

. *'Oho, ho, ho, ho, ho!" roared
Lliram.

"Tee-hee, hee, hee, hee, hee !"
giggled Mrs. Eldredge.

"An'," continued Sarah, "Gamaliel
he coughed an' kind of straightened
out his coat, an' — aha, ha, ha, ha,
ha !— "

"Oho, ho, ho, ho, ho !" laughed
Hiram.

"Did he? Hee, hee, hee!" chuckled

Mrs. Eldredge.

People said it seemed as if that
idea Sarah had of laughing was a
good one. Captain Eames declared
it put paint on the Eldredge house;
anyway, the house was freshly
fainted. Mrs. Eden Butterfield be-
gan to be even more ambitious for
her garden and to comment on the
flourishing condition of Sarah's. And
Mr. Butterfield said the "neuralgy
cure couldn't have done more for
puttin' flesh on them Eldredges than
laughin' had." Hiram certainly had
filled out remarkably in a year; Mrs.
Eldredge was plump for the first
time since she had married Joshua
Eldredge, and Sarah had lost her
sharp tongue and gained in good
looks. In short, the recent sinking
of Luff James's two-masted schooner
was not half so important a topic of
conversation as this year-old won-
der.

For Sarah the year had had its
trials. The story about Sophia
Brown was merelv an enterine

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

wedge, and before they finally suc-
cumbed to the power of Sarah's ge-
lastic influence, Hiram and Mrs. El-
dredge often rebelled.

Sarah stood again in the doorway
of the Eldredge home, light flickered
on the calm surface of the sea, little
breezes played over the long dune
grass and the sweet peas were all
"tiptoe for flight."

"I ain't never expected to see this
day, Hiram a-courtin' an' about to
be married! Well, I hope Cinthy
Eames keeps him a-laughin'. Maw'll
kind of miss Hi, an' I reck — "

Sarah stopped, shaded her eyes
with her hands and craned her neck
forward. "Paw? No, it can't be.
Maw, Maw! Come quick! Oh, Maw,
see who's comin' up the walk !"

The Last Primeval White Pines of
New England

By Fletcher Osgood

THE American white pine —
pi?ius strobus — a native, strictly,
of temperate North Amer-
ica east of the Rocky Mountains —
is. I am inclined to think, the king-
tree, on the whole, of these United
States.

Its range, to be sure, is limited. It
is at its best only within a region
taking in New England and parts
of Canada, nourishing great growths
in Michigan and Wisconsin, and
hardly going westward of Minne-
sota, nor very far into the Central or
Southern States. It is true, too, of
course, that our Western sequoias
greatly excel the white pine in sheer
mass and height ; and that the Amer-
ican elm, which may be called our
queen-tree, immeasurably surpasses
it (and on the whole surpasses, prob-
ably, all other trees of our zone in
either hemisphere) in gracious suav-
ity of contour. Still others of our
trees better it easily at some one
point or other.

Yet taking sentiment and use to-

gether, in an all-round survey, why
is not the white pine our tree-
monarch ? Its girth is noble, its lofti-
ness august; its f61iage of constant
green, — responsive through all sea-
sons in hushed whisperings to soft
winds or in weird soughings to
fierce blasts — drops down a carpet
richly dun and fragrant, on which its
lulling shadow rests in fiery heats.
It fends off mighty storms and keeps
the ground it lives on stored with
the cool, pure waters man must
have or perish. It "calls the sun-
set" (as is said), and holds it won-
drously :

When o'er wide seas the sun declines,
Far off its fading glory shines ;
Far off, sublime and full of fear,
The pine woods bring the sunset near.

The blessed aroma floating from
it brings health to the breathing of
men. Its cones are objects of beauty.
With maybe one exception, it in-
vites and shelters the nests of more
birds than can be found in any other
of our trees. As it puts on its

THE LAST PRIMEVAL WHITE PINES 531

strength, it becomes, perhaps, on
the outside, a little rough, but never-
theless, in all its might, benignly
fragrant, restful unspeakably, benefi-
cent, protective, benedictive, calm ;
surcharged with deep, humane re-
serves of power.

And its more prosaic properties
make it as Swedenborg might say,
preeminently a "tree of uses." No
tree of the whole temperate zone or
perhaps of the world equals, it is be-
lieved, the white pine in its all-
round fitness for constructive ser-
vice. For mighty masts and bridge
and mill-timbers and then through
a thousand uses, by descending
grades, to friction matches, this tree
is endlessly in eager demand. And
so I say it stands among us a mon-
arch, alike, in the realms of sense and
of sentiment.

But the white pine, after all, has
come, in our time, close to discrown-
ment. I should, perhaps, have spoken
of it throughout in the past tense as
of a deposed rather than of a reign-
ing monarch. Within the easy recol-
lection of many readers of this arti-
cle, white pine was one of the least
costly and commonest of all woods
for general uses. But the eager call
for the wood on every hand de-
spatched the axeman after it wher-
ever it could be found, and laid it
low. Throughout the favored belt,
the mighty virgin growths of good
white pine went down and were no
more. To-day such white pine wood
as can be found and cut, cautiously
picked out and free of knots, is a
costly luxury for the inner furnish-
ing of ambitious houses.

A sapling white pine growth is
coming up, indeed. There are places
in Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and elsewhere in New
England where a good deal of atten-
tion is formally paid to growth of

this sort. In time, by fostering, we
may have third-growth white pines
of small to fair dimensions back with
us again in quantity. Meanwhile,
inquiry does not reveal more than
a few straggling first-growth (mean-
ing virgin or primeval growth)
white pines in either Vermont or
Rhode Island. In Connecticut,
excepting for a few at Cornwall, I
hear of none. From Massa-
chusetts virgin pine has almost
wholly vanished. There is a little
group of white pines standing in
Carlisle, in this State, on land which
was purchased a year or two ago
through the agency of the Massa-
chusetts Forestry Association and
given to the Appalachian Mountain
Club, by which it is held as a public
reservation. These trees were prob-
ably just starting into growth any-
where from about the years 1650 to
about 1700, and are properly re-
served as venerable. White pines,
more or less old (but very likely
all of second growth) are reported,
too, from Andover and Boxford.
The last report of the Forest Com-
missioner of Maine (issued in 1902),
a book of 150 pages, gives four pages
to the hard woods and practically all
the rest of the book to that one tree
which seems to-day to command, by
an overwhelming preponderance,
the thought of Maine : the spruce.
While I dare not absolutely aver
that not one primeval white pine is
left alive to-day in Maine, I can as-
sert that my inquiry has revealed
none.

Here is what the Forest Commis-
sioner says of Maine pines, and all
that he says, so far as I can learn :

"Sapling pines, and even pines of
older growth, may still be found in
many sections of the State." The
"even" in this connection, is very
significant. If there had been any-

532

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

thing more of importance to say,
the Commissioner would doubtless
have said it. His reference, too, must
be in part to the Norway pine, in-
stead of to our king pine. And this
in Maine — the "Pine Tree State" of
yesterday !

But on the noble Pisgah Range
of Winchester (Winchester is a
beautiful river-town, tucked snugly
in the Southern, Vermont-Massa-
chusetts corner of New Hampshire)
is a great tract of virgin forest, —
saved from the axe by sheer luck
only. Here tower virgin white pines
of most impressive age, girth, lofti-
ness and number. Par excellence,
these are the last primeval white
pines of New England. It is of this
remarkable tract, with its very ancient
white pines in their rugged loftiness,
that I am especially to have my say
in this descriptive article.

And first, a word about the charm-
ing township overlooked by Pisgah
and its virgin forest: Winchester
was bought of the Indian Nawlet by
Massachusetts men from Lunen-
burg, who settled it in 1733, and for
a season called it Arlington. It has
grown up slowly on the lines laid at
the beginning, as a town of sturdy,
if not "fertile, farms and busy mills.
The Ashuelot River plunges through
it, careering down the precipitous,
short slope to the Connecticut. All
about it are great wooded hills. Its
two delightful villages, Winchester
and Ashuelot, have the great rock
maples, wide, pleasant, central
streets, plain, comfortable homes,
and on the whole "the folks" we are
apt to think of as still typifying
Northern New England. The Pole,
the French-Canadian and the Irish-
man are there in numbers, yet the
town continues typically Yankee.
Winchester has 2,500 people, and is
reached from Boston by two routes,

in about four hours. It is thirteen
miles from Keene and fifteen miles
from Mount Monadnock. From Ver-
mont and the Connecticut River it is
separated, westerly, by the strip-
shaped town, two miles and a half
in width, called Hinsdale. Southerly,
Northfield and Warwick in Massa-
chusetts bound it, while on the east
and north are the New Hampshire
towns, Richmond, Swanzey and
Chesterfield. Two features worthy
of special note obtain to Winchester
village. A line of shaggy white
pines, rather ragged, which prob-
ably excel in age the Carlisle pines
of Massachusetts, and the large,
comely meeting-house, where a cen-
tury ago those typically American
religionists, the Universalists, first
formulated and proclaimed their
confession of faith in the absolute,
final triumph of all good.

From lovely Ashuelot village,
guided by an expert woodsman, I
my first ascent of Pisgah and enter-
ing his primeval solitudes, came out
by way of Hinsdale, a trip, in all, of
some six miles. In the course of
several days, I saw all the more
wonderful parts of the great Pisgah

tract, though

leaving much of minor

interest unseen. The time was early
in this present May of 1904. The
weather, absolute perfection for a
hearty climb. The great hills all
about us were clad in varying grays
and buffs, dark greens and umbers
in solid masses or in blended strips,
where evergreens and hardwood
growths, great crags or massive
boulders intervened or mingled.
Amidst all these again were finer
colors of the early season : The ten-
der and delicious creams (washed
with pea-green) of the unfolding
poplars, and the fresh tawnies,
chromes and blazing oranges of the
budding maples, intensifying to

THE LAST PRIMEVAL WHITE PINES 533

blood-orange tints and then to sheer
blood-reds.

We passed to Pisgah by a rough,
disused old logging-road ; crossing
and re-crossing, by old team-bridges
rotting to pieces, a nameless brook
— in England 'twould have been an
immemorial river, with a historic
name — which must have sheltered
"many a lusty trout." The flanks of
the first height were so steep that
when I lay upon the slope, I dug my
heels into the earth that I might not
slip, feet forward, dangerously, on
the carpet of glossy, dry, dead beech
leaves, as one would slide on glare
snow crust. On the way up, we
paused at a white pine stump, five
feet across, cut by the father of my
guide some forty years ago. We
read off upon it the encircling rings,
which crowded nearer and nearer to-
gether as they distanced the centre.
In the last peripheral space, an inch
and a quarter wide, was compressed,
we thought, a century of growth.
The white pine once joined in life to
this great stump was unquestionably
of hoary, awe-compelling age : a
foretaste of what we were about to
see when we gained the summit.
Before we had attained it, we passed
through a heavy growth of yellow
and black birch, old shaggy hemlock
and small beech.

This beech, in places, shot up its
tall stems, smooth as bamboo fish-
poles, so closely set together that we
could hardly see between them ; a
genuine beech-jungle. How heavy
must be the summer shade beneath
the jungle-beeches crowned with
their thick-grown leaves !

At last, at the very summit of this
first Pisgah mountain, we found our-
selves in a tract of fifty acres, so
close-set everywhere with noble vir-
gin hemlocks and white pines that
there was no room for another tree.

The ground shadowed by this vener-
able growth is just one mass of
ancient tree-mould and green hil-
locks of thick moss. No under-
growth of any sort can thrive here.
There is no light for it.

It is a mistake to speak of mighty
woods as 'nature's cathedrals."
They are not. Cathedrals should be
spoken of as art's attempts at imi-
tating forests. We were in no ca-
thedral, but in a mighty, primitive,
massive forest of hemlocks and
white pines, hundreds upon hun-
dreds of years old, their great trunks
towering high up toward the hidden
skies. Many of the white pines were
straight as a spear; such pines, as in
the old colonial days, the agents of
the Hanoverian Georges, if they had
found them, would have eagerly cut
deep with the broad arrow which
marked them out for royal masts. I
sat under white pines which ran up
sheer two hundred feet, with all of
eighty feet of smooth trunk, clear of
a single limb. Other immemorial
white pines were there, with bark
welted up in great ridges, which,
when chiseled off, made excellent
wood-billets about three inches
thick. Such deep-ridged bark as this
denotes the tree that bears it as a
very ancient of ancients.

And the heavenly silence of this
august, primeval, heavy-shadowed
grove ! For years I have slept in a
home and toiled in its study as well,
in the very heart of a district verily
consecrated to fierce, incessant
noise, shot forth by charging, clang-
ing, roaring, squealing "electrics,"
jolting team-traffic and the cries and
heavy hangings of night-workers.
To rest here for a space in stillness
absolute was a golden privilege for
which every hard-smitten nerve in
my system sighed out thanks for.
"But in a great, fierce wind-storm,"

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

said my friend and guide, "these
pines here break the silence, I can
tell you. Then you can hear them
wailing for miles around." I can
well believe him. Not a stump of a
cut tree was anywhere within this
lordly tract. It never in all time has
felt the axe.

So we passed on, toward the next
summit, through mighty virgin
growths of towering chestnut and of
black and yellow birch. I saw one
black birch of great age and mas-
siveness, an ancient tree, perhaps,
when the first boat-load disem-
barked on Plymouth Rock — and one
lofty, venerable chestnut that in
length of years (or centuries, rather)
combined with fine condition, is
very probably unmatched in all"
New England. The chestnut tree
was seventy feet high, and a gener-
ous three feet and a half across the
butt. It is one of the grand features
of this Pisgah Range that, in its
primeval marvels, it offers many
massive contrasts. The white pines
are, we grant, the chief of all the
wonders, but in great spaces here
and there throughout the tract they
are set off and made more wonder-
ful by shaggy first-growth hard-
woods, virgin hemlocks and mighty
spruces. All along the way, at happy
intervals, were brooklets, rills and
brooks of water bubbling from deep
springs, and not from surface
sponge.

Doubtless the Almighty, — though
I grudge even this admission —
might have made better water than
that which flows from Pisgah
Springs, but doubtless the Almighty
never did — nor will. The water was
absolute perfection, and we eagerly
drank it along the route at every
opportunity. There was a plentiful
growth of beech throughout the
hardwood tracts, and the way was

thickly carpeted with their ail-but
indestructible leathery, weather-
washed dead leaves of pallid buff,
commingled with the hardy leaves
of birch and chestnut. Signs of the
hedgehog were everywhere about,
but I missed seeing one. This sedate
tree-climber is, however, one of the
features of the place, and may be
frequently under observation in the
daytime.

We passed on, guided alone by
compass, through a wilderness of
lower grounds, and then to lonely
rugged slopes (skirting great spruce .
growths on the way and mighty
first-growth hemlock clusters), and
thence to a great, full, brawling,
springing brook, boiling about and
bathing its moss-swathed boulders.
Here we stayed for lunch and then
pressed on to what is probably the
highest point in all the Pisgah
Range. Heretofore, there had been
no looking off from any height. The
tremendous trees prevented this,
and the region we had passed
through had never known the axe.
But fire had done its demonic work
upon this range, and the lumbermen
had cut away the great growths
smitten by it. Hence, from this
height, we had an outlook. And a
wondrous outlook it was, into New
Hampshire, Massachusetts and Ver-
mont. Through the fine, crystal May
air we could see Keene and any
number of pleasant country towns,
range upon vistaed range of rugged
hills, and great Monadnock tower-
ing due east. From here we passed
again into a great white pine tract.
I could get from my friend no esti-
mate of the' number of pines, but
they were legion. Again we were
enclosed in the rich darkness of
these huge primeval evergreens, tra-
versing it softly with a haunted feel-
ing; for, indeed, we were in touch

THE LAST PRIMEVAL WHITE PINES 535

with days when all America was
Indian. No axe, I think, has ever
rung within these solitudes, unless,
indeed, on rare occasion, the axe of
some lone bee-hunter. And yet I
must make one exception. Deep
within this solemn forest, we came
upon a small, unfinished or depleted
pile of oaken billets, carefully cut
out and placed by an evidently ex-
perienced hand. They were old and
had gathered the mouldy accretions
of age, yet so well laid were they be-
tween their stakes that no accident
of wind or ice or otherwise had
spilled in all these years a single
billet. There was a mystery about
that little pile which my friend did
not unravel. That they were cut for
barrel staves we did make out — for
barrel staves in the old, dead West
India trade before the railroads,
when staves were boated down the
Connecticut River. Yet- 1 had not
seen one oak in all these woods from
the start to now, and not one oak
stump. It seemed to me not unlikely
that in old slavery days, maybe
when Franklin Pierce was Presi-
dent, some single adventurer for
staves, when oaks were getting very
scarce, had found a solitary oak
somewhere within these solitudes,
had cut it up and piled it, and then — ■
There's the mystery. Why was that
pile left unfinished or depleted as
we found it? If— as I am hoping
and working and believing — the Pis-
gah tract, indeed, comes into the
people's hands as a perpetual reserve
forever, I hope that mystic stave-
pile, lone among pines, with its sug-
gested story, will stay intact and
honored, till the relic-stealers break
it up. It dates back, I should say, at
least to Abraham Lincoln's early
day. Perhaps, much farther back.

Still we pressed on, through acres
upon acres of primeval pines — pines

— pines. Still in the grave spirit that
became the place, we contemplated
our king-trees — indeed, the very last
and greatest of their New England
race — sturdy, staunch, wholesome
and towering. Some of these great
white pines were full four feet and
a half across the butt, and some that
we missed are rumored to be
greater — maybe five feet to six. But
these were big and tall enough, and
pines without a limb for sixty feet
and over, one hundred and fifty feet
in height, and more than that — were
common objects, hardly to be noted.
Many must have much exceeded
these dimensions, I should say.
Three white pines, standing like
ranked soldiers, close together, yet
apart from others, one of them four
feet across the butt, and all high and
massive, I named "The Three Noble
Kinsmen," after the goodly Eliza-
bethan drama which Shakespeare,
maybe, had a hand in. I hope they
will bear that name in the hoped-
for People's Reserve. Then there
were big, round boulders, glacier-
deposited, and all but "rocking
stones," so lightly were they poised.
These were everywhere garnished
with the bright rock-ferns that New
Hampshire boys gather by the car-
load for the Boston florists. In a
Reserve, they would have formal
names as curiosities. Under the
pines again the water-springs
abounded, and we drank and were
filled.

Out at last we came from amidst
the darkling trunks of these huge
resinous reminders of dim days into
a forest lighter and more modern,
and thence back to gentle Ashuelot
village. But before we turned from
the ancient forest I went over in my
mind certain facts which bear upon
its possible preservation for the peo-
ple : In the first place, fire — chief

536

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of forest enemies — has left it mainly
alone. Again, the winds have
troubled it but little. Here and there
on our course we had come upon
slight breaks in the great woods
caused by wind-fallen trees of the
lighter-rooted sort. But such breaks
were few and of light consequence.
In this compacted, deeply-grounded
growth the winds have neither
wrought much evil in the past nor
will they compass it in the visible
future. Again the great primeval
trees were robust,one and all. Hardi-
hood and high health mantled in
them. The ground they grew in
nurtured them richly. The forest-
blasting insects had not gnawed them
to their weakening, and from the big
and snowy white canoe birches
(shaming the spindling gray birch
of the Bay State) right through the
rugged list of beeches, chestnuts,
black and yellow birches, spruces,
hemlocks and white pines, the words
to characterize them would be : ma-
tured, prime wholesomeness, sus-
tained by an environment well-nigh
ideal. Thus is the highest promise
given for the future. A tree pre-
serves its youth well into the "for-
evers," and for all I learn to the con-
trary, the oldest tree in this whole
Pisgah wilderness may even live —
yes, and enjoy life all the while — a
thousand years from now. And how
old are the oldest trees within this
vast retreat? Gathering such in-
formation as I may from those ex-
pert in forestry, who know the great
tract well, I am of opinion that many
trees here number at least seven full
centuries of growth, or possibly
more. I believe that I have reclined
beneath, and with a reverential hand
caressed, great white pines that were
hardy saplings here on Pisgah when
bad King John delivered Magna
Charta up, with cursing, to the

Barons. Such pines were venerable,
mighty, towering trees (as old as
many or all of those saved out at
Carlisle, Massachusetts) when Saint
Columbus caught his opening
glimpse of the New World! Re-
membering this and the fact that we
have no such white pines alive any-
where else in all New England —
quite probably not in all the United
States — are there any who wonder
that I am seeking to save these pines
and their noble associates, forever,
from being cloven with axes and sawn
with saws into timber?

But though the one great central
feature of the Pisgah tract is beyond
question its awe-inspiring virgin
forests, — especially of the white
pine, — there are accessories to the
noble tract which greatly heightens
its value for • a People's Reserve.
Connected with and included in it is
a chain of fine ponds, or little lakes,
covering one hundred acres or more,
with lovely "white-piney" camping-
grounds opening out abundantly
upon their shores. To reach these
ponds one takes a wild walk, which,
for my part, I think the finest of the
sort I ever took. It leads from
Ashuelot village right along the
course, and sometimes on the great
stones of the very bed of Pisgah
Brook, an outlet for the nearer pond.
Who shall describe the multiform
acrobatics of full waters, hurtling
and capering down a sharp descent
amid tumultuously huddled boul-
ders? Southey's "Lodore Waters"
does the work as nearly as anything
I know. His poem is brought con-
stantly before one who walks by Pis-
gah Brook — but he finds that word-
picture inadequate, after all. Most
of the way is practically as wild as
a part of Central Newfoundland or
Northern Quebec, and yet it is
within an easy stroll of soft repose

THE LAST PRIMEVAL WHITE PINES 537

and delicate living. Wholesome
little groves of sapling white pine
attend the path at first, and in the
season, all along the way, in the
opener spots, the spicy-scented
lovely mayflower hides beneath its
leaf-roof. And presently we come
to lofty crags, steep, rough and wild,
with glossy rock-ferns sprouting out
from every crevice and mould-sup-
porting shelflet. There are, too,
sloping banks grown up to elegant
beech-jungle, which, in the Summer
heats, throws down a dense, delight-
ful shade, flecked with the serrate
in-breaks of the sun beams, and
then, too, springs of delicious water
bubble up beside the route at just
the right, refreshing intervals. At
one point a rough dam is crossed
where the last bear of Ashuelot
went his way, some twenty years
ago, only to take the vengeance of
a lurking rifle and then, making his
herculean death-lunge up the op-
posite precipice, yielded the ghost
beneath a shaggy chestnut.

In the whole Pisgah tract, we
have, then, several mountains with
their essential valleys, a chain of
beautiful lakelets, abundant springs
of perfect water and many tumb-
ling, sparkling brooks and brooklets
(mostly from springs and therefore
trout-beloved and very cool), a
wonderful wild brook-walk under
the shadowing beeches, ideal camp-
ing grounds, grand wholesome for-
ests of vigorous virgin hemlocks,
chestnuts, birches and great spruces,
and then — the glorious last primeval
white pines of New England. In
the whole tract there may be some
five thousand acres. It is most for-
tunately owned — excepting for a
strip about Pisgah Brook — by one
estate.

Nothing but sheer fortuity ever
saved these massive virgin forests

from the axe. They were hard to
come at ; their owner had other irons
in the fire. He put off cutting them
till "a little later," and, by a narrow
chance, they have been, to this time,
saved. But there is hard, commer-
cial value in these tremendous
growths. They will inevitably be
cut down, one and all, and sawn
asunder, if some measure is not
taken speedily to preserve them.
W^here the last primeval white pines
of New England once stood as giants
will then be scarred stumps, chips
and amputated tree-limbs and the
starting up of puny seedling growth.
What can be done to save to the
people this unique and glorious
tract? New Hampshire (which has
no State Reserve) may possibly un-
dertake to purchase it. But suppos-
ing the undertaking fails — what
then? Why not an appeal to some
great millionaire to buy and pass it
over to the State? No nobler act
could be performed by wealth than
this. But I have another notion that
perhaps might in the end prevail :
might not we, perhaps, secure a
great New England Reserve for
each of our six States to use in com-
mon, by properly appealing to the
legislature of each State? Here is
an idea worth thinking of. Pisgah
is central to New England, accessi-
ble to all her States, easily come at.
The cost of maintenance as a purely
wild reserve (not as a tame, conven-
tional, smooth bicycle-pathed park),
would be but small. A few good
guides and wardens, a rough road-
way here and there, should surely
be the main part of the business.
But in any case, I cannot too
strongly urge that, — if not in one
way, then in another — Pisgah, its
healing silence and its immemorial
pines, should be most sacredly pre-
served as a perpetual heritage for
New England and her children

The Mission of Andrew

By Annie Nettleton Bourne

THE supper dishes were done
and Mrs. Birdsey drew her
little black shawl over her bent
shoulders and sat down by the
kitchen window ; not the window
that commanded the glory of field
and hill and setting sun, but the one
looking upon the barnyard across
the road. There had been no sound
of wheels since morning, when
Abiram Fuller went past in his
rattling spindle. Now she watched
under the lowered shade to see him
going home. There would be some-
thing in the back of his wagon to
show why he had been to the Cor-
ners.

As she waited there sounded over-
head the squeaking of heavy boots.
That was what roused Deacon Bird-
sey from the sleep that had over-
taken him when he came in from the
evening chores. For half an hour he
had lain back in his rocker, head
bowed forward, fingers interlaced
over his breast, and stockinged feet
stretched on the floor.

"Where's Lorenzo going?" he de-
manded, sitting up with sudden de-
fiance as if he had been tricked into
slumber.

"Down to the Corners, I p'sume,"
said his wife.

"Well, he ain't," said the Deacon
shortly. "Do you want your only
son should consort with evil doers
an' go straight to perdition. Keziah
Birdsey?"

Mrs. Birdsey's small, meaning
person and gentle face were scarcely
the abode of motives of so violent a
character. She seemed aware that

the question was only rhetorical for
she made no answer, though her
mouth twitched when the sounds re-
curred. Presently there was a clat-
ter and Lorenzo opened the door at
the foot of the stairs into the kitchen.
He was clad in black broadcloth,
with coat buttoned well up. His
collar rose high above a narrow black
cravat tied like the letter "x." A
black slouch hat sank nearer than
usual to the tops of his ears because
of the close clipping that his hair had
Undergone on Frank Thurston's
front lawn. His hat remained in
place as he stood before his mother.

"Can you hitch this on, Ma?" he
asked, producing a button. He
watched her cross the room. It
would no more have occurred to him
to get her work basket for her than
it would have occurred to her to ask
him to.

"Which horse shall I take, father?"
he asked over his shoulder.

"Where you going?"

"Down to the Corners."

"You won't take any on 'em, Lo-
renzo Birdsey. An' you won't go
to the Corners neither, not with my
consent."

The Deacon pulled his knees up
and looked sternly at his son. It
was not hard for Deacon Birdsey to
look stern. The effort to look mild
would have taxed him more. Nature
had hewed him out in rugged aus-
terity. To those behind him in
church the straight, narrow shoul-
ders and tall, narrow head had a
moral significance; there was no
need, at some unseemly flight of the

538

THE MISSION OF ANDREW

539

choir, for him to square about and
gaze up at the organ loft in open re-
buke. Bushy white hair and a white
beard reaching from ear to ear
hedged in his face. Its length, from
the eyebrows habitually raised as far
as the muscles would allow, to the
drooping corners of the set mouth,
was prodigiously great. It was not
the face that children stretch their
arms toward, but it bore out Deacon
Birdsey's frequent testimony that he
"cal'lated to do abaout the right
thing an' expected other folks to,"
and also his unvarying attitude
when other folks fell short of his ex-
pectations.

Lorenzo flushed. His eyes were
defiant but he did not speak. The
door closed behind him and his
mother watched him disappear over
the brow of the hill. Then : "Ain't
you 'most too hard towards him,
father?" she ventured in a thin
voice.

"What d'yer mean, Keziah?" de-
manded the Deacon. "It's t'other
way 'round. I'd ought to 'a' spoke
before. It don't do young folks no
good to set round on flour barr'ls an'
counters. Their tongues git too free."

"I don't see as the Corners ever
hurt Lorenzo any. He fetches real
nice books from there an' he learns
a sight at the lectures."

The Deacon spread his palms on
his knees and looked steadily at his
wife. "I s'pose I've got to tell you."
he began slowly, "but I d'clare I hate
to when you think he's so innocent."

Mrs. Birdsey leaned forward all
a-tremble with apprehension.

"Thought I'd drop when I fust
heerd it," pursued her husband. "Lo-
renzo's told you how onct a month
all last winter they had sociables in
the hall—"

"Yes."

"Yes, but he never let on what

they done at 'em. Them young boys
an' gals, all come of meeting folks —
what d'yer think they done?
They — " the Deacon's voice sank
to a hoarse whisper — "they danced."

Keziah caught her lower lip under
her teeth with a cluck of horror.
"Father!" she gasped. "Air yer
sure?"

But the Deacon had closed his lips
tight. He would only nod his head
while poor Keziah sat shaking hers
mournfully from side to side.

II.

It was scarcely ten o'clock when
Lorenzo came back that evening, but
there was no sign of life in the scat-
tered houses that he passed. He
was thinking of Eunice Stone's face
as she held a lamp high at the door
to light him down the path.

"I couldn't bear to tell her good-
bye," he said to himself. "But I'll
come for her soon." His heart
bounded as he walked through the
silent valley and climbed the steep
ascent to his home. He lifted the
kitchen latch cautiously, slipped off
his shoes, as usual, and crept up the
stairs. But his mother's ear caught
the thud of his feet and she was be-
side him.

"Oh, Lorenzo !" she whispered,
gripping his arm. "Promise me you
won't never go to the Corners
agin."

"Nonsense, mother!" and Lorenzo
shook his arm loose. Then suddenly
he put it around the bent shoulders.
"Don't you worry, Ma," he said
gently. "I'll be a man in spite of
father." He kissed her soft cheek
and she went away comforted. It
could not be so bad as father
thought. She had always trusted
her boy. She was sleeping calmly
when the kitchen latch was lifted
from the inside and Lorenzo went
out. He stood still a moment, held

540

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

by the magic of the night. Across
the meadows moved a mist like a
swift procession of innumerable
wraiths and out of it came the cry of
the whip-poor-will, that human voice
of desolation. A cold light in the
eastern sky foretold the rising of the
moon. Before it rose he was on the
road to Trumbull, nine miles away,
where was the nearest railway sta-
tion.

As he walked he was in the grasp
of an overwhelming emotion that he
now experienced for the first time,
the sense of freedom. Obed Birdsey
had always done the right thing by
his son. No one could say that there
was a cow or a boy or a horse on the
place that he had abused. To be
sure, he had not acted foolish over
him the way Keziah did, but he had
calculated to make him into a good
farmer and leave him the farm. But
he never had thought of him except
in relation to himself. Lorenzo's
part must be perfect submission. He
never let a colt kick over the traces.
Such restraint had grown daily
more unbearable to the son. To
break away, to be himself, had been
the one theme of his brooding. Now
he did not look back at the house.
There was no room in his thought
for the grief of parting. He was
scarcely touched after the first mo-
ment, by the beauty of the night, —
the familiar fields transfigured by
moonlight, the wooded hills that had
always seemed to him to hide fairer
lands, the brook flowing swift and
musical under the thicket beside
him, the still houses asleep under
their great protecting maples.

In the reflective hours of daily
drudgery he had planned a career for
himself that stood out sharply
against life on the farm. But to-night
the future was blurred. He did not
look ahead. He escaped, bodv and

mind. Visions of what he was leav-
ing quickened his steps. Never again
would he follow the plough like one
work horse behind another. Never
again would he drive the cows to
pasture, heavy creatures stepping
one by one over the lowered bars. He
recalled with a dull ache twilight
hours when he had sat brooding, his
lonely mood heightened by the
scene, — dreary waste of pasture
land, vast stretches of gray rock and
hard hack, and straight lines of
stone wall, monuments of the toil of
his ancestors. What was there to
show for their dumb, patient labor?
Some day the stone walls would
tumble into ruins too, like the homes
of those who had bent their backs
to make them. Skeleton houses
stood with windows and doors gone.
He paused before one where he used
to play as a boy. Moonlight
streamed into the vacant rooms.
Loose, ragged boards swayed creak-
ing in the night wind. With a shud-
der he walked quickly on. No in-
deed, he never would go to the Cor-
ners again. Now his face was set
toward a wider door of escape.

III.

It was six o'clock and the men
would be coming in to breakfast, but
Keziah Birdsey sat idle. The day
before she would have been called a
young-looking woman for her age,
but not now. This morning she was
shrunken and wrinkled and old. The
tears were trickling down her
cheeks ; her apron could not dry
them.

Beside her stood her husband,
holding in his hand a letter. Sud-
denly he jerked it into halves.

"Oh, father !" she cried, as if he
had hurt her.

"Don't you take on so, Keziah,"
said the Deacon ; "he ain't wuth it.
A boy that'd sneak away from his

THE MISSION OF ANDREW

541

folks, I say let him go. We've alius
done our part by him."

Mrs. Birdsey protested with up-
lifted hand and streaming eyes but
the Deacon did not relent.

"I want you should promise me,
Keziah Birdsey, never to let that boy
step foot in this house agin, not es
long es you live. Do you hear?"

And Keziah, weeping and heart-
broken, and overflowing with
mother-love, Keziah promised.
Years ago she had promised to obey
Obed. Obedience had often brought
her pain, but that she regarded as a
matter of course. This request was
strange, harder than any that Obed
had made before, but Keziah obeyed
with the unquestioning, self-forget-
ting love that she always had borne
her husband.

And so long months of loneliness
followed. Keziah recalled the early
years of her married life when she
longed in vain for a child. If Lo-
renzo had been sent to them then, she
thought, they would have under-
stood him better. She had been
patient and hopeful; she would be
so now. Obed would soften. Lo-
renzo would come back.

But not until he was successful.
He would not even write until then.
He was not the first young man to
grow sick of Wheaton ; that was the
way they all had done. One, she re-
flected with sinking of heart, never
had been heard from at all. Keziah
had little imagination. The Lorenzo
who stole away at night was thence-
forth unknown to her. But she loved
to let her memory linger about the
Lorenzo of years ago, the little
sunny-headed boy that played near
her while she worked, before school
and the farm separated them. She
would sit fingering the bag of mar-
bles that was his, or take out ten-
derly from its wrappings the first

cap that she had knitted him. She
did it up hastily one day when Obed
chanced to come into the room. But
not before he saw it.

Afterward the Deacon sat on an
old stump beside the barn door,
ruminatively chewing a piece of tim-
othy.

"Jest like pullin' teeth," he mut-
tered, "to go back on my word. But
I d'clare I miss the boy. Don't
know's I kin stan' it much longer
myself, let alone Keziah, women
folks do act so ridic'lous."

It was an hour later when the two
hired men carried the Deacon into
the bedroom and Keziah came run-
ning with the camphor bottle in her
trembling hand.

"He's been havin' them hard
breathin's all the mornin', Mis' Bird-
sey," said one, "an' I see he was
goin' to take one o' his spells."

When Keziah was alone with her
husband his breathing grew more
regular. She sat fanning him with
the sense of relief that had always
come at such times. Presently he
^turned his head slightly. His eyes
did not open, but he tried to speak.

"What is it, father?" she asked
tenderly. "What is it?"

But no words came. The Deacon's
cheeks flushed and he passed his
hand over his brow. Keziah's hand
followed his. Then, with the
woman's instinct, she put her lips
close to his ear and asked, "Is it Lo-
renzo?" but there was no answer.
Then a kind of frenzy seized her.
She wrung her hands, talked inco-
herently, covered the still face with
kisses. Growing more quiet she
spoke into his ear again, loud and
slow, "Is it Lorenzo? Do you want
Lorenzo?" But when she lifted her
head the gentle breathing had
stopped. Deacon Birdsey did not

542

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

have to face the shame of going back
on his word.

IV.

"I do b'lieve it's Lovisy Perrit,"
murmured Keziah, as she flattened
her nose against the tiny window
pane. "Waddles like her. 'Tis her!"

The voice rose in excitement.
"Somethin' must 'a' happened. Lo-
visy h'aint ben up this hill, I don't
know when. Not sence she's ben in
years an' fleshed up so."

Long before her visitor was near
enough for the exchange of greet-
ings, Keziah was at the door nodding
and smiling and fingering her little
black shawl. Then she heard only
her own voice. Lovisa could not re-
spond except by gesticulation and
puffing. She waited what seemed to
Keziah an endless time on the door
stone before pulling herself up into
the house by means of both jambs.
At last she flopped down upon an
arm chair. Lovisa always was on,
never in, a chair. No part of the
chair was visible as she hung loosely
over it. She lay back with closed
eyes, putting out her hand blindly
for the fan that Keziah offered.

"Kinder heated term," Keziah
suggested.

Lovisa nodded.

"Rains a good deal, too. Ketchin'
weather, open an' shet so."

Another nod.

"Lay off your bunnit, Lovisy."

"There !" gasped Lovisa, shoving
back a man's cap that fell to the floor
revealing a mass of short gray hair.

"Folks all well on the plain fur
anythin't you know?" Keziah pur-
sued tentatively.

The visitor only nodded again.
But a cheerful expression began to
play over her plump cheeks and she
sighed as if relieved. Presently she
descended to the depths of an ample
pocket and extracted a spectacle

case, from which she slowly drew
the spectacles. Then she produced
a letter. Keziah at once recognized
Lorenzo's handwriting. She caught
her breath and grew a shade paler.
By this time Lovisa's eyes were wide
open, regarding her steadily.

"Beats all how you stick it out
here 'lone so, Keziah," she began in
a hearty voice. "Le's see; how long
is't sence the Deacon was took?
Eight year? An' Lorenzo same's
dead longer'n that. Now you needn't
stiff up so, Keziah Birdsey. I've kep'
still es long's I'm goin' to. The
neighbors was talkin' you over las'
night" — Keziah winced — "an' I got
so full o' mad I couldn't hardly hold
it. Not at them, you understand,
'twas you. I made up my mind't I'd
git up this hill somehow, ef it took
my las' breath, an' tell you what I
think o' you. I stopped for the mail,
an' first off Jake Simpson sez, 'They
ain't anythin' fur you, Mis' Perrit,
'cept a postal from your sister Sally
sayin' she's done up a sight o'
huckleberries an' all well at home/
He handed that out an' I was goin'
'long. Then he hollered. 'Say, here's
a letter. Shall I open it fur you?7
sez he, real perlite. 'Land, no !' sez
I. 'I was a Gritman, I guess I kin
open my own mail.' "

During this suspense Keziah's
hands worked in her lap and her
eyes did not leave the letter. Lovisa
was perfectly aware of their gaze as
she picked it up and remarked cas-
ually, "Thought some o' lettin' you
read it. Guess you don't desarve
to." Then she returned it to her
pocket. Keziah uttered a smothered
cry, and burst into a flood of tears.

V.
The person in Wheaton who
manifested the least interest in peo-
ple's affairs and knew the most
about them was the Widow Perrit,

THE MISSION OF ANDREW

543

known to all as Aunt Lovisy. "Live
and let live" was her motto, and she
was wont to declare that she did
wish folks wouldn't dump all their
troubles into her lap just as if she
was a rag bag. But they did. When
gossip was active about Lorenzo, the
only one who kept silent and the
only one who was in possession of
the facts was Aunt Lovisa. She
never mentioned them except to her-
self, when she scolded herself
roundly for bothering with the boy.
The Deacon had told everybody that
his doors were shut to his son. Well
then, why should she correspond
with him? Was it anything to her
that he was establishing himself and
getting a home ready for Eunice?
And that Eunice's parents had
promised to let her join him?

If the widow Perrit had been in
the habit of occupying herself with
the affairs of others she would have
been as astonished as the rest of
Wheaton that Lorenzo did not come
to his father's funeral. Fate seemed
to have brought the term of punish-
ment to an end. But Keziah was so
silent and uncomplaining that
Wheaton's hard feelings toward Lo-
renzo were exchanged for a sense of
injury toward her. No one saw her.
The Birdsey pew was empty. The
Deacon's book at the store no longer
testified to good providing. Every
window in her house was shut tight
except one in the kitchen. It was
common for visitors to find the door
locked, and not on the outside, some
said.

But it came easy to Wheaton,
busy and hard-worked, to respect a
manifest preference for solitude,, and
gradually Keziah was left to the life
that she had chosen. Had the news
from Lorenzo continued vaguely
favorable, probably she would have
been allowed to bring her wTeary

task of self-abnegation to its perfect
close. But when sorrow came to
him a new chord was touched. How
much did Keziah know? Had she
heard of the lingering illness that
had left Lorenzo's little boy a
cripple? Surely she would come to
the burying ground when Eunice
was brought home. But Keziah was
not at Eunice's grave.

It was totally against Lovisa Per-
rit's principles to present herself at
Keziah's door with the express pur-
pose of interfering, but when once
she made up her mind to do so, it
would have been quite as much
against her principles not to.

The effect of the disappearance of
Lorenzo's letter was precisely what
Lovisa expected. She knew that a
sudden overflow of tears will carry
with it secrets that have been
damned up for years. Her attitude
toward Keziah changed at once.
One would hardly have believed
that the tender manner and caress-
ing voice were a disguise of the
masculine widow Perrit.

"There! There!" she said sooth-
ingly. "Tell me all about it."

Keziah's frail little body shook
with sobs, the pent-up grief of
years. She had not dishonored her
husband's memory by the indul-
gence of tears. Now she tried to sit
up stiffly. "I'm a-gettin' along all
right," she said weakly, "I don'
know's I need to have folks med-
dlin', I don' know's I do."

"Wall, you do," said Lovisa, with
a touch of her accustomed fierce-
ness. "I want you should tell it to
me jest's 'tis. When the Deacon
was took, you fell by rights to Lo-
renzo. Now why didn't you send
for him to come home?"

The habit of subjection to a
stronger personality stood Keziah

544

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

in good stead. She offered no
further resistance but told Lovisa
the story of her life since her hus-
band had left her bound by a prom-
ise.

When she had finished Lovisa sat
looking at her a moment in silent
contempt. Then she seemed to
comprehend, as if by a flash of in-
sight, what this weak little crea-
ture, blindly submissive, stupidly
faithful, with a courage past belief,
had borne in dumb patience.

"It beats all!" was her simple
comment.

She rocked back and forth vio-
lently while Keziah wiped her eyes
with an unfamiliar sense of relief.
Then she began to mutter to her-
self as if she had wholly forgotten
the presence of another. Keziah
could make nothing of it except that
Lovisa seemed to be upbraiding
somebody in strong terms.

Without speaking to Keziah
again, she gathered up her cap and
came for the floor, got to her feet
and proceeded to waddle away.
Halfway down the path she turned
back. "'Tarnal fool!" she ejacu-
lated, without designating the object
of the epithet, and flung the letter
to Keziah. "You kin keep it," she
called back.

VII
The widow Perrit's epithet of op-
probrium was directed toward her-
self; and as she sat at her desk,
with pen and paper before her, a
week later, she indulged in another.
Keziah had haunted her. No mat-
ter how she bustled about her work,
she could not shut out the sight of
those wistful eyes fixed on the let-
ter in her lap. However loud her
voice rang in the hymns with which
she was accustomed to lighten her
labors, Keziah's broken tones told
her pitiful story above the song.

Lovisa had been schooled by all
Wheaton to meet difficulties, but
now she was confronted by one
that baffled her.

"There's Keziah," she reflected,
"shet up in that old tomb of a
house. A body'd think she was try-
in' to make herself as dead as the
Deacon. An' there's Lorenzo, alius
was a lovin' son, needin' his ma the
wust way. How's he a-goin' to
fetch up that motherless cripple, I'd
like to know, 'thout no woman to
help him? . . . An' there's that hate-
ful little promise a-stickin' up there
between 'em, jest a slipshod word
or two said in haste like enough,
thet's growed an' growed until it's
es high as a mountain an' es hard as
a three-inch plank. You couldn't
git Keziah through it, not ef you
druv her with an ox-whip. All is,
you've got to git her round it."

Lovisa had sat down at the desk
resolved to wait there for some
fruitful idea "ef it took a week."
Whether it was will power or in-
spiration that came to the rescue,
suddenly she gave vent to one of her
bursts of laughter.

"Wall, Deacon," she chuckled, as
she seized the pen, "guess we've got
ahead of you now. Keziah kin keep
her word all she wants to. You
didn't make her promise anythin'
'bout Andrew, did you?"

She was so genuinely exultant
over having o-utwitted the Deacon
that the departed spirit of the re-
pentant man, if it was hovering
above her just then, doubtless had
not the heart to present itself in ex-
planatory self-justification. Her pen
flew, her face working as she joy-
fully pictured the fulfillment of the
plans that she suggested to Lorenzo.
It was in consequence of this let-
ter that Pete Wilton, the stage-
driver, saw the brakeman jump from

THE MISSION OF ANDR E W

545

the train at Trumbull, toss off a bag,
and then lift down a little boy with
great tenderness. The boy put up
his arms and Pete grinned at the
brakeman's furtive look as he re-
ceived a kiss on his begrimed cheek.
The brakeman had just time to
beckon to Pete and toss him a letter
before swinging back on his train.

Pete noted something familiar in
the pale face of the little lad who
limped beside him, proudly insisting
upon carrying his bag. When he
read the message, "Please carry the
bearer to the home of Mrs. Obed
Birdsey," he almost lost his balance
on the dashboard of the stage, to
which he had been crowded by the
pressure of passengers and baggage.

"I vum !" he exclaimed under his
breath, "it's Lorenzo's boy !"

As errand man for all who lived
on his stage route, Pete was well
posted in current events. Jake Simp-
son had not reported any corre-
spondence between Keziah and Lo-
renzo ; he did not believe she was ex-
pecting the boy. How she was
likely to take the surprise engrossed
his thoughts so completely that he
let the reins hang loose until an im-
patient traveller recalled him to
business. "Guess your hosses air
runnin' daown." Then he started
them up with a jerk that jounced
all the passengers and set a tea-
kettle, out of sight somewhere,
rattling merrily. Little Andrew
laughed aloud. The laugh was con-
tagious. In consequence of it, an
unusually good-natured company
toiled through the sandy plains and
up the stony mountain roads.

The only passenger to come all the
way to Wheaton was Andrew.

"Is it much farther to Grand-
ma's?" he asked after he had slipped
about on the leather seat alone for
half an hour.

"Not much," answered Pete. "I
was goin' there anyhow. That tea-
kettle's hern. I took it to git it
mended — For the land's sake !"

"What?" cried Andrew.

"Oh, nothin'. Only I wondered
how on airth Aunt Lovisy got up
here."

Pete had beheld the Widow Per-
rit, who was scarcely known to leave
her own dooryard, under a tree by
the roadside, calmly knitting. He
frankly expressed his astonishment
as she rose stiffly and waddled
toward the stage.

"Wall, who's got a better right?"
she demanded. "How air you,
Andrew? I guess your Pa told you
about your Aunt Lovisy. Wall, I'm
her."

She smiled as she patted the pale
face. "Ain't so fierce as I look. Tell
your grandma I'll be up to see her
'long 'bout sundown."

"Carry you up, Aunt Lovisy?"

"No, I ain't a-goin' jest yit."

Keziah had been listening at the
kitchen window for the stage. When
she heard its rattle, she came outside
and stood watching her tea-kettle
slowly climb the hill. For some
reason unknown to himself Pete did
not tell his small passenger who she
was. When he jumped down and
restored Mrs. Birdsey's property to
her, she paid no attention to him.
Her eyes were fixed on the stage
with a look that made Pete wish that
he could get himself away. "Here's
another pa'cel for you, Mis' Bird-
sey," he said, trying to speak in an
offhand way. "It's a kind o' precious
one. I shall want a consid'able for
fetchin' it up." He grinned feebly
as he lifted Andrew down. Then he
reached for the bag and carried it
into the kitchen with his back
turned. He kept it turned as he re-
gained the stage and climbed in with

546

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

a sheepish feeling. Without saying
good day, he flung the lash across
the horses' backs and sent them gal-
loping down the hill.

The widow Perrit was not in the
habit of sneaking. Wheaton would
have been nonplussed to see her ap-
proach Mrs. Birdsey's through the
grass instead of by the stone
flagging. Neither was eavesdropping
characteristic of her, but there she
was, leaning up against the_ house,
close beside the open kitchen win-
dow. The look of pure enjoyment
in her face, as she stood with cocked
head, was not in the least suggestive
of a stricken conscience.

"How she dooz rattle the dishes,"
she thought. "An' her feet ain't pat-
tered so lively in one while."

Then she heard childish tones,
high and sweet.

"Was papa as big as me when he
sat in this chair, Grandma?"

Keziah's voice, as she answered,
sounded strange. The eavesdropper
could hardly make out what she said.

But when Andrew spoke she
caught every word. "My mamma
has gone to a far-off country," he
was saying, "and when you come to
live at our house, Grandma, I'll show
you a picture of her." Then an un-
expected ripple of laughter, — "Why,
Grandma ! Why did you blow your
nose so hard? You made me jump."

Presently there was the sound of
little feet. Lovisa's heart swelled in
her breast at the slow, dragging
steps. As the clear tones rose again
her conscience suddenly accused her
and she clapped her hands over her
ears. She waddled away through the
grass as fast as she could, still hold-
ing them there.

It was past sundown and late for
women folk to be out alone when she
came up the stone flagging and
knocked at Keziah's door. It stood
open, and Keziah was in her little
chair by the window. She did not
see anything of Andrew. He was
fast asleep, hugging to his breast a
bag of marbles.

Since Knowing You

By Helen A. Saxon

Since knowing you, I know myself no more,
All that I was, the sin and sloth denied,
The insincerity, defiant pride,

Indifference behind the mask I wore,

The selfishness but half-rebuked before
You came, the callousness so long defied,
And all the ugly train I fain would hide,

Into love's crucible at last I pour.

At once my pain and gain ! For sin confessed

Is sin repudiated, all its sting
And power made void ; this is love's great test,

Its sacred task, its dearest offering.
Behold me, then ! The germ of all my best

Lies hidden in the worthlessness I bring.

Bridges— Ancient and Modern

By Clyde Elbert Ordway

IT has been said that the building
of good roads is the first and
surest evidence of the advance of
civilization. It is quite true. It was
the Appian Way, over which flowed
the tide of humanity and traffic from
the Eternal City to the borders of
the Empire and even to the distant
ends of the earth, that helped in
large measure to make Rome the
mistress of the world. From that
time, down to this age of the newest
turnpike or highway on our Western
frontier, public roads have been the
forerunners of social and industrial
progress.

But side by side with the building
of roads there has been the necessity
for bridges to span unfordable
streams and impassable gorges and
chasms. So that the art of bridge-
building has been, equally with the
making of roads, a factor in the
spread of civilization. He who would
trace most accurately the expansion
of commerce and the spread of in-
dustry and social life in any country,
will do it by following the history
and progress of making roads and
building bridges within its limits.

Bridge building is so early an art
that it is of little use to speculate on
its origin. The necessity of bridges
arose with the building of the first
road and the awakening of traffic,
and the exigency was early met, as
the varied and crude forms of
bridges which date from antiquity
indicate. The earliest bridges were
those of stone, types of which are
still extant in ancient China, Persia,
Greece and Italy. The first forms

were those of stone slabs stretched
across the narrow stream or chasm,
which style soon developed into the
solid arch of masonry now still con-
siderably in vogue and recognized as
the most enduring bridge ever con-
structed.

The Chinese have long been famil-
iar with the art of bridge-building,
and their bridges are noted for their
extreme length and size. "They
have," says a writer on the subject,
"bridges of great magnitude and
high antiquity, so old that their
origin is unknown." And he tells of
one in China that is built from the
top of one mountain to another, with
an arch of six hundred feet span and
seven hundred and fifty feet high.

The arch in bridge construction
was known as far back as the age of
Pericles, though none of the bridges
of that early period now exist. Traces
of them are found, however, in an
occasional ancient ruin. One of the
most famous of the stone arch
bridges of early times still existing
is that spanning the Tagus River at
Alcantara, Spain, which was built in
the year ioo A. D., in honor of Tra-
jan, the popular Emperor. This
bridge is six hundred and seventy
feet in length.

Wooden bridges were also built
in early times, but are not so com-
mon, and do not date back so far as
those of stone. A historic bridge of
this class was that of Caesar over the
Rhine, built in 55 B. C, and de-
scribed in his Commentaries. Almost
of necessity, owing to a lack of
knowledge, skill and tools, the

548

550

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

wooden bridges of the earlier cen-
turies were of the plain girder type
and without artistic design or nat-
ural beauty. The earliest example
of scientific bridge-building with
wood was the famous structure over
the Rhine at Schaflhausen, which
was designed and erected in 1757 by
a common carpenter. This is one of
the most celebrated wooden bridges
ever constructed, and marks the be-
ginning of the era of wooden bridges
which ended only within compara-
tively recent times.

Cast-iron followed wood as a ma-
terial in the erection of bridges, and
this was in turn followed by
wrought-iron, while in recent years
steel has largely supplanted all
other materials in their construction.
The first cast-iron bridge was built
over the Severn River at Coalbrook-
dale, England, in 1773-77, and cre-
ated a new interest and enthusiasm
in the art.

Another type of bridge which is
unique and interesting is that made
of rope ; it is found in a few instances
in India and other regions abound-
ing in high mountains and deep and
narrow gorges.

This style of bridge is not notable
for its antiquity — which its crude-
ness would indicate — so much as for
the illustration it furnishes of the
backward civilization and primitive
methods of certain peoples, even in
modern times. One of the best ex-
amples of the rope bridge is that
over the Kishangaugu, Shardi, India.
This is to-day the chief form of
bridge in the regions mentioned.

An instance of the engineering
skill and quaint genius displayed in
the art in early times and under
primitive conditions is shown in the
bridge over the Euphrates River,
within the city of Babylon. This
river divides the city in halves, and

in addition to the great wall that sur-
rounds the entire city, two lesser
walls, of considerable height, how-
ever, run parallel to either bank of
the stream. During the reign of
Queen Nitocris a bridge was built
over the river, connecting these two
walls. It is told that the bridge was
composed of movable wooden plat-
forms laid on piers and abutments,
and that they were removed at night
to prevent thieves from crossing.
The piers were built by turning the
river into an artificial basin thirteen
miles square, which had to hold the
volume of water that flowed between
the banks for a time sufficient to
allow the construction of the piers
and abutments, — a feat of calcula-
tion and engineering which would
not be considered mean by experts
of the present age.

In the eleventh and twelfth cen-
turies, bridge-building awoke to a
new life with the revival of architec-
tural and engineering skill which
marked that period throughout
Europe. This renaissance was
earlier in France than elsewhere and
more pronounced, and large num-
bers and fine specimens of bridges
in that country at the present time
testify to this fact. During the period
referred to it was considered in
France as pious to build a bridge as
to erect a church, and a matter that
was accounted as worthy the grant-
ing of indulgences. The clergy, mon-
asteries and communes joined in
this work and a bridge-building
brotherhood was formed on the erec-
tion of the famous bridge of Avig-
non.

It is, however, only in compara-
tively recent times that the architec-
tural and artistic treatment of
bridges has come to occupy a prom-
inent place in their construction.
Until what may be called distinctly

552

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

modern times, bridges have been re-
garded as purely utilitarian struc-
tures. They were considered and
constructed entirely from the point
of view of usefulness and efficiency.
It was not a question of how they
would look but of what they would
hold and how long they would last.
"Even the mediaeval bridges which
we have regarded as picturesque
were," says a writer, "to the men
who built them, only the best prac-
tical method of building according to
their knowledge and requirements."
But of late there has arisen the
notion that the bridges of a city, in
public parks and private estates
might add to the architectural char-
acter and artistic beauty of the scene.
A solidly-built arched stone bridge
is in itself a structure possessing nat-
ural beauty, which is disfigured only
when attempts to "ornament" it are
made. But the demands of modern
traffic and navigation have made it
impossible always to have the stone
arch bridge, while the cheaper cost
of iron and steel have made stone in-
expedient in the field of lighter and
more ornamental bridges. So atten-
tion has been more particularly
turned toward how to make beauti-
ful the modern iron structures of
long spans and wide ways which
commerce and travel must have. As
an indication of the extent to which
the art idea has gone in connection
with bridges, in Saint Petersburg de-
signs for new bridges have lately
been thrown open to competition
among architects of all nations, — a
significant and remarkable step for-
ward for the nation of the Czar; in
New York designs for new bridges
must be under the supervision of a
very accomplished architect attached
to the Bridge Commission, and in
addition must receive the approval
of the Art Commission ; in Paris the

art idea has become so dominant
that all the permanent bridges, ex-
cepting the railway Viaduct, are
architecturally beautiful. So pro-
nounced is this that it may almost be
said the city takes the lead in the
artistic nature of her bridges.

As France was the first among
the nations to experience the revival
of bridge-building in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, Paris, her
Capital, naturally became the scene
of many of the country's finest speci-
mens of the art. Paris may well be
called the city of bridges, the Seine
River being spanned by thirty-two
such structures within the limits of
the city.

The most celebrated and ancient of
these is the Pont Notre Dame, which
was erected in 1500. Another, per-
haps more striking but not so old,
and without the historic significance,
is the Pont Neuf, which was begun
in 1758 and completed by Henry IV.,
in 1604, and which was thoroughly
restored in 1852. This bridge is
1,080 feet long and abuts near the
middle on a small peninsula planted
with trees, which form a beautiful
background to the noble equestrian
statue of Henry IV. standing in
the central open space on the bridge.
The most striking and recent of the
bridges that adorn the city is the
Pont Alexander III., which was
named in honor of the Czar. This
structure is said by one authority to
be one of the most masterly exam-
ples of metal-work design in exist-
ence. To the fine palaces, long
boulevards and quaint, historic
quays of Paris, dating, as do two of
them, to the fourteenth century, the
large number of beautiful bridges
are a fitting addition. The Paris Ex-
position in 1900 brought into exist-
ence the Exposition bridge, which
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of the great exhibition, and undoubt-
edly stimulated interest in the art
side of bridge construction, as did
also the exhibit of the other nations
in this field on that occasion, and the
publication at the time, by a distin-
guished German, of a work called "A
Hundred Years of Bridge-building
in Germany." In this, as in the
other world-expositions since,
bridges have occupied a prominent
place and clearly marked the me-
chanical and architectural advance
of the age.

In spite of the interest and enter-
prise in the subject, two factors have
interfered with the full progress of
the artistic in the construction of
bridges in modern times. These are
the rise and rapid spread of the loco-
motive railroad and the almost uni-
versal adoption of iron as a building
material. The superseding of the
old stone arch bridge by the modern
iron one in its various forms, which
railroad conditions and the cheap-
ness of iron demand, has made it im-
possible to retain the artistic beauty
that characterized the former class.
So we are still compelled to look for
the artistic and beautiful in the art
of bridge-building to the essentially
artistic and picturesque structures
composed of granite and masonry.
From an architectural and artistic
point of view the railway iron bridge
must constitute a class by itself and
remain more or less defective, for
the special conditions and require-
ments it is built to meet, at present
at least, exclude it from the class
that can be rendered beautiful in de-
sign and execution.

A professor of engineering in the
University of Edinburgh, writing in
1876 on the subject of bridges,
after dwelling upon the remarkable
progress that has been made in re-
cent years in the engineering depart-

ment of bridge construction, both
above and below the water's surface,
says : "In one direction it may be
said that everything remains to be
done. The genius has still to come
who shall teach us how our metal
structures may be made beautiful."
That engineers and architects are
devoting time and thought to this
end is evidenced by every new struc-
ture that appears. One step has been
taken in this direction by the recog-
nition of the fact that much is added
to the beauty and artistic effect of
bridges by suiting the build of the
structure to the run of the water,
and that attempts to ornament spoil
rather than enhance the effect. Ex-
perience has proved that metal
bridges cannot be made artistic, but
are only rendered vulgar, by at-
tempts at pure ornamentation. Pure
structure, which illustrates the
forces of nature and the laws that
obtain there, is never in bad taste,
though it may not, in many cases,
be artistic and beautiful. The plain
frame of the metal bridge that ful-
fills the above requirement is more
attractive and artistic than when it
is ornamented and thus given a gew-
gaw effect. Suspension bridges, like
the stone arch ones, have a certain
artistic beauty within themselves, if
let well alone in this respect. And
fortunately for the success of art and
natural beauty in bridges, engineers
and architects are more fully recog-
nizing this fact.

In view of the foregoing, it is nat-
ural that we should find some of the
most interesting and beautiful
bridges in historic sections of the
Old World, and dating from medi-
aeval times either in actual construc-
tion or style of architecture, when
stone was the building material and
the graceful arch the model. Much
of the beauty of bridges and not a

556

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

little of their artistic effect depends
upon their setting as well as upon
their style, and it is this that gives
to certain old and historic bridges
the element of poetry and romance
which many people feel is there. In
France, in addition to those men-
tioned in connection with Paris, we
find numerous bridges of this char-
acter, which, taken with their set-
ting, furnish scenes of great beauty.
Such an one is the old bridge over
the river Lot, at Cahors, with its
three towers. These towers, stand-
ing one at each end and one in the
middle of the bridge, were built by
the people for defense against their
enemies, and are suggestive remind-
ers of the life and conditions of the
time they represent. Other bridges
in this region are those over the
Tarn River at Albi, and one of more
than passing interest, because of its
size and architectural nature and
surroundings, is that at Perigeux.
The Pont De Garabit, at Cantal, is
one of the greatest and most notable
in France. It is of great height and
extreme length, and of bold, com-
manding beauty, constituting one of
the best examples of the age of the
combining of engineering achieve-
ment and artistic excellence.

A structure of historic interest and
architectural beauty is the Pont Du
Gard, near Nismes, France, a city
particularly rich in Roman remains.
The Pont Du Gard is the old Roman
Aqueduct, which is renowned for its
age, magnitude and architectural
construction. In Nismes are also
found an amphitheatre of great size,
the temple of Maison-Carree, and
baths, all remains and reminders of
the life and times when Rome dom-
inated the civilized world. But the
old Aqueduct is the most remark-
able as it is the most noted and best
preserved of these remains.

In Switzerland there are two
bridges of note because of their me-
chanical skill and architectural
beauty. Both of these structures are
prize designs; they are the bridge
over the Rhine at Basle, and the Via-
duct from Berne to the Lorraine
quarter. In these are well illustrated
the skill in modern metal-work in
bridge-building and the graceful
curves and artistic form of the
earlier stone arch period, while they
mark distinctly the advance of the
little Republic of the Alps.

In England there are a few bridges
noted for their age or size or archi-
tectural development, the most con-
spicuous of these being, of course,
the famous London bridge. The
great majority of bridges in Eng-
land, however, are more notable for
their historic and poetic associations
and their quiet, picturesque beauty
than for their size and ostentation.
In England, perhaps, more than in
any other country, one realizes the
poetic and romantic that is associ-
ated with bridges. A group of
bridges that illustrate this fact and
that are individually beautiful in
form and structure, as well as rich
in association, are those over the
Cam River, near Cambridge. It
is from this river and its bridges
that the famous University city
takes its name. The group includes
Clare, Trinity, King's and Queen's
bridges, the three latter being named
from colleges of a corresponding
title included in the University of
Cambridge. They are each of strik-
ing natural and architectural beauty,
and what associations the mind can
conjure up as one thinks of the long
line of ancient worthies and world-
renowned men, who, as students in
those colleges, passed to and fro
over their picturesque arches and
lingered thoughtfully on their rails,

558

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

while to-day, on these same quiet
waters, and under these same noble
arches, are enacted the gay scenes
of the regattas and aquatic sports of
rival Universities.

In the Paliadian bridge of Wilton
House, Wiltonshire, we have a fine
example of the many beautiful
bridges that adorn private estates in
England, a class in which utility and
engineering skill are secondary to
beauty and the artistic and archi-
tectural reach their height.

It is a gruesome change from the
thought of bridges as works of art
to that of the Pagan custom of build-
ing living human beings into the
masonry of the structure, and yet
evidence has been found in the
records and reconstruction of some
of the oldest and most famous
bridges of the Old World that in their
original erection this barbarous
practice was followed. "Walled in"
and "broken down" are phrases that
occur in early accounts of certain
bridges, and are said to refer to this
custom.

This inhuman method of walling
living people into the stonework is
supposed to have been practiced for
the purpose of insuring permanence
to the bridges, and the old song,
"London Bridge is Broken Down,"
indicates that the earlier structures
of this bridge were built in this man-
ner.

Accidents, too, form a chapter of
unpleasant reading on the subject of
bridges. The frightful disasters of
the Tay in Scotland and Ashtabula
in the United States are still freshly
and painfully remembered, and
many others of less terrible conse-
quences darken the annals of bridge
history. But these calamities are
confined almost wholly to railroad
traffic and are fortunately growing
more and more infrequent with the

advance of scientific skill in their
construction.

Military bridges constitute an in-
teresting and separate division in the
history of bridges and the art of
their construction, but these have
been largely temporary and with
little of the scientific, and pic-
turesque connected with them, and
we are now more concerned with
bridges which indicate the spread of
peaceful traffic and happy travel
among prosperous peoples, and
which represent the higher values
and progress of the scientific and ar-
tistic in this world-old art. And in
nothing perhaps, more than in her
bridges, is the advance of these two
factors in the Old World more dis-
tinctly illustrated. It is a develop-
ment that indicates the triumph of
the artistic over the commercial,
and attests a growing taste in the
people for the beautiful, even in the
common necessities of practical
civilization, which is encouraging
and in keeping with the other
phases of development that mark
modern progress.

In America the engineering side
of bridge-building has received
much attention and made rapid
progress. Some of the greatest
feats of engineering and scientific
skill in the history of the art have
been accomplished in the erection of
some of the American bridges. But
the development of the artistic and
picturesque in this field is only be-
ginning in the New World, its chief
illustrations being found in the
bridges erected at the great exposi-
tions in Chicago and Buffalo, and in
the numerous beautiful and smaller
ones in the many park systems of
the United States.

This lack of the beautiful in
American bridges is due very large-
ly to the fact that here civilization

FIFTY YEARS' WRESTLE

561

had not well started until iron be-
gan to be extensively used as a
building material and was therefore
early employed in the erection of
bridges instead of stone, thus de-
priving the country of the beauty
and grace of the stone arch which
is so common in the older bridges
of the Old World.

Two unique specimens of the
bridge building art in America are
of much interest and worthy of
mention : these are the old floating
bridge at Lynn, Massachusetts and
the black walnut bridge over Pine
Creek in Warren County, Indiana.
The former of these was built in 1802
and is said to be the only structure
of its kind in existence. It was
built because it was supposed the.
pond which it crosses was practi-
cally bottomless, and it was only in
recent years that soundings proved
that a modern bridge could be built,
which was done, and the floating
one discarded, though still greatly
prized as a local curiosity. It was

originally five and one-half feet
thick, but it has been so many times
repaired with three-inch planks that
its thickness is now seventeen feet,
and the entire structure is so water-
logged that a light team passing
over it causes it to sink below the
water's surface. It is 511 feet in
length, and was built in three sec-
tions, floated into place, and secured.
The secondof these unusual bridges
is built entirely of black walnut and
is the most expensive wooden bridge
in the state of Indiana, and probably
in the United States. No one seems
to know just when it was built, but
it was certainly over a half century
ago, and at the time when black
walnut was abundant in that region.
It is from 150 to 200 feet in length,
and the timber alone in it is worth
from twelve to fifteen thousand dol-
lars. Lumber dealers have repeat-
edly tried to get possession of it, and
bridge companies have offered to re-
place it with an iron structure,
taking the timber in payment.

A Fifty Years* Wrestle

By Maude E. Smith Hymers

<T TULLO,

1 J_ breakdown ?" queried a

side.

pardner! Hed a
vn?" qu
friendly voice from the road-

Jack Hargreave looked up from a
fruitless tinkering with his auto-
mobile, and smiled. "Looks like it,"
he assented cheerfully. "I've been
taking lessons in driving a motor car
for the last three weeks and thought
I could manage the thing, but some-
thing has gone wrong and I can't
fix it."

"A little off its feed, mebbe," sug-
gested the old man whimsically.

"Perhaps," said Hargreave good-
humoredly. "Anyhow, it has balked,
leaving me stranded here, half-way
between my destination and my
starting point."

"There's no tamin' them things, I
guess," remarked the old man
sagely. "Always more or less of a
wrastle with 'em, same's there is
with a mortgage. A horse, now, or
even a mule, if you treat 'em well
an' speak kind to 'em, after a while
they'll git to know ye an' act like
they appreciated it; but ortomobiles
an' mortgages are the soullessest

562

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

things I ever see, an' I know, for I've
wrastled with one for nigh onto fifty
year."

"Wrestled with a . mortgage?"
smiled Hargreave, throwing down
his tools, prepared to abandon the
unresponsive car to its fate.

"Yes, sir, an' the worst kind of
wrastlin', too ; many's the time I've
thought it was goin' to down me, but
I've conquered in the last round.
Fifty years is a long time, but I've
got it winded at last, an' got the
papers in my pocket that makes me
a free man once more — but look here,
man, which way was you a-goin'
when that thing run down with ye?"
the old man broke off to ask sud-
denly.

"I had started for Detroit," smiled
Hargreave.

"All right," said the old man
heartily, "jump in here an' I'll have
ye there in two jerks of a lamb's tail.
Ol' Pete an' the buggy ain't so
young as they used to be, but we all
harmonize, as they call it, an' we're
good for an extra passenger. Climb
in!"

And Hargreave climbed, while old
Peter clumsily cramped the ancient
phaeton, then started off with a
spurt of speed Hargreave did not
think was in him. Never a hand-
some horse, over-feeding had ren-
dered him pot-bellied and ungainly
to a degree that would bar him entry
to a beauty show, yet the old man
eyed him lovingly.

"Ol' Pete never'll be hung for his
beauty, mebbe, but he's a faithful
critter, an' I wouldn't part with 'im
for any o' your thoroughbreds, nor
for yer balky ortomobiles, neither.
No, sir, Peter an' me is good friends;
why, 'twas him that helped pay off
the mortgage."

Hargreave smilingly passed his
cigar case, a double invitation need-

ing no words for elucidation.

"Well, I dunno," said the old man
doubtfully, as he selected one. "My
choice is a good ol' corncob for
stiddy company, but I s'pose one o'
these things wouldn't hurt me."

"Yes, sir," he resumed, after Peter
had wisely waited for them to
light up. "Mebbe you'll think I'm
kind o' harpin' on the mortgage
string this mornin', but the fact is
I'm feelin' mighty good. Ain't felt
so light o' heart since the day Marthy
promised to marry me, over fifty
year ago ; an' it's all on account o'
gittin shet o' the mortgage. Come
to think of it," he went on philosoph-
ically, "mebbe that's what they're
put on us fer, jest so we'll know
what real happiness an' gratitude is
when we slip our necks out o' the
mortgage yoke. I ain't a young
man, as you can see ; goin' on
seventy-five," he explained proudly.
"But that mortgage has been
a-growin' for nigh onto fifty year,
an' seems so it got heartier every-
day.

"Ye see I got married kind o'
young, — a pretty woman Marthy
was, an' I couldn't be blamed for
wantin' her, but I ought to waited
till I got something laid up. I had
just two dollars to the good after I
feed the minister," — he broke in
with a half-shamed laugh — "but
mebbe that's as much as orae o' the
young blades begin on, if they do
make a bigger splurge.

"But the children commenced
comin' right off, one arter another,
till there was nine of 'em, about like
a flight of stairs. Seems to me them
younguns caught about every kind
o' sickness they could git hold of, an'
I paid out about every cent I earned
to the doctor. Then Marthy got sick
an' was flat on her back for years,
an1 needin' so much nursin' an' medi-

FIFTY YEARS' WRESTLE

563

cine that nothin' to do but I had to
mortgage the farm I'd bought a year
or so after we wuz married.

"Even with the mortgage money
I wasn't able to have the operation
on Marthy's hip that the doctor said
would make a well woman of her;
all it would do was to keep the fam-
ily together an' make Marthy half-
ways comfortable. I tell ye, stran-
ger, them's the times that try men's
souls, as the poets tell about. When
ye see yer best an' dearest sufferin'
for lack of medical skill, an' you not
able to give it to 'em, though you'd
mortgage yer soul if that would help
'em, it's mighty hard not to do a
little covetin' of yer neighbors'
riches. I know we're told that money
is of no account, that it's only souls
that matters : the Good Book tells us
to lay up our treasures in Heaven, an'
ministers stand up in the pulpit an'
preach strong about the glories of
earthly poverty an' the joys of re-
nouncin' till it sounds mighty con-
vincing but I tell ye when ye see
them that's dependent on ye dyin'
for lack o' money that would bring
'em health an' strength, it looks to
me as though 'twould be more
Christian-like to be a little keener
on the money-gettin'. Why, the
man wouldn't be wuth his salt that
would be satisfied to lazy around
Heaven rememberin' that he'd let
the wife he'd vowed to cherish
suffer for lack o' money while he
put in his time prayin' for the wel-
fare of his soul, or hern either. I
tell ye, there's too much said now-
adays about scornin' filthy Lucifer !"

The old man doubtless meant
lucre, but Hargreave could not smile
at the error.

"Twa'n't 'cause I didn't try that I
didn't git ahead, but I've had set-
backs all through. About the time
Marthy was able to be around, a

little one of the little fellers died, an'
I had to slap another mortgage on.
An' that's the way it's gone. God
knows, I wasn't afraid of work, —
look at them hands, stranger ; would
ye think they'd put in their time
lollin' over billiard tables an' sich?"

Hargreave looked from the horny
hands held out for his inspection, to
the bent shoulders and twisted legs,
then back to the seamed old face,
and his throat tightened.

"No shirking there," he said
solemnly.

"No, I don't think I shirked,
though mebbe I made some mistakes
in cal'latin' — I never was much on
Aggers — but I tried hard, an' if in
the end my Master says of me, as I
say of ol' Pete — 'he was a faithful
critter' — it's the best I can expect."
The voice trailed away into huski-
ness, and Hargreave cleared his
throat.

"But the mortgage kep' gittin'
bigger instid o' shrinkin', till it was
all I could do to keep up the interest.
None of us had many luxuries ; even
the younguns seemed to know they
mustn't expect candy an' things ex-
cept at Christmas time, an' Marthy
— well, Marthy never seemed to
want anything like other women ! I
didn't smoke them days, though I
liked it well's the next one, an' I
even swore off on peanuts. I was
powerful fond o' peanuts as a young-
ster, an' my mouth has fairly watered
for 'em some days when I've been in
town an' smelt 'em roastin' at that
Eyetalian's store. But I conquered
the appetite, promisin' myself a good
feed on 'em soon's the mortgage was
paid off."

"Well, then you will allow me to
treat, I hope," said Hargreave ear-
nestly.

The old man turned a half-humor-
ous, half-sorrowful look on his com-

564

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

panion. "Stranger, you're too late,
for I went an' bought ten cents'
wuth soon's the writin's wuz in my
hands."

He paused, and Hargreave waited
expectantly. "Yes, sir, went an'
bought a pound, an' then found that
I couldn't eat 'em after all. No
teeth, ye see !" he exclaimed, turning
a comprehensive glance on Har-
greave. "Been a-gummin' it now
for eight year, — git along all right
on common vittles, but when it
comes to peanuts, — they won't
gum."

The tone redeemed the words
from the ludicrous, and again Har-
greave was silent from sympathy.
To him the little story of sacrifice
was a tragedy.

"Ye-uh, seems kind o' tough to
mortify yer appetite so long, then
have to tantalize it after all. Seems
most as if 'twould be kinder o' Provi-
dence to take away the likin's along
with the emplement to gratify 'em.
But there, I ain't complainin' so
long's I got the mortgage paid off.
Seventy-five years seems pretty old
to be a-wrastlin' with mortgages,
but freedom comes good even yit. If
it had only come early enough for
Marthy— G'wan, Pete!" he broke off
brusquely, "you're almost home
now."

"It was good of your sons to help
you out," said Hargreave after a
moment, flicking the ash from his
second cigar.

The old man turned a pained look
upon his companion. "Don't, stran-
ger. Ye mean well, I know, but that
hurts wust of all. I spent a good
many years dreamin' o' that myself,
but dreams never come true, ye
know." He smiled wistfully. "No,
the boys left me soon's they could
earn for themselves, an' when I tried
to collect wages once or twice, bein's

they wuz under age, they run away,
an' I never heard from 'em ag'in,
only incidental like. No, the boys
said they didn't owe me nothin' —
mebbe they didn't; I can't say —
seem 's if I done all I could for 'em,
but mebbe I made mistakes, as we're
all bound to. One thing about it
makes me thankful, though, — they
wasn't to blame fer their mother's
lameness — did I tell ye she was alius
lame from that hip disease?"

Hargreave nodded. "I under-
stood," he said huskily.

"No, 'twas too late for money to
save her when the boys got big. If
it hadn't been, an' they'd still run
off, I'm afeard I could find it in my
heart to cuss my own flesh an'
blood." He brushed the sleeve of his
"jumper" across his eyes and cleared
his throat.

"But that ain't neither here nor
there," he resumed cheerfully. "The
main fact is that the mortgage is
lifted. Me and Marthy done it —
with Peter's help," he added, with
an affectionate flick of the whip on
a leathery shank. "Done it by hard
work and goin' without things we'd
liked ; an' that's what life means to
most of us, — hard work and goin'
without" — he broke off musingly.

"After the younguns left home I
begun to pick up ; sold off some o'
the land an' applied that on the
mortgage, then turned my hand to
market gardenin'. Prices was high
on garden truck an' small fruits for
some years back, an' I just laid by
money till yisterday I planked it all
down and ast for my papers. Happi-
est day I've seen since I was a
youngster. Now if I could only
give Marthy a sound hip ag'in I'd
be the happiest man in Michigan."

Hargreave was silent, but his
heart ached in sympathy.

"But Marthy says I must stop

FIFTY YEARS' WRESTLE

565

frettin' about that an' just count my
marcies, an' the biggest of all is
freedom. Why, pardner, the sun
shines a heap brighter than it did
when my eyes was younger, an'
them bird songs is jest a echoin' the
hallelujahs in my soul."

Hargreave held out his hand im-
pulsively, and the old man put his
reluctantly into it, as though half-
ashamed at his display of feeling.

"Well, if Peter ain't yanked us
into town before we knowed it. My
place is just a mile out; better come
out to dinner, — me an' Marthy'll
treat ye well," he smiled jocosely.

"I've no doubt of that," said Har-
greave heartily. "I can't just now,
but I'd like to come out before I
leave, if I may."

"All right, sir; glad to see ye.
Come out an' stop all night with us,
an' taste the nicest butter an' jells
an' things ye ever put in yer mouth.
Apples, too; I tell ye my Sweet
Mary apples can't be beat for eatin\"

Hargreave thanked him warmly
and assured him he would be out,
when the old man airily flicked the
somnolent Peter with the whip, sur-
prising him into a shambling trot,
and the ancient outfit clattered away
in the dust.

But business detained Hargreave
longer than he thought, and two
days had passed before he was at
liberty to make the promised visit.

"He said the second house beyond
the mill," mused Hargreave uncer-
tainly. "This must be the place, but
there are two young men in the yard,

and the old man said they lived
alone."

He was about to go on when
something caught his eye, a familiar
figure in the barnyard. It was old
Peter, shabby of coat and uncertain
of vision, standing at the gate, look-
ing wistfully toward the house, as
though waiting for someone who
was long in coming.

A nameless fear smote Hargreave,
and he turned anxiously toward the
house. Half-way up the path he saw
it, — that floating streamer of crape —
and instinctively he understood.

A cold-featured young woman
opened the door, and to his anxious
questioning told him that what he
feared was true, — the old man was
dead. Fifty years had been his to
wrestle with a mortgage stronger
sometimes than he, but only two
days in which to glory in his victory.

But what they did not tell him
was that the boys had come home at
last; come to benefit what they
might from the long years of "hard
Work and doing without."

Comparative stranger as he was,
Hargreave's eyes were full and his
heart hot with rebellion against cir-
cumstances, as he turned away from
the little place with its pitiful tell-
tale crape ; from the sobbing Marthy
in her wheel-chair, to the sorry horse
drooping disconsolately at the barn-
yard gate.

Fifty years' wrestling with a mort-
gage, and the mortgage was trium-
phant at last.

Amateur Genealogy

By Fannie Wilder Brown

Part I.
ITS INTEREST, VALUE AND SCOPE.

WHO can intelligently stud}
the history of his country
without wondering what
part his ancestors played in its
stirring scenes? Who can learn that
one of his own great-great-grand-
fathers marched out in response to
the alarm of Paul Revere, or that
another, in war-paint and feathers,
tipped a part of the tea into Boston
harbor, without a deepening con-
sciousness of the reality and near-
ness of those eventful days?

If your idea of genealogy is con-
fined to the "chapter of begots," you
will have wondered how it is possi-
ble that anyone should be suffi-
ciently interested in the subject to
devote any part of his leisure to it.
The names, and the dates of birth,
death and marriage, of one's ances-
tors, standing alone, can interest but
very few, and those merely as a mat-
ter of curiosity; it is only when the
bones of statistical genealogy are
clothed upon with the flesh of biog-
raphy that our ancestors are re-vivi-
fied and individualized; only when
biography is found to be an integral
factor in history that its study be-
comes deeply interesting and widely
significant.

Governor Bradford, in his "His-
tory of Plimoth Plantation," in the

thrilling account of the voyage of
the Mayflower, tells us: "In sundrie
of these stormes the winds were so
fierce, & ye seas so high, as they
could not beare a knote of saile, but
were forced to hull, for diverce days
togither. And in one of them, as
they thus lay at hull, in a mighty
storme, a lusty yonge man (called
John Howland), coming upon some
occasion above ye grattings, was,
with a seele of ye shipe throwne into
(ye) sea; but it pleased God yt he
caught hould of ye top-saile hal-
liards, which hunge over board, &
rane out at length ; yet he held his
hould (though he was sundrie
fadomes under water) till he was
hald up by ye same rope to ye brime
of ye water, and then with a boat
hooke & other means got into ye
shipe againe, & his life saved; and
though he was something ill with it,
yet he lived many years after, and
became a profitable member both in
church and comone wealthe." Hun-
dreds of Americans to-day trace
their descent from this "lusty yonge
man." Is he an ancestor of yours?

Was your grandmother's family
from the early settlers of Essex
County, perhaps of Salem? What
part did they take in the witchcraft
persecutions? Were they of Rhode
Island stock? What was their atti-
tude toward the persecuted and ban-
ished Roger Williams? If they were
of Lancaster, of Groton, of Deerfield,

566

AMATEUR GENEALOGY

567

where were they when the Indians
descended upon those towns, burn-
ing the houses and carrying away
captives? In whatever section they
lived, and whatever name they bore,
be sure that the events which to you
to-day seem but a lesson to be
studied were to them as real as was
to you the scarcity of coal a year
ago, or the fact that you had to walk
home from Keith's that stormy
night a few weeks since because the
cabmen were out on a strike. This
industrial warfare will also become
"history" to your descendants, who
will wonder, and perhaps be unable
to discover, what part you had in the
events which are taking place to-
day.

In taking up amateur genealogy,
you are working not for yourself
alone, but for those who shall follow
you. You may lay up money for
your descendants, and they will
spend it; you may leave them furni-
ture or jewelry and they will treas-
ure or wear it (or pawn it, if it is not
lost or stolen), it may be without
being at all sure to whom they are
indebted for it; you may live an
earnest, self-denying life which shall
have its effect in the character of
your descendants for generations;
but unless you do more than all this,
unless you or they call to aid the
science of genealogy, your great-
grandchildren may, and probably
will, not know your name. Though
public records to-day are so carefully
kept that far more is preserved than
formerly, yet there are names and
dates, relationships and circum-
stances, which you can remember or
easily ascertain, that appear only on
records so scattered that it would
take a long and perhaps partially un-
successful search for your descend-
ants to secure them. Unless you,
personally, make a record of it, much

of the information now stored in
your memory, and in the memories
of old people still living, may be lost
to later generations. What would
you give for a genealogical and bio-
graphical record made by your
grandfather, or by his grandfather?
Such will be the value of your record
to your descendants ; and more, be-
cause the appreciation of such rec-
ords is rapidly on the increase.

All genealogies may be divided
into two classes. The first, the
largest, the most familiar to the pub-
lic, begins with the immigrant an-
cestor of a family, and traces his
children, grandchildren, great-grand-
children, and so on, through succes-
sive generations, toward or to the
present. The daughters who marry
thereby become members of some
other family, and though custom
varies greatly in this respect, their
children are usually left to be re-
corded with that family. To this
class of descendant genealogies be-
long by far the greater number of
printed Family Histories and Gen-
ealogies, and the "trees" in which
the trunk represents the ancestor,
the main branches his children, the
sub-branches the children of each
main branch, and so on, down to the
little twigs, the growth of to-day.
Unfortunately, the labor and ex-
pense of compiling such a genealogv
is so tremendous, and the time and
money at the compiler's command
so inadequate, that the particular
line of your own descent is often
missing altogether; or if found, your
line is incomplete, or so full of errors
as to destroy your confidence in the
reliability of the work as a whole.
Moreover, your own line is so small
a part of the genealogy, and that one
family so very small a part of all
your ancestors, that the price of the
book (necessarily much greater than

568

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

that of books in general) seems to
you tremendous in proportion to its
value to you personally. The people
of whom it tells, though bearing
your family name, or that of your
mother, are most of them so re-
motely related to you that you not
only feel no interest in them, but
speedily become convinced that
genealogy is a dull study; you won-
der how anyone can care to know
about so many Toms, Dicks and
Harrys. It is to the second class of
genealogies that you should turn to
appreciate the fascination of the
science, and it is in these that ama-
teur genealogists find their avoca-
tion.

The second division is made up in
reverse order from the first. It is
ascendant genealogy. It starts with
the present generation, with your-
self (or with your children if you
wish to include your wife's ances-
try), and works back, along as many
of your lines as you wish to trace, to
the immigrant ancestor of each line.
Such a record deals only with people
to whom your relationship is vital,
and opens so many lines of research
that the opportunity to unearth in-
teresting and valuable material is
almost unlimited. Most genealo-
gists include more or less about the
brothers and sisters of each ances-
tor, as such information is of great
assistance in tracing and proving the
line, but other than these the work
is a record of those only from whom
you are directly descended, whose
blood flows in your veins, and whose
desires and thoughts, loves and
hates, are as truly a part of your in-
most self as the shape of this one's
nose, and the dimple on that one's
chin, are a part of your physical in-
heritance. To understand yourself,
you need to understand them. Who

were they, and what were their
lives?

The number of one's direct ances-
tors, to one who has not given it a
thought, is astonishing. Everyone
knows that he has or has had two
parents, four grandparents, and,
known or unknown, eight great-
grandparents; proceeding by the
same doubling of numbers in each
generation, in the tenth (which will
take you back in many of your lines
to the founding of Boston or the
landing of the Pilgrims, if you are of
Puritan or Pilgrim stock,) you have
five hundred and twelve, and in the
eleventh, one thousand and twenty-
four direct ancestors. You are de-
scended from each one of these as
directly and in the same degree as
from the one whose name you bear;
that is, you are just as truly de-
scended from your grandmother's
grand mother's grandmother, of
whom you may never have thought,
as from your grandfather's grand-
father's grandfather, the name line,
of whom you may be wont to say
proudly : "My ancestor served in
King Philip's War. He was scalped
by the Indians, and had to wear a
silver plate ever after, so that he was
called 'Silver-Headed Thomas.' ':
What happened to that great-great-
great-great-grandmother? Was she
hung as a witch in Salem, or did she
come over hid in a cargo of salt as a
Huguenot refugee, carrying in her
pocket the silver salt-shaker which
your Great-Aunt Keziah let you hold
for a little while when your grand-
mother took you with her to call on
summer festal days? Grandmother
and Aunt Keziah knew the history
of that salt-shaker, but they are both
dead now; the shaker has gone to
Aunt Keziah's grandchildren, in Ari-
zona, and you don't even know their

AMATEUR GENEALOGY

569

names. Your cousin Dorothy is one
of Aunt Keziah's grandchildren, and
Dorothy's mother, Aunt Catherine,
is still living, up in the western part
of Vermont near the New York line.
Aunt Catherine has a family Bible
that was her grandmother's; you
don't know where that Bible will be
sent when she is gone. Its record
gives her line, probably for several
generations. Get your genealogical
record started, and for a part of your
vacation trip this summer, go to
visit Aunt Catherine.

Part II.
THE AMATEUR'S RECORD.

For convenience in reference, and
saving time in writing and re-
writing, some form of charts or
blanks is almost indispensable to the
genealogist. Of these, there are sev-
eral kinds on the market, each hav-
ing its own merits and demerits, and
all requiring care in their use until
one becomes familiar with them.
They consist of a set of charts,
bound or unbound, each containing
spaces for the names, residences,
and dates of birth, death and mar-
riage of a certain number of ances-
tors, with a more or less confusing
system to show their relationship to
preceding and succeeding genera-
tions. The underlying principle is
the same as that in pedigree-charts
used by stock-breeders, but the
greater number of generations to be
recorded requires a more complex
system. Such charts should have
provision for the entering of the
authority for each item, and should
be accompanied by at least an equal
number of blank sheets for bio-
graphical sketches, civil and mili-
tary records, tracings of signatures,
etc. '

It is strange that the most valu-

able aid to the identification of in-
dividual ancestors — a good number
system — is wholly lacking in most
charts. This must be supplied by
the worker. With it, a record kept
in a common notebook, or on a block
of paper, becomes more satisfactory
than the most elaborate accounts
kept without numbering. The best
number system is the simplest, so
simple that any child can understand
it and use it. Start with the present
generation, whose ancestors are to
be recorded, as I. The father is 2,
the mother is 3. The father of 2 is
4 the mother is 5 ; the father of 3 is
6, her mother, 7; the father and
mother of 4 are 8 and 9, of 5 are 10
and 11. That is, the number of the
father is always twice the number
of the child, and that of the mother
the next higher number, which is
always odd ; the numbers of all the
males are even, those of all the
females are odd. The system may
be continued to any number of gen-
erations, and there is no conflicting
of numbers or difficulty of identifi-
cation. Its number is to be used
with the name of each ancestor on
the charts, in the biographical
sketches, or wherever a name may
appear. After using the ancestral
numbers for a time, one becomes so
familiar with them that he can tell
by them the generation to which an
individual belongs, and can also tell
of which of the four grandparents
he is an ancestor. In descendant
work, a small superior figure is used
after the Christian name of each in-
dividual to show to which of the
generations from the immigrant he
belongs, the immigrant being num-
bered *. The term "generation," as
applied to ascendant work, is a
ludicrous misnomer, but since it has
no antonym it is made to do duty in
direct contradiction to its meaning.

570

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Do not wait to secure a set of
charts before beginning your record.
Any common blank book will
answer for collecting your first in-
formation. Enter your own date of
birth, residence, brothers and sisters,
and any facts that will be interesting
to your descendants ; leave a page or
more for additional information, and
then write up your father; the date
of his marriage should be entered in
his sketch, and where he first met
your mother, but her birth and
parentage should be given in her
sketch, and there you will wish to
record something about her girlhood
and early surroundings. Don't for-
get to note the schools attended, so-
cieties and church of which each has
been a member, occupations, and
offices held. The places visited, cele-
brations attended, noted people met,
and the introductions of inventions
remembered, will all be interesting
to future generations. In your first
notebook, no attempt need be made
to give literary form to the sketches ;
jot down any points that may occur
to you, and work them together at
your leisure, after having collected
material enough to begin to feel
somewhat skilled in handling it.

One of the most trenchant and
memorable sayings of Josh Billings
is peculiarly applicable to the record
of the amateur genealogist: "It is
better not to know so much than to
know so much that ain't so." To
make a record that shall have any
lasting value, requires patient per-
severance, a nice discrimination as to
the value of conflicting evidence, a
resolute sifting out of interesting or
simply laudatory statements, and a
determination to ascertain and pre-
sent the truth. One must not jump
at conclusions. A certain writer,
basing his belief upon the statements
of Governor Bradford in the descrip-

tion of the Mayflower in a storm,
quoted in the first of these papers,
claimed that Hull is the oldest town
in New England — the Mayflower
"lay at hull" for several days before
going to Plymouth !

After working a couple of hours
in a Boston library one day last
month, a showily-dressed woman
turned to a professional and re-
marked smilingly : "It is a great sat-
isfaction to me to have found that I
am descended from thirteen of the
crowned heads of Europe," and she
waved her gilt-edged notebook tri-
umphantly. "I have the facts all
written down," she continued, and
bowed herself out to her waiting car-
riage. Of what value was her record?

If one waited to be sure of the re-
liability of each item before entering
it on his notebook, much valuable
information would be lost, but the
first and the second and the third
rule for the professional as well as
the amateur to observe is this : Each
item must be proved by references
from trustworthy sources, preferably
original records, before you can be
sure that it is correct. Enter all the
information that you can find about
your known ancestors. Write the
title, volume and page of your refer-
ences on the margin of your page,
and use a small superior letter oppo-
site each title and the same against
each item in your text or chart se-
cured from that volume. When you
have proved an item from a reliable
authority, check it in some way as
settled. Don't try to get history and
biography about individuals until
you have proved that you are de-
scended from them, and don't try to
search English records until you
have your line proved on this side
of the water.

If you collect your information in
a note-book or books, select good

AMATEUR GENEALOGY

571

paper that will not wear out before
you are ready to make your copy,
and provide yourself with charts be-
fore you have accumulated an un-
wieldy amount of material. Write
distinctly, leaving wide margins, and
don't crowd your work. If you have
to add more matter than can be well-
written on the page, make a note:
"Continued on p. 34," or whatever it
may be, and on that page note:
"Continued from p. 10." Remember
that the value of your permanent
record will depend on the legibility
and accuracy of your rough work,
and also that the permanent record
may have to be made by someone
else, after all, and in that case what
you have done will be worthless un-
less it can be read and understood by
your successor.

For the permanent record, it is
better to use unbound charts, with
paper to match for the sketches,
than to attempt to use one of the
bound books made for the purpose.
If typewritten, use as soft a ribbon
as can print clearly, in order to get a
good quantity of ink on the paper;
if pen-written, use a coarse or stub
pen, for the same reason. Be sure
to use a good mineral ink. When
your permanent record is ready for
binding, include a supply of blank
leaves, for additions by later gener-
ations, have the binding done with
a view to durability rather than
showiness, and on its completion
you can feel that you have left for
the future a memorial more endur-
ing than granite or marble, and of
far more value to your posterity.

Part III.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

Professor Channing, in his recent
delightful lectures on "Early Amer-
ican History," speaking of the dif-

ferent statements made as to the
date and place of the birth of Chris-
topher Columbus, said that he had
come to the conclusion that Colum-
bus didn't himself know how old he
was. "How," asked Prof. Chan-
ning, "do any of us know when we
were born? We have to depend on
our memory of what we have been
told." However, most of us are
fairly well satisfied as to the evi-
dence for the date of our own birth.
For the births of our parents and
grandparents, many have family
records, or there is still living some
Aunt Catherine or Great-Aunt Ke-
ziah who can supply the informa-
tion. If not, we must "look it up,"
as we shall have to look up the
names and dates of those beyond the
range of such family records, written
or verbal, as are at our command.

The records of each city or town
show, or should show, the dates of
births, deaths and marriages which
have taken place in that town; since
1850, a return of such records from
the town to the state has been re-
quired in Massachusetts, and may
be found at the State House. These
recent records are quite complete,
but the earlier records are so incom-
plete that the absence of an item
from them is not evidence that the
event did not take place in the town.
The vital statistics of many of the
New England towns have been pub-
lished, and those of Massachusetts
towns already issued in the series
now being published by the Record
Commissioners can be found at any
public library or record office in the
state. Town and town proprietors'
books give town officers, votes and
orders, tax-lists, divisions of town
lands, etc. Many town histories con-
tain a genealogical record of the
principal families who have lived in
that town, and some histories give

572

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the ancestors, in the name-line, of its
founders. Church records, when
they are to be found, give marriages,
baptisms, and occasionally deaths
or burials, with admissions from
and dismissals to, other towns.
Sometimes cemetery records can be
found, and inscriptions on grave-
stones should be examined. In-
scriptions are among the least re-
liable of all sources of information,
as the date of the record is so uncer-
tain. Diaries of ministers or other
persons of intelligence, newspapers,
records of societies (notably the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company), and lists of passengers on
incoming ships, are among other rec-
ords, printed or in MSS., which may
be found by the persistent investi-
gator.

In addition to Family Genealogies,
a valuable work called "Munsell's
Index to Pedigrees" gives, alphabet-
ically arranged under surnames, a
list of books, with volume and page,
containing pedigrees (that is, rec-
ords of two or more generations) of
that family. Sometimes several col-
umns of references are given under
one name, and in that case those
books should be selected for exam-
ination which seem from, their title
to be of the locality or class most
likely to be helpful ; you would not
find anyone so recent as your great-
grandmother in Savage's Genealog-
ical Dictionary, and would not be
likely to find help on an Essex
County family in the history of a
New York town.

There are certain standard works
on genealogy which are invaluable ;
Savage, just mentioned, for the first
three generations of New England
families; Pope's Pioneers of Massa-
chusetts, for those who came to
Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay
Colony before 1640; more than fifty

volumes of "The New England His-
toric Genealogical Register" (a com-
plete index of which is now in press),
for genealogical, biographical and his-
torical matter on almost every fam-
ily in the country; five volumes of
"Mayflower Descendants," and four
of "Genealogical Advertiser," both
largely on Plymouth and Barnstable
County families ; the Essex Institute
Collections, and those of the Histor-
ical Societies of each of the New
England states; the Massachusetts
Bay Colony and the Plymouth
Colony Records, and for military
service, the state publications of
Revolutionary records. Histories of
certain of the "seed towns," towns
from which colonies were sent out
to form other towns, should be kept
in mind ; Wyman's "Charlestown,"
Davis's "Landmarks of Plymouth,"
histories of Hingham, Deerfield, and
many of the early Connecticut
towns, are instances. The books
mentioned in this paragraph may be
found in almost any of the larger
public libraries in New England.
The Boston Public Library has a
large collection of genealogical
works, including many valuable
English books. The New England
Historic Genealogical Society has,
including its manuscripts, the
largest and most valuable collection
of genealogical material in the coun-
try. Its library, at 18 Somerset
street, is open to the public, and
there one may consult and make ex-
tracts from its collections without
charge.

The value of statements made in
compilations depends upon the
known diligence and accuracy of the
compiler. Some books are so full of
errors as to be absolutely worthless
as authorities, but since even the
most faulty may furnish valuable
clues, they should be examined, and

AMATEUR GENEALOGY

573

their statements verified, item by
item, from original records.

Among the most valuable sources
of genealogical information, being
rich in material and absolutely trust-
worthy, are the land and probate
records. In Massachusetts these are
to be found at the county-seats, in
the court houses. Your great-
grandfather, John Higginson, in
deeding a piece of land, says it was
given to him and his brother Na-
thaniel by his father Jonathan, and
describes it as bounded by land of
the heirs of Thomas Miller. Now
you already knew that John Higgin-
son named his first boy Miller Hig-
ginson; you look again at Higgin-
son on the grantee index, and find a
deed from Thomas Miller to John
Higginson, of house and land
granted "for love and affection which
I do bear to my only daughter Su-
sannah, now the wife of the said
John Higginson" ; Thomas Miller's
wife Jane joins in the deed. You
cross the corridor to the Probate
Registry, and there find the will of
Jonathan Higginson, with wife
Nancy ; the will confirms to his sons
John and Nathaniel the land given
to them at their marriage; it also
gives to John a bit of swamp land
known as the Wheeler lot. Further
investigation shows that Jane, the
wife of Thomas Miller, was a
Wheeler, and you find a deed by
which Jonas Wheeler deeds the
swamp lot to his well-beloved son,
Thomas Miller. Such evidence of
relationship is indisputable: but the
entry on the town records of the
birth of a Jane Wheeler twenty
years before the marriage of Thomas
Miller to Jane Wheeler does not
show that the Jane who was born
was the same as the Jane who mar-
ried; she may have been an older

sister who died young, or a cousin,
or even of an entirely different fam-
ily ; and there is nothing in the entry
of marriage on the town records to
show that the bride may not have
been a widow, and not born a
Wheeler at all. The land records
are much more numerous than the
probate records ; in early days there
was almost no renting of property,
and cobblers and painters and
weavers bought and sold their hum-
ble homesteads and, all uncon-
sciously, thereby left a record of
themselves for posterity. The num-
ber of wills after the first two or
three generations is comparatively
small, but an administrator was
usually appointed and an inventory
taken ; occasionally a list of heirs
was recorded, often the setting off
of the dower of the widow, and after
her death a final division of the
estate, with receipts from the heirs.
The county court records give all
sorts of quaint information ; none more
valuable than the returns from the
towns of the new-comers who had
been ordered or warned to depart
from the town ; this does not in the
least indicate that the stranger was
looked upon as not likely to become
a desirable citizen, but that in order
to secure the town against becoming
liable for the support of anyone,
each new-comer was legally warned
out of town. If only the suspicious
characters were warned out, some-
one's feelings might be hurt, and
there might be a grave mistake some
day — even the town fathers were
not omniscient — but if all alike were
legally prevented from acquiring a
settlement, immunity from liability
was secured, and no one could com-
plain. The value of the warning
consists, for genealogical purposes,

574

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

in its usually stating the town
whence the stranger came.

State House archives show civil
and military service, signatures to
petitions, and in early years an
astonishing mass of miscellaneous
information. In Massachusetts, cer-
tain of the volumes have been care-
fully indexed, but there are still
others which must be examined page

by page in search of what you wish
to find. The great events of the
past may here be studied at first
hand, and the facts about your an-
cestors discovered from the records
of their families, churches, towns,
and counties, may be fitted at last,
each in its place, into the beautiful
mosaic of the history of New Eng-
land.

"The Days Gone By"

An Unpublished Whittier Poem with Introduction by Amy Woods

IN the series of poems by Whittier
which have appeared from time
to time in the New England we
now come to one written October n,
1828.

His first published poem, "The
Exile's Daughter,'' appeared in the
Free Press of Newbury port in June,
1826. It is not among the earlier
collections of his poems, but is in the
appendix of the Riverside edition,
1888. It was written when he was
but twenty years old and before he
had had an opportunity to become
familiar with any of the best litera-
ture of the world, excepting the few
religious books of his father's
library. These consisted of less than
thirty volumes, most of which were
dissertations on Quakerism and
which Whittier knew by heart. He
said of them, as he grew older, that
he loved their authors because they
were so saintly and yet so humbly
unconscious of it.

The editor of the Free Press, Wil~
Ham Lloyd Garrison, soon called
upon the Whittier household and
urged the father to give a classical
education to his son, but pecuniary
circumstances forbade the thought

of such luxury. Six months later,
Abijah W. Thayer, editor of the
Haverhill Gazette, sought him out
and made the same plea, to which
the older Whittier finally yielded,
giving his consent provided Whittier
should pay his own way. This
Whittier was able to do by making
slippers for eight cents (which sold
for twenty-five cents a pair), and it
is said that he reckoned on having
twenty-five cents left over when all
expenses were paid for the six
months at the Academy, and came
out with exactly that amount.

Years afterward Mr. Whittier,
writing to Mr. Garrison, said : "My
father did not oppose me : he was
proud of my pieces, but as he was in
straitened circumstances, he could
do nothing to aid me. My mother
always encouraged me and sym-
pathized with me."

That winter, however, while he
hammered and sewed, he thought
and wrote a most prodigious amount.
During the last two months before
entering the Academy he composed
ten poems, besides the Ode which
was sung at the opening of the new
building May 1st, 1827. No copy of

THE DAYS GONE BY

575

this ode is in existence, although at
the time it created much interest
that a song, sung at so important a
ceremony, should have been written
by a country boy who was about to
enter as a pupil.

These poems are crude, and gram-
matical structure has yielded to the
necessity of rhyme; but they should
not be criticised. It is not surpris-
ing that errors should have been
made. That they could have been
written at all is the wonder.

"The Days Gone By" shows
markedly the result of Whittier's
study. It was written the spring be-
fore he finished his two terms in the
Haverhill Academy, where he had
come in contact for the first time
with those books of history, romance
and poetry that had opened to him
such a vast field of knowledge. Here
he found an ample variety of sub-
jects for his versatile pen.

While in the Academy he studied
the usual English branches and
French, and he speaks in his later
years of his mingled feeling of "awe
and pleasure" on gazing for the first
time upon the well-filled shelves of
a private library. Think of the
pleasure of that brilliant, imagina-
tive mind when at twenty years of
age he became acquainted with
Shakespearean verse.

During 1828 a remarkable number
of his poems were printed, most of
which have been dropped from the
later editions of his work. Already
he had won considerable local dis-
tinction, and a good many of his
poems had been copied by other
papers. It is surprising how few of
those poems which first brought his
name to public notice are still in
print. Some years after the publica-
tion of his first book he became dis-
satisfied with these early writings,
and made great effort to recall the

entire edition, saying that they did
not seem like him. He went so far
as to pay five dollars for one copy,
in order to burn it, and debarred
nearly all from other collections of
his writings.

Two weeks after the date of "The
Days Gone By," a long poem, "The
Outlaw," appeared in the Haverhill
Gazette, it being the first to be
signed by his full name. Before this
he had written under a variety of
pseudonyms — u s u a 1 1 y "Adrian."
When he wrote in the Scottish dia-
lect he used "Donald," and at other
times "Timothy," "Micajah," "Icha-
bod," or "W."

It was in 1828 also that Mr.
Thayer purposed to publish a vol-
ume of Whittier's poems, entitled
"The Poems of Adrian." He pub-
lished a prospectus stating that the
proceeds would be devoted to assist-
ing the young author in getting a
"higher education," but he was in-
terrupted, the plan fell through, and
Whittier was obliged to "work his
way" unassisted. This he did by
teaching a district school in West
Amesbury throughout the winter
term of 1827-28, of which he says
afterwards : "I had rather be a tin
peddler and drive around the coun-
try with a bunch of sheepskins hang-
ing to my wagon." He also eked
out his income by keeping books for
a merchant of the town. In Whit-
tier a strong retrospective tendency
developed while he was yet in
school. He delighted in the old
things. He looked back at the past
achievements of the colonists and
revelled in their heroisms and ro-
mances. He loved the past and
dreaded change. In many of his
poems a plea for the past is voiced,
which later on was answered by
legends and historical tales of New
England from his own pen.

576 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"The Days Gone By"

By John G. Whittier

The days gone by — the days gone by — their mem'ry lingers still,
Like transient sunshine gleaming o'er the shades of present ill :
It stealeth upward from the waste which hurrying time hath made,
Like fragrance lingering round the flower whose beauty hath decayed.

Ye say that brighter chaplets now, on worthier brows entwined,
And that the march of time hath been excelled by that of mind —
Ye say the galling chains are broken that superstition wrought —
And man is glorying in the strength of unconditioned thought.

Ye say that gloomy bigotry hath lost its iron sway,
And priestcraft trembles in the light of intellectual day —
That man is disenthralled and free, and walks in might abroad,
Unshackled by oppression's chain and bending but to God.

It may be thus — a giant power hath gone abroad in wrath,
And visions of the olden times have vanished from its path,
The evil and the beautiful — the gloomy and the gay,
The light and shade of other days alike have passed away.

Ill

And yet I love the vanished past — I love to listen, when
The legends of its stirring scenes is told by aged men —
The hunter's tale of forest deed — the struggle with the storm —
His grapple with the savage bear and cougar's fearful form.

I love the spell that lendeth to each old familiar strain,

The dimness and incoherence of some mysterious dream,

That linketh supernatural things to native hill and glen,

That blendeth with the present view a glimpse of what has been.

Then let the tales of old be said, the songs of old be sung,
And guard each relic of the past that to your home hath clung.
The mem'ry of the noble hearts that slumber in the dust,
Aye, shrine it with life's purest things, — a high and holy trust.

Jamaica as a Summer Resort

By Maurice Baldwin

PART II

TIME was when the West Indi-
an planter received twenty
dollars a ton for his unrefined
sugar. This was the Golden Age of
the Caribbean islands. To this
prosperous era all of them owe
whatever agricultural development
they now possess and in Cuba only
has there been any appreciable ex-
tension of cultivable lands. Else-
where has existed merely the use or
the reclamation of the original plan-
tations opened by European and
American settlers during the first
half of the last century and the last
of the preceding one.

Slavery played an indispensable
and terrible part in the conquering
of the primeval tropical jungle.
Even the improved methods and
machinery of the present day do not
make this task an easy one. Mind-
directed muscle still has the first
place in combating certain forces of
nature. In Jamaica, Hayti, Santo
Domingo, and in all the lesser
islands the limits of cultivation
have changed but slightly in a
hundred years ; in many of them na-
ture has once more retaken the do-
main wrestled from her by the la-
bor and lives of thousands of Afri-
can slaves.

In the old days, during the flour-
ishing period of the sugar industry,
a vast work was accomplished.
Roads were cut, thousands of acres
were cleared and planted, great
houses, palatial and grand even
now, were built in the midst of

*Copyright, 1904, by Maurice Baldwin.

577

beautiful parks and gardens — im-
pressive memorials of a time when
the planters enjoyed an almost
feudal magnificence and style of
living.

On the sea-road from Browns-
town to Montego Bay — the western
port of the island — immense fields
of sugar cane are passed. They lie
in the valleys and look like over-
flowing streams of pale-green water,
billowing in the breeze with a
sibilant murmur as of surf.
These sugar estates will prove one
of the most interesting features of
the island industry to the traveler.
Nearly all of them are ancient, and
the fertility of the soil is evidenced
by the fact that for nearly two
hundred years, in many instances,
the land has given an uninterrupt-
ed harvest of succulent cane.
Orange Valley estate, not far from
Dry Harbor, is typical of most of
the working estates.

The land was cleared of the
jungle growth of mango and laurel
and banyan with machete and fire.
It is said in Jamaica that the trees
grow so fast that they pull them-
selves up by the roots, but no ordi-
nary plow could break through the
matted tangle that thickly covers
the earth. Powerful oxen and
strong men are needed to prepare
the ground. Women follow after
the plow and gather up the roots,
which are burned. The canes are
set from slips and a field, once
made, is good for the next hundred
years.

The harvest is a continuous one

578

N E W ENGLAND MAGAZINE

^mmmm

IN THE CANE FIELDS.

and the acreage of cane is generally
proportioned to the capacity of the
mill. At daybreak, from the tiny
thatched huts that are scattered
over every plantation, the laborers,
men and women, gather in the
court of the ingenio. The overseer
has the title of Busha, an African
word signifying master. He gives
his orders to the headmen, who su-
perintend different portions of the
work. All day long in the humid
heat of the fields the stolid creatures
labor. It is difficult to get the pres-
ent-day negro to work more than
two or three days a week, but in the
old slave days the lash followed, the
furrows from dawn to sunset, day
after day. May not the proverbial
laziness of the negro be merely an
hereditary result of the terrible and
exhausting labor of his enslaved
forefathers, whose poor brains and
bodies knew but one wish — to rest!
Transmitted weariness and nothing

else-

-vvho knows?

The canes are
cut with the
machete — the
most common
tool in the trop-
ics — a kind of
cutlass with a
heavy iron or
steel blade and a
wooden handle.
Carts convey
the juicy stalks
to the grinding
house, and be-
neath huge rol-
lers the juice is
expressed, run-
ning in pale-
green streams
to t he boil-
ing vats. An-
other corps of men attend to this
department. The sap is boiled in a
succession of great copper vats, re-
quiring constant stirring and skim-
ming. Nothing is lost of the pro-
duct after it is brought from the
fields. The stalks pressed dry are
used for fuel, the ashes for fertilizer
or soap, the skimmings and mo-
lasses of the sugar vats furnish the
material from which Jamaica rum
is made, and the manufacture of this
article, as far as the planter is con-
cerned, is the economic accompani-
ment of sugar making.

The power for running the ma-
chinery is about equally divided be-
tween steam and water, the large
number of rapidly flowing rivers
rendering this last a still advan-
tageous source of power. On one
estate — perhaps the most interest-
ing which the traveler sees on the
way to Montego Bay — the whole-
mechanical evolution of the sugar
industry may be followed. The

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

579

early English and Spanish colonists
had no steam to work by and the
machinery required for the use of
water was more elaborate than they
could at that time command. They
therefore built what in Jamaica are
called breeze mills — massive struc-
tures of cement and stone, whose
clumsy machinery was run by the
wind. Afterward came the turn-
mills, in which power could be ob-
tained without irregularity by the
use of mules and horses. Later came
the water wheels, and more recently
steam was put into use. On the
estate mentioned, not far from Fal-
mouth, these various sources of
power and the structures in which
they were used are still standing.

After the sugar and rum are made
they are put into hogsheads and
puncheons and taken to the sea-
shore for shipment. These caravans
of men and oxen form interesting
objects to the traveler.

At all of the estates at which one
stops there is a welcome from the
planter and his
family that im-
presses him with
the frank cordi-
ality and hospi-
tality of the peo-
ple. Tea and
cakes and fruit are
always presented,
and these expat ri-
at e d English
men and women
seem to enjoy
seeing persons
from the out-
si d e world.
Full of comfort
and pastoral

contentment, as most of their lives
appear to be, one can understand
that they must sometimes wish for
the more active life of the north.

The driver has meanwhile been
taking us through rapidly changing
scenery. We are now passing along
the plain of the northwest coast. The
road follows close to the sea, and
through breaks in the girdle of co-
coanut palms may be seen the fisher-
men in their canoes; narrow shells,
made of fire-hollowed cotton-tree
logs. These little canoes are similar
in most respects to the dugout
canoes of all savage islanders the
world over. Both oars and paddles
are used in their propulsion, and
considerable skill is required in
keeping them right side up ; they tip
over if one sneezes.

Just before arriving at Falmouth
the road crosses several pretty
rivers. The bridges are always pic-
turesque bits in the landscapes, and
at evening they are the favorite ren-
dezvous of dusky lovers. They are

A COLONIAL PLANTERS HOUSE.

580

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

usually shadowed by tall growths
of bamboo. One of the very love-
liest of these bridges is that which
crosses the Martha Brae River. Just
below this pretty spot one sees dur-
ing the day a characteristic sight of
Jamaica — the washing of clothes by
the native women. In the larger
towns there are laundries, but in the
little villages and the country one

the cold water and pound, with a
broad paddle, the dirt out and the
holes in. They get rheumatism for
doing it that way, poor things.

A little beyond Falmouth — which
is a sleepy and not particularly in-
teresting town — is the Rose Hall
estate. A grewsome and fairly
authentic story hangs about the
splendid old mansion, known as

NATIVE SUGAR MILL.

must entrust his linen to the rough
mercies of the local washerwomen.
The buttons might as well be taken
off before sending the things out —
they are coming off, anyway, when
the old aunties get them to the river
and pound them on the rocks.
Washing-boards and compounds are
unknown in the wilds of Jamaica.
The women stand with bare legs in

Rose Hall Great House, that stands
on a hill overlooking the sea, and
has been unoccupied for over half a
century. A century ago there dwelt
here a very beautiful and rich
woman, who died in the name of
Mrs. oRsa Palmer. She had borne,
so the story goes, four other names
and had outlived three husbands
previous to the acceptance of the

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

581

last one. These three men she had
murdered with her own fair hands
in the vast rooms of her palace by
the sea. A faithful slave of her last
husband, fearful for his master's life,
is said to have strangled this female
Bluebeard. The richest and one of
the most powerful women in the
island, law seemed unable to bring
her to account.

This strange house, with its four
wings, in which are twelve vast
rooms, floored and furnished in solid
mahogany; with its fifty-two doors,
carved, and ornamented with heavy
brass finishings; with its three hun-
dred and sixty-five windows that
seem to watch the landscape with
ruthless eyes; this weird memorial
of awful maniacal crime, long past,
but not forgotten, is one of the
sights in Jamaica that recall the
lawless period of early times when
life and property were held only by
superior force. From a time-dimmed
portrait in the great salon the visitor
can still feel the fascination of Mrs.
Palmer's strange beauty, and guess
at her subtle cruelty from the dark
eyes and the heavy red lips.

Nineteen miles further on is Mon-
tego Bay. It is second in size to
Kingston, lying at the western ex-
tremity of the island. It is a beau-
tiful city, has a famous harbor and
is the western terminus of the Ja-
maica railway. Oliver Optic and
other writers have found here much
historical material for their stories
of pirate life.

Everywhere along the streets
grows the omnipresent cocoanut
palm, and in the walled gardens of
the houses blossom a riot of tropical
flowers, hibiscus, cape-jessamine,
roses and lilies of every variety. To
enumerate the flowers that beautify
the island would take more knowl-
edge and space than we have at

MEMORIAL TO MRS. TROSA PALMER AT
MONTEGO BAY.

command. The air is heavy with
their fragrances, the sight is con-
stantly dazzled by their brilliancy
of color.

These tropical towns have a sur-
prisingly good municipal govern-
ment. There are always excellent
water works, lighting stations,
boards of health, sanitary and police
service. Montego has several fine
buildings, among them the Court
House, market, and several attrac-
tive church edifices.

The oldest church in the city is
the Parish Church of England, the
walls of which bear tableted records
of past generations of men and
women of astonishing nobility of life
and character, if the somewhat florid
memorials may be credited. There
is one beautiful piece of statuary by
Chantry and another by Bacon. The
famous Mrs. Palmer, with com-
mendable foresight, made her will
every time she killed a husband, and
when her estate was probated after

582

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

her own demise, it was found that
she had richly endowed this church
on condition that a monument to her
memory, for which she also pro-
vided, should be erected therein.

This condition was carried out by
her surviving husband, and one
notes the delicate irony with which
he states that this beautiful tribute
■ — a life-size weeping figure in mar-
ble— is a mark of his appreciation
of her worth (which was nearly a
million pounds sterling) and of his
gratitude (for the same), which
proves him to have been a man of
sensibility. A really strange thing
happened after this monument was
erected. Upon the pediment a mys-
terious stain appeared, to be seen to
this day, a stain dark red in color,
which cannot be erased; a stain like
that of dried blood.

Stock raising is one of the impor-
tant industries of this part of the
island, and the cattle are especially
fine. Shettlewood, an estate not far
from the city, is noted for the large
numbers of thoroughbred cattle of
various breeds raised there for the
markets and island dairies. The best
horses also come from this part of
Jamaica. The grazing is very fine —
the guinea grass, which is fed to the
horses and cattle, growing to the
height of five or six feet.

Goats are also raised in large
numbers by the natives and are al-
lowed to frisk up and down the ver-
dant slopes, where they find bounti-
ful provision. Goat's milk is used
in many of the boarding houses. An
acquaintance, whose lodging place
was situated at the top of a hill,
reached by a very steep path, said
that at first he was greatly fatigued
by the arduous ascent, but after he
had drunk goat's milk for a few
weeks he could run up and down hill
without any difficulty.

On another estate the Mysore
cattle of India have been introduced.
These are somewhat like the cari-
bou in appearance. Indeed, live
stock of all kinds find conditions in
Jamaica for their best development.
The owner of this estate, a wealthy
Englishman, has found his greatest
amusement in raising animals of all
kinds in the broad fields of his
"pen," as the estates are commonly
called.

With some friends we went one
Sunday night to a negro church near
this estate. The service had already
commenced, and the preacher, a fat
old darky, had evidently got a good
start on his sermon. Noticing our
entrance, he paused in his discourse
till we were seated well to the front.
Then he said : "Brudders and sisters,
Ah begs leabe ter interrupt mahsef
a moment ter exten' de right han' ob
Christian fellership ter de strangers
widin our gates. Ah wants ter say
dat it am alius a great pleasure ter
welcome our white brethren ter dis
humble house ob worship an' thanks-
givin'. De collection has done been
fooken up, but Ah think ef Brudder
Waldron will pass de plate once mo'
dat de house ob de Mastah will not
be fergotten. De serbents ob de
Lord should alius be on de outlook
fer de cheerful giver!"

We leave the carriage at Montego
Bay and take the Kingston express.
The speed of the train is as great as
may be, considering the constant
change of grade and the sinuous
course of the line. There is hardly
a half-mile of straight road until
Spanish Town is reached. It is one
hundred and forty-four miles from
Montego Bay to Kingston. The
road passes through a stretch of
mountainous and thinly populated
country. There are numerous tun-
nels and horseshoe curves and the

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

583

journey is full of varied interest, of
quaint and picturesque sights, of
lovely or impressive mountain scen-
ery.

The southeastern portion of the
island is the most populous. Span-
ish Town, fourteen miles from
Kingston, was at one time capital
of the island. The nominal capital
is now Kingston, but many of the

the seat of government was trans-
ferred to Kingston the people of that
city thought the most impressive
statue in the island should be there.
Admiral Rodney passed unharmed
through a hundred battles, but his
poor statue had both arms broken off
by his enthusiastic admirers. The
statue was finally returned to its for-
mer site and both arms bolted on.

HERTFORD CATTLE AT

Government buildings are in Span-
ish Town and the Governor resides
there. The most pretentious building
is the old Legislative Hall, in which
is the statue of Admiral Rodney.
The colonists felt a deep gratitude
for the Admiral's triumph over the
French, when, in 1784, they attempt-
ed to gain possession of the island.
They therefore commemorated his
victory with a monument. When

SHETTLEWOOD ESTATE.

Opposite the legislative hall is
King's House, the official residence
of the Governor, and probably the
finest building of its kind in the
West Indies. The Governor also
enjoys the possession of a countrv
residence, called Chrighton, up in the
mountains of St. Andrew. Person-
ally the Governor and his family are
charming people and are well dis-
posed to American visitors, but to

584

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

our democratic ideas the governor-
ship of a small British colony like
Jamaica seems not only a "snap,"
so to speak, but something of an im-
position. The "snap" consists in the
receipt of an income, with the per-
quisites of the office, equal to the sal-
ary of our President. And it is soon
apparent to the free-minded that an
English Governor is simply the

of August, 1794, amid great ap-
plause."

Very few remains of the Spanish
are now to be found. Here and there
the buttress of a fortification or some
fragment of a church decoration may
be seen, but little is left of the pal-
aces, theatres and prisons which
were reared by the lash-driven labor
of their slaves.

VISTA ON THE RIO GOBRE.

watchdog of an empire, and not the
representative of the people gov-
erned.

The principal church edifice in
Spanish Town is the Church of St.
Catherine, the oldest church in the
island; built on the old foundations
of a Spanish monastery. One of the
epitaphs in the church states that :
"Here lies the Hon. Horace Colbeck,
of St. Dorothy, who died on the first

The road from Spanish Town to
Kingston differs from every other in
the island. There is not a hill in the
fourteen miles of its beautiful ex-
tent. Off to the north rise the pre-
cipitous mountains of St. Andrew, a
harmony of vaporous blues and pur-
ples against a violet sky.

This alluvial plain of St. Catherine
is richly fertile, and many of the
most ancient estates in the island are

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

585

passed on the way
to the metropolis.
Tom Cringle's
Tree, a magnificent
specimen of the
silk cotton tree,
stands near the
road, shedding
acres of shade
around. It was in
this tree that that
once famous book
of adventure, "Tom
Cringle's Log was
written.

The Creoles who
live in this part of
the island are gen-
erally wealthy peo-
ple, of considerable

refinement; hospitable and happy. The
men oversee the work on their plan-
tations and find their chief diversions
in hunting, stock raising, and in poli-
tics. The women are indolent, but
are charming hostesses, and are fre-
quently beautiful. Their time is
taken up with mere living, dressing,
riding and dancing. They are not
often accomplished or highly edu-
cated, but they fulfil at least two of
woman's duties: they are good to
look at, and they dress with a charm-
ing simplicity of taste. A typical
Creole beauty has dark glossy hair
and languorous dark eyes. Her skin
is often very fair, with a ripe tint of
amber and of rose. With her dark
hair and eyes, her red lips and low
contralto voice, she is apt to be very
attractive, and is found to be a co-
quette always.

The country between Spanish
Town and Kingston is full of beauty.
The Rio Cobre is a stream to dream
upon. These little rivers are a reve-
lation of fairy-like beauty, of shift-
ing greens and golds and blues, of

POCK FORT — JAMAICA S PENITENTIARY.

soft orange-scented winds, of golden
light and variations of purple shade.
Flowers of every hue blossom lux-
uriantly everywhere. Bright-winged
birds flutter from tree to tree, and in
the air always is the pensive sad-
ness of the turtledove's coo. Negro
boys are ready to row the traveler
through the changing vistas of these
lovely waterways. Leaning back in
the slow-moving boats, one dreams
over all the old fugitive fancies of
the lotus eaters, of care-free and sor-
rowless days. The world is forgotten.
One lives in a lovelier, tenderer
world of his own. The air is balmy
with multiple fragrances — the out-
pourings of millions of tiny chalices,
of orange and lime blossoms, of
orchids, and of flowers of miles of
trailing vines.

Kingston is built in a fashion to
be seen in no city of America except
old St. Augustine. After the destruc-
tion of Port Royal, Kingston became
the important seaport of the island,
and it has one of the finest harbors
in the world. The earlv settlers of

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the town were pirates and their de-
scendants of to-day are cab-drivers.
After one learns that it is customary
for them to ask about four times
what is due, they are easily managed.
The city has a populace of sixty
thousand, composed of every people
in the world, the blacks, of course,
predominating. But for the heat
and dust, the city is an attractive

ings rise from the gutters and are
entered through ponderous gates.
All the dwelling places, even to the
ramshackle shanties of the washer-
women, bear fanciful names, after
the English fashion.

By far the most interesting thing
about Kingston is the strange jum-
ble of people who animate its streets.
The intermingling of races in the

NEW CASTLE: THE SUMMER HOME OF THE WEST INDIAN REGIMENT;
5,000 FEET ABOVE THE SEA.

one, containing many fine buildings,
good streets and lovely drives and
parks. There are street car, tele-
phone, and electric light services.
The streets are straight, but only in
the newer business portions are there
sidewalks. The result is that the
houses either overhang the road ; or
the high stone or iron walls that sur-
round the more pretentious dwell-

West Indies has produced a popula-
tion of great variety in color, and
from all parts of the world commerce
has brought representatives of every
nation to this largest of West Indian
towns. Negroes are numerous, and
in the streets and carriages are to be
seen ladies, very pretty and merry,
of Creole and half-caste birth.
Cubans and South Americans keep

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

587

little tobacco stores. East Indians,
transported from Burma by the gov-
ernment, wear the costume of
India, a turban and tunic of white;
the women, a dress of crimson, leav-
ing the arms and ankles bare, both
-of which are laden with bracelets of
silver. There are Indians from the
Mosquito and Nicaraguan coasts ;
refugees from revolutionary South
American republics ; Hayti's deposed
presidents usually live in Kingston,
and here lives "Prince" Clarence,
whom the British government pays
a comfortable pension to stay away
from his hereditary kingdom. Clar-
ence is a rather good-looking young
fellow, very dissipated, and has the
blood of ancient Aztec kings in his
lazy veins. And on the drives of the
city, late in the afternoon, carriages
pass, in which are seated charming-
looking women from the Windward
Islands, from St. Lucia and Mar-
tinique— quite lovely, many of them,
in a dusky way, and of all tintc of
warm olive and bronze-like brown.

Some of the streets seem more like
gardens than thoroughfares, and
much of the passing social life is en-
joyed at doorsteps and gates. The
languages heard are the Spanish
patois of the islands : the French of
Hayti and Martinique; the incom-
prehensible gutturals of South
American Indians; the liquid Hin-
dustani, and the Jamaican's drawling
and very correct English. And
among the variegate 1 throng in the
streets in the evening, haunting
cafes and drinking booths, there are
spruce-looking Englishmen from the
warships and the white regiments of
New Castle ; Zouaves from the black
regiment at Up Park Camp ; Jews of
Kingston, and tourists of every
nation.

The drive to Constant Spritig is
one of the most interesting in the

travelers' palm in castleton gardens.
it is but a short distance to Up Park
Camp, the headquarters of the colo-
nial troops, with the brigade and
other military officers. The troops
are a full body of stalwart black men,
whose uniform is a picturesque Zou-
ave costume, and theirs was one of
the prize companies at the Corona-
tion. The camp has good barracks,
very commodious, a swimming bath,
parade ground, hospital and every-
thing to make the lives of these men
of peace and plenty as endurable as
possible.

It is pleasant to go in the early
morning from Kingston to Port
Royal across the bay. Later in the
day the vertical light of the sun
seems to splash up from the wave-
less surface of the harbor with intol-
erable heat. But the ride across the
bay is full of interest. The panorama
of a palm-margined coast, of in-
dented shores, of quaint little white
towns nestling in greenery, of ser-
rated mountain lines, and the vast
vicinity of Kingston, and from here

588

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

blue tenderness beyond it all, en-
chants the eye.

Port Royal itself is not particu-
larly impressive. It is a little town,
situated on a narrow neck of land, a
few feet above the level of the sea. It
is a collection of white, stone and
wooden buildings, of narrow streets,
of palms and hibiscus. Only negroes
live here. The harbor is a splendid
one, protected seaward by a long
peninsula known as the Palisadoes.
It is the naval station of the colony
and has numerous fortifications and
a hospital.

Romantic historical associations
linger about the place. In this har-
bor lay the fleets of the early Spanish
explorers. The squadrons of Penn
and Venables anchored here and
gave the island to the English. Here,
too, was the haven of a thousand
pirate ships, and on its rude docks
were landed thespoils of Bahama, the
gold and silver of Spanish galleons,
the jewels and silks and varied treas-
ures of doomed merchantmen, the
booty of the conquest of South
American cities. The hulls of a
thousand ships are rotting in the
waters of this harbor, but of all the
strange and evil memories of this
town, the weirdest is that of the lost
city, which sank beneath the sea in
the twinkling of an eye.

The bay is smooth as glass where
the terrible tumult of angry waters
once rushed in upon the doomed and
unwarned town, and one can row
over the spot where, far below, sea-
weed and coral are shrouding the old
walls and gardens, the fountains and
baronial halls of the pirate strong-
hold.

Not far from Port Royal is Rock
Fort — a penitentiary where gangs of
prisoners work in the hot sun, break-
ing rock for road and building pur-
poses. It is an amusing crowd of

vagabonds which fill this institution,-
— they take their sentences gaily..
Punishment means little to a negro,,
unless it takes the form of starvation
or physical pain.

Several years ago the mortality
among the white troops was so great:
that it was thought a residence om
higher land than that of Kingston
would be beneficial, not only because
of the temperature, but because
much of the sickness among the
soldiers was due to their dissipations
in the city. One of the most re-
markable roads in the world was the
result of this, and the building of a
town on one of the peaks of the Blue
Mountains. Having arrived at the
foot of the mountain the road winds
around it seventeen miles in a spiral
course to the top. It is then neces-
sary to walk or ride horseback along
a path cut from the rock of the peak-
side, from the edge of which there is
a sheer drop of two thousand feet to-
the wooded valley below. It is a
nerve-trying ride for some, but the
little garrison town, five thousand
feet above the sea, is well worth a
visit and the view of the island is-
one of sublime beauty. The bar-
racks, the houses of the officers, and
a hospital constitute the town. The
buildings are made from the rock of
the peak itself. In the centre of the
place is the broad cemented area for
catching the rain, which is stored in*
a huge cistern at one end of it.

There are no words with which to-
give an adequate idea of the stupen-
dous landscape that lies outspread',
from every point of view. To the
south the Caribbean stretches away
to the horizon — a plain of misty
blue. The roofs of a dozen towns
gleam amid a wilderness of shifting
greens and grays. To the west and'
north the mountains of this-

JAMAICA AS A SUMMER RESORT

589

•crumpled island roll like purple
waves to the limits of vision and
■over the nearer heights there gleams
a multitude of shades of velvety
green and blue and olive, for nature
lias everywhere clothed the grandeur
of her work in a garment of verdant
beauty.

The vegetation in this region is
more tropical, if such a thing may

some of the streams, and bathing in
the rivers is attended with some
danger. A tourist wishing to take
a fresh-water bath, on one occasion,
told a negro boy that he would give
him a shilling if he would show him
a spot where he would be safe from
the crocodiles. "Ah done know jus'
a fine place, sah," the boy replied.
"Crockydile neber go down dere,

NATIVE PRODUCTS — HUMAN AND VEGETABLE.

be, than in those portions we have
■already seen. From Constant Spring,
roads lead away through scenery of
wild luxuriance. Little native huts
stand by the roadsides or cluster on
the hilltops. Exquisite bits of river
•scenery meet the eye from the pretty
^bridges spanning lazy currents sea-
ward bound.

Crocodiles are not unknown in

sah !" Accordingly he took the tour-
ist to a place not far from the mouth
of the river, where it emptied into
the sea, and the stranger had his
bath. While he was dressing and
had given the boy his shilling he
asked with some curiosity, "Why is
it that the crocodiles don't come to
this part of the river?" "Crockydile
don't dare to cum down yere, sah — ■

590

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

dey's afraid ob de sharks, sah !"

In the most beautiful part of the
valley of Castleton are the Botanical
Gardens, maintained by the British
government, and in which every
species of tropical flora is supposed
to be represented. An ideal com-
bination of fertility, rainfall, and
temperature seems to have been
found in this lovely valley, and the
care of man has started — what
nature seems zealous to complete —
the creation of an Eden so lovely
that words are poor means of de-
scribing it. Along the shaded walks
are to be found treasures of floral
beauty. Nearly every tree and
flower that lives in the tropics of the
world have been brought here and
found a suitable home. Here bloom
myriads of native and imported
orchids, lilies, flowers of every name
and form. India and the islands of
Polynesia have contributed their
wealth of vegetable wonders. Every
known palm is represented: gigantic
specimens of the Royal palm, the
Cahoun palm with swathed trunk,
sixty feet in height; the Traveller's
palm, with its fronds filled with
fresh water; the Fern palm, twenty
feet in height, its dwarfed brother
being the common fern of the States.
Here and there through the gar-
dens are pools in which blossom all
known varieties of water lilies, from
the huge Victoria Regia to delicate

little lilies from the streams of India
and China. There are unbelievable
growths of roses.

The island is a vast conservatory
flooded with sunshine, filled with
vegetable wonders, with perfumes,
with gentle warmth and untiring-
gales of sea-born winds, and over all:
the blue dome of the sky, across,
which hang furled curtains of snow-
white cloud.

It may be suggested that nothing
has been said of the annoyances and
discomforts of summer-time travel
in the tropics. What is the use of
saying anything about them ! In a
tour of Jamaica they are relatively
unimportant. The recollection of
the pleasure and the beauty of it all
are permanent possessions.

As for the rest — well, aromatic-
spirits of ammonia will blunt the
stings of mosquitoes and ticks;,
quinine is a preventive and specific
for chills and fever; magnesia will
correct digestive disturbances arising
from a too acid fruit diet.

As the steamer glides out of the
magnificent harbor of Kingston and
skirts the mountainous eastern coast
of Jamaica, northward bound, he is
blase and unappreciative indeed who
does not sigh with regret in leaving
this island paradise — who does not
feel forever richer for his memories
of a lovely land where the youth of
the world is yet unspoiled.

Micmac and Mohawk

By Lillian Loring Trott

THE feud between them was
of two centuries' growth, the
verbal annals of the tribe re-
corded, for the first Sockabasin
came of Micmac stock, and Mo-
hawk blood coursed through alien
Soccotoma's veins.

Handed down from sire to scion,
Soccotoma's forbears hugged the
tradition of the terror the Mohawk
name and prowess struck to the
heart of a Micmac. "The Mo-
hawks are coming," so ran the
legend, was the only rumor needed
to set every Passamaquoddy Mic-
mac in a panic.

And Sockabasin's ancestral ver-
sion told of Mohawks routed,
tomahawked, scalped, with one
captive, Soccotoma for distinction,
held in bondage till his naturaliza-
tion to the tribe by his union with
one of its daughters.

Then, within the recollection of
braves still in their vigor, Socco-
toma Selma, namesake of the Lewy
Soccotoma of to-day, had strode
into the man's own family and
stricken down in his flower the
grandfather of all later-day Socka-
basins— because, forsooth, he had
taken to partner in dance a maid of
Selma's own desire. Soccotoma's
home curled up in smoke that night,
and friends of the murdered man
said they saw the spirit of the dead
set the fire.

Lewy Soccotoma's own particular
grievance dated back to their child-
hood, his and Sopiel Sockabasin's.

Although in extremity it con-

591

venienced both little Indians to
fling historic taunts, Lewy Socco-
toma recked less for his progenitor's
triumphs and falls than anyone but
Sopiel Sockabasin suspected. But
his more modern rival's athletic vic-
tories did score against his pride,
especially when the Sockabasin pa-
poose would persist in such feats as
swimming backwards, holding the
heir of the Mohawks' head under
water.

When grown to man's estate, So-
piel was again in the van, but Lewy
concerned his heart for a season only
with the masterful brave's wooing of
the squaw his own fancy had chosen.
He straightway healed his battered
affections with a maid of French ex-
traction, and forthwith scorned a
Passamaquoddy of Micmac descent
more than before.

"Me tak French Canuck. Squaw
white, papoose white; Indian babby,
no good," quoth he with satisfac-
tion, contemplating his offspring, a
winsome man child, comelier than
his father, even, for Lewy was good
to look upon.

And Sopiel Sockabasin heard and
understood, and rancor blossomed
and bore in his soul.

Lewy was no saint. Perhaps he
was a trifle less lazy and thriftless
than his fellows. He went to Bar
Harbor with the squaws in outing
season, vending baskets to the sum-
merers. He even yielded another
point of his dignity to plant a tiny
patch of potatoes under his front
window.

592

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

But when the second man child
came along and his white squaw still
showed no inclination to labor for
her chief, like the dark-browed
sisterhood, then did Lewy cast about
for ways to assist Uncle Sam in the
support of his family.

The government allowance aver-
ages only about fourteen odd dollars
per month, and that with his dubi-
ous earnings failed to satisfy raven-
ous Soccotoma appetites. Which
way could he turn?

"Lewy Soccotoma, him much
smart. Him hunt seals smart," Mrs.
Sopiel Sockabasin told the steward
of her affections. "One dollar bounty,
one nose; one hunderd nose, one
hunderd dollar. Much big money.
White squaw dress all up."

Sock looked straight ahead, but
with speculation in his heart. Did
she wish herself Lewy Soccotoma's
squaw?

."Me go see Mary Soccotoma this
day," she explained, scowling sul-
lenly. "White bread, taters, fry poke
on it, her have dinner, good dinner."

"Lewy go sealing this same day?
Seals how many this one day?"
queried Sock, his suspicions waxing
in ratio with his speculations.

"One seal, one hunderd nose.
Lewy smart," in a tone from which
he might draw his own inferences.

"Me see one seal have one nose,"
calmly sarcastic. "That other kind
mak rich Indian. Where swim? Me
go find one hunderd-nose seal. Mak
me rich Indian, too."

"One seal, one nose on him, one
day, one dollar; more days, more
seals, more noses, more dollars,"
still more sullen.

"One hunderd days, one hunderd
seals, one hunderd noses. Lewy no
work one hunderd days. Him lazy."
Sock's speculations and suspicions
•combined on a clue.

"Him tak much seals some days,
maybe." Lola was in one of her
hateful moods to-day, and meant to
be tantalizing.

"Maybe, too. Seals no thick round
Quoddy Head," and Sock went to
make Lewy a friendly call.

The odor of blubber assailed his
nostrils before he opened the door.
He surprised Soccotoma squatted on
the floor, busied with a sealskin.
Lewy arose in confusion, dropping
his knife in the movement.

"Seal?" asked Sock.

"Yaas," but the carcass was no-
where in sight.

"Seal mak rich Indian. One day,
how many?"

"Five this day." Lewy swiftly
rolled up the hide, folding the edges
inside, but not before his caller
fancied he saw signs of mutilation, —
regular cuts and stitches on one end.

Thereafter Sock's calls to Lewy's
cot were frequent. Now and again
Soccotoma was off sealing. Oftener
he was at home, sealskin and knife
in hand, and if Sockabasin came not
softly, and without warning, he
found the door barred against him.

About this time the one horse in
the village gradually lost hair from
his tail, but not even Sock's shrewd
intuitions guessed the miscreant.

"Eighty-six, did you say? I'll take
your count for it. It's such a nause-
ating business, going over all that
sickening batch. I'd rather lose a
dollar or so out of my own pocket
than handle them myself. A dollar
apiece." Mr. John Ambrose Gray
counted out the bills affably. "Seals
are multiplying down East, aren't
they, Dana? Your name's Dana,
isn't it? We didn't put the bounty
on 'em any too soon, did we,
Brother? That's a lot of money all

MI CM AC" AND MOHAWK

593

at one time, Dana," curiously watch-
ing Lewy dispose of it about his
person.

The Indians liked the present offi-
cer. His was a friendly, democratic
spirit. The great man acted, so
thought Lewy, as if he, John Am-
brose Gray, might have been, by the
accident of birth, a Micmac or a Mo-
hawk of the mixed Quoddy tribe.

"Either seals are increasing or
your people are growing smarter. I
never had such a big lot turned in
at one time since I held the post,
Brother. A dozen or so is a big
record for one man in a season.
Guess you're the first man ever had
enough to warrant his coming on
with 'em himself. See what industry
does for us, Brother. Besides a snug
sum of money to take home to the—
er — wife, you've had the trip, — had
a good time and seen a bit of the
world."

"Me burn 'em for you?" never
taking his eyes from the reeking
heap. His interest was centered in
seals' noses, rather than in the trip
that was past.

"Yes, shovel 'em into the furnace,
Brother. Ugh! It's deathly! I'll
just step outside, to escape the
odor."

Presently Soccotoma came out,
the scent of burning sealskins fol-
lowing him, and John Ambrose Gray
shook his stained hand.

"Good-bye, Brother. Be sure to
send us another lot right away —
they're ruining the sardine business,
driving the herring all out the bay."

Economy suggested that Lewy
send the next cargo, a hundred
noses strong, by freight, saving the
expense of the journey for himself.
But anxiety for their safety and for
their reception impelled him to ac-
company them.

"Why, Brother! Back again? I'd
hardly missed you. Well, well, you
are a worker ! Ugh ! You open the
box. I can't stand over it."

Still, he came nearer, and exam-
ined the noses more closely than on
the former occasion.

"I don't see how it was possible
for one man to slaughter so many

in so short a time. Did you er

have help?"

"Yaas, Brother. Father, cousins,
all help," Lewy answered.

No sign of his inward turmoil
balked Lewy's glib tongue or stirred
his granite features.

"Now, just how is a seal's nose
shaped?" standing at arm's length
and daintily forking the gory heap
with a stick. "You pick one up,
Brother. You're-^er— used to it.
Show me one, inside and out."

It was tough on Lewy, forcing
him to dissect his own shams, but
he felt that in his own hands artifi-
ciality might be concealed.

"Ah, those — er — whiskers — they
look like horsetail," bethinking him
^Of the Quoddy Indian Agent's recent
letter. "Now, could you pull one
out, Brother?"

"Nor — see — grow in tight," gently
twitching a hair.

"And the inside? What does that
look like?" determined to serve the
government at the cost of his own
squeamishness and his interest in
Lewy.

"Why, those — membranes! How
peculiar they are formed. They look
like— er— stitches. Let me see,"
peering closer. "It is thread. Why,
Dana, that's fraud ! I didn't believe
it of you! You've made — let me
compute: I can't tell how many
noses — false noses — you've made
from a single seal's skin, and ex-
pected us to pay you bounty for kill-

594

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ing a great many more seals than
you have. Don't you know, Dana,"
here it occurred to the immaculate
Mr. John Ambrose Gray to labor for
the good of the Passamaquoddy Mo-
hawk's soul. Possibly the good
man's morals had been neglected.

"Me name Soccotoma," Lewy re-
torted, sullenly. He could toss
politeness to the winds, now that all
was lost.

"Oh, yes ! Dana Soccotoma. I
am surprised. How many of these
bogus noses are there, Brother?"

"One ninety," Lewy confessed at
a breath.

Now that this lily-fingered officer
had begun his inspections he would
never stop short of full exposure.
The agony would better be ended
at a pulse beat.

"I'm sorry, Dana, but — "

"Me no Dana; me Lewy," resent-
fully.

"I'm so sorry, Lewy, that I'm
going to let you off light. I won't
ask a word about the former lot. But
I'm bound by oath to send you up
for the trick I've caught you in."

Lewy hardly listened. He knew
all about the crime and its penalty.

"Who tell?" he demanded, as one
who claims a right. "White man
know nothing. What Indian tell?"

"J. C. Hall, your agent, warned
me by letter to be on the lookout for
false noses."

"Hall white. Hall know nothing."
Lewy was contemptuous. "Indian
tell. What Indian tell Hall?"

Mr. John Ambrose Gray hesitated.

"One of your own people — say
you won't do him any injury — so the
letter says, put him on the track."

So it was Micmac against Mo-
hawk again. Lewy had been sure
of it, and he commented not.

The fine was heavy. Lewy could
not pay it, and would not if he

could. The only alternative was jail.
*********

It was a freezing autumn day, but
Lewy was out in his canoe in quest
of a seal. The fortunes of the Soc-
cotomas had not bettered during the
imprisonment of their head. All
Quoddy Point had jeered at his fail-
ure, just as it would have applauded
his success in passing off false news
for real. In the face of their raillery
he was out to-day, paddling for Car-
los Island shores, the seals' local
resort.

Skin and oil would yield a coin,
and the nose, had he the bravado to
present it to the government's repre-
sentative, another.

Suddenly across the bay floated
angry words. Into his sight shot a
canoe, with two wrangling Indians
aboard.

"Tight; been to the Pool," was
Lewy's thought, his eyes reaching
beyond them to the strip of blue
marking the horizon, where his ilk
went to Welchpool for fire water.

"Sit still," he hallooed, as they
leaped up to clinch, and the canoe
tipped, taking in water.

They sank back, the habit of a
lifetime strong upon them, even in
their irresponsiblity. Absolute still-
ness of body is the only guarantee
of safety in a canoe.

One shadowy face was toward
him, and Lewy recognized Sopiel
Sockabasin.

Jabbering in their own soft tongue,
melodious even in madness, the
drink-crazed men again came to
blows, and again were upon their
feet.

"Keep still," shouted Lewy, but
his voice was drowned by theirs, as
the canoe spilled them into the bay.

A third canoe came into view,
sighted the accident, but kept to its
way. Any seaman knows he takes

MICMAC AND MOHAWK

595

his life in his hands when, alone, he
attempts to help a drunken man into
an ordinary boat. But with a teeter-
ing canoe he hasn't a fighting
chance. So the frail bark passed, its
paddlers squatting on its floor, mo-
tionless but for their arms.

"Masduranduosock," Lewy blas-
phemed the Indian's giver of luck,
dipping his paddles straight for the
capsized canoe. With the swift cur-
rent it drifted out to sea. One Indian
went down with a good-bye, but
Sock struck out for Lewy.

He gripped the quivering canoe-
side with both drunken hands.
Lewy rapped him over the knuckles,
but the next instant he, too, was
struggling in the water.

It was a wicked day. The stiff
fall wind blew direct from shore,
and now rain came with it. The
canoe, now bottom up, seemed their
only hope, and in desperation Socka-
basin clambered upon it.

Lewy was a powerful man, and a
swimmer such as only a coast Indian
is born and trained to be. Looking
landward, it appeared an easy mat-
ter to save himself, — but Sopiel ? In
his condition he hardly knew land
from sea.

Steadily the canoe was drifting
oceanward, and both paddles were
gone. While Lewy thought, he
worked. It was easy enough to
throw off his coat, but in the wrestle
with rubber boots, with only the
water under him to catch his
tumbles, he more than half expected
to1 come off second best.

At last the weights went to bot-
tom without him, and Lewy
groaned. Those hip rubbers meant
the bounty on four seals' noses.

Unweighted, he could now swim
like a dog — a numb, tired New-
foundland. Sock could only cling

to the upturned canoe and howl.
Lewy tried to keep him still as to
body, while he strove to push the
boat to the shore.

The current took them past the
first point where Lewy had hoped
to land, but he felt good for another
hour and the next jutting promon-
tory. As his strength ebbed he sent
his voice on ahead for help, and Sock
lent his potent lungs for the success
of the cause. Miles up and down
the coast their cries woke distressed
echoes in barnyards where farmers
left their work to climb the nearest
cliff and scan the bay.

Another hour went, and despite
Lewy's frantic toil they floated past
Point Bluff. If Lewy was tempted
to let go the canoe and save himself,
the sobering Sock never suspected
it.

"One chance more — then the
'Odds 'n' the Dif'rence,' " gasped he,
straining his tired sight past the one
point left before reaching a channel
where a swifter current ran between
two islands, meeting this. If that
bolder eddy struck them, they would
be borne to an expanse where no
Indian has ever paddled in his own
guise.

Bravely he fought for a landing.
He was too far from the coast line
to swim in against wind and tide,
propelling Sockabasin on his perch
before him, steering the craft now
with one hand, now with the other.
But at uneven distances apart, angles
of rocky land ran their apexes far
down the bay, and Lewy tried to
keep close enough to shore to strike
one of these.

Just Point Dabster now stretched
within apparent reach of his
strength. Beyond that, two great
islands left a wide channel, sending
a counter current to meet this.

596

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Could he make Point Dabster?

"A boat, bring a boat, a b-o-a-t,
b-o-a-t !" he screamed as a small boy
appeared on a rock, drawn by le
long-continued shouts.

"Our boat's too small ; you'd upset
it gittin' in," wind-wafted the
answer came. "Pa's gone for a
dory," and the boy was lost.

Only Point Dabster's aid re-
mained. His own voice, even, de-
serted him. He could only keep him-
self afloat and feebly steer the canoe.
Pushing was at last beyond him.
Still Sock shouted to the barren
shore.

Point Dabster, was that? No, the
shore-line was receding. A sudden
gust struck him. Lewy felt a stouter
wave possessing his limbs, and he
let go the canoe, glad to go down.

He did not gasp as the water
gurgled in his ears and flooded his
lungs. No new ambition stirred him
as he came up again to air and light.
A watery tomb had no terrors for

him in his fatigue, but as he sank
again he thought of the white squaw
and French papoose.

"Takkare now; don't unset us!"
Was it a bunch of seaweed or a mop
of Mohawk hair? As he went down
the third time Biah MacWilliams
clutched at Lewy's black head.
"Easy, easy, now, Brother; we've
got yer ! Don't squirm, or ye'll have
us all overboard! All right; pull
away, Sam."

Dried and fed and restored to his
accustomed frame of mind, Sock
found his way to Quoddy Point by
bedtime, but for days Lewy raved
in delirium, of noses and bounties,
points and eddies, white squaws and
French papooses.

Sock went not to his neighbor's
hut. But when Lewy, wasted and
weak, returned to his French Mo-
hawk family, he found a seal on the
doorstool. And every morning
thereafter, for many moons, another
fat seal stretched its nose across his
doorway.

The Singers

By Cora A. Matson Dolson

ONE sang of love and happy hours,
Of vows exchanged amid the flowers
I sought her face, and found it one
That Grief had set his seal upon.

One sang of pain and cruel Death,
And hands that lie the turf beneath.
When hers I sought, I found a face
Aglow with youth-time hope and grace.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

By Zitella Cocke

Oft have I heard in adage trite,

The world's terse logic, not too kind,

That dearest things when out of sight,
Most sure, alas, are out of mind !

For men are weak, and wont to prize
Full dear, the good, they easiest find,

And what is present to the eyes
Clamors for lodgment in the mind.

Those radiant windows of the soul

Look not on things which are behind, —

The vistas that before them roll,

They seize and paint upon the mind !

Yet high enthroned, there sits a queen
Whose might with golden chains can bind

And hold secure the things unseen,
Within the Kingdom of the Mind.

Goddess and Queen, dear Memory !

Nor time nor absence makes thee blind;
Thine is the fond heart's constancy,

And thine the empery of the mind.

And parted friends, though out of sight,

If on thy sacred altar shrined,
Still walk in robes of living light,

Through all the chambers of the mind.

And loved ones, gone from human gaze,
Thou hast so subtly intertwined

With Thought and Fancy's secret maze,
They never can be out of mind !

Nay, if the spirit's eye be clear,

Where'er life's devious pathways wind,
The forms and faces we hold dear,

When out of sight are most in mind !

597

The World- Constitution

By Raymond L. Bridgman

BOSTON will be honored in the
coming autumn by the pres-
ence of the International Peace
Congress. Its meeting will be the
second session it has held in this
country, and Boston has been iden-
tified more than any other city in
the land with this effort to promote
the peace of the world.

But world-peace can be promoted
most effectively by world-organiza-
tion, and in that respect Massachu-
setts is again at the front. At the
session of the Massachusetts legis-
lature of 1903 the following resolu-
tion was adopted unanimously by
the House of Representatives and
by the Senate :

"That the Congress of the United States

be requested to authorize the President of
the United States to invite the govern-
ments of the world to join in establishing,
in whatever way they may judge expedient,
an international congress, to meet at stated
periods, to deliberate upon questions of
common interest to the nations and to make
recommendations thereon to the govern-
ments."

In support of the proposition in
that resolution, Dr. Benjamin F.
Trueblood, secretary of the Amer-
ican Peace Society, upon whose
initiative, in part, the resolution was
adopted, delivered an address en-
titled "A Regular International Ad-
visory Congress," before the Inter-
national Law Association at Ant-
werp, on September 29 last. On
January 14 last Dr. Trueblood and
others, before the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs of Congress,
spoke in support of the above reso-
lution, and it now awaits Congres-
sional action.

In the future, (whether near or re-
mote is not specified or material to
the plan of the petitioners for the
resolution) there is expected to be
realized the union of all nations as
an organic political body. But such
union implies a constitution, written
or unwritten, just as truly as a
nation must have principles of action
and a form of government, written
or unwritten. Formation of the
world-constitution has actually be-
gun and it is wonderful to see how
far it has advanced. The demonstra-
tion is strong when the facts already
established by international action
are put together and interpreted.

Different things may be meant by
the word "constitution," when ap-
plied to a nation. Fundamentally
there are the inherent rights and
relations of the people which may
be termed the constitution given by
nature. An individual may supply
an illustration. A man's constitu-
tion is the organic total of the me-
chanical, chemical, vital, intellectual
and spiritual principles which enter
into his physical, intellectual and
spiritual structure. So a nation's
constitution consists of the organic
total of the powers and rights of the
people. Similarly, all the people of
the world stand in some sort of rela-
tion to each other. They have their
rights as against each other; they
have their duties to each other, and
the organic union with rights and
duties is the natural constitution of
mankind.

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THE WORLD-CONSTITUTION

599

"Constitution" is the word applied
also to the written efforts to express
the natural constitution. These
efforts are the bills of rights of dif-
ferent states and nations, which, in
themselves, directly, do not deter-
mine a form of government.

"Constitution" is more popularly
used to express the form of govern-
ment adopted to secure the princi-
ples expressed in bills of rights. Over
the natural constitution men have
no control whatever, but must sub-
mit unconditionally. The second
use of "constitution" shows men's
efforts to comprehend and express
the natural constitution. The third
is a framing of means to attain the
relations determined by the first and
attempted to be expressed in the
second.

In the nature of the case, the nat-
ural constitution is and must forever
remain unwritten. Other constitu-
tions may be written or unwritten,
and may combine a bill of rights and
a form of government in one docu-
ment. A bill of rights is of more im-
portance than a form of government,
for it implies a perception of princi-
ples and tries to give them exact ex-
pression. To secure these principles
the constitution which is a form oi
government is only a means . Hence
the significance, in the case of over
a score of the States of the United
States, of the fact that they have
each a bill of rights as a part of the
constitution. To secure those rights
is the purpose of that part of their
constitutions which provides the form
of government, and the form is
wholly subordinate to the purpose.
The rights of the state as a whole,
and of the people personally as parts
of the whole, are the fundamental
part of these constitutions. The form
of government is conditioned by
them and the framework must be so

put together at every point that the
rights and the prosperity of the
whole shall be secured at every
point, and that will carry with it the
rights, security and prosperity of
every part.

Public and private rights and rela-
tions are both comprehended in a
bill, or declaration, of rights. For
instance, among the thirty articles
in the Declaration of Rights in the
Massachusetts constitution are as-
sertions that all men are free and
equal, that religious worship is a
duty, that the power of the people
is sovereign, that public officers are
accountable public agents, that pri-
vate property must be protected,
that the press must be free, that
standing armies are dangerous in
time of peace to the liberties of the
people, that elections should be fre-
quent, that the right of petition must
be preserved, that there should be
frequent sessions of the legislature,
that soldiers must not be quartered
upon citizens in time of peace, that
the judiciary must be independent of
all political or mercenary influence,
and that each department of the
government must be distinct and in-
dependent of both the others. That
is, the Declaration of Rights con-
cerns itself both with the whole po-
litical body and with the ultimate
particles of which the whole is com-
posed, recognizing rights and rela-
tions in both, and preserving the
rights of both, amid their relations.

In the development of government
in England and in the United States,
demands for bills of rights have been
more conspicuous than struggles
over forms of government. This
shows how the sense of the people
has seen the truth that the natural
constitution is supreme over all
human documents or schemes, and
that it is of the highest importance

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

that peoples should have a right un-
derstanding of the natural constitu-
tion. Following through English his-
tory from the charter given by
Henry I. at his coronation in iioi,
to the Magna Charta of John in 1215,
the "confirmatio chartarum" of Ed-
ward I. in 1297, the legal forms and
jury trials of Henry VI. in 1429, the
petition of right under Charles I. in
1628, the agreement of the people in
1649, the instrument of government
in 1653, the habeas corpus act in
1679, and the great bill of rights in
1689, it is seen that nearly every one
of these vital steps toward liberty
for the people concerns rights and
relations, not forms of government.
Given the right principle in the rela-
tions of the people and the upper
classes and their sovereign, it seems
to have been assumed that the form
of government would shape itself to
the desired end.

In the United States, though nom-
inally there is no national bill of
rights, yet really there is one. The
Declaration of Independence has a
passage which expresses truly,
broadly, and grandly, rights and rela-
tions which go to the very heart of
the form of government. It says :

"We hold these truths to be self evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

There is the true spirit and a true
form, brief though it be, of a genuine
bill of rights.

At the end of the Declaration is a
further passage which belongs in the
same class :

"that these united colonies are, and of
right ought to be, free and independent

states and that as free and

independent states they have full power to
levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce and do all other acts
and things which independent states may of
right do."

When we come to the adoption of
the constitution of the United States,
a few years later, though it seems to
be occupied with the form of gov-
ernment, yet we find in the preamble
a recognition of the natural constitu-
tion of the nation, made by the Cre-
ator, and also in the preamble the
spirit of a bill of rights :

"We, the people of the United States, in
order to form a more perfect union, estab-
lish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare, and secure the bless-
ings of liberty to ourselves and our pos-
terity, do ordain and establish this constitu-
tion of the United States of America."

Justice, unity and organic relations
are all asserted in these words.

So we find on the part of the peo-
ple a recognition of the natural con-
stitution. Efforts to approximate to
it have been made in bills of rights.
It appears in the formal constitu-
tion, or form of government, whose
purpose was to secure the rights and
to maintain the relations asserted in
the bills of rights. Englishman and
American alike have shown this ap-
preciation of the natural constitu-
tion. England's constitution is said
to be unwritten. Yet the list given
above of documents declaratory of
rights and relations of the people
shows that it is only the subordinate
portion (the form of government)
which is not put into the form of
enactment by the popular will. The
bills of rights of England are
written, and they were secured only
by terrible conflicts, amid the blood
of martyrs for truth and country,
representing the mass of the people
against the few. The form of gov-
ernment of the United States, on the
other hand, is written. Its bill of
rights is short, compared with the
written forms of England. But both
of these countries, with this diversity
of practice, have moved toward a

THE WORL D-C CONSTITUTION

601

single goal, — security of the rights
of every person in the nation, rich
or poor, white or black.

We now return to the world-con-
stitution, having seen by these illus-
trations the nature of constitutions
and the different things meant by
the same word. Though the world-
constitution is unwritten, and must
always remain so, yet it has been
recognized by the world. This has
been done specifically by civilized
nations. It will surprise those who
regard all ideas of world-organiza-
tion as Utopian to see how far the
world has already traveled along this
road toward a recognized world
body politic.

To make this clear beyond dis-
pute, we need first to see just what
is meant by international law and
by world-constitution. International
law is fitly named. It is law. It is
not constitution. It is an expression
of the intelligence and will of the
nations upon certain subjects. The
world-constitution is the union of the
principles which determine the rela-
tions of the nations. Thus far the
body of international law relates
largely to the practices of nations in
war. In a state or nation, law im-
plies and reveals a constitution,
written or unwritten, back of it and
determining its form, and, in the
same way, international law implies
and reveals the world-constitution
which lies back of such law and de-
termines its form.

Though no nation has ever said a
word about a world-constitution, and
though the very idea may not have
been in the minds of those who have
given form to statements of inter-
national law, yet the existence of
that constitution is implied and re-
vealed in the international law re-
garding practices in war. What is

the chief burden of international
law? It is that savage practices, that
needless slaughter, that violations of
humanity beyond certain limits must
cease. This is the law of nations.
But it depends upon the nature, the
rights and the relations of men. It
reveals the true natural constitution
upon which all mankind is organ-
ized. Here, then, standing in the
clear light of international law, as-
serted by all civilized nations, stands
Article I of the world-constitution.
To put it in words, we may frame it
thus :

"Article I. All men are kindred; there-
fore nations must be humane."

The international law which is
based upon this principle illustrates,
sharply and sadly, the contradictions
and perversities in those who make
the law based upon such a fraternal
article. International law, affirming
the kinship of mankind, says prac-
tically this: "Provided men are not
too savage, all manner of robbery,
injustice and slaughter may be per-
petrated." In order to formulate
rules about killing each other, the
nations have based their inter-
national law upon recognition of the
universal brotherhood of man. Hav-
ing asserted that fundamental posi-
tion, they impose limitations upon
the slaughter, but by no means try
to prevent it. National rights may
be invaded, impaired or completely
destroyed; national existence may
be ended by force of arms amid fire
and rapine and horrible death ; inno-
cent people may be shot by the most
diabolical inventions which modern
ingenuity can devise, or butchered
by cold steel without mercy, pro-
vided only that a certain boundary is
not passed which the common con-
science of mankind has recognized

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

as expressed in this first article of
the world-constitution. So the great
world-brute, on its upward develop-
ment from brutality to spirituality,
has seen and recognized, with its
eyes bleared with sin and crime
against what is the most funda-
mental truth of its very being, and
has proclaimed, so that it stands evi-
dent to all the world, the sublime
reality : "All men are kindred." Con-
science-stricken, it issues its com-
mand : "Therefore nations must be
humane."

This article is unwritten. So is
the form of government of England.
But the fact that England has no
form of government ever adopted as
such by the people by one act does
not necessitate that England has no
form of government at all. Neither
does the fact that this article of the
world-constitution has not been
adopted formally weigh at all against
the truth that, by the general recog-
nition of international law, there is
necessitated the establishment of
this principle of humanity and kin-
ship as the basis whereon it rests.

Right in line with international
law, recognizing the kinship of all
mankind and commanding the na-
tions to be humane in their barbari-
ties, is the action of the Geneva con-
gress of 1864, which established the
International Red Cross Society.
But, further and stronger than this,
as an expression of the judgment
and will of the nations, is the action
of the congress of St. Petersburg in
1868, which condemned the use of
especially barbarous bullets, fol-
lowed by the congress of Brussels
in 1874 with a restatement of the
laws of war and further affirmation
of the spirit of humanity. By their
acceptance of the world-legislation
which was accomplished in 1874, the

nations have formally approved it,
and that legislation is a distinct
revelation of and affirmation of this
so-called Article I of the world-con-
stitution.

But the nations of the civilized
world have tacitly recognized more
than one article of the world-con-
stitution. Other world-legislation
than the general body of inter-
national law has been enacted. Re-
peatedly the nations have met in
formal deliberations, have agreed
upon conclusions, have accepted
those conclusions and have declared
that they would enforce them. They
have established the Universal
Postal Union. This includes all the
nations of the world. It holds to
one agreement the largest combina-
tion of different peoples and govern-
ments which has ever been formed.
Formal action has been taken upon
a specific matter which has been re-
duced to writing. Now the estab-
lishment of this Union by formal
agreement of all the nations is an
act of world-legislation. It declares
the will of mankind. Being a law of
the world, it postulates a principle
which is a part of the world-consti-
tution. That principle, — a recogni-
tion of relations, — joined with the
accompanying obligation involved,
stands clear in the light of the law
and so we get what we may properly
call a second article in the world-
constitution :

"Article II. All men are social ; there-
fore intercommunication must be universal,
reliable and inexpensive."

This declaration, in effect, is neces-
sary as a basis of the establishment
of the Universal Postal Union, and
since all mankind, practically, is em-
braced in the Union, all the world
agrees to this statement of principle.

But there are other illustrations of

THE WORLD-CONSTITUTION

603

the recognition of the world-consti-
tution by action of the nations. In
1875 there met in Paris the Metrical
Diplomatic Congress. It prepared
the international metric convention
and provided for a meeting at Paris
every six years, at least, of a general
conference on weights and measures.
Here is a precedent for the regular
international congress which is pro-
posed by the resolution adopted by
the Massachusetts legislature. The
difference is that the latter proposi-
tion includes all matters of world-
interest, while the former includes
only the subject of weights and
measures. Now this action in 1875
was based upon recognition of some-
thing in mankind beyond what was
recognized by the establishment of
the Universal Postal Union. Nations
all around the world must trade with
each other, and it is a hindrance to
trade if weights and measures, whose
function it is to determine quantities
of goods, are obstructed in operation
by a confusion of standards. Here,
then, in the international agreement
regarding a common standard of
weights and measures, the nations
have promulgated a new law rest-
ing upon the recognition of still an-
other principle in the bill of rights of
mankind, and it may be formulated
as another article in the world-con-
stitution :

"Article III. Each part of the world
needs all the other parts ; unimpeded ex-
change of the world's goods promotes
world-prosperity ; therefore obstacles to
such exchange must be removed."

Mankind being one and being or-
ganized, at least to some extent, the
needs of the several organs for nutri-
ment and strength should be satis-
fied in the quickest and least expen-
sive way. If free circulation, within
the human body, of the elements of
food to the parts where they are

most needed promotes most the
health of the body, and if it would
injure the general health and weaken
every part in detail to impede that
circulation, then, by a like law, it
promotes the health of the world-or-
ganism of mankind to establish free
circulation of supplies to every part,
and it injures the general health and
weakens every part in detail to im-
pede that circulation. Common
weights and measures promote
trade, and the vitality of the idea of
a world-money illustrates the
strength and the persistence of the
demand for all possible facilities of
trade. It foreshadows the success of
the efforts to relieve trade of all re-
movable restrictions.

But there has been recognized,
tacitly, it is true, still another prin-
ciple in the world-constitution. In
1885 was held in Washington, D. C,
at the invitation of the United
States, the International Prime Me-
ridian Conference. Twenty-six na-
tions were represented, and this
large group, including the control-
ling nations of the civilized world,
adopted the meridian of Greenwich
as their standard meridian. Indi-
vidual national standards were set
aside, and the nations did not com-
promise by taking some new meridi-
an hitherto unused by any nation,
but they adopted the standard of
England. By this action, which
was another instance of world-legis-
lation, the nations recognized still
another principle in the world bill of
rights. It may be put into the form
of words as follows :

"Article IV. Mankind advances most
rapidly by co-operation; therefore national
pride and prejudice must be discarded in
order that nations may work together."

In 1889 was held at Washington
the Marine Conference, which is

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

said to have resulted in more quasi-
legislation than any previous world-
conference. This quasi-legislation
related to the rules of the sea, — the
establishment and regulation of
practices of navigation by vessels
under the flags of different coun-
tries. Its broad purpose was the de-
velopment of commerce and the pro-
tection of property and life. This
quasi-legislation involved still fur-
ther recognition of the rights and
relations of men, as contained in the
bill of rights of the world-constitu-
tion. It is vital, for it goes to the
very root of the existence of man-
kind as one. Recognizing the obliga-
tion which goes with the rights and
relations, and putting the truth into
words, we state as follows this
hitherto unwritten principle which
is back of the international law for-
mulated by the conference :

"Article V. World-movements must be
regulated by world-intelligence; the will
of the people must be supreme over all the
parts."

By the very establishment of
world-law for the control of com-
merce, the supremacy of the whole
for the good of the whole is plainly
and powerfully asserted.

In 1890 the Brussels Anti-Slavery
Conference, representing the civil-
ized world more or less completely,
agreed upon measures to suppress
the African slave trade. This was
an enactment of world-law by world-
representatives (taking them as a
whole), that slave-trading must
stop. Again a further principle of
the bill of rights of the world-con-
stitution was recognized as the basis
of this new law of the world. With
the obligation it carries with it, the
written form may be put as follows :

"Article VI. Every part of mankind is of
right entitled to freedom ; therefore every
power which attempts to enslave men must
be destroyed."

In 1892 and 1893, respectively, oc-
curred the International Sanitary
Conferences at Venice and Dresden, T
attended by delegates of fifteen and
nineteen nations severally. Here
was a wholly new subject of world-
legislation and certain lines of action
were agreed upon by the nations
represented. Certain things must
be done for the health of the world.
Back of this agreement of the na-
tions upon a new decree of inter-
national law, therefore, stands an-
other article of the world bill of
rights. With the obligation it car-
ried with it, we frame it thus :

"Article VII. The ill health of one is
the peril of all ; therefore all must be vigi-
lant for the health of each and of all."

In 1899 occurred the Hague
Peace Conference, resulting in the
establishment of the Hague Court
of Arbitration. Higher in rank than
some of the congresses already men-
tioned, and of great and lasting im-
portance in the history of the world,
this conference is worthy of men-
tion in some detail. In the first
place, the last sentence of the czar's
first circular, issued by Count Mura-
vieff, the Russian minister of for-
eign affairs, recognized the true bill
of rights of the world-constitution,
for it used the words : "the princi-
ples of equity and right on which
rest the security of states and the
welfare of peoples." This recogni-
tion the conference made its own by
incorporating the words into the
preamble of the immortal agree-
ment. Further recognition was
made in the preamble by the adop-
tion of the clause which reads:
"recognizing the solidarity which
unites the members of the society
of civilized nations." Article I of
the convention contains, for our
purpose, the substance of the whole.
It reads :

THE WORLD-CONSTITUTION

605

"With a view to obviating, as far as
possible, recourses to force in the relations
between states, the Signatory Powers agree
to use their best efforts to insure the pacific
settlement of international differences."

The establishment of the Hague
Court of Arbitration was an act of
world-legislation of supreme im-
portance. Like every other instance
of true legislation, it rests upon a
principle. This world-legislation dis-
closes another principle of the bill
of rights of the world-constitution,
recognized and affirmed by all the
civilized nations when they signed
the Hague agreement, yes, even by
those which are armed to the teeth,
ready to fly at each other's throats
upon provocation. Sublime amid
arms, peaceful amid portents of
war, true in the midst of doubters,
faithful amid the sneers of fighting
men, it rises, a monument for all
time :

"Article VIII. Mankind is intellectual
and moral, not material and brutal, there-
fore differences between nations must be
settled by reason and right, not by force.*'

With this great affirmation of the
sober judgment and solemn purpose
of the civilized world, we end this
review of articles of the world bill
of rights already established, noting
the gratifying fact that the United
States has been the pioneer in mak-
ing this affirmation of vital force
among the nations. Other congress-
es and the pan-American confer-
ences are not of sufficient rank for
mention here.

Now, where is the room for skep-
ticism regarding the actual develop-
ment of the constitution of the
world body politic? The facts are
sufficient demonstration, and the
frequency of the dates in recent
years shows how rapid is the momen-
tum the movement has already ac-
quired, even while most men deny

that it exists and while many who
believe in the formal organization
of the world say that the times are
now inopportune and that it will be
a hundred years before the idea is
realized. To every skeptic the suf-
ficient answer is: "Look and see."

But the case is much stronger
yet. Look further. Take up the
part of the constitution which fol-
lows the bill of rights, — the form of
government. The skeptic is an-
swered here as completely as in the
case of the bill of rights. Every
government must exercise the three
functions of legislation, judicial de-
termination, and execution of the
legislation. The logical develop-
ment of the three is in that order.
There must be an expression of the
will of the government, a determi-
nation whether the will applies to
the case, and a carrying out of the
will, if it does apply.

World-legislatures have sat re-
peatedly. World-legislation has been
enacted repeatedly. It is in force in
the civilized world today. Pecul-
iarities which distinguish it from
national legislation are that it is the
enactment of bodies called to legis-
late upon one subject alone, that
there has been no established basis
of representation or mode of proce-
dure as world-precedents, that the
nations severally have claimed or
have been conceded a right of veto
upon the enactment, and that the
application and enforcement of this
world-law have been in the hands
of the nations which have agreed to
the legislation. But, for all that,
the essence of legislation is there, —
the expression of judgment by the
delegates and the consent of the will
of the ratifying nations. Sufficient
illustration is given in the case of
the establishment of the Hague

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Court of Arbitration and the other
agreements mentioned above, the
agreements having binding force
and therefore being a self-imposed
law. Therefore Article I of the
form of government of the world-
constitution has been established by
the civilized world. It stands as fol-
lows :

"Article I. There shall be a legislative
department."

Elaboration of sections under this
article remains to be made, — the es-
tablishment of times and places of
meeting, the basis of representation,
the rules of procedure, the determi-
nation of the validity of the enact-
ments, and other details. But world-
legislation, as an accomplished fact,
began long ago, and the facts are a
conclusive answer to all who doubt.

How about the world-judiciary?
The Hague Court of Arbitration is
solely for the settlement of differ-
ences between nations. The lang-
uage of the convention seems to im-
ply that only two nations will be
parties to one proceeding. At any
rate, the proceedings presuppose
differences between nations, and
the convention has no reference to a
general body of law to be applied to
all nations as the situation exists.
But, as far as the convention goes,
it relates to judicial procedure, to an
appeal to reason for a determination
of rights and duties in cases of dif-
ferences between nations, rather
than an appeal to force. It has to
do with an application of the will of
the nations, — that national differ-
ences be settled by reason and
right, — to particular cases. The
very name of "court," and the pos-
session of judicial methods make it
probable that broader judicial func-
tions will be added. Here is the
germ of a judicial department,

something out of which can be
evolved, as necessity requires, a
world-court to pass upon the appli-
cation of world-law to any or to all
nations. By establishing this court,
the nations wrote the second article
of the world form of government:

"Article II. There shall be a judicial
department."

But there is no such office as the
world-executive, the doubter may
say. True, there is no world-presi-
dent yet. It is true that the nations
rely upon each other severally to
carry out world-legislation. There
is neither a world supreme court to
issue an injunction against a nation
disobeying the decision of The
Hague Court of Arbitration, nor a
world-marshal to insist that the dis-
obedient power must obey, nor a
world-police or a world-army to
compel obedience. Each nation is
today world-executive for its own
territory. That is as far as the evo-
lution has progressed.

But there is a very plain germ of a
world-executive, for all that.
Boards, commissions and bureaus
are branches of executive depart-
ments. Officers of such organiza-
tions are executive officers. Now,
the Universal Postal Union has a
permanent secretary with an office
at Berne, Switzerland. That Union
is an executive branch created by
the world-legislation which estab-
lished it, as truly as the Massachu-
setts railroad commission, created
by the legislature, is a part of the
executive "department of the state.
Right at that point, the office of
this secretary in Berne, then, we put
the finger and say : "This perma-
nent secretary is a true world-exe-
cutive." It is not necessary to be-
gin with a world-president. It is
not to the point to say that the se-

THE W O R L D-CO NSTITUTION

607

cretary's duties may be few. He is
the head of a permanent executive
body established by the will of all
nations of the world, — for this Uni-
versal Postal Union is peculiar in
having the formal adherence of
every nation on earth. Therefore
the nations have established the
third article of the form of govern-
ment of the world-constitution :

"Article III. There shall be an execu-
tive department."

This is all accomplished fact. The
world-constitution, unwritten, is
growing by development, just as
the British constitution has grown,
and the essential truth of history
can no more be denied in the case of
the world than in the case of Eng-
land.

Thus far we have noted what has
actually been accomplished in the
development of the world-constitu-
tion. In the world bill of rights we
find that the nations have already as-
serted common kinship, social rela-
tions, organic unity, the supremacy
of the good of the whole over the
seeming good of any part, the su-
premacy of the intelligence of the
whole over affairs which concern
the whole, liberty common to all,
care for the health of the whole, and
the supremacy of reason over force.
Other points remain to be estab-
lished, some of which are already
recognized in certain localities and
inhere equally in all mankind, some
of which have been noticed above in
the Massachusetts Declaration of
Rights. In regard to the form of
government the nations have already
established the legislative, the judi-
cial and the executive departments.
These three cover all possible fields.
It remains, therefore, to develop in
detail the organism of the world
body politic in these several depart-

ments, and there cannot be the
slightest doubt that the nations are
moving forward to that develop-
ment.

If it were permitted to forecast
the future regarding the world bill
of rights, it might be noted that no-
where yet has there been an affirma-
tion of equality. It seems to be a
safe prediction that the Republic of
Mankind will include in its bill of
rights words like those in the De-
claration of Independence: "We
hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal," or
like those in the Massachusetts De-
claration of Rights: "All men are
born free and equal."

Nowhere yet has there been assert-
ed the control of the property of the
world by all mankind for the good
of the whole, a power correspond-
ing to eminent domain in nations
and in states of the United States, a
power to take private property for
the public good. Nor is there ex-
ercised a power to control transpor-
tation for the good of the whole. No
effort has been made international-
ly to prevent evasion of national
laws by combinations of law-break-
ers in several countries, which is
possible because present interna-
tional law cannot touch them. It
seems reasonable, then, to. predict
that articles will be added to the
world bill of rights somewhat as
follows :

"World-supplies are for the world ; there-
fore world monopolies must be prohibited.

"World-transportation is for the service
of the world; therefore the carrying busi-
ness of the world is subject to the control
of the world."

Following the common sense of
the case, and basing the prediction
on practice common in the nations
of Germanic origin, it may be said
that, sooner or later, the world bill

608 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of rights will contain an article of a declaration is made which, with

this tenor: the world-laws based upon it, will

"Each locality has its rights against and secure the subservience of every
its duties to the whole > therefore local t f mankind to the ood f th

self-government and centralized power r _ s^w^ w± mc

must everywhere be justly respected." whole, and will guarantee to every

So, one after another, will be add- part, "life, liberty and the pursuit

ed to the world bill of rights affir- of happiness," protected by the

mations of relations and duties until power of the whole.

A Relic

By Edwin L. Sabin

SILK (now beginning to fray),
As fine as the old-fashioned belle ;
Rose-colored (faded to-day) —
The tint that was cherished so well ;
Heel midway set, like a boss —

Three inches high, maybe more;
Straps, o'er the instep to cross;

The slippers great-grandmother wore.

Bought from the peddler who passed,

His pack with deft cunning displayed;
The latest of fashions, amassed

To dazzle the eyes of a maid.
She fingered the trappings, in doubt.

"York has none better!" he swore.
And her father the shillings laid out

For these slippers great-grandmother wore.

Thus was she footed, to glide

Through reel and through chaste minuet,
Thus was she decked, as a bride

(Her beauty is memory yet).
Thus is she pictured the best

In archives of family lore —
While dream in the quaint cedar chest

The slippers great-grandmother wore.

Where is the spectacle, all —

Fashions far carried from town;
Peddler and maiden and ball ;

Father and lover and gown?
Soles slightly scuffed — to sweet strains;

Stitches as good as of yore ;
Silk time-defaced ; there remains

The slippers great-grandmother wore.

"VICTORY." TONETTI, SCULPTOR

Sculpture at the St. Louis Exposition.

,»#!*

me- &

■

PEACE. KARL HITTER, SCULPTOR.

Sculpture at the St. Louis Exposition.

Oliver Ellsworth

By Elizabeth C. Barney Buel

IN "Ancient Windsor" stands a
house shaded by stately elms
and having upon its venerable
front the unmistakable hall-marks
of a distinguished past. A house is
like the human beings whom it shel-
ters, whose life it expresses, and of
whose spirit it partakes ; like them
it betrays its history in its features
— whether it has been mean and
ignoble, or whether it has been lofty
and of good report. So this house
in Windsor assumes the dignity and
noble bearing of him who once paced
its halls in the intensity of his
thoughts — thoughts upon which, as
upon a sound foundation, our coun-
try was upbuilded ; it assumes even
the air of royalty there in this New
World namesake of the ancient
dwelling of our former kings ; it says
to the careless passer-by — Pause
here, and remember that this was
once the home of a man greater even
than a king, for, unaided by the
kingly sword of conquest, he laid the
foundations of an empire, and bound
it firmly together by the sinews of
wise statesmanship. Pause, for here
lived Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail
Wolcott, his wife. Ellsworth and
Wolcott — two names forever joined
together by marriage after marriage,
and likewise as inseparably wedded
before the altar of patriotism.

Oliver Ellsworth, framer of the
Constitution of the United States,
without whom that Constitution
would have died ere it had birth, has
yet to find a biographer. Lesser
names than his shine brilliantlv

611

forth from the pa^es of history; he,
like the vital forces of our earth,
worked silently and unseen, until
from the underground, darkness
arose the completed fabric of our in-
stitutions like the full-blown glories
of midsummer.

Oliver Ellsworth was born in
Windsor on April 29th, 1745, the son
of David Ellsworth and Jemima
Leavitt, his wife. David was the
grandson of Josiah, a native of York-
shire, England, who settled in Wind-
sor about 1654 and became the an-
cestor of all the Ellsworths in this
country. In 1665 Josiah bought the
property upon which the Ellsworth
Homestead now stands, and it has
remained in the family without a
break until the recent generous deed
'"of gift which constituted the Con-
necticut Daughters of the American
Revolution his heirs and assigns for-
ever.

The Ellsworths are of fine old
Saxon stock — descendants of the
men who flocked from the German
forests to conquer England, who
then swarmed across the Atlantic to
conquer new lands, and the "free-
dom to worship God:" then once
more conquered England and built
up in this western world a second
empire — a second living monument
to the indomitable energy and all-
absorbing vitality of the Anglo-
Saxon race. Saxon, English, Puri-
tan— we know the meaning of those
names in the varied make-up of the
American. A true scion of this stock
was David, father of our Oliver. A

612

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

plain farmer was he, simple of man-
ner, frugal of habit, deeply religious
in spirit, without wealth, yet also
without poverty — a perfect type of
the hard-working New Englander of
the early days. A strong, sturdy, in-
dependent race were the Ellsworths,
limited in their horizon as was un-
avoidable in pioneer times, narrow
and stern as the hard circumstances
made them, but full of that intense
energy directed by lofty virtues
which develops nations.

Of such a race and in such sur-
roundings was Oliver Ellsworth
born. His was no soft feather-bed
of luxury and ease. Conditions were
hard, and from earliest years he had
to meet them as best he could. He
had no miraculous gifts of infant
heroes ; he was no infant prodigy,
around whom gathers marvellous
tales of early promise, the heralds of
coining greatness. Young Oliver
could not read Latin at the age of
three, nor could he construe Greek
strophes on his fifth birthday. He
was just an ordinary little boy, such
an one whose mind develops so
slowly that despairing parents fear
it is hopelessly stuck fast at two
times one are two. His father wished
the lad to be a minister, and placed
him under Dr. Bellamy. At the age
of seventeen he entered Yale Col-
lege without as yet having aston-
ished anyone during his simple edu-
cation on the farm and in the Wind-
sor school. After two years his career
at Yale came suddenly to an end.
One winter night he turned the Col-
lege bell upside down and filled it
with water ; whereupon the water
promptly froze, the bell was silenced,
and young Ellsworth was asked to
depart immediately from the sacred
precincts of Yale. He retreated to
Princeton, where we find another
hopeful sign of boyish human nature

and also of the lawyer's ready wit.
Oliver had violated the rule that
hats should not be worn in the Col-
lege yard. When brought before
the faculty he advanced in his de-
fense the plea that a hat was com-
posed of two parts, a crown and a
brim ; his hat having no brim it was
therefore not a hat, and he was not
guilty of the offence. It is needless
to say he was not punished. He did
not tell them that he had but just
before torn off the brim himself, to
give point to his argument. He was
graduated with the degree of A. M.
in 1766, returned to Windsor, and,
still obedient to his father's wishes,
began studying theology under Dr.
Smalley. But it was soon evident
that Oliver would never realize his
father's ambition that he should be-
come a village pastor. The law
pulled him too strongly from the
gospel of peace towards the legal
warfare of mankind, until at last his
father allowed him to jilt theology
in its favor, and in 1771 he was ad-
mitted to the bar.

His father gave him a small farm
with which to eke out his few and
slender fees ; and to pay the debts
incurred in his education he turned
woodsman and felled and trans-
planted down the river to Hartford
enough timber on some forest land
owned by him to start him in life
with a clean balance sheet. Then,
undeterred by the fact that a single
fee had not yet come his way, he
married, in 1772, Abigail Wolcott,
daughter of William Wolcott of
Windsor, and settled down on his
farm to the uphill work of making
two ends meet which seemed hope-
lessly far apart.

Three pounds was the total in-
come from his profession for the first
three years after his admission to
the bar. Then comes his oppor-

OLIVER ELLSWORTH

613

tunity ; he gets a case of some im-
portance, wins it for his client with
such a display of ability that the
eyes of his neighborhood are
opened to his talents, and from that
time on his rise was rapid and bril-
liant. His practice became so large
and lucrative that he was soon one
of the wealthiest men in Connecti-
cut. He moved to Hartford, was
appointed State's Attorney, and ere
long was known as the most noted
lawyer of his day.

Meanwhile the country was rush-
ing on towards revolution. With-
out two thoughts on the subject,
young Ellsworth, now a member of
the Connecticut General Assembly,
as a matter of course cast in his lot
with his country. Together with
William Pitkin, Thomas Seymour
and Ezekiel Williams, he was ap-
pointed on a committee called the
"Pay Table," whose duty it was to
manage the State's accounts in-
curred for military expenses, and in
October, 1777, he was elected a Dele-
gate to the Continental Congress
just as the decline in character and
influence of that once eminent body
had begun, and to it he remained
faithful to the bitter end. In this we
see the unselfish nobility of Ells-
worth's patriotism. It is easy to
serve one's country with the eyes of
an admiring world upon one as a
member of some bright and shining
assemblage to which all men pay
their tribute of respect. But it is
sublime to struggle on in patient,
persistent devotion to duty in that
same assemblage which, having be-
come powerless and decrepit, has de-
servedly earned the contempt of all
mankind. This is what Oliver Ells-
worth did. The Continental Con-
gress was a legislative body trying
to perform executive functions with-
out the power to enforce its decrees

on thirteen sovereign States, each
jealous of the other, and indiffer-
ent to every interest but its own. At
first composed of the foremost lead-
ers of the day, — of men like the
Adamses, Jefferson, Franklin, Sher-
man, Richard Henry Lee, the Mor-
rises, John Jay, and a host of others,
— the Congress had sunk later on
into a crowd of second and third-
rate men, petty politicians, narrow-
minded and incompetent wranglers,
absorbed in their own ambitions,
who attempted to run the affairs of
a Confederation along the narrow
lines of the town-meeting. It be-
came the laughing-stock of the
civilized world, a thorn in the flesh
which goaded Washington into
worse despair than any success of
the British arms, and an object
lesson to Hamilton and Ellsworth,
who learned from its incompetency
that sound finance and a pure and
strong adminstration of justice and
enforcement of law could never be
expected from a body which had
proved itself such a failure. In this
.almost worse than useless assem-
blage Ellsworth labored until the
end of the war, warding off hopeless
chaos, holding the members to their
duty, keeping them from altogether
deserting Washington in the field,
and gradually maturing those great
legal principles which afterwards re-
sulted in our Federal Judiciary. His
letters to Governor Trumbull and
Oliver Wolcott at this period, show
his active participation in every mat-
ter that came before the Congress.
But peace came at last, and in the
sumer of 1783 Ellsworth returned to
Connecticut. His service in the Con-
tinental Congress had been a fruit-
ful training-school for the greater
service of the immediate future.

The loose and rickety Confedera-
tion of States now began to totter to

614

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

its foundations. Held together dur-
ing the war by the bonds of a com-
mon danger and the struggle against
the comon enemy, when those bonds
were snapped by peace the States
began to fall away from one another,
and presented to the pleased gaze of
Europe a scene of rapid disintegra-
tion and internal dissension. The
strong united nation which had
whipped England and secured the

the people. Until a strong sense of
nationality should inspire the people
from Maine to Georgia, irrespective
of State lines, no American nation
was possible. No such sense of na-
tionality had survived the war ; it is
doubtful if even the common strug-
gle for freedom was truly national in
spirit, for the common object once
attained, the national feeling van-
ished completely and the American

OLIVER AND AB
From a painting by Earl, 1792, now

alliance of France was falling to
pieces, and each European sovereign
watched greedily for the chance to
pick up his share of the ruins. An-
other partition of Poland seemed
about to take place in the New
World. The situation cried out for
a strong centralized government, a
union in fact as well as in name, a
union not only of the sovereign
States as states, but of the people as

IGAIL ELLSWORTH.

iu the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford.

became once more the South Caro-
linian, the Virginian, the dweller in
Massachusetts or Connecticut. The
doctrine of State rights and State
sovereignty, which we are accus-
tomed to connect only with the war
of secession, then ruled supreme, as
strong in New England as in the
South ; nay, to the men of those days
it was more than a doctrine, it was a
truism, a self-evident fact, the onlv

OLIVER ELLSWORTH

615

system of government then known
to the colonies and States ; a con-
solidated nation was but a theory —
the dream of a visionary, the nearest
approach to which had been the
loose Confederation, until now
deemed all-sufficient by the general
run of men. As colonies we had been
bound together by our common al-
legiance to the British Crown ; as in-
dependent States we had been bound
together by the Congress of the Con-
federation, with its meagre authority
delegated for use in the common ser-
vice ; but now the Crown had been
hurled back -across the seas; the
Confederation had failed ; we were
bound together by no power under
God. Ruin and chaos confronted the
young republic at its birth. Then
arose the men whose thoughts, were
national, and who, looking the ™
full in the face, proclaimed the ne-
cessity of a national government
over all the people, acting upon the
people individually, not upon the
State governments, and with power
to enforce its laws. The sovereign
States at once raised the cry of dis- ;
may at what seemed an attempt to
undermine the rights of self-govern-
ment,— those rights which they had
but just vindicated against Great
Britain at the sacrifice of blood and
fortune. But the need was desper-
ate. Out of the strife of contending
parties at last emerged the immortal
Constitutional Convention, which
met at Philadelphia in 1787, with
George Washington in the chair.

Connecticut, where the State-
rights fever burned as high as any-
where, was backward in sending
representatives, but at last she de-
spatched Roger Sherman, Oliver
Ellsworth and William Samuel
Johnson to uphold her interests and
her rights in this movement for a
closer union. It was a breathless

moment- — a moment rife with direful
possibilities. On the one hand was
anarchy — on the other was our ex-
istence as a nation. Which would
the Convention bring forth? Wash-
ington, rising from his chair, his tall
form towering above the delegates
with more than usual solemnity and
grandeur, thus addressed them in
tones of suppressed emotion: "It is
probable that no plan we propose
will be adopted. Perhaps another
dreadful conflict is to be sustained.
If, to please the people, we offer
what we ourselves disapprove, how
can we afterward defend our work?
Let us raise a standard to which the
wise and the honest can repair; the
event is in the hand of God."

Thus did he strike the keynote of
the Convention and brace it to its
highest ideals. -Never before had
been gathered together such an as-
semblage of mighty minds to evolve
a plan by which thirteen separate
nations might think and act as one.
And above them all rise Oliver Ells-
worth and Roger Sherman of Con-
necticut, for without them the work
of the Convention would have come
to naught. Henry Cabot Lodge thus
speaks of Oliver Ellsworth at this
period :

"We have now come to one of the three
great events in Ellsworth's life — to an act
which fastens his name in history and with-
out which the story of that eventful sum-
mer cannot be told. To trace through the
records of the Convention all that he said
and did in the formation of the Constitu-
tion would be impossible and for my pur-
pose needless, because before us there is
now a single achievement which rises out
of the current of events as distinctly as a
lofty tower on a lonely ledge, and as
luminous as the light which beams forth
from it over the dark waste of ocean."

This great act was the- Connecti-
cut Compromise in the contest over
the basis of representation in the
projected national legislature. — the

616

N E W ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Connecticut Compromise, the great-
est of the three fundamental com-
promises upon which our federal
constitution is built, for without
it no constitution and no United
States of America would ever have
been possible. Thus spoke Mr. Cal-
houn afterwards in the Senate, the
great Southerner giving honor where
honor was due :

"It is owing, — I speak it here in honor of
New England and the Northern States — it
is owing mainly to the States of Connecti-
cut and New Jersey that we have a federal
instead of a national government ; that we
h^.ve the best government instead of the

The irreconcilable conflict over
representation between the great
States and the small States — therein
lay the danger. On the one side
stood men like Hamilton, Madison,
Franklin, King, Wilson, and Gou-
verneur Morris, of the large States,
contending for the principle of "a
government for men and not for
imaginary political entities called
States." Representation, said they,
should be based on, and be propor-
tional to population, and the central
government should act directly up-
on the individual people of the en-

HOME OF CHIEF JUSTICE ELLSWORTH, WINDSOR, CONN.
AS IT WAS IN 1836.
From an old woodcut in the " Connecticut Historical Collections."

most despotic and intolerable on the earth,
we are indebted for this admirable govern-
ment? I will name them. They were Chief
Justice Ellsworth, Roger Sherman and
Judge Patterson of New Jersey. The other
States further South were blind; they did
not see the future. But to the sagacity and
coolness of those three men, aided by a few
others, but not so prominent, we owe the
present Constitution."

Bancroft likewise says of Ells-
worth's part in the Convention :

"There he, more than any other, shaped
the policy which alone could have recon-
ciled the great States and the small ones
and bound them equally in the Union Ir-
reciprocal concessions."

tire nation ; in other words, it
should be National. On the other
hand, the little States protested that
they would be swamped by such a
system ; the large States would have
it all their own way if population
were the basis of representation in
the legislature, and they contended
for equal State representation — the
principle of representing the States
as such and not their people ; only
by having an equal number of dele-
gates could a small State like Con-
necticut hold its own with New York.

OLIVER ELLSWORTH

617

Upon Connecticut, therefore, fell
the brunt of the battle for the little
States, and here, in behalf of State
representation, Ellsworth and Sher-
man were the leaders. Things soon
reached a standstill. Gunning Bed-
ford of Delaware thus addressed the
delegates of the large States: " 'Gen-
tlemen, I do not trust you. If you
possess the power, the abuse of it
could not be checked; and what,
then, would prevent you from exer-
cising it to our destruction ? — Sooner
than be ruined, there are foreign
powers that will take us by the hand."
Rufus King jumped to his feet. "I
am concerned," said he, "for what
fell from the gentleman from Dela-
ware,— take a foreign power by the
hand! I am sorry he mentioned it,
and I hope he is able to excuse it to
himself on the score of passion." The
Convention was on the point of dis-
solution. At this supreme moment
of the fiery drama, Oliver Ellsworth
and Roger Sherman step upon the
scene; Connecticut suggests her
compromise. "Yes," said Franklin,
ever happy in his remarks, "when a
joiner wishes to fit two boards, he
sometimes pares off a bit from
both." Yielding to the principle of
representation according to popula-
tion in the House, Ellsworth stood
like a rock for the equality of the
States in the Senate. Some time be-
fore he had moved to strike out the
term "national" as applied to our
general government, and which had
aroused such antagonism among the
little States, and to insert the proper
title, "United States." A little later
he had declared that "the only
chance of supporting a general gov-
ernment lies in grafting it on those
of the original States." This prin-
ciple of the United States, each one
represented equally in a federal, not

a national government, har] been
long before laid down by Sherman,
and now these two colleagues from
Connecticut stood shoulder to shoul-
der before the excited delegates and
pleaded for this vital and funda-
mental principle of our national life.
They fought against Hamilton, and
Madison, Randolph, King and Mor-
ris for the federal principle in the
Senate. Neither side would yield.
When it came to the vote it was a
tie, thanks to the noble patriotism
of a young man in the Georgia dele-
gation, Abraham Baldwin, also from
Connecticut. Georgia voted last,
and would have cast the majority of
her votes against the compromise
had not Baldwin seen the perilous
consequences of rejection and
against his private conviction voted
in its favor, thus splitting his delega-
tion equally and making the tie
which saved the day. The rejection
of the Compromise would have
meant dissolution of the Convention
with nothing done, and consequent
despair and ruin to the country. The
tie vote brought about a Committee
of Conference, which reported in
favor of the great Connecticut Com-
promise, namely — representation ac-
cording to population in the House
and equality of the States in the Sen-
ate, where each State, regardless of
size, should be forever represented
by two Senators. Thus was saved
that marvellous feature of our Con-
stitution, that system of our govern-
ment never seen in the world before
— the system whereby two distinct
governments, the Federal and the
State, act harmoniously, the one
within the other, upon the same in-
dividuals.

Time forbids entering in detail
upon Ellsworth's share in the other
momentous questions which con-
fronted the Convention. He took

618

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

part in every discussion, and his
opinions helped to form every essen-
tial feature of our Constitution. He
set his face firmly against allowing
the Federal government to issue that
inconvertible paper money which
had wrought such havoc with our
credit. In the words of Sherman it
was "the favorable crisis for crush-
ing paper money."

"This is the time," said Ellsworth,
"to shut and bar the door against
paper money, which can in no case
be necessary. Give the government
credit and other resources will offer.
The power may do harm, never
good." On no question was the
Convention more "nearly unani-
mous," says Fiske, "than in its con-
demnation of paper money."

Ellsworth's attitude as to slavery
was one of non-interference, "for,"
said he, "slavery, in time, will not be
a speck in our country." In the con-
troversy as to whether slaves should
be classed as population or chattels
in apportioning the basis of repre-
sentation in the various States, he
was in favor of the second great
"compromise," which counted three-
fifths of the slaves as population.
When it was argued that representa-
tion would encourage the slave-
trade, Ellsworth still would not in-
termeddle ; he is reported as saying,
"Let every State import what it
pleases. The morality or wisdom of
slavery are considerations belonging
to the States themselves. What en-
riches a part enriches the whole, and
the States are the best judges of this
particular interest." The old Con-
federation had not meddled with
this point. He did not ■ see any
greater necessity for bringing it
within the policy of the new one.
We must remember that all the
States at that time, except Massa-
chusetts where slavery had just

been abolished, were slave-holding
States, Connecticut owning nearly
three thousand slaves. This throws
much light upon Ellsworth's con-
ciliatory policy as to slave represen-
tation, and also upon his similar at-
titude on the third "compromise,"
by which New England agreed to
postpone for twenty years the aboli-
tion of the foreign slave trade if
South Carolina and Georgia would
concede, in return, free trade between
the States and grant to the Federal
government full and unrestricted
control over commerce. This "bar-
gain," as Gouverneur Morris called
it, between New England and the
far South was approved of by Con-
necticut, Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, who saw more impor-
tant benefits in the commercial con-
cessions than harm in the prolong-
ing of a trade which all believed was
dying out along with slavery itself
and to which the powerful slave-hold-
ing State of Virginia was so bitterly
opposed that her delegates refused
to sign the Constitution because of
this very "compromise with this in-
fernal traffic," as George Mason of
Virginia called it in his bitter indig-
nation.

Throughout the Convention,
Oliver Ellsworth thus stamped his
name on every page of our Consti-
tution. He was one of the immortal
Committee of Five appointed to
draft it, and saw it pass the Conven-
tion almost without amendment as
he had helped to frame it. Not wait-
ing even to sign this document, this
work of his brain and heart, he
hastened back to Connecticut to con-
stitute himself its champion, and
ably seconded by Wolcott, led the
party of ratification to a decisive and
rapid victory. In the State Conven-
tion called to consider the new Con-
stitution, of which the secretary

OLIVER ELLSW O R T II

019

was Jedecliah Strong of Litchfield,
Ellsworth, with all the force of his
great nature, poured forth a stream
of eloquent appeal in behalf of the
Union. The ringing words of his
terse, all-convincing speeches fell
like a resistless avalanche upon his
hearers; every objection vanished
before his relentless logic; every

by Mr. Ellsworth, a gentleman, sir,
who has left behind him on the rec-
ords of the government of his coun-
try proofs of the clearest intelligence'
and of the deepest sagacity, as well
as of the utmost purity and integrity
of character." Even a Webster could
not, in very truth, "do better than"
an Ellsworth in eloquent defense of

HOME OF CHIEF JUSTICE ELLSWORTH AS IT WAS OCTOBER 8, 1903, WHEN

FORMALLY PRESENTED BY THE FAMILY TO THE CONNECTICUT

DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

honest doubt was hushed by the
sound reason of his arguments. No
"better proof of the quality and power
•of his speeches in this body can be
found than this testimony of Daniel
"Webster in his replies to Calhoun :
"I cannot do better," said he, "than
to leave this part of this subject [the
Union] by reading the remarks upon
it in the Convention of Connecticut

the Union ! Connecticut took but
five days to ratify the Constitution
by a vote of 128 to 40.

When the Constitution was finally
adopted by the. nine necessary
States, Connecticut chose Oliver
Ellsworth as one of her first Sen-
ators in the new Federal govern-
ment.

620

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

The first Congress under the new
regime was called to meet in New
York, March 4th, 1789, and there
Ellsworth was among the first eight
Senators to appear and wait pa-
tiently for six weeks before a
quorum had arrived; there he took
part in the inauguration of Wash-
ington and began his service of seven
years as United States Senator from
Connecticut.

John Adams says that "he was the
firmest pillar of Washington's whole
administration, in the Senate." To
realize fully what that meant we
must also realize that our new gov-
ernment had no precedents, no tra-
ditions, no long-established forms or
formulas or rules to guide it in its
work, — no well-beaten paths to fol-
low. It was a new and untried sys-
tem about to spread itself out over
an unexplored region — to break its
own trail over a pathless future,
without guide-posts and without
maps. How the delicate wheels and
intricate machinery of this new car
of State were fitted for this pioneer
journey, no man knew ; but the en-
gineer was Ellsworth. He it was
who not only powerfully influenced
the large world-wide policies but
also arranged all the countless little
details of the every-day working of
the government, and established the
routine of habits, customs, forms of
official address, enacting clauses of
bills — in short, every little obscure
matter which oils the wheels of State
and without which the nicely ad-
justed machinery could not move at
all.

Ellsworth was immediately made
Chairman of the Committee to or-
ganize the Judiciary of the United
States, and he wrote the Judiciary
Act, which forms the basis of our
whole Federal judicial system under
which we live to-day. This alone

would have made his name famous
in our legislative history.

To Ellsworth likewise belongs the
credit of bringing stiff-necked little
Rhode Island into the Union, against
which she had set the full force of
her small geographical person, the
last to hold out against all the rest.

He thus writes to a friend :

"Rhode Island is at length brought into
the Union, and by a pretty bold measure
in Congress which would have exposed me
to some censure had it not produced the
effect I expected it would, and which, in
fact, it has done. But 'all's well that ends
well.' The Constitution is now adopted by
all the States, and I have much satisfaction,
and perhaps some vanity, in seeing, at
length, a great work finished, for which I
have long labored incessantly."

Well he might be allowed that in-
dulgence in vanity ! The measure in
question was one which forbade
"goods, ware and merchandizes',
from coming into the United States
from Rhode Island, which convinced
the haughty little State that her
choice lay between Union or extinc-
tion.

As the years went on the foreign
relations of the young nation became
more and more involved, and inter-
national questions of vast impor-
tance assumed threatening propor-
tions. The Senate, as the treaty-
making power, and as, in a sense,
the Constitutional adviser of the Ex-
ecutive, was the arena of discussions
on foreign affairs which meant life
or death to the republic. In this
field, also, Ellsworth was pre-
eminent. Seeing as clearly as Wash-
ington, the vital necessity of neutral-
ity for a weak and exhausted nation,
bankrupt at home and despised
abroad, he ever sought in the Senate
to allay the hatred of the enemies of
England and to restrain the enthusi-
asm of the friends of France who
had hailed the French Revolution
with all the ardor of the Red

OLIVER ELLSWORTH

(J21

Jacobins themselves. When war was
declared between France and Eng-
land, we ourselves stood on the
verge of the bloody gulf which was
to swallow Europe for well-nigh a
quarter century. Resentment against
England for her alleged bad faith
in the fulfillment of her treaty of
1784, added to a romantic desire to
help the ally which had helped us,
would have thrown us irrevocably
into the arms of France had it not
been for Washington, who, immov-
able as Gibraltar, stood between us
and Europe and kept us upon neu-
tral ground. In this grave crisis, as
in all others, Ellsworth was one of
that small group of men upon whom
Washington leaned for support and
advice, and to his influence with
Washington and his statesmanlike
grasp of foreign diplomacy we owe
John Jay's mission to England, and
the consequent Jay Treaty which
saved the country from war. One
of his grandsons recounts the inci-
dent which led up to it, in effect as
follows :

Goaded by party virulence and
hatred of our recent foes, a strong
majority in the House was, in 1784,
about to declare war upon England,
regardless of our defenceless con-
dition. Ellsworth saw the disas-
trous consequences of such a war
and felt that it could be averted. He
discussed the question in private
with Governor Strong, Mr. King and
Mr. Cabot, who were then in the
Senate, and concluded that a mission
to England to settle the disputed
points could alone save the country.
They decided that John Jay and
Hamilton, with a third, were the
men to send, and Ellsworth was ap-
pointed to interview Washington.
The President listened with deep
'Concern to his account of their con-
fidential conclave and said : "Well,

what can be done, Mr. Ellsworth?"
Ellsworth answered that a Minister
Plenipotentiary should be forthwith
sent to England, and named the
men alluded to by his friends. This
was a new thought to the President.
"Well, sir," said he, "I will take this
subject into consideration."

The result of his consideration
was the Jay Treaty, which, in spite
of French intrigue and indignant op-
position at home, was ratified by
the Senate by a vote of 18 to 8,
although bitterly opposed by a ma-
jority of the House. Ellsworth had
saved the country from war. His
letters to Oliver Wolcott, senior, at
this period of his Senatorial service
reveal his deep anxiety over the
course of events set going by these
French sympathizers and the inti-
mate connection he had with all that
was done to counteract the danger
and keep the nation at peace. His
estimate of Jefferson is worth a
passing notice in view of the present
day adoration of this statesman at
the expense of many others. He
was asked why he, and other Fed-
eralists, had regarded Jefferson's
candidacy for the Presidency with
such alarm since he was not an
enemy to his country? Ellsworth
replied, "No, it is not apprehended
that Jefferson is an enemy to his
country, or that he would designedly
do anything wrong. But it is known
he is a visionary man, an enthusi-
astic disciple of the French Revolu-
tion, and an enemy to whatever
would encourage commercial enter-
prise, or give energy to the govern-
ment. It is apprehended that if he
were President, he would take little
or no responsibility on himself. The
nation would be, as it were, without
a head. Everything would be re-
ferred to Congress. A lax, intriguing
kind of policy would be adopted;

622

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

and while arts were practised to give
direction to popular sentiment, Mr.
Jefferson would affect to be directed
by the will of the nation. There
would be no national energy. Our
character would sink, and our weak-
ness invite contempt and insult.
Though Mr. Jefferson would have
no thoughts of war, his zeal in the
French cause and enmity to Great
Britain would render him liable to
secret influence that would tend to
the adoption of measures calculated
to produce war with England,
though it was not intended, and the
nation might be plunged into a war
wholly unprepared."

This acute estimate of the founder
of the Democracy did not prevent
Ellsworth from accepting his future
election without complaint. Accord-
ing to the election returns published
in the "Litchfield Monitor" for De-
cember 21, 1796, Ellsworth himself
had nine of the Electoral votes in
the Presidential campaign of Adams
vs. Jefferson.

Ellsworth's friendship for the two
Oliver Wolcotts, father and son, was
both deep and strong. In 1783 the
senior Wolcott had written to his
son from Philadelphia, referring in
these terms to the value of Ells-
worth's good opinion :

"Sir:

Mr. Ellsworth says that you will succeed
in the Business which you propose. I am
very glad that he has a good Opinion of
you, as there is no one whose Friendship
will be more serviceable to you. And as he
is a Gentleman of great Candor and In-
tegrity, as well as in high Reputation in his
Profession, you will, I doubt not, merit that
Regard from him which I believe he is in-
clined to bestow.

Yours with the kindest Regard,

Oliver Wolcott.

Mr. Oliver Wolcott, Jr."

Whatever the particular business
referred to in this letter, we know
that young Wolcott's subsequent
career fully carried out Mr. Ells-

worth's prophecy of success in its-
regard, and was closely and firmly
knit with his own by the bonds of
friendship and common labors. Wol-
cott was associated with Ellsworth1
as a commissioner to settle the
monetary claims of Connecticut
against the United States, was a
member with him of the "Pay-
Table," and afterwards became, in
rapid succession, Auditor, Comp-
troller, and finally Secretary of the
Treasury of the United States, as-
successor to Hamilton. Wfhile re-
siding in Philadelphia during his
Senatorial services, Ellsworth fre-
quented Wolcott's house, which was-
the resort of the shining lights of the'
Federal party, the centre of a social
circle of such distinction as has sel-
dom been surpassed. Mr. Ells-
worth's social qualities were the de-
light of these gatherings. The close-
ness ot his intimacy with Wolcott
is seen in the following playful let-
ters from the latter to his wife-
"Betsey" :

"Philadelphia, June 18th, 1795.
Miss M. has visited me but once; I pre-
sume she is afraid Mr. Ellsworth will in-
form you if she comes while he is here."

On June 25th, when Ellsworth
was going to Hartford, he writes-
again, referring to the Jay Treaty
and its ratification :

"Mr. Ellsworth, however, has so far ex-
perienced your faculty of keeping State-
Secrets, that I doubt not he will tell you
everything that you wish to know, and you
have my consent to tell others anything that:
he tells you. ... I am in perfect health,,
and Mr. Ellsworth will tell you how I
behave."

He was not less intimate with'
Washington, who visited the Ells-
worth mansion in 1789 when making
his tour of New England, early in
his first administration. After the
fatal blow dealt to his family tradi-
worth on his knee, and reciting to

OLIVER ELLSWORTH

623

tions by Mr. William Webster Ells-
worth in his address at the recent
dedication of the Homestead by the
Connecticut D. A. R., I have not the
heart to recount the tale of the twins
and the "Darby Ram !" I would far
rather forget the cherry tree and
bury the hatchet forever, than not
believe that Washington at this time
sang the "Darby Ram" to those
Ellsworth twins, sitting on his knee !
Even if the birth records state that
the twms were not born until two
years after he sang to them, the
nursery was full of little Ellsworths
and the great Chief's diary certainly
testifies to his visit on October 21st,

"By promise," he writes, "I was to have
breakfasted with Mr. Ellsworth at Wind-
sor on my way to Springfield, but the morn-
ing proved very wet, and the rain not
ceasing until ten o'clock, I did not set out
till half after that hour. I called, however,
and stayed an hour."

He stayed an hour, and did not
sing the "Darby Ram" to those chil-
dren? It is past belief! Let birth
records preach as they may, there
is nothing mythical about Washing-
ton. Senator Hoar, at least, believes
in the twins, for in his "Autobiog-
raphy of Seventy Years11 he states
that from his mother, who was
Roger Sherman's daughter, he had
the story of Washington taking one
of the twin children of Justice Ells-
worth on his knee and reciting to
him the ballad of the Derbyshire
Ram. Senator Hoar is not one to be
lightly contradicted ; but if Wash-
ington, in spite of this testimony,
did not sing to the twins, he cer-
tainly sang to Frances, and possibly
Delia, who no doubt enjoyed it just
as much. Therefore let us- always
believe that he sang this song ! Tra-
dition is the life blood of history.
Spill it not forth over the deserts of
unbelief !

Eight years later, when his second
Presidential term had just expired,
Washington wrote Ellsworth, when
Chief Justice, the following letter full
of unwonted expressions of feeling:

"Dear Sir :

Before I leave this city, which will be
within less than twenty-four hours, per-
mit me, in acknowledging the receipt of
your kind and affectionate note of the 6th,
to offer you the thanks of a grateful heart
for the sentiments you have expressed in
my favor and for those attentions with
which you have always honored me. In
return I pray you to accept all my good
wishes for the perfect restoration of your
health and for all the happiness this life
can afford. As your official duty will neces-
sarily call you to the southward, I will take
the liberty of adding that it will always
give me pleasure to see you at Mount Ver-
non as you pass and repass.

With unfeigned esteem and regard, in
which Mrs. Washington joins me, I am
always and affectionately yours,

George Washington."

It was not everyone to whom
Washington signed himself "affec-
tionately yours." The following
petulant remark of Aaron Burr, a
political opponent and an embittered
and disappointed man, speaks vol-
umes as to Ellsworth's power over
the Senate : "If he should chance to
spell the name of the Deity with
two D's," growled Burr, "it would
take the Senate three weeks to ex-
punge the superfluous letter."

This power was now to be directed
to another field. Ellsworth thus
writes to the senior Wolcott, then
Governor of Connecticut :

"It is my duty, sir, to acquaint you that
I have with some hesitation accepted an
appointment in the Judiciary of the United
States, which, of course, vacates my seat
in the Senate. This step, I hope, will not
be regarded as disrespectful to a State
which I have so long had the honor to
serve, and whose interests must forever
remain precious to my heart."

The place so modestly spoken of
as "an appointment in the Judiciary"
was the Chief Justiceship of the
United States. Ellsworth was sworn

624

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

in as Chief Justice March 8th, 1796,
and held the office until he resigned
it in 1800.

"The brilliancy of his Senatorial service,"
says Lodge, "and the great part he played
in the formative period of our national gov-
ernment could not be equaled even by his
service as Chief Justice. He came to his
great office well qualified both by profes-
sional training and by experience as a
statesman and law-maker. He served both
well and efficiently and maintained and
strengthened the character of the court.
Yet it was not as Chief Justice that his
best work was done."

He was not confronted by the
great constitutional questions which
the unequalled Marshall was called
upon to meet ; yet on the Supreme
Bench of his country he served
honorably and well, and had he been
able to remain there would no doubt
have made a distinguished reputa-
tion. But after four years of service
as Chief Justice he was called to still
more important work. This was his
mission as Envoy Extraordinary to
France.

Our relations with France had be-
come more and more strained, owing
to that country's increasing aggres-
sion, developing finally into intoler-
able insolence and open insult. We
were engaged in actual hostilities,
though war was not yet declared.
Adams was for peace at any price.
Against the wishes of his party, who
felt our dignity lowered by further
advances in negotiation, he ap-
pointed a special commission to
treat with France. The Chief Jus-
tice was the guiding star of this
Commission. At first opposed to it
on political grounds and disinclined
to it for every personal reason, Ells-
worth reluctantly consented to his
appointment, and obeyed the Presi-
dent's call as one bound to the
highest sense of duty, though it in-
volved him in his first difference of
opinion with all his life-long friends.

The "Litchfield [Conn.] Monitor"
for November 6th, 1799, has this
entry :

"Hartford, Oct. 31st.
The Hon. Oliver Ellsworth and Gov.
Davie, two of the Commissioners appointed
by our Government to treat with France,
left this place on Tuesday last, for Newport,
where they are immediately to embark in
the Frigate United States, Commander
Barry."

It was March 2nd, 1800, before
they reached Paris. The Directory
had fallen, and Napoleon was First
Consul and master of France. In
the audience he gave to the Amer-
icans, this remarkable man, whose
acute instincts never failed him in
the reading of character, exclaimed
when his glance first fell on Ells-
worth: "I must make a treaty with
that man." The treaty was made,
but not as Ellsworth's countrymen
had expected. Unable to wring from
France the least satisfaction on the
matters in dispute, Ellsworth, with
true statesmanship, abandoned the
old ground of controversy and made
a new treaty covering like points in
the future. France agreed to pay
her debts to us, our commercial re-
lations were satisfactorily arranged,
and, more important than all, war
was averted and an honorable peace
assured. For the second time Ells-
worth had saved his country from
disastrous war. Yet he was mis-
understood and villified at home.
Even Wolcott thought him crazed
by the inroads of disease, thus to
have abandoned our original de-
mands with seeming weakness. But
the event proved him wise beyond
his generation. He thus writes to
the younger Wolcott, then Secretary
of the Treasury, in a letter dated
Havre, October 16, 1800:

"Dear Sir:

You will see our proceedings and their
result. Be assured more could not be done

OLIVER ELLSWORTH

625

without too great a sacrifice ; and as the
reign of Jacobinism is over in France, and
appearances are strong in favor of a gen-
eral peace, I hope you will think it was
better to sign a convention than to do
nothing. My pains are constant and at
times excruciating; they do not permit me
to embark for America at this late season
of the year, nor if there, would they per-
mit me to discharge my official duties. I
have therefore sent my resignation of the
office of Chief Justice, and shall, after
spending a few weeks in England, retire for
winter quarters to the south of France. I
pray Mrs. Wolcott to accept of my best
respects, and shall ever remain, dear sir,

Your affectionate friend,

Oliv. Ellsworth."

"Oliver Wolcott, Esq."

The postscript gives his high

ideal of patriotic service. He says,

alluding to Jefferson's intrigues
against Wolcott :

"You certainly did right not to resign,
and you must not think of resignation, let
what changes may take place — at least till
I see you. Tho' our country pays badly, it
is the only one in the world worth working
for. The happiness it enjoys, and which
it may increase, is so much superior to
what the nations of Europe do, or ever can,
enjoy, that no one who is able to preserve
and increase that happiness ought to quit
her service while he can remain in it with
bread and honour. Of the first, a little suf-
fices you, and of the latter it is not in the
power of malevolence or rapine to deprive
you. They cannot do without you, and dare
not put you out. Remember, my dear friend,
my charge — keep on till I see you.

O. E."

We are now approaching the close
of his quarter-century of just such
self-sacrificing service as that de-
scribed above. After a superb fete
given by Napoleon at Morfontaine
in honor of our Envoys and the
Franco-American treaty, he left
France and spent some time in Eng-
land, where he was much benefited
in health by the climate and the
pleasant reception accorded him in
London. In the spring of 1801 he
returned to his home in Windsor,
that home of which he wrote:

"I have visited several countries and like
my own the best; I have been in all the

States of the Union, and Connecticut is the
best State; Windsor is the pleasantest
Town in the State of Connecticut, and I
have the pleasantest place in the Town of
Windsor. I am content, perfectly content,
to die on the banks of the Connecticut."

Before entering that home, before
greeting his wife and children, who
streamed from the door to meet him,
he stopped at the gate, and, bowing
his head, he first thanked God for
bringing him safely home. He was
soon to be brought to a safer and a
pleasanter home than even ''Elm-
wood Hall" in the town of Wind-
sor. Though suffering from repeated
attacks of his disease, he, ever faith-
ful to duty, resumed his old place
on the Governor's Council, and in
the reorganization of the State Judi-
ciary he accepted the Chief Justice-
ship, ready to die in harness if only
"on the banks of the Connecticut."
But illness forced him to resign, and
at last, on the 27th of November,
1807, he died at Windsor and was
buried in the old cemetery on the
Farmington River, where a simple
monument marks his resting place.

I have not lingered over a formal
delineation of this man's character.
It is needless. His deeds and his
words, what he wrote and what
others wrote of him, are the best in-
dicators of the kind of man he was.
Incessant thought for his country's
welfare was the keynote of his life,
— thought which often kept him
pacing nightly up and down his
room talking to himself until at early
dawn his conclusions would be
reached and his mind be satisfied —
thought so deep and constant that
many a little personal habit grew
out of his reveries. Often would his
chair be surrounded by little heaps
of snuff dropped absent-mindedly,
the number indicating to his family
the depth of his meditations. Think-
ing unceasingly he would go to table

626

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

when called and, with the solitary
remark, ''Who eats? Who eats?"
he would often remain in profound
thought throughout the meal, un-
speaking and unspoken to. Once a
young teacher, invited to call upon
him, arrived, and being ushered in,
remained in conversation with other
members of the family, entirely un-
noticed by the Judge. Suddenly Mr.
Ellsworth saw him, and forthwith
greeting him cordially, introduced
him to those with whom he had been
talking for some time past. Yet no
one could be more sprightly or ani-
mated than he in the family circle
or social gathering, where his con-
versation and bright charm of man-
ner made him the life of every occa-
sion. Let the historian Hollister's
lines give us our final view of him :

"Ellsworth was logical and argumenta-
tive in his mode of illustration, and pos-
sessed a peculiar style of condensed state-
ment through which there ran, like a mag-
netic current, the most delicate train of
analytical reasoning. His eloquence was
wonderfully persuasive, too, and his man-
ner solemn and impressive. His style was
decidedly of the patrician school, and yet
so simple that a child could follow without
difficulty the steps by which he arrived at
his conclusions. . . . Add to these quali-

ties, an eye that seemed to look an adver-
sary through, a forehead and features so
bold and marked as to promise all that his
rich, deep voice, expressive gestures and
moral fearlessness made good ; add, above
all, that reserved force of scornful satire,
so seldom employed but so like the destruc-
tive movements of a corps of flying artil-
lery, and the reader has an outline of the
strength and majesty of Ellsworth."

To this man, patriot and Consti-
tution-maker, Senator and Chief Jus-
tice of the United States and Envoy
Extraordinary to France, Connecti-
cut owes more than she has ever yet
paid, more than a simple family
monument and a family portrait in
her Historical Society. Upon the
Connecticut Daughters of the Amer-
ican Revolution has devolved a
sacred heritage. To them has been
given the unique privilege of guard-
ing forever his dearly loved home,
the "pleasantest place in Windsor,"
and maintaining it as a perpetual
memorial to him beneath the elms
which he planted. May they never
be faithless to this trust— to this
sacred and honorable duty to keep
in remembrance throughout all gen-
erations the name and deeds of
Oliver Ellsworth.

Italians of New England

By Amy Woods

SINCE the formation of the Gov-
ment, there have been, in round
numbers, twenty million immi-
grants admitted to the United
States, of which eighteen million
have come from Europe. Germany
heads the list of nations which have
sent immigrants to our shores with
a record of five million, and Ireland
follows hard on her heels with four

million ; then England with two and
three quarter million, while Nor-
way, Sweden, Austria-Hungary,
Italy and Russia, including Poland,
can each claim one and a half mil-
lion. A greater portion of these
twenty million immigrants come
from English speaking or Germanic
stock and the blending of the races
has formed the American of today.

ITALIANS OF NEW ENGLAND

627

But now the tide of immigration has
shifted, and a new problem has
arisen of grave moment to the na-
tion at large and the individual
states.

During the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1903, United States immi-
gration increased to so great an ex-
tent that it exceeds, by nearly ten
per cent., that of 1882, the year in
which the highest previous record —
788,992 — had been reached, the total
number of those coming in by the
seaboard ports being 857,046, or
over 200,000 more than arrived in
1902. Of these, more than two-
thirds came from Italy, Russia and
Austria-Hungary. The tendency to
emigrate has been growing in the
southern European countries for
the past ten years, and whereas the
record of the decade ending in 1890,
(which gave the largest total of any
decade), showed Germany to have
been the mother country of one-
fourth of the immigrants, the record
of the decade ending 1900 shows her
to have sent only a little over one-
third as many as in 1890. On the
other hand, Italy has doubled her
numbers in the last decade, and is
likely to quadruple them in the next,
if her yearly increase continues pro-
portionately. Not only has Germany
fallen off in the number of immi-
grants she has given to the United
States, but all the other Northern
European countries have been out-
done by the Latin and Semitic races
of Southern and Eastern Europe.
We have, then, a steady inpouring
of races that fail to amalgamate with
English-speaking people, and are
totally at variance with our cus-
toms, habits, traditions and laws;
that are illiterate, uninterested in
the welfare of the government, and
are here for the purpose of personal

gain, with no thought of making
America a permanent home. It is a
condition that cannot be regarded
as otherwise than serious ; and the
question of immigration has become
one of the most vital of the day.

The immigration from Germany in-
to the United States from 1821 to
1902 inclusive is 24.98 per cent, of
the total twenty million ; from Ire-
land 19 1-3 per cent.; from England,
1Z1A Per cent. ; from Italy, 6 2-3 per
cent., or 1,358,597. The immigra-
tion from Italy during the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1903, was 230,622,
which is nearly one-sixth of the
total number arriving in the pre-
vious eighty-one years. Thus it is
to be seen that this question now
placed so often before the public is
not a chimera of a morbid or pes-
simistic mind.

The total foreign-born population
in the United States, as found by the
last census, which was taken in
1900, was about ten and a quarter
million, or 13 per cent. Of these,
over four million, or two-fifths, were
located in the New England States,
New York, Pennsylvania and New
Jersey. Of the Italians, 73 per cent,
were located in these States, while
11 per cent, were found in the north
central region, and the rest had scat-
tered too far to make an aggregate
per cent, in any one place. As for
the foreign population in the various
States, 26 per cent, of the inhabit-
ants of New York, or nearly two
million, were of foreign birth ; 15 per
cent, of Pennsylvania, or nearly one
million ; 20 per cent, of Illinois, or
nearly a million, and 30 per cent, of
Massachusetts, or 800,000, were of

like condition. Reckoning in those of
foreign parentage, the percentage
rises above the half-way mark, Massa-
chusetts alone having 62 per cent.

628 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of foreign birth or parentage. The provinces of Tuscany and Emilia, on
large cities, especially of Massachu- the one hand, and Latium, Umbria
setts, have populations largely made and Marches on the other. Immi-
up of foreigners or those of foreign grants coming from the territory
parentage. Fall River, Holyoke and above this line, and including natives
Lawrence each has a foreign ele- of Switzerland and Austria, are desig-
ment comprising from three-fourths nated as from Northern Italy, while
to four-fifths of its entire citizen- Southern Italy embraces all below
ship. In Boston, the percentage of the line with the Islands of Sicily
population that is of foreign parent- and Sardinia. It is to be regretted
age is 72.2, one-half of which is alien that comparatively few immigrants
by birth. come from the North of Italy, since
The total immigration of 1903 their standard of living is much
gained admittance for the most part higher than that of their Southern
through the four following ports: neighbors. In 1903 only 1,243 land-
New York, Boston, Baltimore and ing at Boston docks gave Northern
Philadelphia, by far the greatest Italy as their home. Of these 990
number coining to New York — the were males and 253 females — 133
immigration there standing about were under 14 years of age, 75 were
ten to one with that of Boston, over 45, and 1,035 were between 14
Boston officials, however, examined and 45.

and passed into the country 62,838. These immigrants gave an un-

The following table will show the usually low percentage of illiteracy,

numbers by nationalities. as the following figures will show;

Scandinavians 18,715 only 22° could neither read nor

Italians . i6 8qo write> one could read but not write,

Irish 7064 and T>°22 could do both. As for

English 7 188 their pecuniary resources 203 had

pjns 40^7 over $30.00, 788 had less than $30.00,

Portuguese 2 2iq and m a^ they brought $28,083 mt°

Greek '. . . . 1,277 the country-

Scots f gr2 In juxtaposition with these there

Hebrews 764 came from Southern Italy, 12,577

Others 1 043 males, and 3,039 females, making a

\ total of 15,616. Of these 1,716 were

Total . 62 838 under 14 years of age, 970 were over

,— . . . . 4S and 12,030 were of the so-called

To trace the course of each of 7c 1 • « •. . rA A **

... , < < . working age between 14 and 45.

these nationalities would be an in- ^ 1 ? j u *. *. -4. a

, . Ten could read but not write, and

terestmg but too long process tor a ,, ,« , . u -ir, . .

te & F the others were totally illiterate;

magazine article, so we will follow 24g were debarred for various rea-

only the Italians, since they have so sons

far outnumbered all other races in ' ' , , , a

Of those who were accepted, 852

the past year. • I ,

T.r • . , * t .. .<■> brought over $30.00 — 11,778 brought

For convenience in tabulating the fe ^° "' &

locality from which the emigrat- less than fco.00 and the aggregate

ing Italians came, an irregular line amounted to $189,162, making an

has been arbitrarily drawn across average of only $12.11 per capita, as

the central part of Italy between the against $22.59 Per capita brought by

ITALIANS OF NEW ENGLAND 629

the Northern Italians. Although More than four-fifths of the Ital-

no monetary restriction is placed in ians entering the United States are

gaining admittance to the United unable to speak English and they

States, yet the ability to earn and acquire it very slowly, and often not

save is shown by the capital that an at all even after years of residence in

immigrant is able to declare upon this country. This is due probably

arrival. to their reluctance to mingle with

The purpose of the statistician other nationalities, which is also the

is often defeated by his own figures, reason why they withstand, to so

Like the old school arithmetic great an extent, the influence toward

problem which left the farmer with Americanization.

thirty-nine and a half living sheep, When the Italian immigrant lands

the result of his figuring cannot on the dock he is usually met by

always be relied upon to coincide friends or by the agent of an Italian

with facts. banker, and is taken directly to the

On one ship this year there were bank in the Italian quarter of the
eleven Russian Jews, ten of whom city, Here he registers and de-
had no money and the eleventh had posits his money and if he has the
$500. "Oh," said a man overlooking name of a friend, he is sent to him,
the record, "the Jews are a pretty wherever he may be at work at the
thrifty class : — they have an average time.

of over $45.00 per capita." So also The majority of this class of im-

perhaps the statistics in regard to the migrants stay in New York, Massa-

Southern Italians might be interpret- chusetts or Pennsylvania, not over 5

ed in several ways, but the fact re- per cent, going to other states so that

mains that not even one financier has "Italians in New England" is very

come during the last year to raise the nearly synonymous with "Italians in

per capita average from much above Massachusetts," a few only coming

one week's wages of the day laborer, via Portland. The following table

Sometimes more currency is is quoted from the census of 1900 to

found in the steerage than in the show how many Italians were settled

second class, for the immigrant at that time in each of the New Eng-

brings all his personal property with land States.

him and has no recourse to bank Maine I>334

account when that is gone. One New Hampshire 947

Irishman declared $2,000. The ex- Vermont 2,154

aminers did not believe him until Massachusetts 28,785

this unexpected wealth was disclosed Rhode Island 8,972

at the bottom of his trunk. When Connecticut I9>io5

asked how he dared to carry it that Connecticut's nineteen thousand

way he answered, "that no one were employed in the textile mills,

would suspect an old trunk of so The number has increased in all the

much wealth, but if he carried it States since the census was taken

about his person he mightbe robbed." and the greater part of them might

He was perhaps wiser than he knew, be considered as more or less of a

for aliens arriving on the docks are floating population, congregating in

easy victims of the fleecers, especi- the large cities and sent from place

ally if they are wholly ignorant of to place by the banker to fulfill labor

the language. contracts.

630

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

When a contractor, say in Maine,
is about to build a road or to dig a
sewer, or start some other job that
requires day laborers, he sends to an
Italian banker, in one of the large
cities. The banker picks out a gang
of the required number and sends it
at once to the contractor. He builds
a shanty for the men and provides
them with a cook. Each laborer
pays his proportionate part to pro-
vide the mess, and twenty-five cents
per day to the banker. What is left
from his $1.50 or $2.00 he stores
away for the time when he can go
back to Italy with a few hundred
dollars and live in idle opulence for
three or four years until his wealth
is gone and he is obliged to return
again to accumulate a fortune.

In whatever locality a gang of
Italian laborers is employed, there
a camp is established. The typical
Italian laborer's camp in America
is a unique institution. It is a little
community in itself. It is exclusive.
It has its resources within itself.
Here, should you look in in the early
morning, you will find the men
seated on wooden benches before
the long table eating breakfast; the
cook presiding over a tiny stove.
The Italian is not a high liver or ex-
acting and the menage is not intri-
cate. At evening you will see them
lying about on the grass smoking
and chatting. Sunday is the wash
day and the ground is covered with
drying garments, the bright red
blazoning the fact to the outside
world. They play at games too, for
they are a light-hearted people, and
their songs can be heard at twilight.
They do not interfere with the near-
by people and they will not brook
interference. They have their own
code of honor and the transgressor
is summarily dealt with at the point

of a knife. To them the banker is
autocrat. They look to him as the
bestower of all good fortune. He
has found them friends, provided
them with work, and saved their
money. The Italian immigrant is of
a dependent nature. The character
of his life at home has made him so.
There he divides his scanty earn-
ings with the land owner and is
under his domination. Class dis-
tinction runs high in Italy, too, and
the peasant makes obeisance to all
of superior rank. Imprisonment is
the penalty for numerous petty
offenses, the stealing of wood being
perhaps the most frequent.

In general, Italians are communi-
cants of the Roman Catholic Church.
There is, however, a church called
the Free Church of Italy, estab-
lished by non-Catholics. The two
great functions in an Italian laborer's
life are the funeral and the wedding.
He may wander far away from his
church in this alien land, but when
death comes he turns instinctively
to the priest, and the final rites for
him seem quite out of proportion to
the simplicity of his daily life. His
wedding is a prolonged and cere-
monious affair, made festive with
laughter, music and bright colors.

Despite the fact that the immi-
grant has come from a land of bond-
age to a land of freedom, his greatest
ambition is to get back to his home-
land. It is cheaper to live in the
warm climate of sunny Italy through
the winter months, and pay the
steerage passage both ways, than to
winter in New England, and many,
especially the farm laborers, when
the harvesting is done in the' fall,
migrate with the birds. No record
of emigration is kept, but about a
thousand Italians went home by
steerage last autumn from the port

ITALIANS OF NEW ENGLAND

631

of Boston. The practice is becoming
more general each year, and while
it continues, the possibility of in-
creasing American citizenship is
greatly diminished.

The White Star Line is the only
steamship company running from
Boston to Southern Italy. The lower
decks of the outgoing steamers in
October and November are well
rilled. Through the winter months
the transportation either way is
very small. The Immigration Com-
missioner recorded for the month
ending December 31, 1903, from the
North of Italy, only 8, all males;
from the South of Italy, 15 — 11
males and 4 females. The 8 from
the Northern Provinces and 10
from the Southern were between
the ages of 14 and 45, the other five
being children. But with March
comes again the influx of these peo-
ple to our shores.

During March, April, May and
June, one-half the immigration of
the year occurs. May brings the
greatest number and April the sec-
ond greatest, while July's numbers
equal those of March, so that the
four consecutive months beginning
with April also cover one half the
list of immigrants.

When the Italian is about to emi-
grate to the United States, he is ex-
amined by our Government physi-
cian at the sailing port. If he is
successful in passing, he receives a
certificate to that effect and has no
difficulty in purchasing passage on
the steamer. If, on the other hand,
he is unable to obtain this certifi-
cate, the steamship company ac-
cepts the risk in transporting him.
Word is sent to this side that he
has not passed, and at the end of
the journey he is again subjected to
medical examination. If he is re-

fused a second time the steamer is
obliged to take him back on the re-
turn trip.

Restriction for entrance into the
United States is placed upon crimi-
nals, paupers, or those who are like-
ly to become public charges, peo-
ple affected with loathsome and
contagious diseases, those who
come in defiance of the contract la-
bor laws, and women brought for
immoral purposes.

The most serious of these causes
for debarment is that of health. Two
highly contagious diseases are prev-
alent among the lower classes of
Italians — tracoma, which leads to
permanent blindness, and favers, a
disease of the skin. Despite the care
exercised, many cases get into the
country and a serious epidemic has
been caused in the New York
schools. Sometimes diseased per-
sons are allowed among the steer-
age passengers by the steam boat
company after a medical decision
has been rendered against them.
The disease is contracted by others
during the voyage, but does not
"manifest itself in time to be detect-
ed by the examining physicians at
the port of entry. There is another
way in which the law is evaded,
which is still more serious. The
steamship company shifts the
would-be immigrants who are to be
deported, to the Liverpool line.
From Liverpool they sail to Canada
and from there slip across the
boundary line at unguarded points
into the United States. Not long
ago a dressmaker was examined by
an official and refused admission to
the country; she was then brought
before the board of examiners and
the same decision was rendered. Five
weeks later she was seen in the Ital-
ian quarter of Boston, and when

632

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

asked how she got here said she was
admitted by way of Canada. It
seems as if her persistency should
have been rewarded but "it is cruel
to be kind."

Only in January a sad little scene
occurred on the White Star liner.
An Italian had sent for his wife and
little boy. The mother was admit-
ted, but the child was excluded be-
cause of a serious case of tracoma
and had to be sent back under the
care of friends to his grandmother
in the home country.

The proportion of Italian women
who come as immigrants remains
about one fifth of the whole, though
there were 11,000 more in 1903 than
during the previous year. Most of

them come as farm-laborers. All
through the market gardening re-
gions, they may be seen down on
their hands and knees between the
straight green rows.

Thoughtful minds see in the high
yearly percentage of Italian immigra-
tion and in the well-known fecundity
of the race, a cause for grave appre-
hension in its probable effect on
future citizenship. Should immigra-
tion to our shores be checked in the
hope of preventing a train of imag-
ined or possible evils that have to do
with posterity ? Or should the United
States continue to be, as hereto-
fore, a haven of refuge for the
down-trodden and oppressed of
every land? This is the problem of
the hour.

Jamey's Mother

An Irish Peasant Sketch

By Cahir Healy

THE train conveying Jamey's
mother rushed along towards
Dublin.

"Och, Jamey alannah, but it's
mortial quick it goes — for all the
worl' like th' winter win' comin' up
over Fougherarty."

"Aye, mother, it goes pretty fast,"
Jamey replied, at the same time
wrapping a woollen shawl closely
around her bent shoulders. It had
been a wearisome journey from the
bleak mountain hut on the Donegal
sea coast to Dublin, but (her sixty-
eight years notwithstanding) she
was proof against such petty

troubles as colds, and Jamey
watched over her tenderly.

"' 'Tis th' sthrange thing out and
out, Jamey. There do be a power o'
great sights to be seen away from
Fougherarty. 'Twould be a mortial
length to walk home again if wan
didn't care for th' ways o' th' Dublin
folks."

"You'll not be goin' back that
fast," he replied, laughing. "Dublin's
a gran' place, and there's no batin'
o' th' Dublin people."

Just then she caught a sight of
one of the Dublin townships. "Oh,
Jamey, dear !" she exclaimed, laying

JAMEY'S MOTHER

633

her two hands flat upon the glass
of the window, "an' is this th' town
o' Dublin?"

"It's only th' end o' th' town," he
said, pleasantly.

She continued looking out of the
window as the train flew by the
suburban streets — each of which
contained more houses than the
simple old soul had ever seen in all
the years of her life. She was amazed
at everything she saw.

"Och, weans, dear," she said every
now and then, as some new object
attracted her gaze, "an' 'tis th'
Fougherarty people who are at th'
tail end o' th' worl', sure enough,
an' think o' them not knowin' it,
too." She relapsed into silence for
a minute or so, and again turned to
her son with a puzzled expression.

"Jamey, avic," she said, "it's a
great wondher to me where they
iver got th' men to build all them
gran' houses. What time Fough-
erarty Chapel was a-buildin' there
was tradesmen from all arts and
parts, an' it was nothin' at all com-
pared wi' some o' th' places here."

The train drew up sharply at the
Amien's street terminus, and Jamey
and his mother and the little
woman's luggage were soon rattling
along the streets of Dublin.

"Oh, Jamey, agra," she said again,
clutching him tightly by the arm,
"it's only th' marcy o' Providence
that them folks" — pointing to the
crowds that filled the footpaths or
dodged between the trams and cars
— "escape wi' their lives. Or what
big meetin's on in Dublin or where
are they all a-hurryin' to?"
' Jamey smiled good-naturedly — he
had not spent ten years in the city
for nothing — and began to explain
that there were a great, many people
in Dublin and that they had to go

about to their work, and do their
shopping, and the like.

"It's a great wondher to me," she
went on, "that they don't loose
themselves in sich a place, like what
would happen to people whenever
th' mists be low over th' Fougher-
arty moor. Jamey, asthore," she
said tenderly, "an' sure ye wouldn't
be so foolish as to let your own wee
weans be runnin' out on them
streets, an' th' wee craythurs in dan-
ger o' losin' themselves?"

Jamey tried to calm her fears in
that respect by assuring her that the
street in which he lived was a com-
paratively quiet one, and that the
children were only allowed to go
about when their mother could ac-
company them. In a short time they
had reached the place, and the cab
drew up before a plain two-story
cottage in a workingman's tenement
district.

Jamey's wife embraced Jamey's
mother most affectionately, which
was a great relief to the latter. In
all the days since she had first heard
of her boy's marriage to the little
city girl one thought alone filled her
mind : was Jamey's wife a proud,
saucy damsel who would be
ashamed of Jamey's old mother?
From the hour she first looked upon
her photograph she had had her
doubts upon the matter. For one
thing the girl in the picture was
dressed up in fal-dhe-rolls and
flounces, and ribbons, and an elab-
orately trimmed hat, the like of
which had never been seen in
Fougherarty. In that, however, she
wronged the little daughter-in-law,
who was really the homeliest and
kindliest creature to be found any-
where. Jamey's mother was agree-
ably surprised.

The two children, four and two
years respectively, came romping in-

634

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to the cosy sitting room where
"Granny" was having her tea, and
stared hard at her from behind their
mother's Chair.

"Come roun' here, Conor-a-has-
key, an' kiss yer granny/' the young
mother said, gently pulling the sly
rascal, Conor, from behind the chair.

"Arrah, Conor, me jewel," ex-
Jamey's Mother. .TWO. .Ander
claimed the other, laying down her
cup and bending over the curly
head. "Heart o' grace, Jamey," she
added, holding the child at arm's
length, "but he has yer father's eyes
and his forehead — God's white light
be upon him this day" — and then
she kissed the child again.

Granny was greatly interested in
Jamey's grand home and his furni-
ture and piano. She praised every-
thing she saw, and most of all
Jamey's wife, whom she openly
averred she could not have liked bet-
ter if she were the child of her own
bosom. Never did her eyes behold
such grandeur before, and when at
bedtime she ascended to the pretty
back-room which they had prepared
for her (she called it "the loft") she
was still wondering at the new evi-
dences of Jamey's comfort and suc-
cess that were meeting her at every
turn.

It was late next morning when
she awoke ; the journey had tired
her, and Jamey's feather bed was an
undreamt-of luxury to the simple
soul. She would have gone dowrv
to the kitchen with her feet bare, as
was her wont, (nobody in Fougher-
arty wore boots in the house), but
Jamey's wife gently insisted upon
her wearing a pair of hand-embroid-
ered slippers. Jamey's wife was an
angel.

When she saw the breakfast table
laid out, the eggs and ham and
dainty tea rolls upon the snowy

cloth, she looked at the little wife in?
an embarrassed manner.

"Chil' o' love," she said, "ye'll be
puttin' yerselves out o' house an'
home wi' me. A porringer o' tay an
a bannach o' oat bread is what we
ate in Fougherarty, an' rale good it
is."

"Oh, but mother, darling," said
the other, laughing, "this makes for
no extra expense. This is what we
hev most ivery day o' the year,,
barrin' when we hev fish."

Jamey's mother was fairly amazed,
and she ventured to remonstrate
with her daughter-in-law upon this
useless waste of hard-earned money;
they could eat and live the way all
the Fougherarty folks did, and thus
be in a position to buy out a farm of
land in a few years.

All through the day she sat by
the parlor window and watched the
stream of people passing, going to
and coming from their work. It
seemed to her as if the crowd had
some common destination in view —
there was hardly a break in the
human stream — and many and
many a time she exclaimed to her-
self that Dublin was the quare spot
entirely.

Several days wore by, and Jamey's
mother began to get a little restless
and fretful. It was Jamey's wife
who noticed it first, and she spoke
to her husband. The old creature
had lost her appetite, and the win-
dow of the little parlor no longer
claimed her; even the children failed
to rouse her.

"Mother," said Jamey, slipping in
upon her unawares one evening,
"are ye not happy?"

"Arrah, Jamey, alannah," she re-
plied, the tears starting up in her
gray eyes, "sure 'tis I should be the
happiest woman alive this day.

JAMEY'S MOTHER

635

God's blessin' upon Maireen an'
yourself, an' th' wee weans."

He knelt down by her side. "But
there's somethin' else, mother," he
said questioningly.

She looked toward the window.
"It's only th' unusage of havin' so
little to do, — no hins to be lookin'
afther to see that they didn't lay
away from home ; no pig's mate to
make, an' nothin' at all to throuble
me. It's th' fool o' th' worl' I am to
be troublin' me head about sich non-
sense an' me so gran'."

Jamey knew there was no good in
saying anything more upon the sub-
ject just then, but later on he told
his wife where the trouble lay, and
asked her to find a cure for Granny.
Next day there were socks to be
darned and a great many things to
be seen to. It was a clever device,
but Granny's troubles were of the
heart. In a short time she was as
silent and moody as before.

Jamey said he would take a cot-
tage out in the country, and keep
pigs and hens, the way she should
have lots to engage her from morn-
ing till night. He would have two
extra miles to walk to his work every
morning, but he did not mind that;
he loved his mother too much to
consider a trifling inconvenience oi
that kind.

The red brick home out in the
country, and the pretty garden, the
hens and the pig delighted Jamey's
mother at first. From morning till
night she was looking after the hens,
feeding them, fixing straw nests in
those secluded nooks and corners
that all hens love in the laying sea-
son, making up dainty morsels for
the pig, and watching over its daily
growth. She was always busy. Be-
sides, she could take off her boots
whenever she pleased in a quiet
place like that and walk about upon

the green grass to her heart's con-
tent.

But this state of affairs only lasted
for a very short time. Jamey's
mother began dreaming again.
Jamey's hens were as unlike the
hens of Fougherarty as they could
be, and the pig, for all its grunts and
piggish ways, had just the ways
of a city-bred porker about it. The
little wife noticed the change at
once.

"Surely, mother, you're not tired
o' th' counthry so soon, an' th' hins
an' th' pigs?" she said in a kindly
way.

The old woman sighed. "I'm an
oul' fool, God help me. Sure to any-
wan else it would feel like heaven to
be here."

"Don't be talkin' like that," the
other said, coaxingly. "It's th' lone-
liness that's doin' it; we'll take you
out for walks an' drives."

She came over and kissed the little
wife on the forehead. "God's grace
be upon you and yours," she said
fervently, "an' I'll niver forget your
goodness to a poor, silly oul' woman.
I'd hev worried th' life out o' any-
wan else, but you're an angel."

The daughter-in-law protested
that she was a joy to them instead
of a worry, and that if there was an
angel in the house, outside of baby, it
was surely baby's Granny.

Jamey's mother relapsed into
silence for a moment, then she ad-
dressed the other again.

"It's just th' sorra o' a lonely heart
that's on me. Livin' alone by Fough-
erarty, I thought I'd be happy up
here wi' Jamey. It was jist an oul'
woman's fancy — maybe th' ravin' o'
death ; but sure I got my way, an'
ye hev all been that kin' to me that
it cuts me to th' very heart to be
lavin' ye. But ye're a mother yer-
self now, an' ye'll be understandin'

636

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

a power o' things that seemed
sthrange afore."

The little wife smiled, bent over
her youngest and rained kisses upon
its full red lips. She understood.

Granny went on. "It was to that
wee hut on th' say beach by Fough-
erarty that I came wi' Jamey's
father forty-eight long years ago. It
was there that th' wee weans came
to us, an' out o' its door again they
wandered away into th' coul' worl'
an' left us to ourselves. It's terrible
th' heart hunger that comes on wan
when th' childre go foriver an' th'
house gets as quiet o' evenin's as a
graveyard. Ye do be sittin' by th'
fire dreamin' away, an' all th' past'll
be comin' back, hauntin' ye like a
ghost. An' sometimes ye'll be dream-
in' o' seein' them again, an' that's th'
saddest thing o' all, for th' weans
change, an when they come back
ye'll maybe be findin' that they're
not th' weans o' yer dreams at all."

The wife came over and clasped
the mother's hands tightly in hei
own. "Poor mother," she said
through her tears.

"I'll be always prayin' for Jamey
an' you," she continued, "for all th'
love ye gave a poor worthless oul'
craythur that can only think o' her-
self now. But at nights here, when

I do be lyin' asleep an' everythin'
quiet-like, a great longin' comes on
me for th' soun' o' th' say (sea)
down by Fougherarty. It does be
like th' laughin' o' wee weans, an'
sometimes like their singin', an'
again full o' messages from th'
places over in Amerikey where some
o' th' weans be now. I used to lie
awake o' nights listenin' to it when
th' childre an' himself left me. It a
kin' o' aised me heart to go asleep
to th' singin' o' th' say."

"Dear little mother," the other
said, pressing one hand to her lips.

"An' there's Jamey's father, too,
an' somehow it would seem a black
sin to be leavin' Fougherarty now
an' not goin' up for a spell o' an
evenin' to say a word o' prayer over
his grave. An' when my own time
comes I could niver bear to be rest-
in' away from him, an' th' soun' o'
th' say, an' th' sough o' th' win' that
comes up over th' Fougherarty
hills."

And Granny rested her face upon

her hands and cried bitterly as she

rocked herself to and fro.

^ ***** *

When the early train bound for
Derry and Donegal and Fougher-
arty left the Amien's street terminus
next morning it carried Jamey and
Jamey's mother.

oncerning the Fowle Family

By Edith

NOWADAYS, through the
search for genealogical de-
tails, there often come to light
family records valuable not only to
the individuals directly in line of de-
scent, but also full of general inter-
est as well as of fresh historical mat-

A. Sawyer

ter. Such are the chronicles of the
Fowle family, — a family prominent
in military, civic, intellectual and
social events for more than a cen-
tury, intimately connected, likewise,
with many another family of note.
John Fowle, of Revolutionary

CONCERNING THE FOWLE FAMILY 637

fame, was the sixth child and second
son of Edmund and Abigail (Whit-
ney) Fowle, of Watertown, Mass-
achusetts, where he was born Feb-
ruary i, 1756, and where he retained
his home residence throughout his
life. Edmund Fowle, the father,
was the first one of his name to
settle in Watertown. In the town
records mention is made of "Ed-
mund Fowle, the son of Edmund
and Mary (Smith) Fowle, of New-
ton, Massachusetts." The family
tradition has it that the first Ed-
mund Fowle came from England.

This John Fowle proved himself
a worthy son of worthy people. In
1798, the Massachusetts Mercury said
of him:

"Among the patriots of the Revolutionary
Army was Capt. John Fowle. This officer
served with credit and reputation during
the whole of the Revolutionary war. At
the time the Marquis de Lafayette was
ordered to the southwest to oppose the
progress of the army of Lord Cornwallis,
Capt. Fowle was selected as one of the
officers. Under that distinguished com-
mand he served, and endured all the
dangers incident to that campaign. When
the army under the command of General
Washington formed a junction with the
Marquis at Yorktown, Capt. Fowle con-
tinued to serve on the Light Infantry, and
his company composed a part of the de-
tachment under the command of the Mar-
quis, which stormed Lord Cornwallis's
advanced redoubts and enabled General
Washington to advance and take such a
position as compelled his lordship to sur-
render. After the glorious struggle ter-
minated, Capt. Fowle, with his brother of-
ficers, retired to private life. He was one
of the founders of the Society of Cin-
cinnati, and a member of the Executive
Committee of the Massachusetts branch.
In all his relations, public and private, he
performed his duties with fidelity."

In 1781, Capt. John Fowle mar-
ried Mary Cooke of Newton, daugh-
ter of Phineas and Abigail (Durant)
Cooke. And another notable family
connection comes in here, for Su-

sanna Cooke, sister of Mary, was
married, in 1800, to Dr. Walter
Hunnewell, a Harvard graduate of
the class of 1787, whose son, Horatio
Hollis Hunnewell, — born July 2.7,
1810, — became by his own marriage,
in 1835, doubly related to one branch
of the Fowle family, as hereinafter
explained.

Tradition has it that Capt. Fowle
and his wife were "the handsomest
bride and groom ever married in
Newton." They exercised a wide
hospitality in their home, and were
prominent in Watertown life. Eight
children were born to them, six
daughters and two sons; and the
daughters were famed for their
beauty, — indeed, throughout Mid-
dlesex County, a standing toast,
originating with Robert Treat
Paine, was the couplet:

"To the fair of every town
And the Fowle of Watertown."

As in their own lives, so in the lives
of their children, Capt. and Mrs.
John Fowle were honored in their
generation.

Charlotte, the eldest daughter, in
1804 married Mr. Benjamin Wiggin,
long a member of the well-known
firm of B. & T. Wiggin, doing busi-
ness both in this country and in
England. From 1810 to 1845 Mr.
and Mrs. Wiggin resided in Lon-
don— except during the years from
1821 to 1826 which they spent in
Boston, on Beacon street, in one of
the houses built by David Hinckley,
now next to the Somerset Club. In
1845 tnev again returned to this
country, taking up their residence
in Boston at No. 5 Pemberton
Square. Mr. Wiggin died in 1849
and Mrs. Wiggin in 1853, leaving
no children.

The second daughter of Capt.
John and Mary (Cooke) Fowle,

638

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Harriet, was particularly intellect-
ual and well-read. In 1817 she
married Mr. William Smith, a law-
yer, of Hanover, New Hampshire,
lived there a number of years and
afterward successively in Lowell,
Boston, and Wellesley. Mrs.
Smith was the mother of four chil-
dren,— the second of whom, as a
young lawyer in Boston, to avoid
confusion with another Henry W.
Smith, changed his name from Hen-
ry Wells Smith to Henry Fowle
Durant, thereby taking his great-
grandmother's family name. Mr.
Durant became widely known to
the world as an able, brilliant law-
yer, and as the founder, jointly with
his wife, of Wellesley College. Mrs.
Smith, who spent the last years of
her life in the vicinity, lived to see
Wellesley College arise in her son's
mind, although not to see it assume
tangible reality.

Maria, third child in the Fowle
family, married in 1809, Mr. Abia-
thar G. Britton, a lawyer of Oxford,
New Hampshire, a contemporary
and personal friend of Daniel Web-
ster and Jeremiah Mason. Four
children were born to Mr. and Mrs.
Britton.

Eliza Fowle, the fourth daughter,
died in infancy. Two other daugh-
ters, a second Eliza and Adeline,
were born, the former in 1795, the
latter in 1799. When only sixteen,
Eliza Fowle married Capt. Charles
Smith of Boston, where the greater
part of their lives was passed. The
eldest of their four children, Char-
lotte, married a French gentleman
by the name of Rouher, who was
consul to Germany and a near rela-
tive of the talented Rouher of Na-
poleon's cabinet.

It was in the London home of
Mrs. Wiggin, her eldest sister, that
Adeline Fowle met Mr. Samuel

Welles, the then one prominent
American banker of Paris, to whom
she was married in 1816, at the
American Legation in Paris. So
widely extended were the acquaint^
ance and influence of Mr. and Mrs.
Welles, that few of their country-
men when abroad, failed to find the
way to the Paris home on the Place
St. George or to the old Welles
chateau in Surenne, near Paris.
Mr. Welles died at Surenne, in Au-
gust, 1841, leaving his widow with
one child.

Some years later, Mrs. Welles be-
came the wife of Charles Jean Marie
Felix, Marquis le La Valette, of the
French court, who was soon after
sent by King Louis Phillipe as con-
sul-general to Egypt. After the
revolution in 1848, the Marquis at-
tached himself to the fortunes of
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. In
1851 he was sent by the emperor as
ambassador to Constantinople, and
in 1853 was made senator. He re-
turned to his charge in Constanti-
nople in i860, and in 1861 was ap-
pointed minister plenipotentiary to
the Papal Court. To all these posts
Madame de La Valette accompanied
her husband. For the next five
years the Marquis was successively"
minister of the interior, member of
the Conseil Prive, and minister of
foreign affairs. In 1870 he was sent
as ambassador to the Court of St.
James, but this honor came too late
for his wife to enjoy, as she died in
March, 1869. In addition to the
several offices which the Marquis
held, he was promoted to Grand
Officer of the Legion d' Honneur
in 1853, to the Grand Croix in 1861,
and was presented with the Prussian
Order of the Black Eagle in 1866.

The son of Mine, de La Valette by
her first marriage was adopted by
the Marquis, receiving the name and

CONCERNING THE FOWLE FAMILY 639

title of Count Welles de La Valette,
— the title of Marquis being con-
ferred upon him after his step-
father's death in 1881. This son
married in 1863, Marie Sophie
Leonie, daughter of M. Rouher who
was known as "the Achilles of the
French Cabinet and the most gifted
orator of the Empire." The only
son of this marriage met his death
in the African war, with "the little
prince," Napoleon's son.

Capt. John Fowle's sons were
brave and intrepid, like their father.
John, the oldest son, was born
November 3, 1789, and Charles, the
younger, February 7, 1793. One of
the maxims which Capt. Fowle
taught his sons — strange to these
days but not uncommon then — was
"never take the lie : decide it by
sword or pistol." This may account
for the fact that the younger son,
Charles, who entered the Navy
shortly before the War of 1812,
when only nineteen, answered an in-
sult with his life.

The older son, John when oc-
casion arrived, like his father, took
up arms for his country, and like
him, also, achieved military fame.
On leaving the Watertown schools,
John Fowle the second entered the
mercantile business in Boston ; but
when war with England became
imminent, he enlisted, and on April
9, 1812, was commissioned second
lieutenant, on April 16, 1813 first
lieutenant, and on June 10, 1814,
captain in the same company — the
Ninth Regiment of the U. S. Infan-
try— which he accompanied to the
New York frontier, serving there
until the close of the war. This
regiment was trained at Buffalo, in
Scott's brigade — that corps whose
influence was so potent in all the
brilliant achievements of the cam-
paign, and which won the laudatory

resolutions of our National Legisla-
ture at the peace of 1815.

On May 17, 1815, Col. Fowle was
transferred to the Fifth Infantry,
and on June 10, 1824, was brevetted
Major, for ten years of faithful ser-
vice in one grade. After the close
of the war he continued in the army,
and served at Forts Snelling, Brady,
and Dearborn, all then on the ex-
treme northwestern frontier, and in
the Florida Indian wars.

In 183 1, Major Fowle married
Miss Pauline Cazenove, of Alexan-
dria, Virginia, and with his bride,
took a furlough to visit his sisters in
London and Paris, and also his
wife's relatives, the Cazenoves of
Geneva, Switzerland — Hugenot
branch of the Cazenoves of France,
whose history dates back a thousand
years. In the autumn of 1832, after
the birth of his daughter, Pauline
Adeline — who afterwards became
Mrs. Henry Fowle Durant — he re-
turned to the command of his regi-
ment at Sault Ste. Marie.

In the spring of 1833, Major
Fowle was ordered to Chicago, —
which then had about three hun-
dred inhabitants, including village
and garrison. Major Fowle per-
suaded the Rev. Jeremiah Porter —
the valued home missionary who
had been with him at Sault Ste.
Marie — to accompany him and his
command to Chicago ; and the post-
carpenter's shop answered as chapel
for these first services. Graphic
accounts of the Chicago of those
early days are given in the letters
of Major and Mrs. Fowle, who ac-
companied her husband to his post.

On the fourth of March, 1833,
Brevet Major Fowle was commis-
sioned Major, and ordered to the
military academy at West Point as
instructor in tactics and comman-
dant of the corps of cadets. On

640

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Christmas Day, 1837, ne received
commission as Lieutenant Colonel
in the Sixth Regiment Infantry.
Early in the spring of 1838, the
Colonel of that regiment having
been killed in the Seminole Indian
wars in Florida, Col. Fowle was
ordered to take command. But on
his journey thither, he was killed
April 25, by the explosion of the
steamboat "Moselle," opposite Cin-
cinnati.

An officer who served with Col.
Fowle during the war with Eng-
land, and afterward, said: "I have
always found Col. Fowle zealous in
the discharge of his official duties,
kind to the soldiers under his com-
mand, exceedingly courteous in his
intercourse with his brother officers.
He had few equals of his grade, and
no superiors. As a disciplinarian
and tactician he had not his superior
in the army." And the New York
America7i said of him, after his
death :

"From his entrance into military life to
the close of his earthly career, Col. Fowle
was conspicuous for the diligent, faithful,
and efficient performance of his official
duties, for his unsullied honor and spotless
purity of life."

The death of his only son, John
Charles, two years after his own death,
brought to an end the male line of
this family around whom so much
of incident and fame is centered.

Closely connected at several
points with the history of the Fowle
family is that of the Welles and
Hunnewells. Horatio Hollis Hun-
newell, cousin of Mrs Samuel
Welles (Adeline Fowle) entered in
1826 the banking house of her hus-
band, in Paris, and lived in the
Welles home as a member of the
family. Mr. Hunnewell — as before
mentioned — was the son of Dr.
Walter and Susanna (Cooke) Hun-
newell; and Dr. Hunnewell, (born

in Cambridge August 4, 1769) was
a descendant of Roger Hunnewell,
who came to New England not long
after the settlement of the Massa-
chusetts Colony. In early records
the name is spelled in various ways
— Hunniwell, Honuel, Honywell
and Hunnewell. Dr. Hunnewell
was graduated from Harvard Col-
lege in the same class with John
Ouincy Adams, William Cranch,
Thaddeus Mason Harris, James
Lloyd, Samuel Putnam, and other
distinguished men. For many
years he was the only physician in
Watertown, and he had also a large
practice in Newton and Cambridge.
His devotion to horticulture was
strongly pronounced, his fruit-trees
— as was commonly said — being the
best in the town. And here may
doubtless be seen the fore-runner
of the renowned taste, developed
later through residence abroad, of
his son Horatio Hollis, whose highly
cultivated estate and Italian
Gardens, in Wellesley, have so long
been widely known.

Horatio Hollis Hunnewell mar-
ried in Paris, December 24, 1835,
Isabella Pratt Welles, ninth child
of John and Abigail Welles, and
niece of Samuel Welles the Paris
banker.

Mrs. Hunnewell, later, inherited
the Welles estate in that part of
West Needham which was after-
wards named "Wellesley" in honor
of the Welles family. In the years
following, Mr. Hunnewell made
large additions to the property,
forming now the vast estate or
series of estates — occupied during
the summer months by the Hunne-
wells, Shaws and Sargents — and sit-
uated on both sides of the broad
avenue leading from the Wellesley
College grounds toward South Na-
tick.

^^fc-^faaga^^

MADONNA BY MARY L. MA COMBER.
(One of the Paintings at the Poland Spring Art Exhibition.)

New England Magazine

Volume XXX

August, 1904

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Number 6

The Woman's Relief Corps

Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic

By Elizabeth Robbins Berry

MASSACHUSETTS, the
Mother Department of the
Woman's Relief Corps, is to
entertain her children during the
week beginning August 15, 1904.
They will come in vast throngs, for
they number upward of one hun-
dred and thirty thousand women. The
annual conventions of the National
society are always held at the same
time and place as those of the Grand
Army of the Republic, of which the
Woman's Relief Corps is the only
officially recognized woman's aux-
iliary.

To recount the actual beginning
of the work of this society, it would
be necessary to go back to the tur-
bulent period through which the
American nation passed in the years
from 1861 to 1865. The work of
women during the Civil War has
never been fully estimated. It was
not enough that some should sit
quietly at home, with hearts almost
breaking because of the agony of
suspense; but in every city and

643

town, even in the smallest settle-
ments, women were working
earnestly to provide necessaries for
those who were battling for free-
dom and for the unity of a great
nation. Even tiny school girls were
pressed into the service, and little
fingers were seen deftly picking lint
during many of the half-holidays
from school.

Delicately nurtured women will-
ingly renounced the attractions of
society, and gave their means, and,
best of all, themselves, to the work.
A conspicuous instance was that of
Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis of Boston,
a society leader at that time, who
laid aside her beautiful gowns and
costly jewels, and in simple alpaca
costume devoted herself unremit-
tingly to the superintendence of the
work of collecting and forwarding
hospital supplies.

Many there were who sacrificed
all, risking life itself, going into the
hospitals, and even upon the battle-
fields, to minister to the sick, the
wounded and the dying. A long list

f>44

N E W ENGLAND M AGAZINE

of names of national reputation
comes to mind in this connection,
and there were many, too, who live
only in the grateful hearts of those
to whom they gave care and com-
fort. Many a soldier's mother, wife,
sister or sweetheart will forever hold
in tenderest remembrance the
nurses who cared for their loved
ones, and wrote the letters which
conveyed messages of hope to their
despondent hearts ; or, as was so
often the case, brought the last
words of the young heroes, many
of them cut off ruthlessly ere the
full flower of manhood had been
reached. And with the precious
missives came the little trifles which
had been fondly cherished by the
dear boys so far away, to be hence-
forth of priceless value in the dark-
ened homes. Perhaps a more elo-
quent tribute to the army nurses has
never been given than that by Cor-
poral James Tanner, who once said :
"We did not have to die, to touch
elbows with the angels. We found
them upon every battlefield."

When the bitter conflict was over,
the work of relieving suffering was
by no means complete. Many who
went out in the full power of physi-
cal perfection, returned crippled and
broken. No longer able to pursue
the avocations of peace, some pro-
vision had to be made for them and
for those dependent upon them for
support.

It was largely with this purpose
in view, as well as to perpetuate the
spirit of fraternity which originated
in the presence of a common danger,
and the share which all had in a
great victory, that the Grand Army
of the Republic was organized.

"As unto the bow the cord is
So unto man is woman."

It was, therefore, inevitable that

with the. rise of that inimitable as-
sociation of heroes, tried and true,
there should appear societies of
women with similar interests, to as-
sist them in their work. The femi-
nine ear is ever responsive to tales
of distress, and feminine intuition,
blended with the experience of gen-
erations of devotion to the welfare
of others, has rendered the work of
women, wherever relief is needed,
especially valuable.

As early as 1869 auxiliary organ-
izations of women were found work-
ing hand in hand with individual
posts of the G. A. R. in most of the
Northern and Western States. It
remained for the women of Massa-
chusetts, however, to formulate and
carry into successful execution a
plan for a State organization, which,
because of its wider scope, should
have a greater power for good than
could be attained by individual
societies.

By the official advice and sanction
of General Horace Binney Sargent,
then Department Commander of the
Massachusetts G. A. R., and his As-
sistant Adjutant-General, James F.
Meech, a convention was held at the
headquarters of E. V. Sumner Post
No, 19, at Fitchburg, Massachusetts,
Feb. 12, 1879, sixteen societies being
represented by delegates, which re-
sulted in twenty-three ladies sign-
ing a constitution and by-laws for a
State organization, to be known as
the State Relief Corps of Massachu-
setts, with Mrs. Sarah E. Fuller of
East Boston as president. This
little group of earnest workers
proved to be the nucleus of the
grand organization of to-day, the
second in point of numbers of asso-
ciations of women in the United
States. Mrs. Fuller is likewise en-
titled to the honor of being known
as the mother of this great instru-

MRS. SARAH E. PHILLIPS
National Treasurer

MRS. URSULA M. MATTISON",

National Senior

Vice President

MRS. SARAH D. WINANS,
National President, W. R. C.

MRS. KATE E. JONES,
National Patriotic Instructor

646

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ment of good deeds, and her con-
tinuous active work during the
twenty-five years of life which the
society has known, proves how fully
her heart was in the work; and she
would be more than mere woman
did she not contemplate with pride
the outcome of that little gathering
at Fitchburg, which must far sur-
pass her most roseate dreams at that
time. It is also a subject for con-
gratulation that such a woman as
Mrs. Fuller should have held the
leadership at that time.

Although from the first the new
society received the support and en-
couragement of prominent comrades
of the Massachusetts G. A. R., it was
not officially recognized by the De-
partment encampment until Janu-
ary, 1881, when the following reso-
lution was almost unanimously
adopted by that body:

"Resolved, That the Department of Mas-
sachusetts, G. A. R., recognizing in the
Woman's State Relief Corps an invalu-
able ally in its mission of charity and loy-
alty, hails them as a noble band of Chris-
tian women, who, while not of the G. A. R.,
are auxiliary to it."

During the year 1880, loyal women
of New Hampshire decided to adopt
the work of their Massachusetts
sisters, and on Dec. 8 of that year
their department officers were initi-
ated at the headquarters of Hiram
G. Berry Relief Corps, No. 6, of Mai-
den, Massachusetts. At the same
time they were invited to form a
Union Board of Directors of W. R.
C. work, with the Department offi-
cers of Massachusetts. The Board
was organized, with Mrs. E. Flor-
ence Barker of Maiden as president,
Mrs. Kathrina Beedle of Cambridge
as secretary, and Miss Keyes of New
Hampshire treasurer.

Among the first to become an ad-
vocate of woman's work as an aux-
iliary to the G. A. R. was Rev. Jo-

seph Lovering, of Worcester, Mas-
sachusetts, then Chaplain-in-Chief.
He sought, by correspondence with
many who were actively engaged in
the work, to bring about some united
effort on the part of women which
should be national in its scope. At
the National Encampment of the G.
A. R. held in Indianapolis, Indiana,
in July, 1881, he presented the fol-
lowing resolutions, which were
adopted :

"Resolved, That we approve the project
of organizing a National Woman's Relief
Corps.

"Resolved, That such Woman's Relief
Corps may use under such title the words,
'Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Re-
public,' by special indorsement of the Na-
tional Encampment of the Grand Army of
the Republic."

This indorsement proved an in-
centive to the extension of the move-
ment, and in 1882 two corps were in-
stituted in Connecticut, one in Illi-
nois, one in Wisconsin and one in
San Diego, California. Prominent
women in several States urged the
consolidation of effort, among them
Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood, of
Toledo, Ohio, a pioneer in the West
in work for the veterans. She had
personally assisted in organizing
nearly two hundred aid societies. A
talented writer, she, by her grace-
ful, eloquent pen, appealed to the
women of the West, who, with the
enthusiasm characteristic of that
section, were not slow in respond-
ing, and have ever been most active
in raising the order to its present
numbers and efficiency.

During the administration of
Comrade Paul Van Der Voort, of
Omaha, Nebraska, as commander-
in-chief, his attention was called to
the good work being done by the
women in various sections, and
grasping the significance of the
movement, with his characteristic

MRS. E. FLORENCE BARKER, OF MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS. FIRST

NATIONAL PRESIDENT OF WOMAN'S RELIEF CORPS, 1883-1884.

DIED SEPTEMBER II, 1897.

great-heartedness, he called a con-
vention of the various auxiliaries in
every State to meet in Denver, Colo-
rado, July 23, 1883. Thirteen States
responded, and of these Massachu-
setts sent three delegates and Ohio
fifteen.

Mrs. E. Florence Barker, of Mas-
sachusetts, was elected to preside
over the convention, with Mrs. Sher-
wood, of Ohio, as secretary. After

647

full and free discussion of the work,
it was voted to form a national
organization, with the ritual and
regulations of the Massachusetts
Woman's State Relief Corps, to be
known as the National Woman's Re-
lief Corps. There were forty-five
signatures to the charter list and the
following officers were elected:
President, Mrs. E. Florence Barker,
of Massachusetts ; senior vice-presi-

648

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

dent, Airs. Kate B. Sherwood, of
Ohio; junior vice-president, Airs. E.
K. Stimson, Colorado; secretary,
Airs. Sarah E. Fuller, and treasurer,
Airs. Lizabeth A. Turner, both of
Massachusetts ; chaplain, Airs. Mat-
tie B. Aloulton, New Hampshire ;
conductor, Airs. P. S. Runyan, In-
diana; guard, Airs. J. B. Beatson,.
Illinois ; corresponding secretaries,
Airs. M. J. Telford, Colorado, and
Airs. Ellen Pay, Kansas. The ques-
tion of eligibility was left open for a
year', there being a difference of
opinion ; some insisting that it be re-
stricted to relatives of soldiers and
sailors, and others that all loyal
women interested in the work should
be admitted.

A formal report of organization
was made to the National Encamp-
ment of the G. A. R., then in session,
♦ when, by resolution of Chaplain-in-
Chief Foster, the following action
was taken :

"Resolved, That we cordially hail the or-
ganization of a National Woman's Relief
Corps, and extend our greeting to them.
We return our warmest thanks to the loyal
women of the land for their earnest sup-
port and encouragement, and bid them God-
speed in their patriotic work."

At the fourth annual convention,
at Alinneapolis, Alinnesota, it was
decided that "All loyal women of
good moral character should be ad-
mitted to the Woman's Relief
Corps."

The objects of the organization, as
set forth in the official Rules and
Regulations, are :

i. To specially aid and assist the Grand
Army of the Republic, and to perpetuate
the memory of their heroic dead.

2. To assist such Union veterans as need
our help and protection, and to extend need-
ful aid to their widows and orphans. To
find them homes and employment, and as-
sure them of sympathy and friends. To
cherish and emulate the deeds of our Army
Nurses, and of all loyal women who ren-
dered loving service to our country in her
hour of peril.

3. To maintain true allegiance to the
United States of America ; to inculcate les-
sons of patriotism and love of country
among our children and in the communities
in which we live ; and encourage the spread
of universal liberty and equal rights to all.

How well these principles have
been maintained is shown by the
returns, given in those characters
which are said never to falsify. Since
the organization of the order there
has been expended for relief alone
$2,504,365.23, to June 30, 1903. Some-
thing over $100,000 additional will be
the report for the present year. In
a single year (1902-03) 40,433 per-
sons were assisted at an expense of
$136,196.69. The amount given
above does not include donations of
food or clothing. In addition, $1,-
197.56 was expended for the decora-
tion of the graves of Northern
soldiers in the South ; $800 for the
Kansas flood sufferers; $1,000 for
the AtcKinley memorial fund and
$30,380.83 was turned over to posts
of the G. A. R. to assist them in their
work. All this work is so quietly
and unostentatiously done that few
outside the societies interested ever
hear of it. The Woman's Relief
Coips has no liabilities.

Ever responsive to the call of dis-
tress, the Woman's Relief Corps has
been a liberal giver whem various
sections of this country have been
overwhelmed by disaster, notable
beneficiaries being Johnstown and
Jacksonville. While worthy indi-
viduals never go unaided, much of
the work of the W. R. C. has been
broader in its scope. It has proved
its early faith by the work which
has been accomplished. Since 1889,
when it came into possession, by the
liberality of the citizens of Madison
and Geneva, Ohio, of ten acres of
valuable land, with a large building
formerly used as a female seminary,
it has endowed and supported a Na-

Photo by Chickering

MRS. LIZABETH A. TURNER,

OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Thirtee nth National

President, 189,5-6

MRS. HARRIET J. BODGE,

OF CONNECTICUT,

Seventeenth National

President, 1899-1900

MRS. SARAH E. FULLER, OF MASSACHUSETTS,

Third National President, 1883-6

Photo by CMckering

MRS. CALISTA ROBINSON JONES, OF VERMONT,
Nineteenth National President, 1891-2

wJt^rii

tti &

THE NATIONAL W. R. C. HOME, MADISON, OHIO.

tional Woman's Relief Corps Home
at Madison for ex-army nurses and
soldiers' wives and widows. At
times there have been more than
seventy inmates. The number in 1903
was forty-one. The value of the
property is about $40,000. In addi-
tion to the National Home, State
homes are maintained by the De-
partments of New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin,
California and others. The Massa-
chusetts department has been a lib-
eral contributor toward the support
of the Massachusetts Soldiers' Home
since its beginning. By their united
efforts at a bazaar held in aid of the
home in 1885, $4,189.25 was raised.
Mostof the rooms were furnished and
are kept up by individual corps, and a
large dormitory bears the name and
has the perpetual care of the Depart-
ment of Massachusetts. All the New
England Departments and many
others are liberal contributors to the
soldiers' homes in their respective
States.

In 1892 a great amount of work
was done by the Woman's Relief
Corps, to secure the passage by Con-
gress of the Army Nurse Pension
bill. Mrs. Sherwood, of Ohio, was
chairman of the pension committee,
and she, with Mrs. Harriette L.

Reed, of Massachusetts, spent six
weeks at Washington at hard work
in its interest. Mrs. Annie Witten-
meyer, National President in 1890,
and herself a distinguished army
nurse, gave her time and attention to
the matter for five months, and Mrs.
John A. Logan and Miss Clara Bar-
ton, members of the Order and resi-
dents of Washington, also gave
much time and their great influence
to the cause. On June 28, 1892, the
House passed a bill, which the Sen-
ate would not accept. On July 28,
the Senate passed a bill of its own.
Later a compromise was agreed upon,
accepted by both houses, and be-
came a law. In this bill the lines of
partisan demarcation were nearly
obliterated, and eloquent tributes
were paid to the work of women for
the veterans of both Blue and Gray.
By its provisions, army nurses "who
rendered actual service as attendants
upon the sick and wounded in any
regimental post, camp or general
hospital of the armies of the United
States for a period of six months or
more, and who were honorably re-
lieved from such service, and who
are . . . unable to earn a sup-
port," may receive a pension of $12
a month. The law forbids any agent
or attorney accepting a fee for the
prosecution of any claim under the

650

WOMAN'S RELIEF CORPS

651

act. This has resulted in many
members of the W. R. C. work-
ing gratuitously as claim agents
to assist army nurses to secure
necessary evidence in support
of their claims. There are, how-
ever, many nurses who are not
eligible under this law, and
such, when necessary, have been
cared for by local corps, or in
the National home, or in those
of the several States.

In addition to the work of re-
lieving suffering and necessity,
the Woman's Relief Corps has
erected many memorials to the
heroes of the Civil War, monu-
ments, urns, and even build-
ings. At Rockland, Massa-
chusetts, is a building erected
by the local corps, under cir-
cumstances which would have ap-
peared insurmounatble to women of
less determination. A great number
of flags and banners have also been
presented to posts of the G. A. R. by
their loyal auxiliaries. Of such work
no record is separately kept, but it
would amount to a considerable
sum of money.

From its earliest inception, a
sacred duty of the Woman's Relief
Corps, second only to the work of
relief, has been that of paying trib-
ute on Memorial Day to the memory
of the heroic dead. It is customary
for corps to unite with the posts to
which they are auxiliary in memo-
rial services in churches or halls, also
to assist the comrades in their ob-
servances, by twining garlands for
the resting-places of the brave and
for the decoration of monuments
and tablets; and, in many cases, by
furnishing refreshments for the
wearied veterans after their labor of
love is completed. Prominent mem-
bers of the Woman's Relief Corps

MRS. FANNY E. MI NOT, CONCORD, N. H.,
New England Candidate for National President,
W. R. C.

are also in demand as Memorial Day
speakers. Considerable sums of
money are yearly sent to posts in the
South, to assist them in the work of
decorating the thousands of soldiers'
graves, many of them unknown, in
that fair section of our land.

It is customary for the national
presidents, and those who have the
honor to preside over the various
departments, to issue special Gen-
eral Orders for Memorial Day ob-
servances. Some of them have been
gems of patriotic literature, and, if
collected, would form a considerable
volume of great interest and value.

A Commemoration service for the
"unknown dead" is incorporated in
the service book of the order, and it
is given by a large number of corps
each year. Mounds of flowers are
usually constructed by the members
of the corps, and children who as-
sist them, and the simple service is
very touching and beautiful. In

652

NEW E N G L A X D MAGAZI N

1902 a service commemorative of the
soldier-sailor dead was instituted for
the use of corps located near large
bodies of water. It is also custom-
ary to include children in this ser-
vice, and the spectacle of a large
number of little ones, their tiny
hands strewing the waves with
flowers, is very touching and beauti-
ful in its suggestiveness. The Na-
tional Chaplain reported $14,187.37
expended for Memorial Day in 1903.

In 1893 the field of patriotic teach-
ing was entered upon, the incentive
having been previously furnished by
the Department of Indiana. Com-
rade Wallace Foster of that State
had been an active promoter of the
teaching of patriotism among the
young. In that work he was inti-
mately associated with Col. George
T. Balch, of New York City, the
pioneer in the work. (He it was
who originated the Balch flag salute,
so generally in use in the schools of
the country : "We give our heads
and our hearts to God and our coun-
try ; one country, one language, one
flag.")

Comrade Foster urged upon the
W. R. C. of Indiana the importance
of patriotic teaching. Mrs. Julia S.
Conklin, then president of that De-
partment, adopted his suggestion
with such enthusiasm and so im-
pressed it upon her associates, that
at the next National Convention
Indiana offered the following reso-
lutions (drawn by Comrade Foster),
which were unanimously adopted :

"Whereas, It is essential to the future
welfare and good citizenship of our coun-
try that the children of our land lie taught
to reverence the American Flag, the
emblem of our liberty, and to respe:t the
principles for which our veterans srave the
best years of their lives — many of them life
itself; and

"Whereas, The present system of foreign
immigration, and the large per cent, of for-
eigners of all grades of society who are

admitted to citizenship in these United'
States, and the foreign ideas of government
being promulgated throughout our country,
are doing much to lessen the hold our in-
stitutions have upon the . minds of the
young; therefore,

"Resolved, That we strongly urge the
adoption of some form of patriotic teach-
ing in our schools, by which to counteract
these influences.

"Resolved, That each Department Presi-
dent instruct the Corps Presidents in her
department to appoint a committee of in-
fluential ladies belonging to her Corps, to
petition the county and city superintendents
and teachers to recommend the adoption of
some form of patriotic salute to the Amer-
ican flag, to be introduced into the morning
exercises of the public schools.

"Resolved, That we urge each member
of the Woman's Relief Corps to adhere
strictly to the patriotic teachings of our
Order, and endeavor to inculcate lessons of
patriotism and loyalty among the young in
the communities in which they live."

During the three years following,
bills were introduced into the Legis-
latures of many States, and resulted
in the placing of flags over school-
houses and other public buildings.
In some States the last day of the
school session before Memorial Day
was set apart for patriotic exercises,
and this custom is now almost gen-
eral. Most of this has been brought
about by the efforts of the G. A. R.
and W. R. C.

Flags, patriotic primers, Declara-
tion of Independence charts, oleo-
graphs of the Stars and Stripes and
other patriotic pictures have been
presented to thousands of schools
all over the land, by the local organ-
izations of the W. R. C. In 1895
the national convention voted to
confer upon Comrade Foster the
complimentary title of "Woman's
Relief Corps Sponsor for the Amer-
ican Flag."

A work to which the W. R. C. has
devoted much attention is the pro-
motion of the observance of Flag
Day, Peace and Arbitration Day,,
and Citizens' Sunday.

MRS. MARIA E. DENSMORE, NEW HAMPSHIRE
MRS. MYRA J. OLNEY, RHODE ISLAND. MRS. cARRIE A. HOUSE, CONNECTICUT.

MRS. ANNIE M. WARNE, MASSACHUSETTS
MRS. MARY BELL GOODWIN, VERMONT. MISS JENNIE pi£RCE WHITNEy> MAIN£

New England Department Presidents

Photo by Chickering

MRS. CLARA H. B. EVANS,

President of W. R. C. General Committee for National Encampment

In 1896 a resolution was adopted
approving the work of the American
Humane Society, and recommend-
ing it to the order as part of the work
of promoting good citizenship.

At the same convention it was
voted that the Woman's Relief
Corps join the National Council of
Women. As each body associated
with the Council has the opportunity
to bring its special work before all
the others, this move offered excep-
tional opportunity for the dissem-
ination of ideas concerning patriotic
teaching, as thus was secured the co-
operation of 600,000 women.

During the first year this work
was done by a committee, appointed
by the national president, and known
as the committee on patriotic teach-

ing. The convention of 1897 voted
that an officer be appointed in each
Department, to be known as the
patriotic instructor, whose duty
shall be to superintend all lines of
patriotic instruction. Later, this
move was amended to include, Na-
tional, Department and Corps in-
structors, all of whom are now obli-
gated with other officers of the Order,
and are systematically and success-
fully working together in the inter-
est of patriotic teaching. A flag
salute is used at all gatherings of the
Order, and all obligations, whether
of membership or office, are taken
under the folds of the American flag.
Probably the work which will
longest stand as a memorial of the
Woman's Relief Corps is the

654

MRS. MARY E. KNOWLES,
1st Vice- Chairman

Photo by Chickering
MRS. ANGIE A. ROBINSON,

2nd Vice- Chairman

MRS. FANNIE M. JONES, MRS. MARIA W. GOING.

Treasurer Secretary

OFFICERS OF W. R. C. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE FOR NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT.

656

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

improvement of the Andersonville
Prison Park property. Thousands
of the survivors of the prison at
Andersonville, Georgia, and their
friends, who visited that memorable
spot after the war, expressed regret
that some steps were not taken to
purchase the grounds and beautify
them, as a perpetual memorial to the
heroes who suffered there.

Action was first taken by the De-

that the property now consists of
eighty-one and a fifth acres, includ-
ing the stockade, or prison grounds,
with all the forts and earthworks
surrounding it, and a strip one hun-
dred feet wide leading to the public
roadway and railway station.

A substantial fence now surrounds
the entire property and a nine-room
residence has been erected, which is
occupied by the care-taker, and is

PROVIDENCE SPRING, ANDERSONVILLE PRISON PARK.

partment of Georgia, G. A. R., and
the land was purchased by them in
May, 1890, the price paid being
$1,500, and a similar sum was ex-
pended in clearing the ground and
making improvements.

At the annual convention of the
National W. R. C.in 1896, that body
accepted the deeds to the property,
pledging themselves to care for it
and improve it. Their first act was
the purchase of additional land, so

also commodious enough for the en-
tertainment of guests, several sleep-
ing-rooms having been prettily fur-
nished by various Woman's Re-
lief Corps. Since the National W.
R. C. has taken charge, the old stock-
ade has been sodded with Bermuda
grass, the creek bottom has been
cleared of undergrowth, and a drive-
way laid out around the entire pur-
chase, passing by all the old forts,
with substantial bridges spanning

WOMAN'S RELIEF CORPS

657

the creek on the east and west sides.
A beautiful flagstaff, the gift of G.
A. R. and W. R. C. friends of
Georgia, has been erected near the
north line of the stockade, and from
it floats Old Glory. This was the
gift of the Prisoners of War Associ-
ation of Connecticut. A graceful
arch, spanning the entrance, was
presented by Corps No. 9, Depart-
ment of Kansas, and No. 172, De-
partment of Massachusetts, W. R. C.

"Providence Spring" is probably
the feature of most interest. This
name was given by the heroes of
Andersonville. The story is familiar
to many, but will bear repetition.
The water of the creek had become
so contaminated, that endurance on
the part of the prisoners was almost
exhausted. At this critical juncture,
during a severe thunder storm, this
living stream broke forth, pure and
sparkling, bringing new life and
hope. While the phenomenon could
be accounted for by natural causes,
it will always be recognized as an
especial manifestation of the innnite;
power and mercy of Divine Provi-
dence. It was a singular fact that it
came from within the "dead line,"
where, by prison laws, it was pro-
tected from being trampled and de-
filed.

Over this spring the National W.
R.C.has erected a beautiful pavillion,
tile-roofed and supported by granite
pillars, with cement floor, thus per-
petually preserving the spring from
the elements. The waters flow from
a tastefully carved marble fountain,
at the spot where they originally
burst forth. This fountain was the
gift of the National Prisoners of
War Association. What hallowed
memories cluster about this spot !
One who drinks the cool, sweet
water should do so with the utmost

reverence, for it is a veritable shrine
of American history.

All of the sombre features of the
past have disappeared. Nature has
been lavish, and has covered the
hideous scar with a mantle of bright
green. The soil is fertile and re-
sponds readily to cultivation. A
vigorous growth of young forest
trees affords grateful shade, and
from the midst of their dense foliage
mocking birds sing nightly requiems
to those who suffered and died there.
The historic creek no longer runs
dark and murky, but sparkles and
dances in the bright sunlight, and
nothing remains to perpetuate the
unpleasant memories of the past.
Andersonville is now a patriotic ob-
ject lesson, a tribute to the thou-
sands of heroes who preferred to suf-
fer and die rather than accept life at
the price of dishonor.

It still remains for a grateful peo-
ple to erect suitable monuments to
the memory of all who were impris-
oned there. The States of Ohio,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island and Michigan have already
placed beautiful memorials within
the grounds, and others are sure to
follow.

The Board of Managers of the Na-
tional W. R. C, of which Mrs. Liza-
beth A. Turner of Boston is chair-
man, propose to divide the prison
ground into plats, with intersecting
walks and drives. The elevated por-
tion of the grounds is sufficiently
extensive to admit of a large lot to
be dedicated to each State which was
represented by prisoners at Ander-
sonville. A larger space, in the cen-
tre of the portion north of the creek,
on the most sightly elevation, will
be reserved for the National Govern-
ment. Grouped around this will be
State lots, which will be deeded to

658

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the respective commonwealths, in
the order of their application, imme-
diately following legislative action
granting an appropriation for a
monument.

When the work as designed is
completed, it will include a magnifi-
cent national monument erected by
act of Congress, with the State
memorials grouped around it. It is
considered more desirable that these
monuments should be placed within
the stockade rather than in the Na-
tional Cemetery near by. First, be-
cause those who suffered and lived
are entitled to equal honor with
those who were relieved by death;
and also because the site is more
imposing than any afforded by the
cemetery, and more room can be
allotted to each State.

The Andersonville National Ceme-
tery is located about a quarter of a
mile north of the park grounds. The
cemetery proper contains twenty-
five acres purchased by the govern-
ment soon after the war, and in-
cludes all of the grounds in which
the dead of Andersonville were
buried. The remains were left un-
disturbed, but a marble headstone
has been placed at each grave. The
cemetery has been transformed into
an ideal city of the dead. On Memo-
rial Day of each year impressive
ceremonies are conducted there by
the posts of the Department of
Georgia, G. A. R. Here rest 13,000
heroes of Andersonville, yet it is said
that an unknown number still lie
within the limits of the stockade
where they died, and many more
were removed by friends after the
close of the war. The number who
died in the prison is said to total
14,000.

Were it only to carry out these
plans for the improvement of An-
dersonville, the Woman's Relief

Corps would deserve to live, but
when the aggregate amount of the
various forms of this society's ac-
tivities are estimated, it will be seen
what a tremendous power for good
the Woman's Relief Corps has
proved itself to be.

Subordinate to the National So-
ciety are thirty-four Departments in
as many States and Territories, and
sixty-three detached corps, scattered
through the States and Territories
of Arizona, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Indian Territory, Louisi-
ana, Maryland, New Mexico, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Utah and Virginia. In the various
departments there are over 3,000
active corps.

The order has a ritual, with Rules
and Regulations and By-Laws. It is
secret in the same degree as is the
Grand Army of the Republic. All of
its business is given freely to the
public through the medium of the
press, but only those who can prove
membership are admitted to its de-
liberations. There are no distinc-
tions of creed or color. All loyal
women of good moral character who
are willing to perpetuate the prin-
ciples to which the association
stands pledged are welcome to its
ranks. It is especially creditable that
its growth has been continuous, not-
withstanding the rise of an appalling
number of woman's clubs and hered-
itary patriotic societies during the
past fifteen years.

A careful study of the business
methods of the Woman's Relief
Corps will promptly refute the
charge sometimes made that women
are incapable of conducting great
business enterprises. The system of
reports is absolutely perfect. Secre-
taries and treasurers of subordinate
corps are required to report quar-
terly to the Department to which

WOMAN'S RELIEF CORPS

659

they belong, on forms provided for
the purpose, the numerical and
financial condition of their respec-
tive corps, and the amount of relief
work accomplished. All treasurers
must give bonds .before taking the
obligation of office. All books are
carefully audited quarterly.

Departments in turn must report
every three months to the National
body, also on suitable forms, and it
is thus possible to file and preserve
systematically all records, as long as
it may be expedient so to do.

Memorial Day records are for-
warded by corps chaplains, and the
aggregate report given by the chap-
lain of the National body. No corps
can be organized without the con-
sent of the post of the G. A. R. to
which it becomes auxiliary, and
corps presidents must report quar-
terly to the post commander the
amount of relief work accomplished.

Elections of officers occur yearly,
at the National and Department con-
ventions, and on the first meeting in
December in subordinate corps. A.
rigid system of inspection is con-
ducted, and also exemplifications of
the ritualistic work, the result being
a perfect semi-military system of
discipline which often produces re-
markable results in the conduct
of individuals, transforming timid,
shrinking women into self-reliant
leaders, once they are inspired with
a zeal for the work.

The Woman's Relief Corps has
had but two honorary members, it
having been voted in the early days
that that number should not be ex-
ceeded. The first person to be thus
honored was Past Commander-in-
Chief Paul Van der Voort, of Ne-
braska, to whose individual efforts
the National Society largely owes
its existence. Comrade Van der
Voort passed to the life beyond in

1902. The sole wearer of the honor-
ary mantle at the present time is
Miss Clara Barton, who will be the
honored guest of the Department of
Massachusetts during the week of
the encampment.

Extensive preparations have been
made for the entertainment of the
many guests who will be in Boston
at that time. An efficient executive
committee of sixty members, aided
by numerous working committees,
amounting in all to five hundred
women, has been hard at work since
the first of the year to perfect the
numerous details of a great gather-
ing. On the two convention days,
luncheon will be served for twelve
hundred delegates of the G. A. R.,
and five hundred of the W. R. C. On
the day of the parade, a "living flag,"
in which two thousand school chil-
dren will take part, will be placed
on the Common, opposite Temple
Place, and with the background of
noble trees, will be a feature of great
beauty. This work has been carried
out by the W. R. C. committee on
decorations. Receptions will be
given by the National W. R. C, the
Department of Massachusetts and
some visiting departments. A mon-
ster campfire of the G. A. R. will
occur on Tuesday evening, and on
Thursday evening the Woman's Re-
lief Corps will entertain. A harbor
excursion, an outing at Plymouth
and trolley rides to various points
are planned. All of the expense for
entertainment of the W. R. C. has
been provided for by the corps of
Massachusetts, who have raised the
necessary funds by special enter-
tainments, fairs, etc., for this pur-
pose. In the meantime, the regular
work of the society has not been al-
lowed to flag in the least.

This will be the twenty-second
convention of the National society.

660

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

The officers are elected annually, and
no president has served more than
one year. Of the twenty-two women
who have filled the highest office,
five have been of New England;
three from Massachusetts, one from
Connecticut and one from Vermont.
This year there will be a New Eng-
land candidate, Mrs Fanny E.
Minot, of Concord, New Hampshire.
Mrs. Minot is a woman of much abil-
ity, and New Hampshire, as one of
the pioneer departments, should
have had the honor long ago of fill-
ing the highest office in the gift of
the National Woman's Relief Corps.
The present National president of
the W. R. C, who will preside over
the deliberations of the twenty-
second convention, is Mrs. Sarah D.
Winans, of Troy, Ohio. Other offi-
cers are : Senior vice-president, Ur-
sula M. Mattison, Tacoma, Wash-

ington; junior vice-president, Mary
J. Tygard, Denison, Texas; secre-
tary, Jennie S. Wright, Troy, Ohio;
treasurer, Sarah E. Phillips, Syra-
cuse, New York; chaplain, Mary
Lyle Reynolds, Covington, Ken-
tucky; inspector, Lydia G. Hopkins,
Detroit, Michigan ; counselor, Sarah
E. Fuller, Medford, Mass. ; I. and I.
officer, Jennie B. Atwood, Trenton,
New Jersey; patriotic instructor,
Kate E. Jones, Ilion, New York;
press correspondent, Mary M. North,
Snow Hill, Maryland ; executive
board, Sarah E. Fuller, life member,
Medford, Massachusetts; Ada E.
May, chairman, Stillwater, Minne-
sota ; Clara A. Lukins, Mitchell,
South Dakota; Mary I. Hayes, Pine
Meadow, Connecticut; Emma C.
Ewing, Boise, Idaho ; Helen E.
Cook, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Jfey

How She Settled It

A Study in Divorce

By Kate Gannett Wells

WHEN Mrs. Delancey married
early in life, she took it for
granted that she should love
her husband forever. But after ten
years she had begun to question her-
self concerning the state of her
affections, much to her husband's
amazement and her own perturba-
tions.

Whereupon she went off by her-
self to a remote summer hotel, where
she had first met Mr. Delancey, "to
think the thing out and have done
with it," as she phrased the situation
to her husband, who was too gentle-
manly to do otherwise than to con-
sent to what he could not prevent.
To make sure of a certain degree of
solitude she hired a boat for her ex^
elusive use, thereby causing much
comment among the guests, who,
never invited to sail with her, argued
she ought not to go out alone with
the skipper.

Little cared she what was said if
she could only decide whether to
remain married or to be divorced on
the ground of incompatibility; a
needless problem, which she herself
had created by adopting discontent
with marriage as an up-to-date, in-
tellectual process that would make
her a broader woman, though so far
it only had made her unhappy.

Unconsciously she was helped in
her deliberations by the skipper's
canny words in his spasmodic efforts
to entertain her. "He ain't any
church article, that man who lives
661

thar," he remarked one day, as they
sailed past a solitary house set in a
lonely cove.

"Why not?" she asked wearily.

"He ain't never done anything
'gainst the canon law," — the skipper
was a churchman — "but he's uncom-
mon aggravating, he don't let her
alone a day at a time. 'Twas her
fault when they began ; now it's his.
You see she was young and spry
when he took her home and she sup-
posed she'd got an uncle in him, but
he was just a husband, so she had
to tend him. She spiled him first,
and then he was at her, words, blows
and things throwed. I heard her
once as she jawed back. Then sud-
den she gave it up, for good and
all."

"Why didn't you interfere?" de-
manded Mrs. Delancey.

' 'Tain't safe when married folks
is like fighting dogs."

"Let's land; I'd like to see her."

The skipper took Mrs. Delancey
off in his dingy and she made her
wayup to the house and confronted a
woman stringing herring. She could
not have been more than forty, but
she looked as if her patience were
eternal. Somehow Mrs. Delancey
drew from her hints of her life story,
that she was never lonely when
alone, that she was glad her children
had died, as now she could hold
communion with them unwatched,
that she expected to live a great

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

many years and always to string
herring.

"Your husband?" asked the city
woman.

"He's off fishing mostly. When
he comes home, 'tisn't over pleasant,
but we don't peck at each other as
we used to."

"Why do you stay together?"

' 'Cause we married for better or
worse, — we've had the better, and it
might be worser than it is, — it's
weak not to keep a promise. Be-
sides if I left him, folks would talk
and p'raps leave their homes for less
cause than I have, and then the vil-
lage would go to the bad. You see
marriage is an institution, like the
church. You've got to have them
both, else things would go to pieces.
'Tain't any use chipping off bits. I
didn't begin right, that's all."

"Why not?"

' 'Cause I hadn't growed to see a
husband and wife ought to go
shares. He had it all, comfort,
clothes, food, money, and when I
fell sickly and asked for a let-up, he
didn't know how to take it. So we
got going on one another, when sud-
den I thought if I wanted to see my
children again in the next world,
wherever that may be, I'd better put
up with things. So I take him easy
now; it's heaps better. Aad I can't
say as I want for food. Won't you
have a glass of milk?" — and they
went up the path to the house.
"That's him coming now 'cross the
bay," she added, pointing to a dis-
tant boat.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Delancey
after a while, as she turned to leave.

"Wait a bit," answered the fisher-
man's wife. "I told you 'cause I
knew you when you was a girl," —
the lady started^ — "and used to come
'round here. I knew your man, too;
he boarded down to my father's, in

the village, prospecting. He was a
right smart man, a kindly gentle-
man, who did things ; he hadn't
much gift for talk." Mrs. Delancey
flushed.

"Folks said you married him and
'twas heaven for quite a spell. Then
I heard tell as how you wanted to
keep going like as if you was young,
and he was lonesome. I didn't let
on I knew you when you got out of
the boat, 'cause I hankered to see
you ever sence I heard you was at
the hotel. All I've got to say is, — it
is better to put up with husbands
than to get divorces, as you city
folks call 'em. I ain't going to take
the responsibility of mine, not to
mention myself when Judgment Day
comes, unless I keep 'round him."

"Are you Bessie Jones, that used
to be?" said Mrs. Delancey, slowly.

"I be, and you're Lucy Triscom
that was," and the two women shook
hands.

"I'll bring my husband to see you
some day," said Mrs. Delancey, as
they parted.

"Much obleeged, but if it's all the
same to you I'd rather you
wouldn't."

That night Mrs. Delancey wrote
her husband to come to her and then
tore up the note and went out sail-
ing again the next day. "Go the
other way, towards Grindstone
Cove," she bade the skipper.

"Queer how you nervous city
folks like coves; kind o' quieting,
like headache powders. We 'uns
down this way like a stiff blow out
to sea ; makes you think of hidden
troubles."

"Tell me who lives there?" she
asked, as they sailed up into a sunny
cove, on whose banks was a white-
washed, clapboarded house.

"Chapman's folks ; they're a mixed-
up set; dunno 'zactly who belongs

HOW SHE SETTLED IT

to who. He done well fishing and
treated his wife tol'ble, till some o'
your discontented city folks came
along, beg your pardon, ma'am, and
made her think she was of more
value than she really was, and had a
stiffer time than she ought'er, and
instead of telling them to mind their
own business, she listened, and he
took to drinking."

"Why didn't she get divorced?"
interrupted the lady.

"We don't do that kind o' thing
down here; we grin and bear it."

"She might get separated," urged
Mrs. Delancey.

"Thar'd allers be sunthin' to put
up with. I don't say men, 'specially
husbands, aren't trying, but wimmen
are, too."

"But," still urged . his companion,
"if a man doesn't treat his wife as a
gentleman should, if he drinks,
beats, scolds her, don't understand
her, I'd get divorced a hundred
times."

"Look you here, ma'am; you've
said too much to let it pass. A man
don't drink when his wife likes him.
If he beats her, it's her fault for put-
ting up with it; she can stop that
without getting divorced. I dunno
what you mean about understand-
ing her, women are so mysterious;
'pears to me some on 'em get
the sulks just thinking 'bout how
bad things are. I grant you, ma'am,
thar are some things can't be talked
of, if that's what you mean by being
a gentleman, that's yer word. Wa'al,
we uns down here behave ourselves,
and our gals know it when they
marry us."

Silence fell between the skipper
and Mrs. Delancey, for the wind had
sprung up and the sails had to be
lowered. As they turned the head-
land, another house came into view.
"And there !" she said, pointing to it.

"That's mine and that's my little
gal." The lady put up her field
glasses to see better, as the skipper
waved his hat, and was answered by
a fluttering apron. "It's our salute,
ma'am. She's most as old as I be,
but she'll allers be my little gal. She
likes me, and I'm mighty fond of
her," and the man's bronzed face
took a deeper hue.

"Tell me of it. Didn't you ever
have any — fuss?"

"We did," and his jaw set. "I'll
tell you, 'cause you're in trouble
some way, p'raps, — beg pardon,
ma'am, only you have the looks of it.
'Twas this way. We'd been married
a couple o' years or more, and we
had our two children and she didn't
have any right hard work to do,
'cause I did it, when we took one o'
your city artists to board, 'cause he
wanted to paint the place. Wa'al,
he made her believe she warn't ap-
preciated,—that's his word, I ain't
likely to forget it, — and she got
moon-y and to correcting my ways
till I jest hadn't the heart to stand
it, and I told her so plump, and she
said I wasn't as I used to be, and I
told her as how I hated to see her
getting old 'fore her time, 'cause she
used to be so pretty, like as she is
now, — and she lifted her hand to
slap me, like as she never did before,
and I put up mine. I never could
tell, — I thought on it much, — whether
I was going to strike back or jest not
let her hit me. Anyway, our palms
came flat together like children's
slapjack, and she looked all of a sud-
den so handsome, 'cause she was so
angry, that I just gave her a hug
and wouldn't let her go till she got
through crying, and then she
wouldn't let me go till she'd done
loving me. And the artist took an-
other tack and skipped."

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

husband would only
do so !" almost sobbed Mrs. De-
lancey.

"You mean like that artist," (the
skipper swore under his breath), "or
like as she and I did? You ain't got
any occasion to answer, and I
oughter not to have asked you.
Likely, ma'am, it's turn and turn
about. This time it is he thinks he
ain't appreciated, and it sours on
him. Don't you set too much on
yourself? — pardon, ma'am."
"He doesn't understand me !"
"Very likely not, ma'am. You be
hard to understand. 'Pears to me my
little gal's loving me helped me to
understand her."

"But if she couldn't love you?"
"She needn't be dead set 'gainst
trying. She needn't be turning her-
self inside out to find out, — jest take
it nat'ral. The fog's coining in,
ma'am, and we'll have to run in
shore."

The next day Mrs. Delancey went
home and soon after sent a box of
Havanas to the skipper. As he en-
joyed their fragrance, he chuckled,
thinking to himself: "She'd have
sent me tobaccy if things hadn't
come out right. Being they're segars,
it's her way of telling me she and
her husband is friends agin."

Paolo Toscanelli and the Discovery
of America

By Frederic Austin Ogg

IN the course of an hour's ramble
through the famous Santo Spiritu
quarter of Florence, one can
hardly fail to come upon the birth-
place not only of Italy's great four-
teenth century litterateur, Giovanni
Boccacio, but also of her equally
illustrious fifteenth century astron-
omer and cosmographer, Paolo dal
Pozzo Toscanelli. "Pozzo" in Ital-
ian means a well, and this feature of
the Toscanelli family name is ac-
counted for on the ground that not
far from the ancestral house at the
intersection of modern Via Guic-
ciardini and Via de' Velluti there
was once a fountain of sweet water,
to which the whole city had recourse
and which gave its name as well to
certain families in the neighborhood

as to the much-traversed street sub-
sequently closed by the enlargement
of the Pitti Palace. The year of
Paolo's birth was 1397 — more than
half a century before Christopher
Columbus, with whose name his own,
by a strange chance, was destined
most frequently to be linked, first
saw the light in the neighboring city-
state of Genoa. The paternal purse
was not always well filled, but it
permitted the education of the young
Florentine at the University of
Padua, some time between the years
1414 and 1424, after which he re-
turned to his native city to spend
there practically all the remainder of
his long life. Already he had won
renown as a mathematician, and tra-
dition tells us that the great Renais-

PAOLO TOSCANELLI

665

sance architect, Filippo Brunelleschi,
humbly acknowledged himself the
inferior of the young Paduan grad-
uate and besought him to lend his
assistance in preparing the plans for
the cupola of the Church of Santa
Maria del Fiore. At any rate, cer-
tain it is that when one enters the
Capello delta Groce of the great
Cathedral to-day he has pointed out
to him by patriotic Florentines an
exquisite marble gnomon, which is
declared to have been constructed
for the church by Toscanelli about
the year 1468.

From the outset of his career the
ingenious mathematician was favored
with the companionship of great
minds. It was his fortune to be con-
temporary with the flower of the
house of Medici, and to be patron-
ized successively by Cosimo the
Elder, Piero, the gentle Giuliano,
and the kind-hearted tyrant, Lo-
renzo the Magnificent. Leonardo da
Vinci, the painter, though really be-
longing to a younger generation,
was another of Toscanelli's brilliant
fellow-townsmen and friends — the L
more congenial because of kindred
zeal in the pursuit of mathematics
and the sciences. Niccolo Machia-
velli and Angiola Poliziano, also of
the younger generation, were like-
wise neighbors and admirers. Leone
Battista Alberti, the architect and
painter, leaving Bologna soon after
Toscanelli left Padua, joined him-
self in time to the Florentine coterie.
Christoforo Landino, tutor of Lo-
renzo de' Medici and commentator
on Dante and Virgil, was still an-
other fifteenth century light of the
favored city on the Arno. It is note-
worthy that two of Toscanelli's most
intimate friends were Germans —
aliens in blood and speech, but
brothers in the fast widening circle

of Renaissance scholarship. These
were Johannes Miiller, the Konigs-
berg geographer and astronomer,
and Nicholas de Cusa, a cardinal of
the Church, but none the less a close
student of mathematics and science.
Toscanelli was essentially a home-
stayer. It is known that he never
set foot outside of Italy, rarely going
even so far as Rome. That he was
still able to draw the great intellects
of his time so closely about him tes-
tifies the more convincingly to his
widespread fame and the substan-
tial character of his learning.

Unfortunately not one of the many
books which he is known to have
written on topics pertaining to geog-
raphy, meteorology and agriculture
has survived. We have, however,
numerous contemporary references
to his character and habits which
leave us in no doubt as to the kind
of man he actually was. Thus on
the day of the great Florentine's
death, in 1482, his good friend Bar-
tholomew Fonzio, a professor of Elo-
quence, wrote in his A?mali: "Paul
Toscanelli, physician and distin-
guished philosopher, a great exam-
ple of virtue, who always walked
about with bared head even in the
fiercest winter, ... is dead on
May 15, at Florence, his native place,
aged eighty-five." Another writer
informs us that Toscanelli ''lived a
life of extreme virtue, having no
weight upon his conscience" ; and
still another, who knew the mathe-
matician well, wrote of "Master
Paolo, a Physician, Philosopher, and
Astrologer, and a Man of Holy
Life." He is declared to have been
extremely devout, a lover of the
Church, and much given to quiet
works of charity — a scholar of the
most pronounced type, yet not a re-
cluse; a scientist, but also a man of

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

the strongest human instincts and
sympathies.

Such was the man whom tradition
has for more than three centuries
represented as having been the real
instigator of the Columbian discov-
ery of America. Beginning with the
Spaniard Bartholome Las Casas,
who wrote his History of the Indies
about the middle of the sixteenth
century, a long line of historians
reaching all the way down to the
present have given implicit credence
to the story. In one scholarly book
we read that "Toscanelli decided the
vocation of Columbus." In another
we are assured that "Toscanelli led
his age to the discovery of the trans-
atlantic lands." A recent American
writer declares that "this Florentine
doctor was the first to plant in the
mind of Columbus his aspirations
for the truths of geography." And
a brilliant Frenchman would have
us believe that "Toscanelli was the
inspirer of Columbus in the sense
that it was he who at first indirectly,
and afterwards directly, suggested
to him the possibility of transat-
lantic navigation, and convinced him
of it." During the past three or four
years, however, there have arisen in
some quarters grave suspicions that
this view is simply one more of those
strange delusions which insinuate
themselves into our body of knowl-
edge and pass unchallenged until
some mind keener than the rest
comes along to show them up in
their true character. The genius of
historical criticism is no respecter of
traditions. Since the middle of the
last century the critical historian —
that arch-fiend of manuscripts and
texts, heroic but thankless — has gone
stalking through the fairy land
which the earlier writers of history
created for our enjoyment, striking
fearlessly right and left, bedimming

haloes, throwing down crowns from
their ancient resting places- and
crushing treasured tradition* at
every step.

Thus, the strenuous Romulus and
Remus of the story books are shown
most likely to have been mere con-
veniences invented to vivify the
humble beginnings of the city on
the Tiber. King Alfred may have
been guilty of allowing good cakes
to be spoiled by the fire, but we are
not to attribute to him conduct so
unbecoming simply on the strength
of the tale of Athelney. The Digh-
ton rock inscription, so long an ob-
ject of curiosity and awe among anti-
quarians, has been proved to be the
work merely of some Algonquin
Indians, not of Phoenicians who in
primeval times sailed into Narra-
gansett Bay and up the Taunton
River. Oregon was indeed "saved,"
but not by the famous midwinter
pilgrimage of the missionary Marcus
Whitman. The cherry tree of the
elder Washington went quite un-
harmed to its natural death. And
now, in these latter days, there are
those who calmly assure us that the
whole story of how Columbus, about
the year 1479, wrote to the Floren-
tine geographer Toscanelli to in-
quire regarding the possibility of
reaching India by sailing westward,
and of how Toscanelli replied at
length in terms which inspirited the
Genoese navigator to his great task,
is altogether apocryphal. One may
well feel that in criticism of the
"burned cakes" or the "cherry tree"
type the game is not worth the
candle. It makes no great difference
whether the facts were one way or
the other. But manifestly the Co-
lumbus-Toscanelli question is of an-
other sort. The whole character of
the discovery of America is vitally
bound up in it. Neither the work of

PAOLO TOSCANELLI

667

Columbus, nor that of Toscanelli,
nor the forces which led to the open-
ing of the Western World to
Europe, can be properly estimated
until the Florentine be proved either
to have played the part tradition
ascribes to him or to have been only
the subject of careless, if not wilful,
misrepresentation.

The Toscanelli story as commonly
accepted may be briefly rehearsed.
By the third quarter of the fifteenth
century the renown of the Floren-
tine as a geographer had become so
widespread that he was universally
recognized as the highest contem-
porary authority on all matters per-
taining to the size, shape and gen-
eral configuration of the earth. In
1472 the Portuguese hope of finding
a route to the Indies by circumnavi-
gating Africa was shattered for a
time by the return of two sailors,
Santarem and Escobar, with the in-
formation that beyond the Gold
Coast the African shore turned
southward again and stretched away
in that direction so far, apparently,
as to preclude the possibility of ever
being rounded by ships. The only
alternative to the circumnavigation
of Africa was the opening of a route
directly to the westward — even as
men as far back as Aristotle had per-
sistently declared could be done. At
the Portuguese court, where interest
in the matter was greatest, it was
understood that Toscanelli, like
Pierre d' Ailly, Roger Bacon, and
other later cosmographers, also be-
lieved in the possibility of westward
navigation to India. Determined to
get the Florentine's opinion at first
hand, King Alfonso V., through the
medium of a monk by the name of
Fernam Martins, a canon of Lisbon,
made earnest inquiry whether India
could indeed be reached by sailing
westward, and begged for all the in-

formation on the subject which Tos-
canelli possessed.

To the king's appeal Toscanelli
made answer in a letter addressed to
Fernam Martins, June 25, 1474. This
letter is of the utmost importance,
not merely because of the statement
of Toscanelli's views which it con-
tains, but also because a copy of it
is said to have been sent to Lisbon
for the guidance of Columbus at a
later date.

"Whereas I have spoken with you else-
where," writes the geographer, "concern-
ing a shorter way of going by sea to the
lands of spices than that which you are
making by Guinea, the most serene King
now wishes that I should give some ex-
planation thereof, or rather that I should
so set it before the eyes of all that even
those who are but moderately learned might
perceive that way and understand it."

He then goes on to affirm his belief
in the sphericity of the earth and to
explain a chart which he had made
for the elucidation of his ideas,
whereupon were shown

"your shores and the islands from which
you may begin to make a voyage continu-
ally westwards, and the places whereunto
you ought to come, and how much you
ought to decline from the pole or from the
equinoctial line, and through how much
space, i. e., through how many miles, you
ought to arrive at the places most fertile
in all spices and gems."

Then follows a most extravagant
description of the countries and
cities of this far-away world — the
port of Zaiton where "they say" that
every year a hundred large ships of
pepper were brought in, besides
other vessels bearing other spices ; a
river on which alone were estab-
lished about two hundred cities, with
"marble bridges of great breadth
and length, adorned with columns
on every side;" and the noble island
of Cipangu, "most fertile in gold and
in pearls and gems," where the tem-
ples and royal houses were covered

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

with solid gold. There can be no
question that this enticing picture
of Eastern Asia was based almost
entirely upon the still unpublished
but generally familiar account of the
travels of Marco Polo. The Indies
were declared worthy of being
sought by Europeans not only be-
cause of the gold, silver, gems, and
spices to be obtained there, but also
because of the "wise men, learned
philosophers and astrologers, by
whose genius and arts that mighty
and magnificent province is gov-
erned." Most important of all was
the assertion in a postscript that
from Lisbon in a direct line west-
ward "unto the most noble and very
great city of Quinsay," there were
twenty-six spaces marked on the
chart, each corresponding to a dis-
tance of 250 miles. This total extent
of 6,500 miles was conveniently
broken by the interposition of the
islands of Antilia and Cipangu, and
as it comprised in all but one-third
of the circumference of the globe,
the ocean-way westward to the
Indies was presented in a singularly
attractive light. It was much shorter
than the route by either the east or
the southeast.

According to the results of recent
investigations, it was not many
years after Toscanelli's letter and
chart are alleged to have been sent
to the Portuguese court that Colum-
bus abandoned his temporary island
home on Porto Santo, three hundred
miles out on the mysterious ocean,
and took up his residence in Lisbon.
The great project of reaching India
by sailing to the west had for some
time been taking shape in the navi-
gator's brain, and apparently he was
now about ready to begin his quest
for royal patronage. He, too, had
heard of Toscanelli's views, which,
if correctly reported, coincided so

perfectly with his own, and, appar-
ently without knowing that King
Alfonso had taken a similar step,
proceeded to appeal to the Floren-
tine for an authoritative confirma-
tion of the westward theory. As
commonly represented, Columbus
placed such implicit confidence in
the infallibility of Toscanelli that he
was willing to be guided almost en-
tirely by his advice. A Florentine
merchant by the name of Lorenzo
Girardi (or Birardo), who had been
doing business in Lisbon, was on
the point of returning home, and to
him Columbus entrusted his letter
of inquiry. This letter has been lost,
but the questions which it contained
must have been substantially the
same as those propounded a few
years before by Alfonso. In the
course of time — though at just what
date cannot be ascertained — the
geographer replied by sending Co-
lumbus a copy of the letter, and also
of the chart, which had been trans-
mitted in 1474 to Fernam Martins.
This, it appears from internal evi-
dence, was toward the end of the
year 1479 — at least after "the wars
of Castille," which are generally held
to have been terminated by the
treaty of Alcantara, September 4th,
of that year. The correspondence of
the scientist and the prospective
navigator is supposed to have con-
tinued for some time, though not a
vestige of the several letters alleged
to have been written by Columbus
remains. There is one other extant
epistle of Toscanelli — absolutely in-
definite as to date, except as limited
by the death of the author in May,
1482. It is as follows :

"To Christopher Columbus, Paul, the physi-
cian, health :
"I have received thy letters with the
things thou didst send me, and with them
I received a great favor. I notice thy splen-
did and lofty desire to sail to the regions

PAOLO TOSCANELLI

669

of the east by those of the west, as is shown
by the chart which I send you, which would
be better shown in the shape of a round
sphere; it will please me greatly, should it
be understood ; and that not only is the said
voyage possible, but it is sure and certain,
and of honor and countless gain, and of the
greatest renown among all Christians. But
you will not be able to understand it thor-
oughly except with experience and discus-
sion, as I have had most fully, and good
and true information of mighty men and of
great learning, who have come from the
said regions here to the Court of Rome, and
of other merchants who have long trafficked
in those parts, men of great authority. So
that when the said journey occurs, it will
be to powerful kingdoms and most noble
cities and provinces, most rich in all man-
ner of things in great abundance and very
necessary to us, as also in all kinds of spices
in great quantity, and of jewels in the
largest abundance. It will also be to the
said kings and princes who are very de-
sirous, more than -jve are, to have dealing
and speech with Christians from our parts,
for a great number of them are Christians,
and also to have speech and dealing with
the learned men and of genius from here,
as well in religion as in all the othei
sciences, because of the great reputation of
the empires and administrations of these
our parts; for all which things and many
others which might be mentioned, I do not
wonder that thou who art of great spirit,
and the whole nation of the Portuguese,
who have always been men noble in ail
great undertakings, shouldst be seen with
heart inflamed and full desire to put into
execution the said journey."

Despite the affirmations of count-
less writers to the contrary, there is
absolutely no reason for believing
that it was from this or other similar
letters of Toscanelli that Columbus
derived his first idea of reaching the
Indies by sailing westward across
the Atlantic. In an era when that
idea was as widespread as it un-
doubtedly was in the later fifteenth
century it is invidious to accord the
glory of originating it to any par-
ticular person. Both Toscanelli and
Columbus must have been ardent
champions of it long before the time
at which their correspondence is sup-
posed to have commenced. As Mr.
John Fiske so well said, many years
ago, "The originality of Columbus

did not consist in his conceiving the
possibility of reaching the shores of
Cathay by sailing west, but in his
conceiving it in such distinct and
practical shape as to be ready to
make the adventure in his own per-
son." At the same time, no one
would deny that if Columbus actu-
ally received letters of the purport
of those quoted, and from so re-
nowned an authority as Toscanelli,
the effect must have been greatly to
encourage him in the enterprise upon
which he had set his heart. It is
therefore idle to inquire simply
whether the Florentine's letters and
charts contributed inspiration, if not
ideas, to the navigator. The essen-
tial question is, Did any such letters
and charts ever in fact pass between
the two men? If they did, they must
have been not wholly without in-
fluence.

The basis for an affirmative
answer reaches back pretty far, but
unfortunately not quite far enough
to be conclusive. There has survived
to this day a considerable body of
the writings of Columbus, but no-
wriere in them is here the slightest
allusion to the alleged correspon-
dence with the Florentine geog-
rapher. The earliest extant mention
of the Toscanelli letters is to be
found in the Historia de las Indias
written by Bartholome Las Casas
about the year 1552. In the course
of this book Las Casas, after telling
of the inquiry made by Columbus,
writes boldly:

"The said Master Paul [Toscanelli] hav-
ing received the letter from Christopher
Columbus, replied in a letter written in
Latin, incorporating therein the letter he
had written to Hernando Martinez, Canon,
which letter I saw and had in my hands, it
being translated from Latin into Romance
[Spanish]."

670

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Later he adds :

"The marine chart, which he [Toscanelli]
sent him, I, who write this history, have in
my possession."

Elsewhere we are informed that
the author discovered the letter and
chart among papers of Columbus
which had been committed to his
keeping. In view of such unequivo-
cal testimony, it is hardly to be won-
dered at that the Toscanelli story
passed so readily, and apparently so
irrevocably, into the body of Colum-
bian history. Many a favored as-
sertion of generations of writers
rests upon an ultimate basis not half
so substantial. Then, in 1571, was
added another testimony which for
a long time seemed to lend the qual-
ity of absolute conclusiveness. In
that year at Venice was published a
life of Columbus, attributed to the
navigator's son Ferdinand, in which
the Toscanelli letter to Fernam Mar-
tins [later to Columbus] was given
in an Italian translation and was ex-
pressly declared to have had great
influence upon the discoverer's plans
and undertakings.

For the most part, it was in this
Italian form that the Toscanelli
story was familiar during the next
three centuries. Over and over
again during this time it was re-
hearsed by the historians, though
the more critically inclined some-
times appeared a trifle uneasy on
account of the utter lack of contem-
porary documentary proof. But at
last, in 1871, full three hundred years
after the publication of the Italian
biography of the discoverer, the
long-desired evidence seemed to
have been unearthed. M. Henry
Harrisse, a nineteenth century ex-
plorer of archives, not a whit less in-
defatigable than the illustrious
fifteenth century explorer of western

islands and continents, while delv-
ing in the' treasures of the Biblioteca
Colombina at Seville, came upon a
text no less interesting than what
appeared very clearly to be a copy
in Columbus's own handwriting, in
Latin, of the very letter which Las
Casas declared that Toscanelli sent
to Fernam Martins in 1474, and later
to the discoverer himself. Curiously
enough, the document was found on
a blank page at the end of a book
(the Historia Rerum Ubique Ges-
tarum of Aeneas Silvius — later Pope
Pius II.), which had long been
known to have belonged to Colum-
bus, and on whose margins numer-
ous notes written by the owner had
already been deciphered by the Se-
ville librarian. Though M. Har-
risse's discovery was the occasion
of much controversy, and even un-
seemly diatribes by certain persons
who came forward to assert that
nothing had been revealed with
which they were not already quite
familiar, it became the consensus of
opinion that full and final confirma-
tion had at last been added to the
Toscanelli chapter in American his-
tory. And though perhaps no very
serious skepticism on the subject
had ever as yet displayed itself,
scholars experienced something of
the pleasurable sensation of assur-
ance which must ever follow the
throwing of new and larger evidence
about a fact hitherto half-suspected.
Thus matters stood until quite re-
cently. It is impossible here to de-
scribe the intricate processes of
criticism by which the whole Tos-
canelli story has once more been in-
volved in extreme doubt. It may
be of interest, however, to call at-
tention to a few of the more perti-
nent charges' which are being made
against it, and in some respects sur-
prisingly well sustained, in the court

PAOLO TOSCANELLI

671

of the critical historian. The most
elaborate case of the sort is that
which has been worked out by Mr.
Henry Vignaud, First Secretary of
the United States Embassy at Paris
and Vice-President of the Paris So-
ciety of Americanists. In a recent
book, Toscanelli and Columbus, to-
gether with certain supplementary
letters and papers, this brilliant
young critic has so far succeeded in
demolishing the supposed connec-
tion of Toscanelli with the discovery
of America that no adherent of the
old view — not even a scholar of such
ingenuity as Sir Clements Markham
of the Royal Geographical Society
of England — has been able to with-
stand the flood of arguments ad-
duced. Over against the traditional
Columbus-Toscanelli story has been
set a body of evidence fairly be-
wildering in its variety and cumula-
tive effect.

In the first place, we are reminded
of the fact already mentioned that
nowhere in his voluminous notes
and correspondence does the dis-
coverer refer in any manner to the
Florentine, save in the supposed
transcript letter on the fly-leaf of tb^
Historia Rerum ; and this despite the
equally patent fact that Columbus
habitually took pains to back up his
own views with frequent allusions
to those of his contemporaries. As
Mr. Vignaud well says, "The great
navigator was not one of those close
spirits who work out in solitude
their problems and who make a
secret of their ideas. He was, on
the contrary, a talker. He spoke and
wrote much ; and with respect to the
origin of his great design, he has
shown himself to be highly com-
municative in carefully recording
every trifle which had been contrib-
uted to the formation of his plan."
If Toscanelli had been *a source of

information and encouragement, he
would certainly have been referred
to by the discoverer along with Aris-
totle, Seneca, Strabo, Pliny, Pierre
d'Ailly, and Roger Bacon. It is sig-
nificant that all of the original texts
of the alleged correspondence have
disappeared. At the very least, tak-
ing the story at its face value, there
must have been made not fewer than
five copies of the geographer's two
letters to Columbus. Of the first
letter, for example, a copy is de-
clared to have been sent to Fernam
Martins, another to the discoverer,
and a third must have been pre-
served by the Florentine if he was
able after an interval of several
years to transmit a duplicate; simi-
larly there must have been at least
two autograph copies of the second
letter. Not only is there absolutely
no trace of any of these among the
papers of either party, but, as has
been pointed out, not a vestige re-
mains of the several letters which
Columbus is assumed to have
written. Las Casas doubtless had a
letter of the sort he mentions, and
one which he perhaps supposed to
be genuine, but he might easily have
been imposed upon, as we know that
he not infrequently was in other
matters. The testimony of the sup-
posed biography by Ferdinand Co-
lumbus has to be thrown out of
court entirely, not simply because
there is serious question as to its
authenticity, but the more because
it was only an indifferent Italian
translation of Las Casas and so adds
no weight of authority whatever.
Las Casas is thus left to stand abso-
lutely alone as an authority for the
Toscanelli story until M. Harrisse's
discovery in the Columbina thirty
years ago. The Portuguese writers
of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies make no mention of the corre-

672

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

spondence of Columbus and Tosca-
nelli, or even of the relations be-
tween the Florentine and Alfonso V.
The custodian of the Royal Archives
who wrote the biography of Alfonso
evidently knew nothing of such re-
lations. There is not even the
slightest evidence that the king was
at all interested in the project of
westward navigation to India. More-
over, except for Toscanelli's alleged
letter addressed to him, we should
never have heard of such a person
as Fernam Martins. He is quite un-
known to the chronicles and other
writings of the time. We have a list
of the Lisbon canons about 148*0, but
there is no Fernam Martins in it.
There was at the Portuguese court
a Martyns called Estevam, but he
was not a canon. This very fact
points toward a forgery, in which
just such an inaccuracy would be
more than likely to occur. Further-
more, among all the archives of
Italy, including the papers and cor-
respondence left by Toscanelli, there
is not a shred of evidence that the
geographer had any relations what-
ever with the Portuguese court, or
with Columbus. Although the
geographer's Florentine friends
made frequent mention of him in
their writings, and of his scientific
views and interests, they at no time
credit him with having any corre-
spondence with Portuguese royalty,
or with the discoverer of the new
lands in the West.

Still there remains the letter pre-
served by Las Casas, and found in
the Latin form by M. Harrisse.
Does not its existence invalidate, or
at least render irrelevant, all the con-
siderations which have just been
noted? If it is what it purports to
be, it unquestionably does. If the
letter is a genuine translation of an
authenticated document, the oppon-

ents of the Toscanelli theory have
little left upon which to stand. Con-
versely, if it can be proved a forgery
the view represented by Mr. Vig-
naud and his school must be voted
a complete triumph. The entire
issue thus narrows itself to a con-
troversy regarding the authenticity
of a single document a few hundred
words in length.

As a result of scrutinizing com-
parison of the fly-leaf copy attrib-
uted to Columbus with writing
known to be that of the discoverer,
scholars who adhere to the tradi-
tional view declare that its authen-
ticity is left without a shadow of a
doubt. But there are those who are
almost equally sure that the hand-
writing is not that of Columbus at
all. Without entering into details
the essential points in the new
school's view are (1) that the letter
attributed to Toscanelli comprises
nothing more or less than the cos-
mographical system worked out by
Columbus himself after his first voy-
age of discovery in 1492 ; (2) that it
represents a forgery in the interest
of the discoverer's good name and
fame, — an attempt to invest his en-
terprises with the renown of the
great Florentine, — probably the
work of Bartholomew Columbus
with the complicity of Las Casas,
and (3) that the Latin text discov-
ered by M. Harrissee in the Historia
Remm was the work of Bartholo-
mew, who is known to have written
a hand very similar to the dis-
coverer's, and to have been the
author of numerous notes inter-
mingled on the margins of this and
other books with those written by
his brother. Every point in this
chain of argument is more or less
conclusively fortified with evidence,
and if the half of what is affirmed
be accepted as true, not only are

PAOLO TOSCANELLI

073

Bartholomew Columbus and Las
Casas shown up in a pretty bad light
but the illustrious Florentine geog-
rapher is completely eliminated from
the annals of American history.

What the outcome of the contro-
versy will be cannot be predicted
with any degree of confidence. It is
quite possible that new and decisive,
evidence on the one side or the other
will yet be discovered, and the scale
of debate be turned accordingly. For
it must be confessed that, while the
critics have succeeded in under-
mining the old representation of the
subject to such an extent that it no^H
appears very untrustworthy, they
have nevertheless failed thus far to
make out so clear a case on the new.
basis as to command instant and
complete agreement on the part of
cautious students. The facts which,
despite all uncertainties, may be
taken as permanently settled are (i)

Columbus drew his geographical
ideas from a great variety of sources,
not from Toscanelli or any other
one person; (2) such of these
sources as the discoverer expressly
mentions contain more than enough
information and suggestions to piece
out such a geographical system as
Columbus appears to have had be-
fore the first voyage in 1492 ; and (3)
if Columbus actually received such
a chart as that which has hitherto
passed under Toscanelli's name, he
manifestly showed no disposition to
be guided by it in his crossing of the
Atlantic. The. meaning of all this is
that, whatever the conclusion which
may be arrived at regarding the
authenticity of the alleged corre-
spondence, Toscanelli can no longer
be represented with justice as the
teacher and inspirer of the Genoan,
or in any real sense as the ultimate
patron of the discovery of America.

Caged

By Helen A. Saxon

BEHIND the bars with endless, even stride,
Unknowing hope or fear, cadaverous, lean,
Yet not without a -certain royal mien,
The captive paced, and with a mournful pride
Gazed past his curious gazers in a wide
Far look as one who sees his own between
The bars — that dream-illumined "might have been"
To him, alas, forevermore denied.
And in among the gay, diverted crowd

Stood one who, watching, marked the lissome grace,
The powerful frame, the shapely limbs and proud
High bearing made for freedom, fleetness, space,
But wasting here in apathy ; and in
His heart he shuddered, knowing they were kin.

SANDY NECK LIGHT.

Yarmouth- -A Typical Cape Cod Town

By Ella Matthews Bangs

•I ^HIS is a glorious sunset,"
X a visitor in Yarmouth once
remarked to a native of the
place. The man addressed gave a
grudging glance toward the pano-
rama of the heavens, radiant in vio-
let, rose, and amber, and returned
succinctly, "Don't think much o'

em, seen too many of 'em."
But while this lack of apprecia-
tion is by no means common among
the natives of Cape Cod, they per-
haps by reason of lifelong associa-
tion fail to see the quaint and pictur-
esque charm in the towns and vil-
lages around them, which to visitors
from other parts of the country is as
distinctly characteristic as are the
beautiful sunsets. Much might be
written of Provincetown, so many
of whose inhabitants are of foreign
birth or parentage ; of Hyannis with
its fine harbor and attractive streets
and the claim of being the only Cape
town which now shows a steady
growth; or of picturesque little
Wellfleet, made famous by Mar-
coni and his wireless telegraphy.

But each of these is, in a sense, an
exception.

A town more nearly typical of
Cape Cod villages as a whole, in
past enterprise and present passiv-
ity, is Yarmouth ; which, like the
grandmother she is, after having
sent her offspring out into all parts
of the world, has settled down to
the enjoyment of a serene old age.
The earliest mention of this vicinity
in history comes under the date of
1622 when, there being a dearth of
food at Plymouth, Governor Brad-
ford with a company of men sailed
around the Cape and after stops at
other places, bought at Nauset and
Mattachiest (Yarmouth) twenty-
eight hogsheads of beans and corn.
The following year Miles Standish
came to Mattachiest or Mattacheese
to buy corn of the natives, and being
forced to lodge in the Indian houses
became convinced that there was a
desire to kill him on the part of the
Indians. Here also "some trifles
were missed." These were only a
few beads, but the little captain

674

YARM OUTH

G75

with his usual intrepidity demanded
restitution, which the sachem caused
to be made, and then ordered more
corn to be given the visitors by way
of recompense.

In 1637 liberty was granted Mr.
Stephen Hopkins to erect a house at
Mattacheese and cut hay there to
winter his cattle, provided that he
should not withdraw from the town
of Plymouth. Others soon followed
in his footsteps and the permanent
settlement of Yarmouth was made
in 1639, and by October of that year
so well established was the town
that the court ordered "a pair of
stocks and a pound to be erected."

Among the most prominent men
of this period were Anthony Thach-
er, John Crow (Crowell), and
Thomas Howes ; descendants of
whom, bearing the same names, may
still be found within a few miles of
this early settlement. The first of
these, Antony Thacher (as he
spelled his own name), was a man
of education and refinement, for in
records still in existence he is men-
tioned as -curate for his brother, the
Rev. Peter Thacher, rector of St.
Edmunds, Salisbury, England,
from 1631 to 1634. He had been
with the colony at Leyden, and is
said to have had almost as many ad-
ventures by land and sea as the
hero of the Odyssey. In the "Swan
Song of Parson Avery," the poet
Whittier had told of the shipwreck
off Cape Ann on the night of August
14, 1635, when twenty-one out of
twenty-three persons were drov ned,
the two escaping being Anthony
Thacher and his wife. Mr. Thach-
er's letter to his brother Peter, writ-
ten a few days after the wreck ; is re-
markable for unaffected pathos and
Christian faith. It begins :

"I must turn my drowned pen and shak-
ing hand to indite the story of such sad

news as never before this happened in
New England. There was a league of per-
petual friendship between my cousin Avery
and myself, never to forsake each other
to the death, but to be partakers of eich
other's misery or welfare, as also of habi-
tation in the same place. Now upon our
arrival in New England, there was an offer
made unto us. My cousin Avery was in-
vited to Marble head to be their pastor in
due time ; there being no church planted
there as yet, but a town appointed to set
up the trade of fishing. Because many
there (the most being fishermen) were
something loose and remiss in their be-
havior, my cousin Avery was unwilling
to go thither, and so refusing, we went to
Newbury, intending there to sit down. But
being solicited so often, both by the men
of the place and by the magistrates, and
by Mr. Cotton, and most of the ministers,
who alleged what a benefit we might be to
the people there, and also to the country
and commonwealth, at length we embraced
it, and thither consented to go. They of
Marblehead forthwith sent a pinnace for
us and our goods. We embarked at Ips-
wich, August 11, 1635, with our families
and substance, bound for Marblehead, we
being in all twenty-three souls, vis : eleven
in my cousin's family, seven in mine, and
one Mr. William Elliot sometime of New
Sarum, and four mariners."

After a vivid description of the
storm and shipwreck, and the cast-
ing ashore of himself and wife upon
an island, where provisions and ar-
ticles of clothing were also washed
ashore, Mr. Thacher's letter thus
concludes :

"Thus the Lord sent us some clothes to
put on, and food to sustain our new lives,
which we had lately given unto us, and
means also to make a fire for in an hour
I had some gunpowder, which to mine
own (and since to other men's) admira-
tion was dry. So taking a piece of my
wife's neckcloth, which I dried in the sun,
I struck a fire, and so dried and warmed
our wet bodies, and then skinned the goat,
and having found a small brass pot we
boiled some of her. Our drink was brack-
ish water. Bread we had none. There
we remained until Monday following,
when about three of the clock in the after-
noon, in a boat that came that way, we
went off that desolate island which I named
after my name 'Thacher's Woe/ and the

676

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

rock 'Avery, his fall,' to the end that their
fall and loss and mine own, might be had
in perpetual remembrance. In the isle
lieth buried the body of my cousin's eldest
daughter, whom I found dead on the shore.
On the Tuesday following, in the after-
noon, we arrived at Mavblehead."

In the Massachusetts Colonial
Records, under date of September 3,
1635, is the following:

"It is ordered that there shall be fforty
marks given to Mr. Thacher out of the
treasury towards his greate losses."

And under date of March 9,
1636-7:

"Mr. Anthony Thacher had granted him
the small iland at the head of Cape Ann
(vpon wch hee was pserved from ship-
wrack) as his pp inheritance."

And Thacher's Island still bears
his name.

From Marblehead Mr. Thacher
went to Mattacheese (Yarmouth)
and built a house — in which he died
— near the salt marsh on the north
shore of the town, and in the vicin-
ity of that built by Stephen Hop-
kins. For eleven years Mr. Thach-
er represented the town of Yar-
mouth in the General Court at
Plymouth. John, a son of Anthony,
also held several public offices, being
for nearly twenty years a member
of the Provincial Council. He also
held the rank of Colonel, and at his
death in Yarmouth was buried with
military honors. John Thacher
married Rebecca Winslow, a niece
of the first Governor Winslow, and
the Thacher Genealogy furnishes
this interesting anecdote concerning
this couple :

"On his return to Yarmouth with his
bride and company, they stopped at the
house of Colonel Gorham, at Barnstable
(town adjoining Yarmouth). In the merry
conversation with the newly married
couple, an infant was introduced, about
three weeks old, and it was observed to
Mr. Thacher that it was born on such a

night, he replied that it was the very night
he was married; and taking the child in
his arms, presented her to his bride saying,
'Here, my dear, is a little lady born on
the same night that we were married. I
wish you would kiss it as I intend to have
her for my second wife.' 'I will, my dear,'
she replied, 'to please you, but I hope it
will be a long time before you have that
pleasure.' So taking the babe she pressed
it to her lips, and gave it a kiss. This
jesting prediction was eventually verified.
Mr. Thacher's wife died, and the child,
Lydia Gorham, arriving at mature age ac-
tually became his wife, January 1, 1684,
O. S.

"Tradition also furnishes the following
anecdote concerning the manner of obtain-
ing the second wife. After the death of
his first wife, John, while riding in Barn-
stable, saw a horse belonging to his son
Peter tied to a tree in front of Colonel Gor-
ham's residence, and as a thoughtful parent
is inclined, he went in to see what his son
was doing, and found that he had advanced
considerably in a suit with Miss Lydia,
whom the father had prophetically de-
clared would be his second wife ; and
whether it was on account of that prophecy,
or that he had had his attention called to
the girl before, he took Peter aside and
offered him ten pounds, old tenor, and a
yoke of black steers, if he would resign his
claims.

As to whether Peter was satisfied
with this transaction, tradition say-
eth not; but it was the father and
not the son who married Miss Lydia.

Besides Mattacheese, the old
township included Hockanom, Nobs-
cusset, and Sursuit, (North and East
Dennis) ; to which latter location
Richard Sears of Leyden and Plym-
outh led a company in 1643, and
many sons and daughters of Yar-
mouth today are proud to trace
their ancestry back to "Richard the
Pilgrim." In the ancient cemetery,
not far from the site of the first
dwellings erected, the descendants
of Richard Sears have raised a fine
granite monument to his memory.

In common with all New England,
at this period the church took pre-
cedence of the town ; indeed no set-

LIBRARY
PRESENTED BY
NATHAN MATTHEWS, SR.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
Photos by Elmer W. Hallett

tlement was recognized as such until
it had its church and minister. So
in Yarmouth the church antedated
the incorporation of the township by
several months. The first church
building undoubtedly stood on the
spot known as Fort Hill, near the
old burying ground — a log house, 30
by 40 feet, with oiled paper in place
of window glass — and to this rude
little building the faithful were
called together on Sabbath morning
by beat of drum. And it became all
to be faithful in those days, for ac-
cording to a record of 1655,

"If anyone denied the Scriptures to be
a rule of life he was to receive corporal
punishment at the hands of the magis-
trates."

and two men were fined ten shil-
lings each for disturbance at the
Yarmouth meeting house, and
others five shillings for smoking
tobacco "at the end of the meeting
house on the Lord's day in time of

exercise.'' The first minister was
Mr. Marmaduke Matthews, the elo-
quent Welshman, who was matricu-
lated at All Souls' College, Oxford,
1623, and came to New England in
1638. Among his successors was the
Rev. Timothy Alde.n, a direct des-
cendant of John Alden, and who for
nearly sixty years, from 1769 to
1828, occupied the pulpit. Several
years .after the Building of the first
church, a more pretentious place of
worship was erected on the main
street of the village. This in turn
gave place to another and larger
structure on nearly the same site;
one with a high pulpit, sounding
board, and square pews, which in
course of time was remodelled to
conform to more modern ideas. In
1870, however, the present place of
worship was erected on the main
street, but farther west than the old
one which was sold and for a num-
ber of years used as a store and Post

678

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Office, while the second floor, after
being put to various uses was fitted
up by the C. C. C. Club, (Cape Cod
Central,) as their place of meeting.
Unfortunately, however, during De-
cember, 1902, the old building, a fa-
miliar landmark for so many years,
was burnt to the ground.

Rev. Timothy Alden has been de-
scribed as "a little man with his
antique wig, small clothes, and
three-cornered hat, witty and wise."
He lived to complete his ninety-
third year. Among his writings is

town were nearly as numerous as
the white people." And to the early
settlers belongs the honor of fair
treatment of these natives. In 1657
Messhatampaine acknowledged that
he had been fully paid and satisfied
for every parcel of land sold to An-
thony Thacher, John Crowell, and
Thomas Howes, of Yarmouth. Rev.
John W. Dodge, for many years
pastor of the first church (congrega-
tional), has preserved a number of
interesting anecdotes of the native

inhabitants

Among1 these is the

-FTT

•

SANDY SIDE (SIMPKINS ESTATE), BUILT BY THE LATE RUTH S. SIMPKINS.
Photo bjf Elmer W. Ilallett

much valuable information concern-
ing the Indians. For many years
the southern part of the town of Yar-
mouth was an Indian reservation,
and mission work was at once be-
gun by the church people. During
the ministry of Rev. Thomas Thorn-
ton, 1667-1693, there were said to
have been nearly two hundred pray-
ing Indians in town under two
native teachers. Writing in 1794
Mr. Alden says, "Within the
memory of some the Indians in this

story of Elisha Nauhaught, which
Whittier has woven into verse in
his poem, "Nauhaught the Deacon."
The dwelling of this intrepid hero
stood on the shore of what is now
known as Long Pond, in South Yar-
mouth; and near this place a late
owner of the grounds, Dr. Azariah
Eldridge erected a monument
formed of a pile of stone on the
upper of which is the inscription :

YARMOUTH

079

ON THIS SLOPE LIE BURIED

THE LAST OF THE NATIVE INDIANS

OF YARMOUTH.

The town of Yarmouth extends
from shore to shore across what
Taureau has called "the bared and
bended arm of Massachusetts;" but
though incorporated as one town-
ship, it has several divisions with a
Post Office in each. Thus there are :
Yarmouth, Yarmouth Port, West
Yarmouth and South Yarmouth ;
the two latter are villages by them-
selves, South Yarmouth being for-
merly known as Quaker Village, and
still longer ago as South Sea. Be-
tween Yarmouth proper, however,
and the Port there is no visible di-
viding line and both are commonly
spoken of as Yarmouth, the two
portions designated as "up and
down street."

It is a proud tradition of the town
that when, in 1776, Captain Joshua
Gray had the drum beat to raise vol-
unteers to reinforce Washington at
Dorchester Heights, eighty-one men
— one half the effective force of the
town — were next day on the march.
In the same year, when the towms
were requested to express their opin-
ion whether, if Congress should de-
clare the Independence of the Colo-
nies, the people would sustain them
in the act, the town voted unani-
mously,

"That the inhabitants of the town of Yar-
mouth do declare a state of independence
of the King of Great Britain, agreeable to
a late resolve of the General Court, in case
the wisdom of Congress should see proper
to do it."

Common schools, next in import-
ance to the church 'in the interests of
the early settlers, were well founded
here, and today compare favorably
with those of New England cities.
To the agricultural pursuits of the
first white inhabitants was soon add-
ed another, that of securing the

THE LATE JOHN SIMPKINS,
Representative to Congress from the 13th
Massachusetts District
Photo by James L. Breese, N. I.

"drift" whales, which in those days
were cast upon the shores within the
bounds of Yarmouth. Later the
business of whaling was originated,
and for a hundred years proved vast-
ly profitable . Previous to and im-
mediately after the Revolution, cod
fishery was extensively engaged in,
and the coasting business to south-
ern and European ports. During the
Revolutionary war, owing to the
high price of common salt, attention
was turned to the question of pro-
ducing salt from sea water through
solar evaporation, and before the
end of the eighteenth century a na-
tive of this vicinity had invented and
perfected a set of contrivances by
means of which this end was accom-
plished. This invention of salt
works brought about a business of
great profit to the town and vicinity
for nearly fifty years and until
through the abolition of duties on
foreign salt and the development of

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

sources of supply in our own land,
the business ceased to be of profit.
Until within comparatively a few
years, however, the remains of the
salt works, with their windmills,
formed a picturesque feature of the
landscape in the southern part of the
town. Between the years 1820 and
1861, when American shipping was
at its height, Yarmouth furnished
many shipmasters who had no su-
periors. Contemporary with this en-
gagement in foreign commerce,
mackerel fishing and ship-building
were carried on nearer home and
flourished for a while, but came to
an end, practically, with the Civil
war.

Between sixty and seventy years
ago Henry Hall of Dennis discov-
ered the art of cultivating the cran-
berry, thus making available the
many swamps and marshes through-
out the Cape towns. Yarmouth, in
common with her neighbors, has
found cranberry growing more lu-
crative than any previous branch of
industry, despite the many enemies
of the vines and berries in the way of
insects and early frosts, and Cape
Cod cranberries have acquired a
reputation for excellence which ex-
tends beyond New England. As is
often the case however with other
industries, overproduction has of
late years interferred somewhat in
the way of profit. A ten acre bog in
Yarmouth was bought a few years
ago by a retired ship-captain for
$6,000, though the former owner
was for some time reluctant to let it
go at so low a figure. From this, in
some seasons, four hundred or more
barrels of berries have been shipped.
When picking begins, the bog is
lined off into rows a few feet in
width and two pickers placed in each
row, while the overseer looks out
that no row is left unfinished. Dur-

ing the season, one who is up be-
times of a morning may see cart
loads of sunbonneted women and
broad-brimmed hatted men en route
to the cranberry bogs. Merry com-
panies they are too, for there seems
to be a fascination about the work
difficult to understand by the unini-
tiated, especially when the pickers
come home tired and lame after a
day on their knees. They claim,
however, that the lameness wears off
after a few days — and one must be-
lieve it when told that during the
noon hour, after the lunches are dis-
posed of, the pickers sometimes re-
pair to the cranberry house, where
an accordion or harmonica is
brought out and to their enlivening
strains the young folks "trip the
light fantastic toe" until the one
o'clock signal is given, when work
must be resumed.

The Yarmouth of to-day presents a
long and broad main street, lined on
either side by elms which form an
arch high overhead as one drives
through the Port, falsifying the as-
sertion that nothing can grow from
Cape Cod soil ; though the early
settlers evidently labored under a
similar delusion, for in the belief
that nothing else would flourish they
set out numerous silver-leaved pop-
lars, particularly in the lower (east-
ern) and older part of the village,
and these continue to grow and in-
crease notwithstanding the vigorous
attempts to eradicate a second gen-
eration. A broad blue sweep of
ocean is in sight from the streets of
the Port, and glimpses of it may be
had all down through the village;
while away to the northwest Sandy
Neck stretches out its barren length
and supports its lonely lighthouse.
For two miles or more an unbroken
line of buildings extends on either
side of the street, ending in the low-

FIREPLACE IN OLD THACHER HOUSE, NOW OCCUPIED BY J. G. HALLETT.
Photo by Elmer W. Hallett

er part of the village near a stream
known as White's Brook, named for
Jonathan White, a son of the Peri-
grine White, who was born on board
the Mayflower while she lay at an-
chor in Provincetown harbor. Other
reminders of this family may be seen
in the old cemetery, where on more
than one tombstone one may read,
under a coating of moss, the name
Perigrine White.

Among the buildings included in
these two miles are five churches,*
a new-comer among these being the
little Roman Catholic church of The
Sacred Heart, dedicated in 1902.
Nearly opposite the Congregational
church is a large school house, con-
taining rooms for all grades from
Primary to High. A little farther
up street is a modern and pretty
public hall, a Public Library, Na-

tional Bank, and various offices and
stores. Here, too, is a printing of-
fice, from which is issued weekly
the "Yarmouth Register" ; a paper
now in its sixty-seventh volume and
ably edited for more than half a cen-
tury by the late Hon. Charles F.Swift,
a man closely identified up to the
time of his death in May 1903, with
the best interests of the town and
county. The literary work of Mr.
Swift is of lasting value, his "His-
tory of Cape Cod" and "History of
Old Yarmouth " being recognized
as standard authorities. And to the
latter the writer is indebted for
many facts given in this article.

Leading off from the main street
and on a slight eminence, is Sandy
Side, the residence of the late Con-
gressman John Simpkins, represent-
ative from the thirteenth Massachu-

682

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

setts district; a young man whose
death in 1898 is still mourned
throughout the town in whose pub-
lic life he was so actively interested.
Sandy Side is still the summer home
of members of the Simpkins family,
the house in its setting of green
lawns being a prominent object as
one nears the railway station. A
little farther west is Mattachese, the
summer residence of Dr. Gorham
Bacon of New York, a connection,
by marriage, of the same family.
Another homestead, attractive in the
midst of well kept grounds, was for
many years the home of Azariah
Eldridge, D. D., a native of Yar-
mouth, who, after spending the ac-
tive years of his life elsewhere,
came back to pass his declining days
in the old town. For several years
Dr. Eldridge was pastor of the
American Chapel in Paris, France,
and he has been honored by a me-
morial at Yale.

The Yarmouth Institute — a socie-
ty for literary improvement — has
existed with slight interruption
since 1829, with a course of lectures
or musical entertainments each win-
ter. Later social organizations are
the Colonial Club, C. C. C. Club (al-
ready referred to), the Woman's
Clubs, and Village Improvement
Society. About a mile from the
village and on the road to Hyannis
is the Yarmouth Campground — a
fine oak grove covering more than
thirty acres — where annual meet-
ings have been held for the last
forty-one years. The grounds are
attractively laid out, with a small
park near the entrance, and though
not elaborate the cottages are pleas-
antly inviting. Near the centre of
the grounds is the Tabernacle, with
a seating capacity of seventeen
hundred ; and here some of the

ablest preachers of the Methodist
Conference may be heard.

Yarmouth was the native place of
the twin brothers, Edward and
Nathan Matthews ; the former the
father of Prof. Brander Matthews,
the well known writer, while a son
of the latter is Nathan Matthews,
ex-mayor of Boston. The Public
Library of the town was a gift from
Nathan Matthews, Sr. Here, also,
was the early home of J. Mont-
gomery Sears, the Boston multi-
millionaire ; and it is to the gener-
osity of the father of this gentleman,
Mr. Joshua Sears, that Yarmouth is
indebted for her fine system of
graded schools. Three Yarmouth
ship masters have successively been
in command of the missionary brig
and steamer, Morning Star, namely:
Captains Nathaniel Matthews,
William Hallet, and Isaiah Bray. In-
deed sea captains from this town
have found their way into foreign
ports the world over. One can tell
of a visit 'to Pitcairn Island, that in-
teresting and rarely visited commu-
nity with its unique history : while
others have romantic tales sufficient
to make a volume in themselves;
stories of travels in the Holy Land;
of adventures in Chinese ports ; of
shipwrecks, of pirates and mutinies,
thrilling indeed when heard at first
hand. Few Yarmouth young men
are now following a sea-faring life,
but many of an earlier generation,
now retired, contribute immeasur-
ably to the air of prosperous content,
which is as distinctly a part of the
old town as that salt breath of the
sea which is ever present. By far,
the greater number of sea captains,
however, have many years since
gone out on a last Long Voyage.

In the lower part of the village
stands a milestone still bearing in
distinct characters the date of its

YARMOUTH

G83

erection in 1720. For many years a
touch of the picturesque was given
by an old windmill standing a short
distance back from the main street,
but unfortunately its unappreciative
owner allowed it to fall into decay;
one by one its lofty arms weakened
and fell, till now only the tower re-
mains— a sombre reminder of other
days. In September 1889, Yar-
mouth celebrated her quarter mil-
lennial, and, as was fitting from the
fact that the church antedated the

Indeed, a small proportion of them
have been built within the last fifty
years. One of these old houses,
which however does not show its
age, is the Thacher homestead built
in 1680; a large two story house on
the main street. Another, nearer the
northern shore, dates back from a
hundred and fifty to two hundred
years, though the exact time of its
erection is not known. It is sup-
posed to have been built by Judah
Thacher, a grandson of Anthony,

CHANDLER GRAY HOUSE. TAKEN DOWN IN 1899.

organization of the township, the ex-
ercises were opened on Sunday, Sep-
tember 1, by union services at the
First Church ; on which occasion
the pastor, Rev. Mr. Dodge, was as-
sisted by Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, D.
D., of Boston, a grandson of Rev.
Timothy Alden. On the third of
September, the anniversary of the
town was celebrated by her sons
and daughters from all over the
country. Many of the residences on
the long main street are very old.

and upon the death of its builder
passed to his son, Hon. David
Thacher. This house is today the
home of Mr. James G. Hallet, and
one of its rooms remains as it was
left by Mr. Thacher upon his death
in 1802, and as it is said to have been
fitted up by him for the entertain-
ment of his grand company. In this
old parlor the woodwork extends to
the ceiling, that over the fireplace
being of polished mahogany and em-
bellished with paintings of consider-

684

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

able pretention. The work is said
to have been done by a French
artist. The scene on one side repre-
sents the lights at the mouth of
Boston harbor as they were at that
time, and the other is a view of Fort
Warren. The tiles around the fire-
place are of porcelain, probably
from Holland, and very quaint and
curious. The painting on the fire-
board itself shows an old fashioned
house, (supposed to be the one of
which this room is a part) with
fish-flakes near by, and in the back-
ground Sandy Neck and the harbor,
with several vessels in the curious
rig of that day, while in the centre
is an elaborate portrait of George
Washington, and beneath it the
words, "The President of the United
States." This fact seems to show
that the work was done during
Washington's administration. Hon.
David Thacher, whose taste was
thus displayed, was a man of promi-
nence during the Revolution, and
one of wealth and influence. For
twenty-seven years he represented
Yarmouth in the state Legislature
and was for two years senator for
this county. At the election in 1798
he was re-elected Representative
but declined, whereupon the follow-
ing vote was passed :

"Voted, gratitude and thanks to David
Thacher Esq. for the good service done
the town for the number of years past, he
being aged and declined the service any
longer."

As the "Yarmouth Register" has
remarked : "This is rather a contrast
to the way ex-Representatives are
treated in these days."

Another old house, in the upper
part of the village, with a two story
front and lean-to back, known to the
present generation as the Chandler
Gray house, is supposed to have
been built about two hundred years

ago by Jonathan Hallett; passing
from him to his son Thomas, who in
turn left it to his adopted son
Joshua Gray by whom it was be-
queathed to his son Chandler Gray.
Captain Joshua has already been re-
ferred to as the commander of the
company of men who marched to
help erect the fortifications at Dor-
chester Lleights, and on the night
preceding their march, the loyal
mothers and daughters of Yarmouth
gathered in one of the front cham-
bers of this old house, bringing their
pewter dishes and other articles,
which they melted into bullets with
which to supply their brave hus-
bands and fathers. It seems un-
fortunate that so historically inter-
esting a building could not have
been preserved indefinitely; but
grown feeble with age, the ancient
house was torn down in May 1899,
at which time workmen found re-
minders of the olden days in the
presence of a few bullets around
the capacious chimney.

Many another old house, in com-
mon with those all over the Cape,
is rich in the product of foreign
lands, for long before imported
needle-work and bric-a-brac was
common in the city stores, the
wives, daughters, and sweet-hearts
of Cape Cod sea-captains were in
possession of rare and beautiful
articles which might quite have
turned the heads of some of their
inland sisters : satins, pine-apple
cloths, embroidered pongees and
India muslins, as well as elaborate
India easy chairs, huge palm-leaf
fans, inlaid tables and boxes, and
articles of exquisite carvings in
rose-wood, ivory, and sandal-wood.
One Yarmouth housewife has been
seen rolling out her pastry with a
rolling pin of polished rose-wood
with ivory handles, while the wife

OLD HALL HOMESTEAD, NOW OCCUPIED BY HERBERT LOWELL AND FAMILY.
Photo by Elmer W Hallett

•of another sea-captain has a set of
:gray pearls from the Orient, rare
and beautiful ; and indeed it seems
safe to say that there are today
"laid carefully away in chests of
-camphor or sandal-wood, dress pat-
terns in silk, velvet or muslin, which
"have never known the touch of
shears. Indeed some of these old
rooms are literal curiosity shops,
"Containing not only the products of
lands' frOfn "Greenland's icy moun-
tains," to "India's coral strands,"
'but rich in many quaint articles of
furniture and household adornment
Tianded down from the early settlers.
Speaking from a more practical
standpoint, however, it seems that
unless some new industry is started
rio prevent the younger people from

going elsewhere, Yarmouth has seen
her best days. To many it has
seemed that the much talked of Cape
Cod ship canal could not be under-
taken at a better location than here,
from the fact that a natural water-
way extends nearly across the Cape
at this point, this waterway being
formed by Bass river on the south,
and Chase's Garden river on the
north ; a tributary to the latter be-

ing White's brook.

As it is, however, many an old
house is today closed and tenant-
less, or opened only during the sum-
mer. Many another has but a
single occupant ; but whatever her
future may be, Yarmouth will ever
be rich in memories of by-gone days.

White Phlox

By Winnifred King

HALF-WAY up the attic stairs
Ates's stockinged footsteps
ceased, and a sheepish voice
quavered down to the Bridges fam-
ily below.

"Say, when you write to a lady is
it proper to begin, 'My dear?' — oh,
Willie, don't! Don't, I say! You
leave me be."

Will Bridges, having dragged
Ates down stairs by the coat collar,
stood him, a dejected, petitionary
figure, against the wall.

"Unfold the matter," he com-
manded.

"Hey?"

"Out with it !"

"I ain't got nothing to tell," Ates
answered sulkily. "Do make 'em
stop, Miss Bridges."

Aunt Esther was powerless to do
anything but talk.

"Well, I never !" she said. "Is this
what you've been setting up in front
of the old Reed place for, Ates? If
you're thinking about getting mar-
ried, I shall — quillzvheel" This was
her direst and most mysterious threat,
indicative of her own total annihila-
tion, and of what other unknown
horrors no man can tell.

Ates blushed so violently, and cast
his eyes about sopileously at the
mention of the Reed place, that at
length Will, who carried a soft
heart under his laugh, relented.

"Come, Kid," he said to his small
brother, Henry, "stop dancing

around h

mi.

Oil lOO!

1ike a puppy

after a discouraged old cat. We'll
let him go for to-night."

Ates gratefully picked up his shoes
and climbed the stairs again, while
Aunt Esther sank back in her chair
quite overpowered.

"Well, I never !" she repeated, with
an air of being unable to say any
more. After protracted meditation,
she added, "I have always said that
what spoiled Ates was his birthday.
If he'd picked out some other time
he'd have been all right, but as 'twas,
he was born in June, right in be-
tween hay and grass, and he ain't
ever been either. Ates in love!"

The absurdity of the suggestion
might have been felt by anyone who
had seen Ates as the Bridges family
saw him every night, when punc-
tually at half-past seven he took
down his rusty Bible and read aloud
from it. With long legs twisted
about the chair, and shoulders bent
together until his coffee-colored
whiskers brushed the page, he
would thumb the leaves in anxious
search. When he had made his choice
he would bring the lamp close to his
face and sit with arms outstretched
over the table, embracing the lamp
and the book behind it. Often, when
he had raised his nodding head from
the hard words and involved con-
structions, he would say with pa-
thetic reverence,

"This's an awful good book, boys,
but it's powerful hard to under-
stand "

"He's been working for your
father fifteen years, Will, and read-
ing his Bible regular every evening
without ever showing any signs of

686

WHITE PHLOX

687

being sentimental," Aunt Esther
continued. "Now if it was you,
Will, I'd be glad to hear of it."

Will laughed the laugh of the
scornful and wondered in his pre-
sumption if the time would ever
come when a woman meant half as
much to him as the making of good,
clear red and black lines on white
paper.

"Not I, Auntie," he answered.
"I've something better to do than
that."

He delighted in making diagrams
of strange engine-things, whereby
he ate the sweet bread of indepen-
dence during the days when he was
acquiring Wisdom. Even vacations
at home were thus occupied. In his
practical scheme of life women were
interesting but unnecessary phe-
nomena.

The next evening in the democ-
racy of the store Will told the joke
about his father's hired man to an
appreciative audience, who prepared
torture against the coming of their
victim. Ates stepped in quietly, and
over in a dark corner of the store
was looking at stationery.

"Can't I get any 'thout I get a
whole boxful?" he inquired. "That
blue's real pretty," he meditated rue-
fully, and brushed one finger lightly
over the smooth surface ; but a
chorus of laughter behind made him
start and face about.

"Going to write to her on store
paper, Ates?"

"Cost too much; thirty-five cents
a box."

"Two cents for a sheet of paper
and an envelope. Pretty high, Ates !
Just think of the tobacco you could
buy with that !"

"And the peppermints !"

"Get out !" expostulated their vic-
tim. "I don't use neither — can't af-
ford it."

He grew red and twisted his fin-
gers nervously, swaying to and fro
where he stood.

"Come, you quit, you fellows," he
pleaded again, but his embarrass-
ment was as fuel to their ridicule.

"Now, Ates, you may as well tell
us all about it. You know you'll
have to in the end. Out with it, old
man."

"Is she light or dark?"

"Say, Ates, is she extravagant?"
inquired another. "Because if she
is, you know you don't want her. Oh,
she's all right, is she?" — in answer
to a mumble from Ates — "A regular
gee-whizlicker, ain't she? A bounc-
ing beaut, ain't she, now? That's
right ! A man of your age ought to
have the right taste."

Ates pulled his left thumb spas-
modically as he was accustomed to
do when about to speak, and his in-
terlocutors lined up in grinning
expectancy, with an affectionate
Damon and Pythias, the one fat, the
other lean, in the front rank.

"Well, fellows," he began in a
burst of confidence, "I'll tell you
what she is. She's a — " He cast his
eyes upward to the farther corner of
the dubious ceiling.

The boys groaned in unison.

"Say, Dan, white-washed your
ceiling lately? Ates seems to be
noticing something up there,"
drawled a long-limbed member.

"Naw, it's the off corner of that
piece of blue calico that he's got his
eye on," corrected Damon.

Forthwith Pythias, climbing upon
the counter, substituted a codfish for
the piece of blue print and stood off
for applause.

"Yes, fellows, she's a — " Ates re-
peated. Then he started out of his
reverie, relaxed the grip upon his
thumb, grinned sheepishly, and
began to edge toward the door.

688

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"No, you don't!" cried Pythias.
"Come back here, I say. I'll give
you some paper if you'll stay."

"And I'll give you George's piccy
to stick on the envelope," volun-
teered the fat man.

Ates hesitated. "Will you give
me some of the blue paper?"

"Sure !" And Ates remained.

Thus it finally came about that by
means of the news currents emanat-
ing from the store, all Chase's Cor-
ner fell heir to the information that
Ates was in love, and that Will
Bridges had written for him a letter
to the unknown sweetheart. Fur-
ther than that, Chase's Corner was
in ignorance. Hoarder that he was,
Ates treasured up the secret of the
lady's name. Aunt Esther Bridges
decided that the unknown must live
at Chase's Corner, since, true to his
rigid honesty, Ates had refused the
proffered stamp. The unmarried
women of Chase's Corner were few,
and conjecture settled down upon
two or three; but conjecture was far
wrong.

Half a mile north of the store and
a mile cross-lots from the Bridges',
was a white, phlox-encircled farm-
house, where lived Mr. 'Riah Chase,
his wife, and his grand-daughter,
Em'ly. The Chases were many at
the Corner, but as for tracing rela-
tionships among the ramifications of
the family, Miss Luny Chase and
Aunt Esther Bridges could do it, but
the uninitiated shunned the attempt.

Mr. 'Riah's granddaughter Em'ly
was shut in her room with a letter.
It read:
"My Dear Madam :

"It is with the greatest humility
that I venture to address you, but
your manifold virtues and your ex-
traordinary charms have so wrought
upon this poor heart of mine that I

cannot refrain from pouring forth
my feelings in your adorable ear.

"I love you, that is all.

"If you can so far condescend as
to forgive a presumptuous suitor,
whose only excuse is his adoration
of you, Madam, wear a piece of
white phlox to-night. Yours for-
ever."

The words were mostly Will
Bridges', cribbed from various
sources, but the white phlox was
Ates's.

Doubtless any girl should have de-
tected the bookishness of the letter
and laughed at its affectation, but
Em'ly had feasted on third-rate
novels from the Library at the
Street. Moreover, masculine atten-
tion had been a rarity to her. Twice,
of a Sunday evening, had the long-
limbed Pythias of the village com-
mittee, who figured in private life
as Anson Barstow, hitched his white
horse by Mr. 'Riah's neat fence, and
sat up with Em'ly in the best room.
But when he came a third time in
the middle of the week, Rumor says
that Mr. 'Riah appeared early at the
parlor-door.

"Be you going to the Street to-
night, Anson?" he had inquired.

"Yes," the young man had replied,
eager to do an errand for Em'ly's
grandfather.

"Wall, the sooner you go, the bet-
ter," the voice from the doorway
succinctly rejoined.

Anson picked up his hat and
looked furtively at Em'ly.

"And the longer you don't come
back, the better," the same incisive
voice went on.

Anson betook his lank frame
toward the door.

' 'Bye, Em'ly," he said.

' 'Bye, Anson," she replied.

"Goodbye!" shouted the old man
and shut the door.

WHITE PHLOX

689

"Wall, now I — guess won't any
fellows be hanging round my —
girl," and he wagged his old head
with selfish satisfaction. "Think
too much o' her myself to spare —
her."

That was the end of the story, and
the end of attentions for Em'ly, so
said Aunt Esther Holcomb and
other priestesses of Rumor.

Em'ly, however, continued to read
novels from the Library and thus
fostered in herself all the tender
longings that were there by nature.
She was altogether a very loving
and lovable young person, the kind
•of woman that a man instinctively
calls "little girl." With all her soft
heart she craved such things as
other girls had, beaux, rides and
parties. Two of her friends were
even married and had dear little
children, who clung to Em'ly when
she came to visit, as babies do to
sweet, motherly girls.

The strange letter that she had
found in the morning on her win-
dow-sill stirred all the romance in
her nature. Having often read of
such things in books, she did not re-
flect that they were rare and quite
silly — in real life. That evening, as
she sat in the doorway beside her
grandmother, she wore in her pretty
farown hair a spray of white phlox,
gathered from the fragrant, many-
colored masses about the porch ; but
nobody went by except Mr. Bridges'
hired man, Ates.

The next morning, however, she
found another letter, more ardent
than the first: Will Bridges was
drawing upon his imagination.
Em'ly's imagination, too, was active
and had flown by chance, or for
other reasons, to that same col-
legian. When they were very little,
he had always been her husband in
the housekeeping set up by the

"eleven o'clock" tots. When they
were older, he had once fought Asa
Dean for calling her grandfather an
"old curmudgeon," which was a
long word and not pretty. But since
they had grown up, he had kept his
distance with the other boys, and
was said to be too busy to notice
girls. Still, that it was not pure
fancy that turned her mind toward
Will, there was the proof-positive
of the handwriting formed in the old
district school-days, when vertical
writing was unknown, and each
pupil followed his own bent. She
knew Will's chirography by heart
and could never forget the unfin-
ished loop letters and a strange,
sketchy slant, as if a wind had blown
across the page.

However riotous her imagination
might be, there was serious business
on hand, for the second letter begged
an answer. Em'ly's rather firm
notions concerning propriety and
the well-grounded teachings of a
sensible grandmother were stronger
even than her romance. "I can't
speak of it to grandma without
shocking her so," she told herself.
"She'd probably have grandfather
watching outside my window with
a shotgun." Nevertheless, it hap-
pened that she yielded to the sug-
gestion of the letters, in so far as to
lay a head of white phlox on her
window-sill, where she had been en-
treated to place an answer. The
flower glimmered in the darkness,
white as the soul of the girl who laid
it there softly, with faint, maiden
promptings of withdrawal and de-
licious throbs of shame-faced antici-
pation. Thereafter, through fear of
herself, she kept away from the win-
dow.

The next evening, while the stand-
ing committee of the village was in
session at the store, and Aunt

690

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Esther Holcomb was holding Henry
Bridges in durance vile, Ates, in a
store-suit, with a sprig of white
phlox in his buttonhole, crept along
a lane that kept him out of sight of
his tormentors at the store and
brought him to Mr. 'Riah's gate.

"Evening, Em'ly," he chirped,
without removing his hat, as the girl
came to the door.

''Evening, Ates. Grandfather
hasn't got in from the barn yet," she
answered. She wondered what had
happened to Ates to make him dress
up so.

"I ain't in any hurry. I'll set down
awrhile, if you don't mind."

"Perhaps you'd like to leave a
message for grandfather?" she in-
quired after a silence, during which
Ates had nervously fingered the
phlox in his buttonhole. Em'ly,
with a spray of the same white
flower in her belt, fingered that, too,
and gazed wistfully down the road.

"No, I ain't got any message for
your grandpa." He talked as if there
were a weight on his mind.

"Grandfather hired the man that's
been working for David Hopkins
just to-day," she went on, partly to
make conversation, partly to fore-
stall any requests for work from Mr.
'Riah, who was likely to be bitter of
speech on such occasions.

"That so? Well, it ain't work that
I'm looking for this time. Got's
good a job's I want over t' Bridges.
Good pay and easy work. Say,
Em'ly," he gasped, "got enough —
saved enough — to hire old Reed
place."

"Really?" she laughed — "You
aren't thinking of getting married,
are you, Ates? I'm surprised at you
at your age. I don't love to see
folks as young as you being so
rash."

"I don't love" is New Englandish
and euphemistic for I hate.

"Say, Em'ly," Ates drew himself
stiffly over to her side of the steps.
"Are you fond of phlox?"

Em'ly jumped. Despite herself,
she felt her cheeks grow hot. The
question might have been innocent
enough, but the look which Ates
bent upon her was sly and full of
meaning. Her embarrassment less-
ened his nervousness and gave him
a new and decidedly agreeable sense
of advantage.

"Set down, and I'll tell you about
'em. Will Bridges wrote 'em," he
confided. "But I brought 'em."

"Oh ! Then it's true !" she gasped.
Her dream was coming to pass. She
was ashamed to let old Ates see how
much his words had affected her.
But what a strange messenger for
Will Bridges to choose ! Yet not so
strange after all. No one, she
thought, would ever suspect Ates of
being Love's herald.

"Why didn't Mr. Bridges bring
them himself instead of sending
them by you?" she inquired, in a
voice that sought to be indifferent.

Ates half rose in his surprise.
"Wha-at?" he demanded.

"I say, why didn't Will Bridges
bring his own letters?"

"Why, they wa'n't — " he began
in perplexity, then he stopped.

"Ain't her cheeks pretty and red,
and her eyes bright !" he thought.
"My, how she's shaking."

Then something in his soul awoke.
Somewhere in his meagre, badgered
personality there lurked, however
hidden, a sense of fitness, and he
knew that her warmth and passion
were not for him.

"Why — they — wa'n't — wa'n't —
huh ! — so likely to be found out if I
brought 'em," he stammered. "So I

WHITE PHLOX

691

done it for Will — just for a favor to
him, you see."

"I see." The girl nodded happily.

"Yes, I guess you see," he said
soberly. "Well, I must be going.
Good night, Em'ly."

*Good night, Ates, if you won't
wait for grandpa," she answered, her
young face rippling with pleasant
thoughts. Even Ates was endurable.

At the gate he stopped and looked
back regretfully.

"You're a liar, but you ain't so big
a fool as you was when you come,"
he said to himself, and dropped the
bit of white phlox gently on the
green turf.

A long time afterward, when, in
the course of events, the struggle for
a livelihood had lessened and life
had grown broader, Will Bridges'
eyes wandered from the making of
red and black lines and rested con-
sciously on Em'ly Chase. At that

he suddenly realized a gap in his life
that clean, honest work did not fill,
and, by quite another way, with the
help of no messenger at all, he made
known to her his new-found love.

She broke a stalk of white phlox
and held it out to him. "Why did
you wait so long after those letters,
dear?" she said.

"Those letters, little girl?"

"Yes, those letters that old Ates
left at my window, and the white
phlox."

Remembrance smote the man.

Her hands fluttered and lingered
on his coat like birds ready to be
caught ; her face was lifted trust-
ingly. He crushed her close; then
he departed from the truth. "I sup-
pose a fellow goes mad once in a
while, little one, but I had no home
of my own to take you to."

The indications were clear that
the secret of Ates's love dream was
safe with Will Bridges.

In The Arnold Arboretum

By Emily Tolman

FROM open ways where friendly roses smile,
And sculptured chalices the laurels bear,
Where golden orioles flash through orient air,
The purling brook and fairy ferns beguile
My lingering steps adown a dim, cool aisle,
'Neath hoary hemlocks lifting hands in prayer,
Where world-old rocks their Maker's might declare,
Rearing majestic minster, pile on pile.
On hallowed hush of this cathedral close

There falls a sound like chiming silver bells :
To listening laurel and. to waiting rose

The priestly thrush his lyric message tells,
The sylvan secret that the hemlock knows,
The solemn mystery of the woods and fells.

The Tales of Poe and Hawthorne

By George D. Latimer

A COMPARATIVE study of the
fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and
of Nathaniel Hawthorne is
naturally suggested by a certain basic
resemblance, both in the personality
of the men and in the character of
their work. They were Americans,
contemporaries, writers of fiction,
men of fine imaginative power,
whose tales have been widely trans-
lated, and each is recognized as a
man of genius holding a permanent
place in English literature.

Such a study is perhaps inevitable
when the nature of their work is
considered. They have had the
same inspiration. It is the abnor-
mal that has appealed to them, the
abnormal in life and character.
They have mined in the veins of
the weird, the gruesome, the mor-
bid, in those psychologically ob-
scure strata of our personality.
They had but slight interest in the
delineation of open, cheerful, lov-
able characters such as Scott,
Thackeray and Dickens chose to de-
pict. If they represented a sunny
nature it was to serve as a foil to
some perplexed spirit around which
their imagination played, as the ra-
diant Hilda in The Marble Faun in-
tensifies the shadow in which Miri-
am and Donatello move. Fiction is
always in search of the exceptional
in character and action. For these
writers, it was the exceptional as
regards certain abnormal mental
states. A diseased imagination,
some hidden crime, the fear that
cannot be shaken off, gnawing re-
morse, delirium, expiation, — all this

obscure region of the soul they
chose for their literary rambles.

There is an impressive scene in
The Blithedale Romancewhere Miles
Coverdale comes upon the magnifi-
cent Zenobia just as the egotistic
philanthropist Hollingsworth has
confronted her with her victim, the
shrinking Priscilla, and has spoken
the words that forever separate the
proud woman from the man she
loves. To Coverdale, whom we sus-
pect to be a portrait of Hawthorne,
the angry Zenobia says : "This long-
while past you have been following
up your game, groping for human
emotions in the dark corners of the
heart." Certainly that sentence des-
cribes the permanent interest of
both Poe and Hawthorne. They
were groping in the dark corners of
the heart. And because they were
exploring those recesses where even
self-analysis is difficult, where in-
stincts rather than reason are a
guide, where human freedom and
impersonal destiny are inextricably
entangled, where the natural shades
into the supernatural, they set their
wretched victims in an external
world of sympathetic gloom ; some-
times it was a poetic, deepening
twilight; sometimes, the denser
shadow of midnight. They might
be called the Rembrandts of litera-
ture, great artists of chiaroscuro.

This is the common ground upon
which they stand. Their rare imag-
ination found its challenge in the
melancholy, the weird, the morbid,
the horrible. Our hidden passions,
our secret fears, our morbid desires,

692

TALES OF POE AND HAWTHORNE

693

our sins, our crimes, our remorse,
our atonement — all this tragic as-
pect of life profoundly interested
them. In their studies each showed
himself a rare craftsman, an artist
of the abnormal it is true, but cer-
tainly a man who knew and loved
what was beautiful in literary work-
manship.

Despite this basal resemblance,
however, we could not mistake a
tale of the one for a tale of the other
writer. We have these two sets of
studies in the abnormal. The fund-
amental likeness brings out the dif-
ferences ; with an equal inspiration
and with equal art they produced
widely contrasted effects.

Two of the short stories will
serve us as an admirable basis for
the comparison. In The Lady Elea-
nore's Mantle and The Masque of
the Red Death the central incident
is the same, while the treatment and
final impression are radically differ-
ent. Each tale is of the appearance
of a pestilence among a gay compa-
ny. In Hawthorne's story the plague
is brought to the Province House
in the gorgeous red mantle of Lady
Eleanore, the young, rich, beautiful,
titled ward of Colonel Shute, the
governor of Massachusetts Bay.
Soon after her arrival in Boston a
splendid ball is given in her honor,
when this proud beauty, resplen-
dent in her scarlet attire, shows the
first symptoms of the disease that a
few days later ravages the commun-
ity, and which disappears only
when the richly embroidered man-
tle is burned.

In the other tale, Prince Prospero
shuts himself, with a thousand
guests, in the seclusion of one of
his castellated abbeys — while his
dominions are devastated by the
plague. In idleness, provided with
a.11 the resources of pleasure, un-

mindful of the destruction that
wasteth at noon day, the gay com-
pany pass the period of enforced se-
clusion. In the sixth month the
Prince gives a ball of unusual splen-
dor in the great suite of seven rooms
with their bizarre decoration. It is
a time of license and each comes in
the costume his taste selects. But
one guest has exceeded the license
of the hour and personates The Red
Death. While the terror-stricken
company shrink from contact with
the ghastly figure, the offended
Prince pursues it from room to
room until they meet in the last
chamber. Then he raises his dag-
ger and rushes upon the masque
only to drop dead at its feet. Then
the guests, forgetting their horror,
throw themselves upon the mum-
mer and angrily tear off the cere-
ments of the grave and the corpse-
like mask only to find them unten-
anted by any tangible form. It is
the Red Death itself that has ap-
peared in their midst, and "one by
one dropped the revellers in the
blood bedewed halls of their revels
and died each in the despairing
posture of his fall."

Each writer is aiming for the
same effect. The lust of the eyes,
the lust of the flesh, and the pride of
life are set in sharp contrast with a
ghastly, revolting, disfiguring death.
It is a dramatic situation that con-
stantly appeals to the author, one,
we may be certain, that especially
impressed these student of the
morbid. When we analyze these
characteristic tales the first and by
far the most important distinction
we note is that Hawthorne has
given us a moral apologue, while Poe
has simply painted an impressive
picture. The Lady Eleanore is a
haughty creature whose scorn has
driven her humble lover crazy. The

694

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

scarlet mantle typifies her pride as
well as enhances her beauty. It is
made a righteous punishment that
this magnificent garment should
scatter the seeds of a disease fatal
to herself and others. When her
lover forces his way into the dark-
ened room of the stricken woman,
she tries to hide her blasted face
and cries : "The curse of Heaven
hath stricken me because I would
not call man my brother nor woman
sister. / wrapped myself in pride as
a mantle and scorned the sympa-
thies of nature; and therefore has
nature made this wretched body the
medium of a dreadful sympathy.
You are avenged, they are all
avenged, nature is avenged, — for I
am Eleanore Rockcliffe."

Hawthorne has had another ob-
ject as well as this dramatic con-
trast of life and death. He has
made use of a ghastly incident to
point a moral, as well as to adorn
his tale. Sin and its punishment —
that is the real motive for writing
this story. He gives the sinner
youth, beauty, rank, wealth, and
then crushes her with a disfiguring
disease that doubtless seemed to the
wretched woman worse than death.
We have been reading a sermon.

Turning to Poe's narrative, we
find ourselves in another atmos-
phere. No moral effect is to be
found in this work of pure imagina-
tion. It is a terrible picture of
Death Triumphant. The careless,
idle, happy and pleasure loving are
its victims. Their luxurious sur-
roundings only emphasize their re-
volting surrender. The tale is
brief; there are no moral digressions,
there are no historical references,
there is not tin unnecessary phrase.
The description of the plague, the
detail of the rooms, the appearance
of the unwelcome guest, the pur-

suit, the horrible discovery, the con-
sequent death and desolation,— all
are stated in clear-cut, symmetrical
sentences built up as one would lay
the bricks of a mortuary vault. The
language is the vocabulary of horror.
"The Red Death had long devastat-
ed the country." Thus it begins in
ominous words, and continues: "No
pestilence had ever been so fatal or
so hideous. Blood was its Avatar
and its seal, the redness and the hor-
ror of blood." The end rivals the
beginning. "And the life of the
ebony clock went out with that of
the last of the gay. And the flames
of the tripods expired. And Dark-
ness and Decay and the Red Death
held illimitable dominion over all."

As a picture this is an extraor-
dinary work of art. It is the more
impressive because the artist makes
his appeal to but one emotion, — that
of horror. With great restraint he
has excluded much that might well
have been admitted, — for instance,
a description of the country, the
names of distinguished guests, the
romance of a particular couple, some
detail of the life of Prince Prospero.
Definite information of this charac-
ter would have given an air of prob-
ability to the gruesome tale. But
all this adventitious and question-
able aid he rejected, as easily as he
would have sneered at the sugges-
tion that the appearance of the Red
Death in the castellated abbey be
made the punishment for Prince
Prospero's failure to undertake sani-
tary works in his dominions and
send district nurses among the huts
of the dying peasantry. The result
of this concentration, however, is
t$e greater work of art. "In his
limitations the master shows him-
self," says Goethe. Hawthorne's
story we should forget in time.

TALES OF POE AND HAWTHORNE

695

I suppose that has been our ex-
perience. We have read both of
these stories in our youth and it is
the one by Poe we remember in later
years. It is more finished in its
form, more poetic in its vocabulary,
more impressive in its gloom, and
remains fixed in memory like the
sculptured head of Medusa.

This moral difference that sepa-
rates the work of these two gifted
men is profound. It is seen in their
writings generally. The New Eng-
lander spoke as from a pulpit. Few
indeed are the tales in which he did
not wrap up some moral for his read-
ing public. Poe, on the other hand,
appears as the man of pure intellect.
For his literary conscience, moral
considerations apparently did not
exist. He sets out to depict a char-
acter or a scene and his one thought
is to fix our attention in such a man-
ner that we shall never forget it. A
part of his success is doubtless due
to the horrible, sometimes revolting,
subject he chose; but a larger part
is due to this severity of description
that suffered the entrance of no ext
traneous matter. In his critical
writings he announced a theory, as
new then as familiar to-day — "art
for art's sake." We may say he was
the precursor of the present day con-
teur. Like Daudet, Gautier, Cop-
pee, Bourget and De Maupassant, he
believed that the artistry of the
workmanship was far more impor-
tant than the subject matter. From
psychological reasons, we must be-
lieve, he chose his characters most
often from the ranks of those Nor-
dau would call degenerates, men of
diseased imagination and morbid
feelings, slaves of passion, often
criminals, and all haunted by un-
escapable fear. They are so many
pathological experiments.

For a mature mind they form one

of the most remarkable and sugges-
tive series of studies to be found in
the literature of any country. These
types of abnormal character, which
we suspect, and not without reason,
to be the secret emotions of their
creator, are objectified, given a local
habitation in Roderick Usher, Wil-
liam Wilson and the gloomy heroes
of The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black
Cat, Berenice, Ligeia, and many an-
other analysis of morbid suffering.
These victims of crime and terror
and nemesis are exposed and dis-
sected in a purely intellectual man-
ner, and with something of that un-
emotional, scientific skill with which
the surgeon does his work. It is a
tremendous power he exerts. In
this particular field he may be said
still to lead, although such tales as
Kipling's The Mark of the Beast
and At the End of the Passage make
the latter a close second in this pur-
suit of the gruesome.

To turn from these morbid
sketches to such a collection of short
stories as are found in Twice Told
Tales or Mosses From an Old Manse
gives the reader a little of the im-
pression that he has entered the
realm of Sunday school literature.
Among American writers of the first
rank, Hawthorne is the moralist par
excelle?ice. How many of the early
tales frankly express this purpose !
Egotism or the Bosom Serpent, The
Artist of the Beautiful, The Great
Stone Face, The Snow Image !
These are typical; they are alle-
gories pure and simple, written with
that felicity of phrase of which
Hawthorne was master from his
first volume, beautiful as they reflect
the lights of a delicate fancy, many
of them works of rare imaginative
power, but avowedly put forth for
their moral instruction. Nor need
it surprise us that in a community

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

still treasuring its Puritan tradi-
tions, the young Hawthorne should
have found his keen insight, his
poetic fancy, his imaginative reach,
his quiet humor, most often, if not
always, playing about moral prob-
lems. It seems as if he wished to
propitiate those Puritan ancestors,
to whose scorn for the story writer
he alludes in the preface to The
Scarlet Letter, by the ethical con-
tent of his fanciful sketches. It was
the great day of "the New England
Conscience" when he wrote. One
is reminded of those early Italian
artists, who, rejoicing in their new-
found power of expression, found it
wise to conciliate the Church by
scenes taken from sacred history.
Certainly that is a natural explana-
tion of the fact that Hawthorne,
with imaginative gifts equal to
those of Poe and a similar tendency
to the morbid, should have been so
largely influenced by moral consid-
erations, while his southern com-
peer shows only aesthetic influences.
It must be added that the former
did not always wrap up a moral in
fantastic garb to offer his New Eng-
land constituency. There are a few
tales, The Birthmark, Rappacini's
Daughter, A Virtuoso's Collection,
in Poe's own style; and on Poe's
own ground the New Englander is
at a disadvantage. Who remembers
Rappacini's Daughter? There are
other sketches, such as The Celes-
tial Railroad, Main Street, The
Town Pump, that are simply charm-
ing essays, delicious little vignettes
of provincial life, after tfie fashion
set by Addison, Lamb and Irving.
These, however, are the exception.
The primary and the permanent in-
stinct was for the wholesome lesson,
barely disguised, beautifully attired,
with which he won and retains the
affectionate interest of the great

reading public. As the southern
writer excelled in the pure artistry
of workmanship, so the northerner
excelled in the happy power of pre-
senting the familiar truths of ex-
perience in the richly decorated garb
of fantasy and imagination.

This distinction applies equally to'
the four novels with which Haw-
thorne's fame is'indissolubly bound.
They are not merely studies of ec-
centric or morbid characters, but
are primarily concerned with moral
or religious problems. There is but
one long story by Poe with which
a comparison can be made, The
Narrative of A. Gordon Pym. In
these stories the characteristics of
each writer appear. The Narrative
of A. Gordon Pym is the record of
the shipwreck of a stowaway. It is
a series of startling adventures, of
ghastly experiences, of strange dis-
coveries in Southern seas, all told
in a realistic manner that leaves an
ineffaceable impression. But for
that very reason it fails as a work of
art. Of the same style as his tales,
wrought with his strict limitation of
interests, with his heroic concentra-
tion of thought, its very length is
fatal. The emotion he arouses can-
not be prolonged beyond a certain
limit. It is a psychological impos-
sibility. There is the inevitable re-
action. The novel-reader, like the
victim of disease, becomes innured
to chronic suffering; he may even
be cheerful. Poe wishes to produce
an impression of unmitigated horror
when he sets his anaemic heroes in
their desperate situation. In the
short story his success is extraor-
dinary. In the one long story he
has written with a similar purpose
and with similar method, he has
failed, and inevitably failed. That
intensity of emotion after which he
aimed is, happily for the lover of

TALES OF POE AND HAWTHORNE

697

fiction as well as for the victim of
disease, too short-lived. Nature
.herself has set a limit.

Of the four great novels by Haw-
thorne, three have a tragic charac-
ter— The Scarlet Letter, The Marble
Faun, and The Blithedale Romance.
In the last one the dramatic conflict
is between Culture and Reform, as
represented by the mysterious,
gifted, fascinating Zenobia, and the
hard-handed, harder-hearted black-
smith-reformer, Hollingsworth. The
tragedy ends in the ghastly death
of the woman and the moral wreck
of the man. An even darker picture
is painted in The Scarlet Letter, the
precursor of some modern theo-
logical novels. Was there ever, we
ask ourselves, a more subtle, a more
exquisite, a more suggestive por-
trayal of Nemesis tracking a clerical
sinner! The same theme, self-
knowledge through crime and moral
expiation, is given an Old-World
setting in The Marble Faun.

Murder and adultery, it would
appear, are the favorite sins of Fic-
tion. Yet these common properties
of the novelist are seen in a new
light as Hawthorne's imagination
plays about their wretched victims.
We do not condemn them, we feel
an immeasurable pity for them. Like
Milton's Satan, they cannot escape
from their guilty selves, "Which
way I turn is hell. Myself am hell !"

How terrible is this transforma-
tion of the thoughtless, happy Tus-
can youth into weary and perplexed
manhood through the commission
of an impulsive crime! Hester
Prynne's open ignominy seems far
more toleJtable than the hidden
brand of her reverend lover. How
vulgar and inadequate seems the
justice of a criminal court in com-
parison with all this suffering of the
inner life, whether in New England

or Italy ! These are moral diag-
noses. Miriam, Donatello, Hester,
Arthur Dimmesdale, — they all have
sinned, they have broken the laws
of God and man ; conscience-stricken
they desire and yet dread to expiate
their sin. Hawthorne painted this
spiritual struggle with a marvellous
skill. It was the awakened and im-
perious conscience that fascinated
him.

The neurotic heroes of The Black
Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart have
also violated the laws of God and
nrnn, but their agony is merely the
brute fear of detection and punish-
ment. Poe's sole interest is in de-
picting that agony. No moral con-
sideration enters into their suffer-
ing, any more than in those of the
victim of the inquisition in The Pit
and the Pendulum. We may say
that all his characters are unmoral,
whether they are murderers, insane
persons, clever detectives or merely
"peculiar" ; they do not stand in any
ethical relations. They have no con-
science. To atone for this lack they
are given an over-elaborated ner-
vous system. Poe might as well
have shown us the sufferings of ani-
mals, except that the vivisection of
human beings is more appalling.

As Hawthorne never forgot that
deepest of all conflicts, the tragedy of
the inner life, his characters have a
reality those of his rival do not pos-
sess. In the tales of the latter it is
the situation that compels our atten-
tion, while in those of the former it
is the personality that fascinates.
However dramatic the situation
may be, still the man or woman
dominates it so greatly that we turn
from the brilliant setting of the
scene to the characters. That is,
onr interest in the chapter when
Miriam and Donatello, after the
murder of her insane persecutor,

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

wander through the blood-stained
streets of historic Rome and answer
to that tacit claim of kinship with
all their known and unknown prede-
cessors in crime. It is the inner
agony and the momentary feeling of
expiation of Dimmesdale that holds
us in that wonderful picture of the
midnight vigil on the scaffold, when
the weak man, leaning for support
upon Hester, holding fast by the
hand of the child of their love, sees in
the blazing heaven a vast scarlet let-
ter, symbol of their sin and their
suffering. It is the personality, and
particularly the moral personality,
that engaged Hawthorne's powers.
The environment, whether in Rome
or Boston, was a minor considera-
tion. He might well have said with
Browning — ''the incidents in the de-
velopment of a soul, little else is
worth study."

This is seen also in The House oi
Seven Gables, where we have the
smiles of comedy instead of the tears
of tragedy. The crime was in the
past; it is the after effects, the
blighting influence of ancient wrong
brought down to a later time that at-
tracted Hawthorne. Poor homely
old Hepzibah ! Poor injured, be-
wildered Clifford ! Eccentric figures,
quaint, angular, "peculiar" as they
say in New England, how pathetic
they are ! It is a s»tudy of provincial
life, Avith crime in the background
and personal idiosyncrasy in the
forefront, — a study of heredity and
ill-balanced character set off by the
contrast of the love romance of two
pleasing, but prosaic young people,
and varied by charming little pic-
tures of village life. But the moral
lesson is as evident in this comedy
as in the tragedy of the other ro-
mances. The death of Judge Pyn-
cheon is the ripe occasion for some

vigorous preaching as well as some
necessary explanations.

"It is very singular how the fact of a
man's death often seems to give people a
truer idea of his character, whether for
good or evil, than they have ever possessed
while he was living and acting among them.
Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes
falsehood or betrays its emptiness ; it is a
touchstone that proves the gold and dis-
honors the baser metal."

Such moralizing as this meets us
continually in these tales and novels.
His Puritan inheritance and environ-
ment gave Hawthorne his power,
but they were also, certainly at
times, an injury to him. They in-
terfered with the artistry of his
work. So intent was he upon im-
pressing his homily that his last
word was not infrequently an anti-
climax. After we have followed
Dimmesdale's expiation through
some three hundred pages of subtle
and painful analysis, it is surely un-
necessary for us to be told : "Among
many morals which press upon us
from the poor sinner's miserable ex-
perience, we put only this into a sen-
tence : Be true ! be true ! Show freely
to the world, if not your worst, yet
some trait whereby the worst may
be inferred." After reading this, we
are thankful for the "only." For
this relief, much thanks ! The moral-
ist knocks the artist down and
tramples upon him.

The same offence is repeated at
the close of The Blithedale Ro-
mance. The tragic death of the
gifted Zenobia, made more horrible
by the brutal comment of the pro-
saic farmer and the aesthetic reflec-
tion of the speculative Coverdale, as
the body of the suicide is taken from
the water and the men try to
straighten the limbs, rigid in the atti-
tude of prayer, brings impressively
home to us the danger of moral fanat-
icism. What can possibly be gained

TALES OF POE AND HAWTHORNE

699

by adding to this convincing scene an
explanatory card for the New Eng-
land conscience ! "The moral which
presents itself to my reflection," he
begins; and closes, "I see in Hol-
lingsworth an exemplification of the
most awful truth in Bunyan's book
of such ; from the very gate of
heaven there is a by-way to the pit."
The highest art teaches by sug-
gestion. When the writer has ex-
pressed his thought clearly, further
explanation only weakens it. If a
picture conveys its truth, why ap-
pend a description? Hawthorne's
last chapter was apt to be an anti-
climax. Who cares for Miles Cover-
dale's confession that he loves Pris-
cilla ! The Blithedale Romance
really ends with Coverdale's visit
to the unhappy Hollingsworth and
his mournful reflection over the
death of the brilliant Zenobia. In
The Marble Faun it is not the love-
making of Hilda and Kenyon we
want to see fulfilled — in marriage :
that we can easily infer in the un-
written sequel. This tragic story
should end in the carnival scene^
when Hilda throws the white rose
at her lover, while the gay revellers
in the Corso whisper of the arrest
of Miriam and Donatello, those
mysterious figures of the contadina
and peasant in their midst. In fact,
I do not see the need of Kenyon in
this story — except that four persons
are a convenient number for a Euro-
pean party; for with Hawthorne's
fondness for symbolism, Hilda rep-
resents light and Miriam darkness,
while the Tuscan youth (innocence
and animal joy) through the dark-
ness of passion comes to find his
soul. The story, a moral drama, is
the change of this blithesome crea-
ture into a conscience — awakened
and conscience-stricken man, revolt-

ing from the woman for whose sake
he had committed the crime that had
finally united them.

Even in that delightful House of
Seven Gables, it would have been
better if the tale had ended with the
return to the house of their forbears,
of the aged and fantastic old couple,
after that remarkable railway jour-
ney, "for pleasure merely," as Clif-
ford blandly told the conductor,
where Youth and Joy, in the per-
sons of Holgrave and Phoebe, were
anxiously listening for the footsteps
of the wanderers. Hawthorne's
marriages, like his morals, are too
showy, they are almost vulgar. At
times, we seem to be reading the
pages of a society journal.

I do not mean to say that tragedy
should not be relieved by occasional
comedy. In Hamlet we are per-
mitted to smile over the ghastly
jesting of the grave-diggers, and in
Macbeth over the blasphemous
humor of the drunken porter. But
Shakespeare was too much the
artist to end a tragic tale with the
hackneyed words "they were mar-
ried and lived happily ever after-
ward."

It was a blunder Poe never made.
In his sombre pictures hero and
heroine always wore the tragic mask
and buskin. They did not look to
have "honor, love, obedience, troops
of friends." They have no future,
as they had no past. For one mo-
ment, the supreme moment, we see
them in the grasp of bitter circum-
stance, wretched, despairing crea-
tures, victims of their fierce passion,
caught in the toils of their own
weaving. But the hideous, at times
revolting picture is a masterpiece,
one of the immortal canvasses of lit-
erature.

Of a piece with this ubiquitous
and oppressive morality in the Tales

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

of Hawthorne is that familiar inci-
dent in The Marble Faun where
Miriam the cultivated woman, the
connoisseur ( ?) of art, declaims
against the nude in painting and
statue. It is, of course, Hawthorne
who speaks and very indignantly,
suggesting the deacon's wife or the
rustic youth in the picture gallery.
Such lapses, more frequent than we
would wish, help us to understand
Mr. Henry James' final estimate of
the New England novelist as "ex-
quisitely provincial." If the adjec-
tive offends Hawthorne's admirers,
the adverb may reconcile them.

This leads to the thought that the
prurient never appealed to either
Poe or Hawthorne. This is more
surprising in the case of the former
than of the latter, for he always de-
picted romantic, passionate love. In
some respects he reminds us of De
Maupassant, who also loved to
study the abnormal, the morbid, the
grotesque, but who, unlike his
predecessor and perhaps teacher,
was apt to show his heroines after
they had undressed for the night.
Poe's unhappy lovers are always de-
cently clothed, if not in their right
mind. This marked difference be-
tween French and American ro-
mance may be due to our national
character or to the earlier period
when Poe wrote, or to an innate deli-
cacy of mind. Doubtless all these
reasons must be taken into consider-
ation. Passionately fond of beauty
as Poe was, loving it in rich decora-
tion as well as in female charms, ap-
parently his aesthetic lover never
gloated over the personal attractions
of his mistress. It is not easy to
imagine Hawthorne as ever under
the slightest temptation to unclean
representation. It is, on the other
hand, a little surprising to note that
Poe, writing without any moral

intention, delighting in beauty, por-
traying unrequited passion, was
never led into prurient description.
Leonore, Helen and Annabel are as
chaste as the Venus of Milo. In his
respect for woman he is as marked
as his northern rival.

Another comment we make is that
each cared more for his hero than
for his heroine. It was a masculine
interest that appealed to them.
Their power of keen analysis and
delicate imagination played around
the fate of some tempted and tor-
tured man.

With a moral to be rolled and fic-
tion-coated for his readers, Haw-
thorne could not easily surrender
himself to pure fancy. His sombre
imagination, so intent upon the
tragic aspects of character, naturally
made much use of an historical
background. Salem, Boston and
Rome were not simply the residence
of his personages, they had to reside
somewhere we admit, but they were
significant as a background; the
local traditions affected the charac-
ters. And we know that no small
part of his charm is in this influence
of tradition, and in the vivid descrip-
tion of historic spots and far-away
times. Most of all, he affected New
England life and that earlier day of
Puritan and Quaker, of witch and
colonial governor. The descriptions
of Roman art and architecture have
been better done by many a less
gifted writer. It is in the Puritan
setting of The Scarlet Letter and
many of the early Tales where his
genius is most at home, for he is
more convincing in those scenes
where his own Puritan inheritance
gave him an insight into that stern,
joyless age from which his reason
indeed revolted, but which his sym-
pathy could recreate. The Gentle
Boy, The Gray Champion, The Min-

TALES OF POE AND HAWTHORNE

701

ister's Black Veil, The Legends of
the Province House, — such tales are
representative. He wished to tread
upon historic ground even while his
imagination brought all manner of
mysterious and subtle influences to
bear upon his characters. He dwelt
in the border land of history and
fancy, where the natural and the
supernatural are easily confused.
Did the Faun have pointed ears? We
shall never know. Did the ministet
really show a scarlet letter on .his
breast? We are purposely left in
doubt. These are imaginative fea-
tures in the tale of sin and expiation,
those transfiguring touches upon a
conventional theme that indicate the
great artist.

When we turn to the tales by Poe,
we observe that his fancy has a free
flight, it scorns the prosaic earth.
As he has no moral to inculcate, ex-
cept in the rarest instances, as in
William Wilson, only intellectual
and aesthetic considerations counted.
He sought to give the reader a
dramatic, overpowering impression —
usually one of horror, and he suc-
ceeded so well that we often seem
to be in the agony of a nightmare.
As his sole interest was in certain
dark states of the soul, his back-
ground was simply a room, more or
less richly furnished. He usually
found his terror-stricken heroes in
Europe, but this is only because it
is the land of castellated abbeys, old
families, ebony clocks and choice
wines, — the scenic properties of his
stage. He never betrays that his-
toric sense which meets us constantly
in the fiction of Hawthorne. His
characters might have lived any-
where ; those of the latter could only
have lived where they did. His
scenes are in the inner world of a
diseased, introspective, appalled

imagination. This accounts for his
restraint in narration.

Hawthorne was fond of the
leisurely, digressive, illustrative,
anecdotal fashion of story-telling.
Even in the early tales, as — Lady
Eleanore's Mantle, he continually
wanders from the path of narration
to gather the flowers of fancy and
reflection; while in the four great
novels we do not know whether we
find more enjoyment in the central
plot or in these literary digressions.
When Donatello visits Miriam's
studio he finds her engaged in the
feminine task of mending a pair of
gloves. That is a characteristic touch
of Hawthorne. The mystic and
symbolical are brought into intimate
union with the simple and common-
place. We want to know if the ears
of Miriam's boyish lover are pointed
like those of the faun he resembles,
and when we are hoping she will
push back his curls and satisfy our
curiosity we have a little essay upon
the "very sweet, soft and winning
effect in this peculiarity of needle-
work, distinguishing women from
men." Personally, I cannot confess
to any interest in needlework; but
this is only one of innumerable di-
gressions from which, as in a
modern bazaar, we can take our
choice. For the fact is that we do
enjoy these little essays, whatever
may be their subject, quite as much
as the pictures of places and the fre-
quent historical reference. They all
have their charm, and as Haw-
thorne's plots are speedily resolved,
or unimportant, we are in no haste
to get to the end of the narrative.
His method is that of the musician
whose principal theme is very soon
followed by subsidiary themes and
the working out of them all in a rich
and involved orchestration. One
should read Hawthorne as one takes

702

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

a vacation trip to Europe — in no
hurry to reach the journey's end, en-
joying the novel scenes, the varied
experiences, the special pleasure
each day may bring the traveller. It
is all delightful reading in Haw-
thorne— I forget myself! except the
morals and the marriages and the
needlework.

With Poe, there is no delay. We
have taken the fast mail for Mme.
Tussaud's chamber of horrors.
Nothing distracts our attention, and
the result is one overwhelming im-
pression. We listen as if held by
the glittering eye of the ancient
mariner while he tells his sinister
tale. As an illustration take The As-
signation, one of those singularly
beautiful tales of the inconsolable
lover — a favorite theme. In one re-
spect we may compare it with The
Marble Faun. Each gave the oppor-
tunity for incidental description of
a world-famous city. We know what
use Hawthorne made of Rome as a
background for his tragedy, and we
take a solid pleasure in the pictur-
esque descriptions of Colosseum,
galleries, palaces, fountains and his-
toric streets.

Poe's tale is laid in Venice, but he
resists the temptation to wander
through the palaces of that city by
the sea, under the Paradise of Tin-
toretto, past the equestrian statue
of Colleon I., and concentrates our
interest upon the reunion at day-
break, through the poisoned cup, of
the separated and unhappy lovers.

Or letustakeTheFall of the House
of Usher and The House of Seven
Gables. In these two imaginative
works we have, perhaps, the perfect
flower of each writer's art; certainly
the artistry is as beautiful and char-
acteristic as anything they have to
show. Each is the picture of a
ruined home, of a falling family.

Neither story, we perceive, could
have been written by ' the other.
Poe's tale is brief. Opening with a
minor chord, each sentence leads up
to the final crash of sound when
lightning smites the gloomy castle
and the insane Roderick Usher and
the resuscitated body of his twin
sister are buried amid the falling
stones. It is a noble piece of work-
manship. Mr. Lowell praised "its
serene and sombre- beauty." Its ex-
traordinary power may be explained
by its brevity, its concentration of
interest, its poetic vocabulary, its
appeal to one emotion, — that of hor-
ror. Expanded into a volume the
length of Hawthorne's story, it
would only repeat the failure of The
Narrative of A. Gordon Pym.

In the romance of The House of
Seven Gables the melancholy im-
pressions of the decaying family of
Pyncheon, prolonged through so
many chapters, is lightened up by
quiet humor, by innumerable little
descriptions of village life, and by
the varied dialogue of half a dozen
contrasted characters. We perceive
that it would have been as great a
blunder to try to condense such a
picture of provincial life in New
England into the compass of the
short story as to prolong the dark-
ening horror of Poe's tale. Each is
admirable as a work of art, the one
as a romance, the other as a tale.

There is another aspect of Poe's
work, one which finds no parallel in
the writings of Hawthorne. The de-
tective stories are as unique and
perfect in their way as the more fa-
miliar tales. His intellect delighted
in its own ingenuity. Those who
have once made the acquaintance of
M. Auguste Dupin, most clever of
logicians, will not soon forget him.
The Purloined Letter has a long-lived
interest. A very high Personage, —

TALES OF FOE AND HAWTHORNE

703

Poe — is fond of personages, — with a
capital P. — has had a love letter
stolen by a minister of state who
holds the exalted personage in his
power as long as he retains the let-
ter. Of course the secret police
search the rooms of the thief, they,
even waylay and search him ; but all
in vain. Then Dupin, the amateur
detective, enters upon the stage and
finds the missing paper in a conspic-
uous place in the minister's cabinet
— the result of very acute reasoning.
The scene is laid in Paris, but that
is only to give us the exalted Per-
sonage. It might as well, except
for the more luxurious surround-
ings, have been laid in Baltimore or
Boston. The two murder stories
are also set in Paris, but there is no
more historical than moral interest
in them. They are merely a laby-
rinthine maze of crime which Dupin
easily penetrates and whence he re-
turns, leading the criminal by the
hand. In all the other similar tales,
The Balloon Hoak, The Adventure
of one Hans Pfall,and The Gold Bug,
we remark that clever, ingenious^
display of logical power. We can
easily believe the anecdote, authen-
ticated as it is, that from the open-
ing chapters of Barnaby Rudge, as
they appeared in serial form, Poe
announced the logical and, as it
proved, correct denouement.

The prose of Poe easily passes

over into verse. The Island of the
Fay, The Domain of Arnheim, Si-
lence, Shadow, — these are in fact
prose poems. Therein, his work
takes on another color from any we
find in the writings of Hawthorne
who was ever the prose writer ; an
exquisite, beautiful, artistic use of
words he had indeed, but yet sepa-
rated by the vocabulary as well as
form from all claim to the rhythmic
line. Of the verse of Poe it is not
the intention of this sketch to speak,
although the reader is inevitably led
up to it. The Raven, hackneyed as
it has become, may well sum up for
us the highest reach of his genius,
the climax of his imaginative work.
Here we have the familiar theme — -
the inconsolable lover, all the rich-
ness of decoration of which Poe was
so fond, and that deep-seated melan-
choly we associate with him, all set
over against a sympathetic back-
ground of night and mystery. There
are more beautiful things in his
verse, but on the whole nothing that
is so characteristic of his spirit and
his art : and this applies equally to
his verse and his prose. In our final
estimate we would call Poe the poet
and Hawthorne the moralist, each
an honored name in American let-
ters and a source of permanent en-
joyment for all who delight in great
literary art.

ORGAN IN THE CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME DEL PILAR, SARAGOSSA, SPAIN.

Church Organs

By Clyde Elbert Ordway

WERE one to go in search of a
subject that embodies the
growth of human genius and
possesses keen architectural and
archaeological interest and value, he
could hardly find so good a one as
"that wonderful outcome of human
ingenuity and skill known as the
organ." From the time when it was
described as "a chest full of whistles"
down to the latest magnificent in-
strument of the present day, the
organ has been the object of great
interest and admiration among all
classes and the recipient of the at-
tention and skill of not only musi-
cians, but of architects, artists and
mechanically minded artisans;
musically, as the most remarkable of
all instruments; architecturally, be-
cause of its prominent place as a
feature and part of church and ca-
thedral furniture; and mechanically,
because of the variety and delicacy,
the art and scientific skill combined
in its construction. An eminent
English authority, writing on the
subject a few years ago, said, "There
is nowhere to be found an instru-
ment which creates so much enthusi-
asm among players as the organ.
And the reason is simple. The organ,
in its various capacities, far outstrips
any single instrument of the modern
orchestra. The enormous tonal com-
pass from the grave thunder of the
32-foot pedal to the highest ranks of
the mixtures; the majesty of its full
power and the delicacy of its soft
stops; the beauty of its mechanical
contrivances ; and last, though by no
means least, the architectural mag-

705

nificence of the ancient examples
which remain in many parts of
Europe, all combine to make the
organ a fitting object of admiration
for every lover of music and archae-
ology.

The earliest history of the organ
cannot be easily traced, but enough
is known to make it entirely safe to
say that its predecessors were the
bagpipes and Pan's pipes, and that
the earliest form of it was the pro-
duction of sounds by the forcing of
air through a large tube or cylinder
by means of water pressure. By the
reference of Heron, a pupil of Ctes-
tibius, an Alexandrian of 250 B. C.
to the "organ hydraulicum" it would
appear that organs were made in
Greece and Italy at that early date,
and that both bellows (air-pump)
and water pressure were used. A
description is extant of an organ
that belonged to Julian, the Apos-
tate, as early as the fourth century
A. D. It seems from ancient ac-
counts and reliefs that the instru-
ment was known in the west even
before Emperor Constantine sent a.
gift of one to King Pepin in 757
A. D. It is said to have been first
employed in the church in the reign
of Pope Vitalian I., in England in
666 A. D. But according to a noted
bishop who flourished in 450 A. D.,
organs were in use in Spain two hun-
dred years before the reign of
Vitalian.

These early instruments were nat-
urally very crude and simple, with
no indication of the splendid artistic
and architectural development that

ORGAN IN THE STADTKIRCHE, SCHAUMBERG-LI PPE (1613-18).

characterized the mediaeval organ
and the wonderful scientific skill
that marks the great modern instru-
ment. They seldom possessed more
than eight or fifteen pipes and the
keyboard consisted of small upright
wooden plates, which were pressed
upon, while the sound of the pipes
continued until the pressure upon
the key plates was removed.

In the eighth century the organ-
builders of Venice were considered
the best in Europe, but France and

Germany had shown much interest
and made a good beginning, and
they progressed rapidly in the art.

The first organ of importance in
England was that in the Winchester
Cathedral, which is described as
having been operated by "two breth-
ren of concordant spirit," and its
tone is reported to have "reverber-
ated and echoed in every direction
so that no one was able to draw near
and hear the sound, but had to stop
with his hands in his gaping ears."

706

CHURCH ORGANS

'07

The nature of the sounds produced
by the early organs and their gen-
eral effect on the people is well indi-
cated by the name given them in
the tenth century by the Anglo-
Saxons, who called them "bumbu-
lums."

Previous to the invention, or per-

strument and necessitated such large
keys that they had to be struck with
the elbows or fists, a performance
that must have presented a ludicrous
spectacle to the worshippers and
greatly diverted their attention from
things solemn and sacred. And yet
when one comes to think of it more

ORGAN IN THE MARIENKIRCHE, DORTMUND, GERMANY.

haps rather the perfection, of the
modern keyboard, the organ was
operated by a system of levers not
unlike those of a railroad switchman
of the present day.

In the twelfth century came the
development of dividing into regis-
ters the pipe-work, a step that
greatly increased the size of the in-

carefully, this scene does not much
outdo that exhibited by some of the
modern performers on the organ
and pianoforte. Improvements were
made in the keyboard a century or
so later which enabled the fingers to
be used instead of the fists.

Pedals were invented and adopted

708

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ORGAN IN KING S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. ENGLAND.

in Germany in 1350, and reed pipes
were first introduced in the fifteenth
century. From this time on organ-
building became a regular trade, a
skilled craft, and its father, so far
as there is any authority on the sub-
ject, was Albert van Os. The birth-
place of the really modern organ
may well be said to be Saxony,
which, between the years 1359 and
1780, could boast of over two hun-
dred organ builders, including some
of the world-famous workmen in
that vocation.

An interesting feature of the great
organs of early days was the oper-
ation of their bellows: "blow-
ing" them, as it is called, — a process
said to have required from ten to
seventy men. There were cumber-
some and unique devices for accom-

plishing this task. One
method was to have
the bellows arranged
in horizontal rows and
fitted with an iron
shoe, into which a man
put his feet and oper-
ated two pairs at once,
lifting up one at the
same moment he
pressed down the
other. Twenty-four
bellows would, there-
fore, require twelve
men to work them,
many organs having
that number, and some
double that. These
men were called bel-
lows-treaders, and
were the direct fore-
runners of our modern
organ-blower. An-
other arrangement for
the larger and less
numerous bellows was
to have a man climb a
ladder and step on to
the end of a board
that projected^from the organ frame
and which descended, with his
weight, between two guides. This
was the way the old organs in
Naumberg and Leipsic were blown
in early times.

The great organ in the Winches-
ter Cathedral was probably supplied
with wind by the former method, as
there is reference in one account of
it to "the seventy strong men" re-
quired to operatejt. The.process of
blowing this organ is preserved to
posterity in a very complete and
graphic description in verse, which
is too good to omit :

"Twelve pair of bellows, ranged in stated

row,
Are joined above, and fourteen more below;
These the full force of seventy men require,

ORGAN IN LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.

709

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Who ceaseless toil and plenteously per-
spire ;
Each aiding each, till all the wind be prest
In the close confines of th' incumbent chest,
On which four hundred pipes in order rise
To bellow forth the blast that chest sup-
plies."

In the sixteenth century care be-
gan to be taken that the exterior of
the organ should be attractive to the
eye, and then arose that artistic and
architectural development in organ
cases which makes the organs of the
Middle Ages such objects of beauty
and wonder, even in these modern
times, and which art and beauty is
but feebly attempted and poorly imi-

Th I l ! H -

CP.GAN IN CHARTRES CATHEDRAL.

tated in the organ cases of to-day.
The pipes were in many instances
highly gilded and the cases were fre-
quently covered with ornamental
carved metal-work, such as can be
seen in some Italian organs of to-
day. One writer says that the work-
men of the Middle Ages treated the
organ as a necessary piece of church
furniture, and lavished upon it, as
ir:on all things, the highest arts of
architecture, painting an d„^ sculptured
decoration.

In one work on the subject, men-
tion is made of a case that cost as
much as the organ itself. It had
f o r t y - 1 w o figures
( twelve of which
moved), and a crowing
cock. In some instances
the artistic and archi-
tectural degenerated
into the ludicrous, fan-
tastic and puerile under
theinnuenceof religious
emotion, symbolism,
and materialism. The
lirmament, the animal
king d o m , and the
heavenly sphere, with
angels floating about
in divine rapture, were
represented. Pretorius
mentions "various beau-
tiful things" which
were added to the
organ case as orna-
ments and musical ac-
companiments. These
included a tremulant,
to imitate the sobs and
tremors of men on
funereal occasions and
Good Friday services,
revolving stars with
cymbals attached, called
bell-stars, a cuckoo, a

YORKMINSTER CHOIR SCREEN AND ORGAN.

bird's whistle, bagpipe, kettle-drum
and goat's bleat. The climax of this
phase of organ mechanism and deco-
ration was the fox's tail, a device to
keep away the curious who thronged
around and troubled the organ-
player. When they pulled a certain
stop, out shot a fox's tail directly
into the intruder's face.

On the exterior appearance of the

711

organ an early writer quaintly and
naively remarks :

"The organ must be an ornament to the
church and a help to godly singers. It must
have suitable figures upon it, not trivial and
ridiculous tricks, such as was made a few
years ago in a Capuchin monastery, in
which a large figure of a monk looked out
of a window, rising as high as his girdle,
and then suddenly disappeared, so that
young and old, man and woman, were
startled, and some began to laugh, others to
curse. Monkey faces, and priests with mon-

712

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ORGAN AT JUTFAAS, NEAR UTRECHT, HOLLAND.

key faces, with wide mouths, which open
and shut, and with long beards, and that
rattle money in their pockets, are things to
be avoided. Also revolving stars with bells
are things that belong not to the church but
to the devil, who tries under the cloak of
good works to fascinate people to do evil."

But in spite of these excrescences
of bad taste, the organ cases of me-
diaeval times reached a standard of
architectural and artistic excellence

which nothing in this
field in our own times
can even nearly ap-
proach, much less equal.
Organ-players of
early times constitute
an interesting chapter
in the history of the in-
strument. The old Eng-
lish cathedral statutes
provided salaries for
organ-blowers, but none
for the players, the po-
sition of organist evi-
dently not being recog-
nized until compara-
tively recent times. It
appears from the rec-
ords that each of the
lay vicars in the early
days took his turn at
playing the organ by
the week. The first sal-
ary to be paid an or-
ganist seems to have
been given in the eight-
eenth century, though
their skill and service
was recognied and ap-
preciated much earlier.
Inhis epitaph, written
by Sir] Thomas More,
Henry Abyngton is
spoken of as "the best
singer amongst a thou-
sand, and, besides this,
he was the best organ-
ist." Dr. Christopher
Tye was a famous or-
ganist, the musical in-
structor of Henry VI. and organist to
Queen Elizabeth in 1561. He also
served in the same capacity, previous
to that time, in the Ely cathedral. He
is said to have been "a peevish and
humoursome man, especially in his
latter days; and sometimes when
playing on the organ in the chapel
of Queen Elizabeth, which contained

CHURCH ORGANS

713

much music, but little delight to the
ear, she would send the verger to
tell him he played out of tune;
whereupon he sent back word that
her ears were out of tune." Thomas
Tallis, William Bird and Dr. John
Bull were other famous organists of
the early days. Tallis held this
office to Royalty through four
reigns; those of
Henry VIII., Ed-
ward VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth. This
record led to the
suggestion that he
changed his relig-
ion with the times,
but it is more prob-
able that his mus-
ical skill enabled
him to escape per-
secution.

Some epitaphs of
early organists are
of humorous inter-
est. The following
is that of one Rob-
ert Parsons:

"Death, passing by and

hearing Parsons play,
Stood much amazed

at his depth of skill,
And said, 'This artist

must with me away,'
For death bereaves

us of the better still;
But let the squire, while

he keeps time, sing on,
For Parsons rests, his

service being done."

These lines com-
memorate William
Blitheman, one
of the organists to
Elizabeth:

"Here Blitheman lies, a
worthy wight,

Who feared God
above,
A friend to all, a foe to
none,

Whom rich and poor
did love.
Of princes chappell
gentlemen
Until his dying day,

Whom all took great delight to hear
Him on the organ playe, etc."

Organ-builders, too, seemed to
have been held in high regard and
to have called forth the poetic im-
pulse. The lines that follow are the
epitaph of Christopher Shrider,
organ-builder :

ORGAN IN THE CHURCH OF ST. JOHN, BOIS-LE-DUC, HOLLAND.

ORGAN IN THE OLD MUSIC-HALL, BOSTON, MASS.

"Here rests the musical Kit Shrider,
Who organs built when he did bide here:
With nicest skill he tuned 'em up ;
But death has put the cruel stop :
Though breath to others he conveyed,
Breathless, alas! himself is laid.
May he who us such keys has given,
Meet with St. Peter's Keys of Heaven !
His Cornet, Twelfth and Diapason
Could not with air supply his weasand ;
Bass, Tenor, Treble, Unison,
The loss of tuneful Kit bemoan."

Naturally enough, opposition to
the organ arose in different quarters
in connection with its use in church
services. From the very first there

were some who objected to its use
in the church, and that attitude has
remained in society down to very
recent years, if it is even yet wholly
extinct. In the earlier days this op-
position occasionally found expres-
sion in violent attacks on, and de-
struction of, organs by rabid and
ignorant mobs. The objection was
usually limited, however, to verbal
and epistolary condemnation by
prominent lay and clerical leaders
in the religious bodies. Aelred,

714

CHURCH ORGANS

715

abbot of Riedval, who died in 1166,
found in organs a noise more like
thunder than beauty of sound, and
laughs at the voices "which sing
now high, now low, divide and cut
the notes, now strain, now break.
Sometimes the singing sounds like the
neighing of horses, and all this noise
is ridiculous and damnable." A

introduced in spite of ecclesiastical
decrees, for we find there was a
mediaeval custom by which, whenever
the priests thought they had been
wronged, they caused the organ to be
silent until the real or imaginary
wrong had been redressed. The same
authority says that Luther, who
encouraged singing hymns in four

ORGAN IN CENTENNIAL HALL, SYDNEY, N. S. W.

writer says, "Thomas Aquinas ob-
jected to the use of instruments,
'which,' he declared, 'served more to
please the ear than to lead to piety.'"
A few of the most prominent churches
have never had an organ, among them
the Sistine Chapel. We are told the
church at Lyons has always excluded
organs, but they seem to have been

parts, objected to the organ, exclaim-
ing, "You see Papistical work in
organs, singers, vestments, etc."

A writer of the sixteenth century
declares that the rendering of the
service "is a violent noise of organs,
nothing else," and says,

"we would relegate the organs and trumpets
and flutes to the dancing theatres and the

716

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ORGAN IN CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS. STRALSU ND, PRUSSIA

halls of princes; for the house of God is
not to be a house of noise, but of love. If,
therefore, singing is to be used in the
church it should be only in unison, that as
there is one God, one baptism, one faith,
so there should be one song. We admonish
you in the name of God that the organs
are never or most rarely heard, lest we re-
lapse into our former errors."

In some instances the organ was
mildly tolerated. Says one official

of the church, ' 'Al-
though the organ is
new, and in the presence
of] the Pope is not
tolerated, yet custom
allows it on account
of the weakness of
some of the emo-
tional believers." One
worthy voices the
modern idea of the
use of the organ in
religious services:.
"The sound of the
organ encourages the
troubled senses, an-
ticipates the joy of
the higher kingdom,
encourages the indus-
t r i o u s , moves the
righteous to love, and
calls sinners to re-
pentance."

The behaviour of
the choristers is one
reason given for the
disrepute of the organ
in those early times,
an objection we of to-
day can well recog-
nize as based on good
grounds ; for it would
not be easy to find a
more disturbing and
desecrating perform-
ance than some that
regularly take place
in some of our mod-
ern organ or choir
lofts during the hour of service.

The culmination of this objection
to the organ was reached in Europe
in the violent outbreak at Zurich in
1527, when the cathedral organ was
destroyed by a mob, and in England,
in 1644, when, owing to the adoption
and enforcement of a new form of

CHURCH ORGANS

717

worship, a general crusade of organ
destruction was instituted.

Since that time, however, the
organ has steadily advanced in skil-
ful construction and musical excel-
lence, and increased in favor with all
classes of people. The modern in-
strument is not an invention, but a
growth ; it is not the creation of any
individual or of any age, but the re-
sult of many centuries of develop-
ment and the embodiment of the
genius of many minds and hands.
In the progress of its development
there has been lavished
upon it all the finest of
the arts and costliest of
materials, as well as a
multitude of experi-
ments. Organ pipes
have been made of gold,
silver, tin, lead, copper,
iron, metal, glass,
wood, stone, earthen-
ware, feathers, horn
the bark of trees, and
paper. An organ in
the Bavarian Court
Chapel is described as
built of ebony and or-
namented with precious
stones, and one in the
Escorial near Madrid
is said to be of solid
gold.

The art of organ-
making has kept pace
with the progress in its
playing, so that now,
as a writer observes,
"Organ-building, once
done by any monk of a
mechanical turn of
mind, or a clever black-
smith, or other artisan,
has now developed into
a science requiring the
utmost skill and the
greatest appreciation

on the part of its exponents.' ' The
three leading nations in the craft at
the present are England, France and
Germany. America is making rapid
strides and may in the near future equal
her rivals. Some American firms, it
is said, employ so large a nnmber of
workmen they can execute an order
in four or five days, — a remarkable
feat when the immense amount of deli-
cate machinery that has to be fitted
into a modern instrument is con-
sidered.

In one respect, however — the more

CHOIR-ORGAN, ST. PAULS, LONDON.

718

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to be regretted because of the great
advance in other particulars — the
modern organ is very deficient. This
is in its external appearance from an
artistic and architectural standpoint.
Many a professional architect and
person of artistic taste will agree

ORGAN IN EXETER CATHEDRAL.

with the statement of an eminent
English authority, who says:

"It is very remarkable that, of all objects
in a modern church or music-room, the or-
gan is nearly always the most ugly and
meagre in its external appearance. Most
modern instruments possess nothing at all
which can honestly be called a case; while

on the other hand, where exceptions occur,
the architectural treatment of the wood-
work is so utterly bad, that those who have
studied the external features of ancient
organs see nothing but the most painful
vulgarity, or the most ludicrous embellish-
ments, in an object so grandly treated by
the craftsmen of old."

This deficiency, let us hope, is in
a fair way to be remedied
with the revivalistic
tendency of ancient arts
and crafts that now
seems to be manifested
in England and
America.

Besides those already
mentioned, some fam-
ous and historic organs
are those at York-
minister, the Winches-
ter cathedral, West-
minister Abbey, Exeter
cathedral, Ely cathedral
St. Lawrence Jewry
in England; that in the
Stadtkirche, Schaum-
burg-Lippe, built in
1613-18; the one in the
Reformed Church, Em-
den, Hanover, erected
in 1789; that in the
Church of St. Willi-
board, Wesel, Prussia;
that in Notre Dame,
Valenciennes, Nord,
France; that of San
Domenico, Naples; that
at Haarlem, Holland;
and the really wonder-
ful one at Weingarten
in the Benedic-
tine Monastery. The one formerly
in Music Hall, Boston, was also of
wide distinction, while a good illus-
tration of the best instruments of
the present day is the new one in the
church of the Immaculate Concep-
tion, in Boston.

The organ has been called "the

ORGAN IN THE REFORMED CHURCH, EMDEN, HANOVER (1789).

king of instruments," and the ap-
pellation is a fitting one, — for the
organ stands alone in its realm. Its
nature, size and power are such that
it cannot be imitated, and no other
instrument can equal it in the qual-
ities and characteristics which make
it so distinctive. Its position in the
world of musical instruments has
long been recognized, and its place
in the realm of religious worship
has become indisputably and per-
719

manently fixed. And with the re-
turn to, and then advance upon, the
architectural and artistic beauty that
made magnificent its external form
in the days of old, it will become a
noble feature of church furniture and
aesthetic beauty and value, as it is
already the inspirer and ennobler of
the human heart when a skilful hand
makes it peal forth the lofty strains
of the great masters of music.

The Evolution of the Telephone

By Lewis E. MacBrayne

THIS is an anniversary year in
the history of the telephone.
It was in Lowell, Massachu-
setts, in August, 1879, a quarter of a
century ago, that the sound of the
human voice was first transmitted
from one city to another over a
stretch of intervening country. The
telephone, when exhibited at the
Centennial Exposition at Philadel-
phia, in 1876, was regarded as a toy.
Only here and there was a man to
be found who recognized the new
device as a factor in commercial life,
and investors treated the proposition
to enter into telephone enterprises
much as the man, seeking a use for
his money, might look to-day upon
an offer to take stock in an airship
navigation company.

There were exceptions to the rule,
however, and in the three years fol-
lowing the Philadelphia Exposition
telephone systems had been estab-
lished in many towns and cities.
Subscribers were few at first and the
customers did not include many
large commercial houses and manu-
facturing concerns. The managers
of such enterprises still looked
askance at the scheme of doing busi-
ness by talking over a wire. Even
after exchanges had been estab-
lished, the service was one generally
regarded as purely local in charac-
ter, and this makes all the more re-
markable the course adopted by the
founders of the Bell telephone com-
panies. Men who were in the busi-
ness then and are in it to-day will
tell you that the original members

of the company foresaw with won-
derful accuracy the marvellous de-
velopment of the telephone system.
At a time when many were still ob-
stinately clinging to the idea that the
telephone was a plaything, these far-
sighted pioneers in the business
were laying plans for connecting
town with town, in the upbuilding of
a national telephone system.

The time was ripe for the new
means of communication. While
the public generally had little faith
in the possibilities of the telephone,
the need of some means of communi-
cation better than that afforded by
the ordinary service of the telegraph
companies had been felt. Before
the possibility of sending the sound
of the human voice over the wires
was recognized, it was natural that
experiments should be made with an
idea of extending the use of the tele-
graph, and in one notable instance
telegraph lines were used in a man-
ner similar to that which makes it
possible for people to be put into
communication with one another
over telephone wires to-day. In
Bridgeport, Connecticut, a Social
Telegraph Company had been or-
ganized and was in operation in
1877. ^ connected business offices
and houses, and the telegraph wires
ran to a switchboard in a central sta-
tion. When one member of the com-
pany wanted to talk with another
he began calling in the usual man-
ner, and the call was sounded on a
key at the central office, where the
operator saw that the connection

720

THE EVOLUTION OF THE TELEPHONE 721

was made upon the board. It is said
that at that time there were more
telegraph operators in the town of
Bridgeport than in any place of its
size upon the globe. School children
learned "to talk Morse." Clerks and
bookkeepers in business houses were
able to send and receive the mes-
sages of their employers. Had there
been no telephone, the Bridgeport
experiment might have been tried
elsewhere, until to-day we should
have been a nation of telegraphers.
Mr. Thomas B. Doolittle, now an
official of the American Telephone
and Telegraph Company, was one
of the members of the Bridgeport
band of amateur telegraphers. He
saw the possibilities of the tele-
phone, and, procuring a number of
instruments, attached them to the
wires of the Social Telegraph Com-
pany. Bridgeport people were thus
among the first to become familiar
with the modern use of the word
"Hello." Then Mr. Doolittle ac-
quired the control of the telegraph
company, devised a telephone
switchboard and prepared to make
the invention something more than
a toy in the town of Bridgeport. At
the same time, an exchange was
established in New Haven, and it
has since been a matter of consider-
able good-natured controversy as to
which of the two places is entitled
to the distinction of having the first
telephone exchange.

As the local exchanges multiplied
during the next two years, the
founders of the Bell company were
laying their plans and were soon
able to forecast with accuracy what
has happened in the past twenty-five
years. They saw that it would not
be difficult to find people in every
locality who would undertake to
establish a local service, and conse-
quently leases were given for the

formation of companies, the Bell re-
serving to itself the right to connect
town with town. In 1879, just a
quarter of a century ago, over an
iron wire, a conversation between
Boston and Lowell was found to be
possible, and business was actually
transacted over the telephone. The
service was not very satisfactory,
but there had been a general awaken-
ing to the utility of the telephone,
and experiments were continued. At-
tempts followed to establish a work-
able line between Boston and Provi-
dence, but without much success, and
it was soon realized that besides the
adoption of a return circuit a better
conductor than iron must be found.
It was known that copper possessed
the desired characteristics, but the
copper wire of that day was so soft
that to string it from pole to pole
was impracticable.

Mr. Doolittle, whose interest in
the telephone had led to its introduc-
tion in Bridgeport, had been in busi-
ness connected with copper manu-
facture, and believed that with care
the wire could be hard drawn and
made to answer. At the works of
the Ansonia Copper and Wire Com-
pany experiments were made under
his direction, and soon copper wire
was actually in use for telephone
purposes in Bridgeport. But it was
still thought by many scientific men
that, while the wire undeniably
worked well when first strung, it
would rapidly deteriorate and re-
quire frequent renewal. It was not
until several years after, when re-
peated tests had shown that the
copper wire used in Bridgeport was
still in as good condition as the day
on which it was put up, that the
directors of the company sanctioned
its use to construct the long-distance
line from New York to Boston. That
was in 1884, just twenty years ago.

722

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

It was this adaptation of copper
wire to the uses of telephony which
has made possible the wonderful ex-
tension of the service. When you
talk to-day from city to city, the
sound of your voice being trans-
mitted, perhaps, for hundreds of
miles, the lines are of hard drawn
copper wire. Had there been no im-
provement in its manufacture, 27
miles would still have been an ap-
proach to the longest distance possi-
ble of attainment in telephony.

The development of the system
quickly followed the adoption of the
copper wire, and in 1893 communi-
cation was established with Chicago,
and since then the extension of the
lines has been so rapid that to-day it
is practicable to talk over telephone
lines 1,600 miles in length. That is
about the distance from Boston to
Omaha, and messages are sent every
day between the two cities. Con-
versation has been held over even
longer distances, and it is a matter
of record that two persons have con-
versed when more than 1,900 miles
apart. The Bell system of tele-
phones now reaches 50,000,000 of the
90,000,000 inhabitants of the United
States, and it is predicted by tele-
phone experts that the time is soon
coming when every nook and corner
of this great land will be at the end
of a telephone wire. It is one of the
most marvelous stories of modern
industrial development, and not the
least wonderful of its features is the
fact that a group of Bell men 25
years ago looked ahead and accu-

rately outlined the growth of the
business. They did not know how
the scientific problems involved
would be solved.. They explained to
the engineers whom they employed
that the settlement of these ques-
tions was a task for the expert, but
there were in those days no experts.
No technical school had given a
thought to the establishment of
courses in telephony such as are
now maintained by the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology and
Harvard University, but the com-
panies were given the services of
men who entered with enthusiasm
upon this new and unknown occu-
pation, and its fascinating mysteries
and limitless possibilities. One by
one difficulties were surmounted by
these men who had no financial in-
terest in the organization which they
served. They have labored with
zeal, born of love for the work, to
develop telephony along the broad
and comprehensive lines laid down
by those who had at the start
grasped the general, underlying
principles, and they have contrib-
uted a remarkable chapter to the
history of recent scientific and in-
dustrial progress. Many of them are
still in harness to-day, working side
by side with the graduates of the
technical schools, and firm in the be-
lief that, great as have been the
achievements of the 25 years since
city first talked with city, they are
destined to be surpassed in the 25
years to come.

Keziah

By Eleanor H. Porter

^^T)UT, mother, dear, you actu-
\j ally need a new gown I"

"Yes, I know, but —
there's Aunt Keziah, Eunice; it's
nearly time to send money to her
again."

A rebellious light flamed into the
girl's eyes.

"It — it's always Aunt Keziah!"
she cried.

"Eunice!"

"I can't help it, mother. It— it
seems as if I just couldn't bear it!"
returned the girl, hurriedly, the
words fairly tumbling over each
other in the rush of a long-pent-up
wrath. "I love Aunt Keziah, and
I'm sorry for her, of course; and if
she only seemed to care, or to — ap-
preciate anything, even half way, I
— why, mother, I'd be willing to
work my fingers off! — I know I
would."

"But, Eunice," remonstrated Mrs.
Johnson, "Eunice, my child, your
aunt is sick and nervous ; she — "

"I know, mother dear, and I'm
sorry — I said I was; but can't you
see what I mean? If she'd only ap-
preciate things and be sorry, or — or
anything, I wouldn't mind so much.
But here, month after month and
year after year we've been pinching
and slaving and giving up and giv-
ing up. It seems as if all the money
we could scrape together went into
a great big bottomless well, and — "

"Eunice — stop! You frighten me!
I didn't think you could talk so. Is
this my Eunice? — my loving, kind-
hearted daughter?"

723

Eunice burst into tears and flung
her arms around her mother's neck.

"No — no — no! I'm cross and
ugly, and I know it. But when I
see your poor tired face and your
made-over gowns, and father's old
clothes, and Paul eating his heart
out to go to college, and Jennie long-
ing for a piano and lessons and —
and everything, it seems as if I
couldn't bear it !"

Mrs. Johnson sighed, and the lines
about her mouth deepened.

"Yes, dearie, I know; I under-
stand. Paul and Jennie — I, too, wish
that they — but never mind; perhaps
it'll all come in good time. You
know there are the boarders this
summer — they'll bring in a lot !" she
finished cheerily.

It was ten years ago that Caleb
Johnson had first undertaken the
entire support of his invalid sister,
Keziah. Keziah Johnson was not
only crippled, but was afflicted with
a mysterious nervous trouble, to-
gether with "complications," all of
which rendered her a misery to her-
self and a helpless burden to her
friends.

Eor eight years now, Keziah had
been in a Home for Incurables,
where she was given every comfort
and attention, as well as the very
best of medical care. The necessary
expense of all this, however, had
been a severe tax on the slender re-
sources of Caleb Johnson. But wil-
ing hands had worked and willing
heads had planned. Gowns had been
turned, old clothes had been made

724

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

to serve double duty, and Paul had
been kept at home to help. The
hands had sometimes faltered, and
the heads had grown gray with care ;
but bit by bit the money was raised
and Keziah had been kept in the
Home.

All that long summer many board-
ers came to the neat, white farm-
house on the hill, but it was Miss
Barrington that quite won the hearts
of the Johnson family. It was she
that loaned books to Paul, and took
Jennie for long walks ; she that
taught Eunice how to fashion dainty
stocks and collars from bits of lace
and ribbon, and it was she that
talked with the tired mother when
the work was done at night, putting
new hope and courage into her heart.
One day she said :
"Mrs. Johnson, you've a regular
treasure-house of old rugs here; did
you know it? Were your busy
fingers the cause of it all?"

1 'Twas Keziah, mostly — Mr.
Johnson's youngest sister," returned
the woman, quick pride in her voice.
"Keziah was a master hand for rugs,
Miss Barrington, and — poor child —
it was the only thing I ever knew
that she really loved to do — to hook
in rugs."

In time, Miss Barrington came to
know all about the invalid charge of
the household; and what Miss Bar-
rington was not told outright, she
quickly divined — the pinching, slav-
ing economy. It was on the day she
was to return to New York that she
said:

"Now that I know where your sis-
ter is, Mrs. Johnson, I'm going to
call on her some day. She isn't far
out from the city."

Thus it was that Miss Keziah
Johnson received, early in Septem-
ber, a visitor.

"I've just come from your
brother's house, Miss Johnson," be-
gan Miss Barrington, pleasantly. "I
thought perhaps you'd like to hear
from them."

"Hm-m," commented Keziah, with
a keen glance that encompassed
every tasteful detail of her visitor's
toilet. "The folks are well, I sup-
pose?— they generally are. Nothing
ever ails them!"
Miss Barrington caught her breath.

"Why — yes, they seemed well,"
she murmured.

"Hm-m ; I thought so. Ella's
strong as a horse."

"Mrs. Johnson has been working
very hard this summer," began Miss
Barrington, with quick aggressive-
ness.

"Well — she's able to; isn't she?
Likes it, too !"

"Yes, but — "

"Look a' here, just suppose she
had to stay propped up in this chair
— suppose she had !"

"Your sister is very sorry for you,
Miss Johnson, and she does every-
thing she can. Perhaps you do not
quite do her justice. She — "

" 'Justice !' " snapped Keziah, " 'jus-
tice !' My dear woman, there isn't
any justice to it — she can walk, and
go where she wants to."

"You are a little mistaken there,"
returned Miss Barrington, gravely.
"To my certain knowledge, Mrs.
Johnson wanted very much to come
to New York for a few weeks'
change — but she couldn't come."

"Hm-m, — why not?" — the sick
woman's bead-like eyes wavered
under the steady gaze bent upon
them.

"She did not have the money, Miss
Johnson."

"There — I thought as much ! You
meant that for a little hit on me ; but
it don't touch me at all. I know I

KEZIAH

725

cost 'em some money, but — they're
able to earn it, aren't they? See —
it's like this," she continued, indi-
cating with her finger two imagin-
ary points in her lap.

"They walk. I sit.

"They're well. I'm sick.

"They can work. I can't.

"They earn money. I spend it."

Miss Harrington laughed in spite
of the quick words of remonstrance
that rose to her lips and clamored to
be heard. She looked at the thin,
drawn face and nervous fingers of
the woman before her in silence for
a moment; when she spoke, it was
with a curiously abrupt change of
subject.

"I saw some of your handiwork
this summer, Miss Johnson," she
said with a bright smile.

The invalid's face underwent an
entire change.

"Rugs? — did you see my rugs?"
she asked eagerly.

"Yes, and I was much interested
in them."

"Did you see the one with the
roses and the flower-pot in the mid-
dle, and the one with a dog's head,
and — Miss Barrington, did you see
the one — the little one with my name
in the corner?"

"Yes — all of them. You liked the
work, I fancy, Miss Johnson."

"Liked it! Seems as though I
could feel the hook in my hands
now, and see the thing grow under
my fingers !" The sick woman lay
back in her chair and looked dream-
ily out of the window. "The little
rug with my name," she continued,
"that was me, Miss Barrington. I
worked me into that rug. Funny,
wasn't it? But I was just beginning
to be lame and I was kinder worry-
ing. I called the dark green my
lameness ; it's all through the rug —
I couldn't keep it out. I kept get-

ting hold of it, and it almost fright-
ened me, but I put it in. Some days
I felt better— there were pinks and
blues in the rug, then. There's
white there, and some bright red,
too. It looks sort of mixed up to
other folks, I guess, but I put each
day in just as it happened, and I can
read it like a book. Sometimes the
colors shade down pretty into just
pale tints, and sometimes they stop
right off short and sudden; but I
know — I know what they all mean."

Miss Barrington was silent. She
dared not trust herself to speak just
then. By-and-by Keziah turned
from the window.

"I did so love the pretty, bright
strips that slipped along through my
fingers, Miss Barrington, and this
room is so bare and white !"

A sudden thought came to Miss
Barrington.

"Why don't you make rugs now?"
she cried. "Could you? — are you
strong enough?"

Again Keziah's face changed, and
that wonderful light shone in her
eyes ; but the light quickly fled, and
the lips settled into the old queru-
lous lines.

"Dear, dear, I'm strong enough —
most days," she acknowledged wear-
ily, "and the doctor has asked me
over and over again if there wasn't
something I could do to take up my
mind. But how could I? I haven z
any pieces — and who do you suppose
is going to fetch their old clothes
way here for me to make up into
rugs? I guess, Miss Barrington, my
rug-making days are passed !"

"Not a bit of it!" laughed the
other, cheerily. "Just you wait and
see !" And with that she went away.

Wonderful days came to Keziah
Johnson then. In the somewhat un-
lovely patterns and crude colors of

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Keziah's hooked rugs, Miss Barring-
ton saw latent possibilities which
Keziah's longing eyes and quaint
fancies had convinced her might
easily be developed.

New, all-wool material was dyed
in the rich Oriental tones, and
brought to Keziah. The room
glowed dully with reds and browns
and greens, and Keziah's eyes grew
luminous. A new, original design —
quite unlike the flower-pots and
dogs' heads of the old days — was
furnished, and under Miss Barring-
ton's artistic direction, Keziah went
to work.

Once more the many-hued strands
slipped through Keziah's eager fin-
gers, and when the rug — soft as silk
and with a velvety sheen — lay be-
fore her in all its finished beauty,
she drew in her breath with a gasp
of delight.

"Oh, it is pretty — isn't it?" she
whispered, almost reverently.

It was then that Miss Barrington
told her that out in the world such
rugs were valuable now — that rich
women would pay good prices for
them.

"Buy my rug? Pay money to
me?" cried Keziah.

"Yes, gladly," returned Miss Bar-
rington, almost frightened at the
strange look in the cripple's eyes.

"And if I made another — would
they buy that?"

"I think so."

"Miss Barrington," — Keziah's
long, thin fingers closed over her
friend's hand convulsively — "do you
mean that I can do something in the
world — that I can be something —
that I can take my share of living,
and not be just a useless stick that
nobody wants 'round? Miss Barring-
ton— you're telling me the truth! —
you're not playing with me!"

"No, no, dear — no !" choked the

lady huskily. "I am sure of what I
say."

And Keziah lay back in her chair
with a long, contented sigh which
seemed to lift the weight of years.

Before a week had passed the rug
was sold for a sum that to Keziah
seemed fabulously large. With
shining eyes and trembling fingers
she started a new one, then another,
and yet another. Time passed, and
Miss Barrington brought orders to
her for special designs and shapes.
Crests and coats of arms were exe-
cuted upon hall rugs, and charming
jewel effects were introduced into
the borders of portieres.

Keziah's room — no longer plain
and bare — radiated warmth and
color, and even Keziah herself was
changed. The helpless limbs, it is
true, still refused to bear her weight,
but the days that were devoted to
the "nerves" and the "complica-
tions" came to be fewer and fewer
as Keziah's heart grew lighter and
her eyes grew brighter.

It was in the early winter that she
said to Miss Barrington :

"I want to send a Christmas box
to my brother's family. Could you
manage it — select the things for me,
I mean?"

"Of course, I could ! That will be
delightful, I'm sure."

"I'll put in books and candy, and
a new gown for Ella. Poor Ella —
shut up in that farmhouse — she
don't have many good times."

"Er — no — she doesn't," murmured
Miss Barrington, with a sidelong
glance.

"Do you know," continued Ke-
ziah, without seeing the glance,
"when we were girls, Ella used to
like to make rugs 'most as well as I
did. I was thinking the other day
that I didn't believe she got much
chance nowadays to do it, and I was

THE VALLEY ROAD

727

kinder sorry for her — just think, /
make them all the time! I'm going
to send a box to her, but I'm not
going to let them know where it
comes from. You see, I haven't told
them, yet, anything about my rug-
making. I've got a scheme, Miss
Barrington — a . fine scheme ; but I
can't tell it— yet."

It was spring before Keziah's
"scheme" was divulged. Then Caleb
Johnson received a letter, the con-
tents of which threw the entire John-

son family into a state of dazed won-
der. It read :

"My Dear Brother: — You will shortly
receive a piano which I am sending, with
my love, to Jennie. I hope she will learn to
play. It's been a good many years now that
you've been sending money out here to me.
My debt to you is a big one, and I can't
ever hope to pay it; but, anyway, if things
keep on like this, you won't have to send
me much more. I'm making rugs. Folks
buy them and pay me lots of money. Isn't
it wonderful and — splendid? Lovingly,

"KEZIAH."

The Valley Road

By James Owen Tryon

At eventide I shade my eyes,

And peer into the West,
Where, winding down the shining plain,

And round each wooded crest,
The highroad goes the sunset way,

Upon the endless quest.

Full many a traveler I have seen

(And one was passing fair)
Go down the valley from my door,

And swiftly vanish there.
Some I have sped upon their path,

And lightened some of care.

One day I too shall take my staff

And down the valley go,
For one who went was passing fair,

And waits for me, I know.
And I shall find her — O, my Soul ! —

Beyond the sunset glow!

Two English Viewpoints

By Sara Graham Morrison

ON April 7th, 1796, Thomas
Twining stepped ashore from
the hidia and found himself
at the end of a four months' voyage,
in Philadelphia. He was one of the
energetic Englishmen who laid the
foundations of the Indian Empire.
He had at this time been there three
years, but, the state of his health ren-
dering a voyage to England neces-
sary, he determined to proceed
thence by way of America. His two
months' visit to this country at the
beginning of our national existence
was but an episode in his Indian
career, and seems to have been solely
a visit of curiosity.

He entered the country by sailing
up the Delaware, and although the
city of Philadelphia did not present
the splendor, nor majesty, nor vener-
able antiquity of some cities he had
seen, not exhibiting the palaces of
Calcutta, the temples of Benares, the
marble domes and minarets of Agra
and Delhi, its appearance was most
gratifying to him as the city founded
by Penn, and as the seat of the
American Government.

Upon his arrival he received an in-
vitation from one of the ship's own-
ers to stay at his home for the night,
but finding that when a stranger was
invited to pass the night with his
host it was never meant to give
him the whole of a bed, the next
morning he "took a lodging" at the
London Tavern. Finding this de-
ficient in comfort — although the

leading hotel of the city — he asked
a person in the streets where the
Members of Congress put up, and
on being told that many of them
lived together in a house in Fourth
street, kept by an old Frenchman
named Francis, he finally gained
admittance there, and to his great
joy he dined day after day with the
Vice-President and Members of
Congress, which fact he records in
his "Travels" with Pepys-like faith-
fulness.

As for the city of Philadelphia, he
thought it laid out on a "simple but
monotonous plan, all the streets
being equidistant from each other,"
and thus forming the houses be-
tween them into "square masses of
equal dimensions."

"The streets resemble many of the
smaller streets of London, excepting that
the foot-pavement on each side is of brick
instead of stone. The houses also are built
of red brick, and have generally a shop on
the first floor, and two or three windows
in the stories above. The streets and houses
thus resembling each other, having scarcely
any difference in their appearance, except-
ing the accidental dissimilarity arising from
the shops, produces a sameness wearying to
the eye."

The naming of the streets he
thought particularly confusing, such
as "Delaware First Street" and
"Schuylkyl First Street," and to
name the other streets for the prin-
cipal trees of America he considered
scarcely less whimsical.

The first day he was fortunate
enough to meet Mr. Bingham, "the
principal person in Philadelphia, and
the wealthiest, probably, in the

728

TWO ENGLISH VIEWPOINTS

729

Union." He took supper with the
Bingham family his first evening,
and among other guests present was
Alex. Baring— the future Lord Ash-
burton— and at this time a "clever,
well-informed young man." The
next day he dined with the Members
of Congress.

''Mr. Adams took the chair always re-
served for him at the head of the table,
though himself superior to all sense of su-
periority. He appeared to be about sixty
years of age. In person he was rather short
and' thick; in his manner somewhat cold
and reserved, as the citizens of Massachu-
setts, his native State, are said generally to
be. His presence caused a general feeling
of respect, but the modesty of his de-
meanor and the tolerance of his opinions
excluded all inconvenient restraint. He was
generally dressed in a light or drab-colored
coat, and had the appearance rather of an
English country gentleman who had seen
little of the world than of a statesman who
had seen so much of public life. ... In-
deed, to behold this distinguished man oc-
cupying the chair of the Senate in the
morning, and afterwards walking home
through the streets and taking his seat
amongst his fellow-citizens, as their equal,
conversing amicably with men over whom
he had just presided, and perhaps checked
and admonished, was a singular spectacle,
and a striking exemplification of the state
of society in America at this period."

Dr. Priestly, a refugee of the
French Revolution, was then living
in the city, and Twining describes
the chief naturalist of the country as
having a countenance "exceedingly
mild and good-natured, his manner
no less easy and conciliating. His
person, short and slender, his age,
apparently about sixty/-' Later, in
Baltimore, he met M. Volney, also
banished from France, but he was
cold and satirical, "little pleased
with America, and where not pleased
he expressed himself with much
severity."

After a week in Philadelphia, he
decided to go via the mail wagon to
the latter city.

"The vehicle was a long car with four
benches. Three of these in the interior
held nine passengers, and a tenth passen-
ger was seated by the side of the driver on
the front bench. . . . There was no
place nor space for luggage, each person
being expected to stow his things as he
could under his seat or legs. The entrance
was in front, over the driver's bench. Of
course, the three passengers on the back
seat were obliged to crawl across all the
other benches to get to their places. There
were no backs to the benches to support
and relieve us during a rough and fatiguing
journey over a newly and ill made road."

Upon leaving the city they entered
immediately upon the country, the
"transition from streets to fields
being abrupt, and not rendered
gradual by detached houses and
villas, as in the vicinity of London.
The fields had nothing pleasing
about them, being crossed and sep-
arated by the numerous intersec-
tions of the intended streets, and
surrounded by large rough-hewed
rails, placed zigzag, instead of
hedges." About a mile from the city
they crossed the Schuylkyl on a
floating bridge,

"constructed of logs of wood placed by the
side of each other upon the surface of the
water, and planks nailed across them.
Although this bridge floated when not
charged, or charged but lightly, the weight
of our wagon depressed it several inches
below the surface, so that a foot-passenger
passing at the same time would have been
exposed to serious inconvenience. The
roughness and imperfection of this con-
struction on the principal line of road in
America, and not a mile from the seat of
government, afforded the most striking in-
stance I had yet seen of the little progress
the country had hitherto made in the im-
provements of civilization."

This instance of backwardness is
mentioned

"not as a reproach to America, but as a
singular fact exemplifying the difficulties
and necessarily slow advancement of a new
country."

However, he believed that there
was no nation that would have done
more in so short a time, and most

730

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

nations would assuredly have done
infinitely less.

When he got into the hilly coun-
try, which presented some steep de-
clivities, the wagon descended at a
great rate, "for not only was it im-
provided with a drag to keep it back,
but it seemed to be the principle of
American driving to go as fast as
possible down hill in order to make
up for the slowness inevitable on all
other parts of the road." Another
thing which he noted with surprise
on this trip was that mere clumps of
houses, the bare beginnings of vil-
lages, bore the names of the great
towns or cities of England, but it did
not occur to him to berate us, as so
many of his successors have done,
for not keeping the original Indian
names. He also thought it would
have been an easy and cheap em-
bellishment of the country if a few
of the fine trees of the ancient forests
had been allowed to remain at least
in the line of future hedgerows, if
not in the fields, and he announced
that in his opinion it was extremely
unpicturesque to cut down all the
trees about three feet above the
ground.

But when crossing the Susque-
hannah near Havre de Grace he con-
templated, with peculiar pleasure,
the ancient woods which still threw
their broad shadows upon its surface
and was greatly struck with the wild
poetic cast of the enchanting spot,
all the features of which were as
Indian as its name, excepting, in-
deed, the new-built town, where
white houses on the southern shore
had supplanted the wigwams of the
Susquehannah tribe, and interrupted
the magnificent line of foliage.

At length they arrived at Balti-
more, having travelled from 10 A. M.
Friday until 4 P. M. Saturday —
spending the night (until 2:30 in the

morning) at Head of Elk, where he
was compelled to sleep in the same
room with nine other passengers, on
"rude, unfurnished bedsteads, with-
out curtains, ranged one close to an-
other, like cots in a soldiers' bar-
racks."

At the hotel where he stayed in
Baltimore he found the party as-
sembled at the table to consist
"almost entirely of travellers and
lodgers in the house, and not of resi-
dents in the town, for anti-Britannic
as the Americans are in their polit-
ical feelings, they have the domestic
propensities of their ancestors, every
man dining with his family, if he has
one." This city he found to lack the
symmetrical regularity of Philadel-
phia, and striking difference in the
moral aspect of the two cities, Balti-
more not having the dull uniformity
which the dress and manners of a
Quaker population gave to the
metropolis.

Ten days later he took a day's
journey to Washington, where he
was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Law,
the latter being the "granddaughter
of Mrs. Washington, the President's
lady." He started out from George-
town to find Washington, whose dis-
covery he describes as follows :

"Having crossed an extensive tract of
level country somewhat resembling an Eng-
lish heath, I entered a large wood through
which a very imperfect road had been made,
principally by removing the trees, or rather
the upper parts of them, in the usual man-
ner. After some time this indistinct way
assumed more the appearance of a regular
avenue, the trees here having been cut
down in a straight line. Although no habita-
tion of any kind was visible, I had no doubt
I was now riding along one of the streets
of the metropolitan city. I continued in this
spacious avenue for half a mile, and then
came out upon a large spot, cleared of wood,
in the centre of which I saw two buildings
on an extensive scale, and some men at
work on one of them. ... Advancing
and speaking to these workmen, they in-
formed me that I was now in the centre of
the city, and that the building before me

TWO ENGLISH VIEWPOINTS

731

was the Capitol, and the other destined to
be a tavern. As the greatest cities have a
similar beginning, there was really nothing
surprising here, nor out of the usual order
of things; but still the scene which sur-
rounded me— the metropolis of a great
nation in its first stage from a sylvan state-
was strikingly singular Looking

from where I now stood I saw on every
side a thick wood pierced with avenues in
a more or less perfect state. These denoted
lines of the intended streets, which already
appeared in the engraved plans, with their
names. The Capitol promised to be a large
and handsome building, judging from the
part, about two-thirds, already- above
ground."

While the guest of the Law family
he visited Alexandria, which, "situ-
ated lower down on the Potomac
and enjoying the advantage of a
greater depth of water, would, in
commercial competition, not improb-
ably prove a formidable rival to
Washington."

On the 13th of May, Mr. Twining
called on General Washington at his
home in Philadelphia, having been
given a letter of introduction by his
late host. "He lived in a small red
brick house on the left side of High
street. . . . There was nothing
in the exterior that denoted the
rank of its possessor. Next door
was a hair-dresser. In the drawing-
room there were no pictures on the
walls, no ornaments on the chimney-
piece." Mrs. Washington he de-
scribes as a "middle-sized lady,
rather stout; her manner extremely
kind and unaffected." When the
General entered, they both rose,
Mrs. Washington said, "The Presi-
dent," and the two men were intro-
duced.

"Never did I feel more interest than at
this moment, when I saw the tall, upright,
venerable figure of this great man advance
towards me to take me by the hand. There
was a seriousness in his manner which
seemed to contribute to the impressive dig-
nity of his person, without diminishing the
confidence and ease which the benevolence

of his countenance and the kindness of his
address inspired. There are persons in
whose appearance one looks in vain for the
qualities they are known to possess, but the
appearance of General Washington har-
monized in a singular manner with the dig-
nity and modesty of his public life."

After sitting about three-quarters
of an hour, Mr. Twining rose to
leave, but this private intercourse
with one of the most unblemished
characters that any country has pro-
duced formed one of his most mem-
orable days in America. "The mo-
ment when the great Washington
entered the room, and Mrs. Wash-
ington said, 'The President,' made
an impression on my mind which no
subsequent years can efface."

On May 18th, he started for New
York. Just after leaving Newark
the horses became unmanageable on
a steep hill, and Twining, with
others, jumped out in order to save
their lives and lighten the load. In
so doing he cut his right leg, prob-
ably on a stone in the road. He suf-
fered from this accident the re-
mainder of his visit, and while in
New York was able to do very little
sight-seeing. But he mentions the
fine view from the Battery, notes
that New York possesses an evident
superiority over Philadelphia, Balti-
more, Alexandria, and Washington
for maritime communication, and
may be considered the first port of
the United States. In fact he recalled
no city, in his recollection of the
principal cities he had seen, whose
situation was at once so advan-
tageous and beautiful as that of
New York. He was told that Broad-
way extended two miles, but as it
was usual in America to reckon as
streets such as were only comtem-
plated and not yet begun, it was not
easy to know how much of this great
length was imaginary.

73'2

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

"Although the beauty of New York is for
the present confined to its position, it pos-
sessing no very good street but Broadway,
and no pre-eminent building, except the
Federal Hall, it is, upon the whole, the
most agreeable as well as the most flourish-
ing city in the United States, combining
the cheerfulness and commercial activity of
Baltimore with the extent and population
of Philadelphia."

The first days of June found him
preparing to sail for England, and in
his diary he writes : " So ended my
successful and agreeable visit to the
United States of America, a great
and fine country, destined hence-
forth to hold a conspicuous rank
amongst the nations, and to take an
important part in the transactions of
the world."

II.

In September, 1896, G. W. Stee-
vens, an English reporter, landed in
New York. His object in particular
for the next two months was to
write letters for the "Daily Mail,"
telling how we elect a ruling officer;
but his general observations are
more interesting.

As he steamed up New York har-
bor, he was surprised to see New
York standing out clear and smoke-
less against the blue of the heavens,
expecting, no doubt, to discern only
a few ghost-like spires glimmering
in a vast canopy of smoke — the view
of London as approached from the
Thames.

Brooklyn, he noted, combined into
a "fairly even mass of buildings, half
yellow-gray, half chocolate, with a
fringe of masts along the water, but
New York combined into no color,
and no sky-line.

"Here is a red mass of brick, there a gray
spire, there a bright white pile of building —
twenty storeys of serried windows — there
again a gilded dome. Gradually they dis-
engage themselves as you pass up the river
in a line apparently endless. The rest of

the city lies huddled beneath them — these
buildings, too, many colored, all uneven,
each one seemingly struggling to shoot up
alongside of the giants at its side. That is
the first impression of New York, if im-
pression it can be called. The truth is that
New York yields no impression; the big
buildings and the little buildings will not
come into the same view. It dazzles, and it
astonishes, but it does not make a picture.

"Never have I seen a city more hideous
or more splendid. Uncouth, formless, pie-
bald, chaotic, it yet stamps itself upon you
as the most magnificent embodiment of
titanic energy and force. The very build-
ings cry aloud of struggling, almost savage,
unregulated strength. No street is laid out
as part of a system, no building as an archi-
tectural unit in a street. Nothing is given
to beauty ; everything centres in hard util-
ity. . . . Seeing it, you can well under-
stand the admiration of an American for
something ordered and proportioned — for
the Rue de Rivoli or Regent Street.

"Architects here appear far more awake
to what is beautiful than ours. . . . You
will hardly find an eyesore like the new
Admiralty in New York. But too many of
the best buildings are half wasted for want
of space and place. . . . Each for him-
self is the motto of New York building.
. . . No man could do its architecture
justice unless he had a pair of eyes in the
top and the back and both sides of his head,
with a squint in each of them."

The whole city, thirteen miles
long and three miles wide, he says,
is plastered and painted and papered
with advertisements. To the Euro-
pean mind at first the numbering of
the streets is a most hateful device.
"What possible individuality can
you associate with 69th Street?" But
after two days he begins to appreci-
ate the convenience of this system.
But, although "the pavements are
atrocious," and the place "if possible
worse lighted than London," he
thinks the County Councillor has
still something to learn from New
York, and if New York is the worst
governed city in the world, he for
one could make himself fairly com-
fortable in the best; however, if one
is thinking of living in New York, it
is well "to take the precaution of
being a millionaire."

TWO ENGLISH VIEWPOINTS

733

From New York he went across
New England to Boston. Both the
metropolis and the New England
villages he thought wore "a German
rather than an English face" ; but as
soon as he entered Boston he was
"immediately struck with its decent,
comparatively English air. . . . The
houses are not shot up and gone to
seed; they preserve an even sky-line,
and you see whole terraces built on
a single plan." He could find but
one fault with the Public Garden
and the Common, which he men-
tioned for fear he would never have
an opportunity to use the word
again in America. He thought them
"just a little too small." He was
told that Boston was the most culti-
vated of American cities, but to him
its true merit seemed rather its
cleanness.

But Portland he found enchant-
ing. "It was like a canto of Long-
fellow's 'Evangeline' brought up to
date." Then from the far East he
skipped over to Buffalo, and to that
Mecca of all English tourists,
Niagara; and then down to Wash-
ington. To him it was an obvious
inconvenience to have several cap-
itals to a country — New York for a
business capital, Washington for a
political capital, and Boston for an
intellectual capital, even though the
latter is denied outside of the city
itself. In England or France if you
want to find a man of mark in any
line you find him at the Capital; in
America, look for him in one and he
has just gone to another.

"But when you reach Washington you
forget everything in delight at the charm
of the place. There is an impression of
comfort, of leisure, of space to spare, of
stateliness, that you hardly expected in
America. It looks a sort of place where
nobody has to work for his living, or, at any
rate, not hard. If Washington were in
Germany, instead of a fair-sized slice of

Germany being in Washington, it would be
called a 'Resident Stadt.' "

For interest and effect, he would
ten times rather look at New York
in its vigorous uncouthness; but
Washington, with its fine streets
and wide prospects, so splendidly
planted with trees, with its chaste
and classic public buildings, instinct
with dignity and refinement, afford-
ed a most comfortable recoil.

Like Twining, he found the star
of the city to be the Capitol.

"It would be a king of a building in any
city : it is doubly regal in Washington. For
plainly the capital is built for the Capitol ;
not the Capitol for the capital. . . . The
whole city is the setting for this shining
jewel."

While at the capital, Bryan passed
through the city on his Presidential
canvassing tour. Steevens describes
him as having a

"compact, black-coated figure, a clean-
shaven, clear-cut face, a large, sharp nose,
and a square mouth and jaw. With the
faint blue stubble on his face, and his long
grizzly hair, he suggests an actor to the
English mind. . . . He is the very type
6f a great demagogue . . . from the
crown of his thinning hair to the dust of
travel on his boots."

September 24th found him in Wil-
mington, North Carolina, having
spent a few hours in Richmond en
route, which latter place he would
not call in any sense a "fine place,"
but it was "decently clean and wore
a look of industry and thrift. It
was not finished yet, of course, noth-
ing is on this side of the Atlantic ex-
cept poor Wilmington and some
politicians."

In Wilmington he found

"the true Southern atmosphere — the sun
and dirt, and the imperative necessity to
saunter. Along the principal street stout
brick buildings elbowed little one-storeyed
wooden shanties, slowly dropping to pieces.
Most of the houses were of wood — the bet-

734

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ter sort painted, the worse going to be
painted some day, if there was any of them
still left, when somebody felt equal to it.
Even the finest houses, with green blinds
rigidly shut on the sun, with shady trees,
palms, and olives planted about their^ with
cool rocking chairs in the freshness of the
verandahs — even these would betray their
Southern nature by a ragged fence of un-
painted rails, reeling and staggering in the
lightest breeze, because somebody was still
thinking about knocking in a nail."

The last of September he was in
Philadelphia, which he pronounced
the most English of all the Eastern
cities in the circumstances of its
growth, and the life and the charac-
ter of the people. There he found
less luxury than elsewhere, but
more comfort, and comfort extend-
ing deeper down.

"New York is the city of offices and
palaces ; Boston of parks and villas ; Wash-
ington of public buildings and houses let
for the season. Philadelphia is a city of
homes. It strikes you as beyond all things
a civilized city — a city where people some-
times have a little leisure, elsewhere they
do business or seek pleasure ; here they live.
The very names of the streets — Chestnut,
Walnut, Vine, Spruce, Pine, — have a fresh
and wholesome breath about them. It may
be fancy, but the women here seem prettier,
and the men better set up. The New
Yorker takes a tram-car to go a quarter of
a mile, and grows fat; here the physical
type is more athletic. . . . The typical
American woman's face — long, thin, paie,
pure-eyed, like an early Italian Madonna —
is here richer and less austere. Middle-
class you may call the place, with its end-
less rows of sober red brick ; but middle-
class with little of dowdiness. and much
of rational stability. ... If few peoole
are very prosperous, few are very wretched.
In sum, Philadelphians get more happiness
per head out of their city than any other
townsmen in America."

In Philadelphia, he thought he had
found a city where somebody some-
times was not in a hurry.

On his way from this city to Can-
ton, Ohio he encountered McKin-
ley's brother.

"In the spectacle of that brother in the
smoking-compartment, American democ-
racy was writ so large as few people have

the luck to see it. He was not unlike the
picture of the candidate. He was stout, and
his trousers were tight; so very obviously
were his boots. ... He talked quite
freely about his celebrated brother, and he
talked to everybody who liked to talk with
him. The waiters in the dining-car slapped
him on the back. This morning I met him
again in a Canton newspaper office ; he was
diverting his mind with a little larking
among the reporters. Now, do try to
imagine it. When you can conceive the
brother of the man who has more than an
even chance of becoming the first citizen
among 60,000,000, larking with provincial
newspaper reporters and slapped on the
back by the conductor of a railway-train—
why, then you will be a good step on
towards the comprehension of the United
States of America."

He visited McKinley at his home
in Canton. The President-elect re-
minded him of Charles Bradlaugh,
with his clean-shaven face, lofty and
massive forehead, and mastiff power
of chin and jaw. His clear eyes,
wide nose, and full lips, in fact all
his features he thought suggested
dominant will and energy rather
than subtlety of mind or emotion.
"He is gifted with a kindly courtesy
that is plainly genuine and com-
pletely winnkig ... his personality
presents a rare combination of
strength and charm."

Early in October he reached Chi-
cago,

"queen and guttersnipe of cities, cynosure
and cesspool of the world. Not if I had a
hundred tongues, every one shouting a dif-
ferent language in a different key, could I
do justice to her splendid chaos. The most
beautiful and the most squalid, girdled with
a two-fold zone of parks and slums ; where
the keen air of the lake and prairie is ever
in the nostrils, the stench of foul smoke is
never out of the throat; the great port a
thousand miles from the sea; the great
mart which gathers up with one hand the
corn and the cattle of the West and deals
out with the other the merchandise of the
East ; widely and generously planned with
streets of twenty miles ; where it is not safe
to walk at night ; where women ride
straddlewise, and millionaires dine at mid-
day on the Sabbath ; the chosen seat of pub-
lic spirit and municipal boodle; of cut-
throat commerce and munificent patronage

TWO ENGLISH VIEWPOINTS

735

of art; the most American of American
cities, and yet the most mongrel ; the second
American city of the globe, the fifth Ger-
man city, third Swedish, second Polish, first
and only veritable Babel of the age; all of
which twenty-five years ago was a heap of
smoking ashes. Where in all the world can
words be found for this miracle of paradox
and incongruity?

"Here and there, among the castles of the
magnates you will come on a little one-
storeyed wooden shanty, squatting many feet
below the level of the road, paint and
washed-out playbills peeling oft it, and the
broken windows hanging in shreds. Then
again will come a patch of empty, scrubby
waste, choked with rank weeds and rubble.
It is the same thing with the carriages in
which the millionaires and their families
drive up and down after church on Sun-
day. They are gorgeously built and mag-
nificently horsed, only the coachman is
humping his back or the footman is cross-
ing his legs. These are trivialities, but not
altogether insignificant. The desire to turn
out in style is there, and the failure in a
little thing betrays a carelessness of detail,
an incapacity for order and proportion,
which are of the essence of Chicago.

"Chicago is conscious that there is some-
thing in the world, some sense of form, of
elegance, of refinement, that with all her
corn and railways, her hogs and by-products
and dollars, she lacks. She does not quite
know what it is, but she is determined to
have it, cost what it may. Mr. Phil Armour,
the hog king, giving a picture to the gallery,
and his slaughter-house men painfully
spelling out the description of it on Sundajr
afternoon — there is something rather pa-
thetic in this, and assuredly very noble.
Some day Chicago will turn her savage
energy to order and co-operation. Instead
of a casual horde of jostling individuals she
will become a city of citizens. She will learn
that freedom does not consist solely in con-
tempt for law. On the day she realizes this
she will become the greatest, as already she
is the most amazing, community in the
world."

While there Mr. Steevens called
on the "strongest man in America,"
Mr. Hanna, who was then busy at
his headquarters in the Auditorium
building. He describes him as
"merely short, ruddy, not thin, with
firm lips and a twinkle in his eye,
and short side-whiskers that make
him look almost like an English-
man."

After a brief sojourn among the

enterprising farmers of Wisconsin,
he started for Denver and the Coast.
The "Queen City of the Plains"
seemed to him more plain than
queenly, but he complimented her
upon having risen superior to Amer-
ican carelessness in at least one re-
spect, having put boards at each
street corner with names, "but many
of the corners have the brackets and
no boards."

He raved over the matchless situ-
ation of Salt Lake City, where the
"gray mountains keep off the winds,
the emerald lake gives health, the
cloudless blue gives life and activ-
ity." The passing impression of
Nevada he summed up in the one
word — "dust." And then he arrived
in California, "the most versatile
State of the Union, ... a
country that has very manifestly
ways of its own and a will of its
own," and the people have adapted
themselves to their environment.
What it seems good to them to do,
that they do, whether it is to wear a
black shirt or hold up a train. And
San Francisco he flatteringly re-
marks is the one city of America
where you can maintain a semi-offi-
cial wife without the least prejudice
to your position in society.

Early in November he sailed for
England, having recrossed the con-
tinent via the Canadian Pacific Rail-
way. At the end of his two months'
"scamper" in "The Land of the Dol-
lar," he was ready to testify that
England had not yet learned the A
B C of railway travelling. He could
not say whether it is because of busi-
ness, pleasure, or habit, that America
is well equipped for travel, but she
is. In his opinion, the country is a
credit to the American, and he is to
the country.

"You may differ from him, you may laugh
at him; but neither of these is the pre-

736

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

dominant emotion he inspires. Even while
you differ or laugh, he is essentially the
man with whom you are always wanting to
shake hands."

III.

This, then, is the America of yes-
terday and to-day. What a differ-
ence a century has made ! The pop-
ulation has increased from 4,000,000
to 60,000,000. The metropolis is no
longer Philadelphia, but New York.
And the best hotel of the metropolis
is no longer described as "deficient
in comfort," but as a "palace of mar-
ble and glass, gold and greenery."

If the educated and genial Twining
found no difference between an
American and an English fireside
one hundred years ago, and found
that the Americans possessed the
same domestic propensities as their
ancestors, the keen-sighted journal-
ist of to-day finds that the Amer-
icans talk a great deal about home —

"man never builds himself a house : he
builds himself a home. But you cannot call
a people who will never be happy ten years
in the same place, who build themselves
houses with the view of shortly moving
them bodily somewhere else, who often vol-
untarily live in public and comfortless
hotels — you cannot call them home-loving
in the English sense."

Yesterday we read that almost
every one was engaged in politics or
speculative enterprise, and again
that the object of almost every
American of the period was to make
a profitable speculation. To-day we
are called the keenest business peo-
ple in the world. The American
"who fails in business has failed in
the one thing there is to do. The
one test of worth in business is to
make money, for that is the object
of business. Failing in that, his fail-
ure is absolute;" however, "it is not
the dollars they worship, but the
faculties that get them."

Courteous as Mr. Twining was,
he could scarcely keep from writing
after every journey that it was the
roughest that he had ever had. Evi-
dently we had much to learn which
either England or India could have
taught us. To-day it is we who
know how to travel with ease and
comfort, and the mother country has
yet to learn the alphabet.

New York is still the most attrac-
tive of all the American cities. It
has grown from a questionable two
miles in length to a giant of thirteen
miles' extent. And if Twining were
to walk down Broadway to-day, he
would no doubt be as much sur-
prised at the twenty-storied build-
ings as the New Yorkers would be
to see him with his powdered hair
and ruffled shirt front.

To this early traveller, the order
and system and sameness of Phila-
delphia was "monotonous." To the
later tourist the "even sky-line," the
"whole terraces built on a single
plan" of Boston, appeal as something
"comparatively English." Has the
English viewpoint changed, or is
this the personal bias? And is it the
same bias that makes "Chestnut
Street" sound "whimsical" to the
one, and "fresh and wholesome" to
the other?

In the nineteenth century Alex-
andria was not visited as the "for-
midable rival to Washington," but
Chicago, undreamed of in Twining's
time, had outclassed even Philadel-
phia and Baltimore. But if his Alex-
andrian prophecy has failed, what of
his forecast of the future Washing-
ton? "The capitol promised to be a
large and handsome building." And
of the country? "America, a great
and fine country, destined hence-
forth to hold a conspicuous rank
amongst the nations."

The Poland Spring Art Exhibition

AN art critic, writing in 1901 of
the development of American
art, declared that there were
far too many artists in the United
States to admit of a healthy con-
dition of the national art, and fur-
thermore, that the quality of the
work put out by the majority of
these painters was decidedly in-
ferior. As a matter of fact, there is
a recorded list of about 3,000 artists,
including painters, sculptors and
illustrators, residing for the most
part, in the cities of New York, Bos-
ton, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Whether or not we agree with the
art critic's conclusions, it is certain
that a nation that can produce and
maintain so large a number of artists
is not so wholly given over to a
crude materialism and so lacking in
aesthetic ideals as it is the fashion
in many quarters to assume is true
of the United States. And if there
be wanting additional proofs that
the fine arts in America are not
being permitted to languish, it might
be said that there are at present over
150 organizations for the encourage-
ment of art, including art galleries,
museums, libraries, arts and crafts
societies, and leagues for civic im-
provement, 50 of these societies
being located in New York City, un-
questionably the art centre of the
country. There are about 230 schools
of art, including schools and colleges
that have an art department, and 41
art magazines. For the season of
1903-4, 55 art exhibitions were
scheduled to take place.

It also may be interesting to know
in connection with this subject that

737

for the years 1 900-1 901 -1902- 1903,
in paintings were sold in America
for $5,000 and over, the highest price
being $50,000, which was paid for a
"Holy Family" by Rubens. A Titian
drew the next lowest price, $42,000.
These figures are given, as represent-
ing the high-water mark of Amer-
ican appreciation of art — not native,
however, be it noticed.

Undoubtedly, the most hopeful
sign in connection with the art de-
velopment of America is the increas-
ing number of art exhibitions and
the generally high quality of the
work shown. Surely, if the masses
of our people are to be educated to
a love, or at least an appreciation, of
the ideal and the beautiful, there is
no more fruitful way of accomplish-
ing this result than by the frequent
exhibition of the best work of our
modern sculptors and painters.

Winter and spring exhibitions
held under the auspices of art socie-
ties and institutes are of frequent
occurrence in our large cities. There
is, however, with an unimportant
exception, only one annual summer
exhibition of art held in the United
States, that at the gallery of the
Maine State Building at Poland
Spring, South Poland, Maine.

A summer exhibition of art is so
great a rarity as to have sufficient
distinction for that reason alone, but
that held at Poland Spring, from
June to October, is unique in many
ways, and of an artistic importance
equal if not superior to many metro-
politan exhibits. First, it is the only
exhibition ever held in the State of
Maine. Second, it is the only ex-

738

N E W ENGL A N D MAGAZINE

hibition which is a permanent fea-
ture in connection with a large sum-
mer hotel ; and third, it is maintained
under unusual difficulties in the way
of transportation, and at great ex-
pense. Imagine an exhibition of the
representative work of New York
and Boston artists being held for ten
consecutive seasons on the top of a
hill "way back in the woods," re-
mote from cities, and removed from
the railroad station by several miles!
Furthermore, it is a strictly private
enterprise — and all the more credit-
able on that account — an inspiration
of the Ricker family, proprietors of
one of the most important hotel in-
terests in the United States. And
because of the generosity and the
high ideals of this family, a collec-
tion of the best examples of modern
American art is yearly made access-
ible not only to the wealthy patrons
of a fashionable Spa, but to the peo-
ple of rural communities within a
radius of 30 or 40 miles, into whose
restricted lives it brings perhaps
their single note of aesthetic pleas-
ure, and an influence that cannot fail
to be educational and uplifting.

In size and attractiveness, in the
quality of the work shown, and the
prominence of artists represented,
the exhibition of 1904 is regarded as
the culmination of all previous
efforts. This has been due almost
wholly to the energy and rare good
judgment displayed by Miss Nettie
M. Ricker, the prime mover in the
undertaking. It was Miss Ricker
who personally visited the studios
of New York and Boston artists, so-
liciting their participation and se-
lecting their work, an arduous un-
dertaking attended by many trials
and vexations, and calling for un-
limited patience and an enthusiasm
such as is only felt by a true art
amateur.

It will thus be seen that the Poland
art exhibition is unique in still an-
other respect. It has been collected
by one individual, and has not suf-
fered from the disadvantage of a
jury of selection. There is no work
exempt because its creator is "on
the jury." There are no pictures
hung advantageously because a cer-
tain man's work is always well hung
owing to his position in the world.
There are no dreary portraits ac-
cepted because the sitters are im-
portant people, not to be overlooked
— in a word, there is absolutely no
special favor shown to any one per-
son or picture. The carping out-
sider who says he can tell exactly
who the jury and their friends are
by looking at the pictures "hung on
the line" has no chance in this par-
ticular case to make so spiteful but
ordinarily true a remark.

The exhibition has the further dis-
tinction of being in the midst of de-
lightful, romantic and historic sur-
roundings. To reach it, the transient
visitor, who alights from the train
at Danville Junction, must take an
exhilarating five-mile drive up-hill,
over a beautifully diversified and
picturesque country. The magnifi-
cent panorama of lake and meadow
and forest and mountain that lies
outspread before him at the top of
the hill will so distract the visitor's
attention that he will temporarily
forget that he climbed it primarily
to view works of art rather than the
work of nature ; and if it should
haply be at the sunset hour, the
glories of distant sky and mountain
will surely complete the charm.

Having feasted his eyes on the
beauties of nature, the visitor turns
his steps toward the Maine State
Building, in which the exhibition is
held. This edifice, standing at the
edge of a beautiful grove, is most

739

PORTRAIT OF HIS MOTHER,
By Scott Clifton Carbee.

740

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

unique and interesting on its own
account, and one of which Poland
Spring and its proprietors are justly
proud. For it was the Ricker
Brothers, who, after it had done its
duty as Maine's contribution at the
World's Fair of 1893, purchased it,
had it taken apart, shipped and re-
built here, as a "valuable State relic,
and dedicated for a Library and Art
Building, and as a Centennial
Memorial of the original settlement
of Poland Spring farm by the Ricker
family."

It is an imposing structure of
granite and wood, consisting of a
central tower and corner turrets,
with numerous balconies and pro-
jecting bay windows. The interior
is in the form of a large central ro-
tunda, finely lighted and reaching
almost to the roof. The first floor is
used for library, reading room and
museum purposes. On the third
floor is the art gallery, divided into
numerous alcoves, in which the pic-
tures have been appropriately
grouped and hung, under the per-
sonal superintendence of Mr. Frank
Carlos Griffith, the director of the
gallery, and librarian.

A hasty look, comprehending the
entire collection, will at once dis-
close the fact that it is of surprising
attractiveness and interest; while a
glance at the catalogue will reveal
a list of very famous names in the
world of art, such names, for in-
stance, among painters as J. Alden
Weir, John W. Alexander, Ben Fos-
ter, Louis Loeb, Childe Hassam,
Frank W. Benson, F. Luis Mora,
Charles H. Woodbury, Charles C.
Curran, Carroll Beckwith, H. Bolton
Jones, Louis Kronberg, Colin Camp-
bell Cooper, H. H. Gallison, J. G.
Brown, F. H. Tompkins, Abbott
Graves, Mary L. Macomber and
many others ; while Bela L. Pratt,

Samuel J. Kitson, Herbert Adams
and others are in the list of sculptors
represented.

The exhibition comprises in all
144 works, of which 119 are pictures,
and the rest are sculptures and
miniatures.

In a miscellaneous collection of
paintings, the critic does not often
find it a difficult matter to single out
examples of superior workmanship.
In this instance, however, space for-
bids the giving of particular men-
tion to all deserving of it, and much
really meritorious work must be ap-
parently overlooked. The pessimist,
quoted at the beginning of this arti-
cle, might be tempted to reverse his
opinion could he take a look at this
gallery of recent specimens of Amer-
ican art.

The element of "human interest"
is curiously apparent here — that is,
figure paintings and portraits seem
to predominate over landscapes, and
with the effect of a more immediate
and stronger claim on the attention
of the visitor. Indeed, the gallery
seems alive with human presences.

One of these paintings, instant in
its appeal to the cosmopolite and the
rustic, to the connoisseur and the
unlearned in art alike, is F. Luis
Mora's "Twilight." A young girl
with a poetic, lovely face is sitting in
an arm-chair, as if just aroused from
a reverie, while the maid lights the
lamp on the table at her side. The
picture is full of romantic sugges-
tion— the observer may see in it as
much or as little as he likes; the
pinkish glow of the lamp-light fall-
ing on the neck and diaphanous
gown of the sitter has a startling
effect of reality, and altogether the
painting has a charm and a distinc-
tion which places it far above the
ordinarv.

THE POLAND SPRING ART EXHIBITION

Another very striking
contribution is a full-
length portrait of a young
lady in black by E. L.
Ipsen. The subject is
most attractive and is
painted with a great deal
of spirit, and an evident
enjoyment. There is
nothing in it to suggest
the hard work of "making
a portrait," but the
thought comes to mind
that in his desire to avoid
anything suggesting
"mere prettiness," this
risin g young artist has
perhaps sacrificed some
real beauty in the orignal.

Still more striking is a
picture conceived in quite
a different vein, adding a
vivid note of color to the
gallery, Mr. Arthur M.
Hazard's large canvas,
"Fantasia." It is the life-
size portrait of a blonde
young woman in a light
blue, gown. „ She is rather
petite, and charmingly
plump, with a vivacous face;
and the whole composi-
tion is brilliantly painted,
the flesh tones especially carrying
the effect of firmness and substance
quite unusual. Seldom has Mr.
Hazard given a better example of
clever brush-work.

Mr. Scott Clifton Carbee, like
Whistler, has made the portrait of
his mother his masterpiece, and it
occupies a prominent place in this
collection. Showing in its execution
not only the technique of a skilful
artist, but the understanding, sym-
pathy and enthusiasm of a loving
son, the result is a strong, dignified
and faithful representation of serene
and lovely old age, — a composition

A PERSIAN MERCHANT,
By Mary N. Ri chardson.

whi^ch, in its seriousness of purpose
and tonal quality, conveys a sugges-
tion of Rembrandt.

Mr. F. H. Tompkins's well-known
portrait of a distinguished brother
artist, J. J. Enneking, also has a
place here. Without ever having
seen the original, the observer real-
izes that the artist has caught and
reproduced with telling effect, the
leading traits in his character and
disposition. It is an interesting
character portrait.

Still another "character portrait"
which stands out with peculiar
prominence is Mr. Carroll Beck-

\f*^fe

MOTHER AND CHILD,
By Era D. Cowdery

with's boldly painted likeness of
President Fellows, of the Maine
State University in his academical
robes.

Charles S. Parker's interesting
head of Elbert Hubbard is also a
good specimen of accurate portrait-
ure, while a remarkably effective and
well-executed painting of an attrac-
tive subject is Mrs. Catherine D.
Wentworth's portrait of a handsome
young lady arrayed in gray furs.

One of the choicest and cleverest
j ieces in the exhibition is Mr. John
W. Alexander's "The Green Gown."
Like. Whistler, Mr. Alexander sel-
dom aims to produce a likeness; he
concerns himself chiefly with colors
and textures, and in his knowledge
of values, and the delicacy of his
methods, he very often suggests
Whistler, in his work. This figure
of a girl with a rather subtle face,
posing in a thin, black and green

striped dress, is a good example of
Mr. Alexander's very individual type
of cleverness.

Next to the "Green Gown" hangs
a picture by a promising young Bos-
ton artist, Miss Pauline McKay. It
is a portrait conceived in a rather
sombre tone, of an earnest-faced
young woman in white, and it pos-
sesses a great deal of quiet force and
individuality.

Miss Mary N. Richardson, also of
Boston, shows a half life-size picture
of a Persian merchant in the pictur-
esque costume of his country — a
very interesting piece of work,
painted in a strong, broad manner,
■and -showing a good knowledge of
drawing and clair obscur.

Indeed, a surprising fact in con-
nection with this exhibition, is the
numerical force of Boston artists,
and the good work which they have
sent. Among those represented by

742

THE POLAND SPRING ART EXHIBITION 743

portrait or genre canvases may be
mentioned Louis Kronberg, Mary
L. Macomber, Eva D. Cowdery,
Marcia Oakes Woodbury, I. H.
Caliga and Ernest L. Major.

Mr. Kronberg is a young artist of
more than ordinary cleverness, his
specialty being the portrayal of the-
atrical life, ballet dancers, etc., and
his conceptions can always be relied
upon to have originality and force.
In his "End of the Ballet," at Poland
Spring, two charming young ladies,

ers in that she depicts the ideal and
the symbolic, rather than nature and
life. All her paintings have a relig-
ious or spiritual significance, and in
imagination and creative ability she
has often shown something akin to
genius. This Madonna is painted
in her earlier manner, and while by
no means one of her most effective
works, it is, in composition and quiet
harmony of color, singularly felici-
tous.

Mrs. Cowdery's contribution is

LANDSCAPE, BY M. H. GALLISON

seated in a box at the theatre, are
silhouetted in the shadowy fore-
ground, as they gaze with rapt atten-
tion on the curtain descending upon
the final ballet. It is a difficult com-
position, but Mr. Kronberg's sense
of values and perspective has en-
abled him to solve its problem's suc-
cessfully.

Miss Macomber is represented by
a Madonna. This young woman is
unique among New England paint-

entitled "Mother and Child." Artists
will at once recognize in its execu-
tion a virile technique, while it ap-
peals to all by its fidelity and simple
directness of feeling.

Mrs. Marcia Oakes Woodbury's
well-known triptych, "Mother and
Daughter," which was awarded a
prize at the Boston Art Club a few
years ago, gives an added distinction
to the Poland Spring Exhibit. It is
a study, in a subdued harmony of

744

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

tone, of the Dutch peasant woman,
finely conceived, and executed with
unmistakable fidelity.

Mr. Frank W. Benson of the Bos-
ton Museum School of Art has sent
his familiar picture, "Summer Sun-
light," representing a child in white
standing in the full light of outdoors.
Mr. Benson's sole aim in this pecu-
liar and charming picture is evi-
dently the effect of sunlight and
color, and he has gained it by
methods peculiarly his own. Mr.
Benson's work is nothing if not in-
dividual.

But the Poland Spring collection
does not consist entirely of figure
paintings and portraits. Some of its
choicest contributions are landscapes
and marines, the place of honor
being given to Mr. H. H. Gallison's
mammoth canvas, depicting the
sand dunes of Annisquam. This has
been termed Mr. Gallison's finest
painting, and well it might be, for
the artist has caught the very spirit
of the open. Sky and sea and breezy
upland are here presented with a
freedom and breadth of spirit, a
boldness of technique, and a truth
and richness of color that make it a
truly impressive picture.

John W. Alexander has sent an
oddly charming sketch, a group of
■tall, slender birches standing in
relief against a clear sky. J. Alden
Weir is also represented by two
compositions, very poetic in feeling
and satisfying in color, "Autumn,"
and "Spring, Windham, Conn."

Mr. Ben Foster's "Glimpse of
Lake Ontario" is a particularly well-
made piece of work ; and Mr. H. Bol-
ton Jones's "Spring" and "An After-
noon in Summer" are especially de-
lightful. Mr. Dwight Blaney sends
two paintings in his characteristic,
impressionist manner, "October,"
and "Toward the Sand Dunes."

Two other young artists who
paint in a somewhat impressionist
style, are also represented ; Mr. Wil-
ber Dean Hamilton by a study of
the Public Garden, called "Arling-
ton Gate," a very attractive bit, full
of atmosphere and subtle color; and
Mr. Herman Dudley Murphy by a
small canvas, "The Strand, London,
England," a difficult composition,
successfully handled.

Among the marines, Mr. Charles
H. Woodbury's "Ogunquit" and
"After the Equinox" take first rank.
Mr. Woodbury shows the ocean in
its moods of sublimity and cruel
grandeur, as few artists have suc-
ceeded in doing, and his work is
more individual than that of any
marine artist before the public. By
what process of magic brush-work
he gets his results is a mystery, but
his /surging billows express all the
restless sweep and power of the
ocean, and his wonderful color ef-
fects, while always true to nature,
could never be attributed to any
other artist. Boston claims Charles
H. Woodbury with pride.

Walter L. Dean has also sent two
characteristic marines. Those who
are acquainted with their Gloucester
know how well he has caught and
imprisoned its spirit in his charming
painting, "Gloucester Harbor." His
other work is the well-known pic-
ture of two fishermen lost in the fog,
a painting that never fails in its ap-
peal to the imagination. For the
"story" element is strongly in evi-
dence, and though the lovers of art
"for art's sake" may rail at "literary
purpose" in a painting, such com-
positions as this one of Mr. Dean's
hold a rightful place in the world of
true art. Would that more of our
modern painters would deign to in-
ject a few ideas into their "pictorial"
but empty canvases !

EWES HEAD,
By J. A. S. Monks.

Two other marines, very distinc-
tive and marked by local fidelity, are
Mr. W. J. Bixbee's "After the
Storm, Marblehead," and Carlton T.
Chapman's "Fishing Boats, English
Channel."

"Sunrise" and "sunset" paintings
have a never-failing charm for the
popular mind, for, next to pictures
with the "something happening" im-
plication, those that reproduce, or
attempt to, nature's own wonderful
color effects as seen in the morning
and evening sky, have a peculiar at-
traction for the unpretending lover
of art. Perhaps in no kind of paint-
ing is there a wider scope for the
imagination to get in its work than

745

in a "Sunset." A wonderful dreamy
and poetic charm may be expressed
or suggested in its subtle variations
and nuances of color. On the other
hand, it may easily degenerate, un-
der an unsure brush, into a ludicrous
or painful travesty. Mr. W. P. Bur-
pee, in his two paintings at Poland
Spring, "Sunrise at Capri" and "Sun-
set," and Mr. H. W. Faulkner, in his
"Sunrise in Venice, Salute," have
each expressed, in his own individual
way, much of that ideal charm and
satisfying color relation that I have
in mind.

Of paintings of animals there are
few at Poland Spring, chiefly for the
reason that the painters themselves

746

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

are rare. To paint animals accept-
ably implies a very unusual order
of talent.

Mr. J. A. S. Monks is a Boston
artist who has made the painting of
sheep his specialty. His landscape
with sheep and his "Ewe's Head" at
Poland Spring justify the high rank
he has attained in this line of work.
They are realistically and finely
painted, and betray a surprising
knowledge of his interesting and
difficult subjects.

In the midst of this collection of
large and striking canvases that in-
sistently claim the attention, the
small, delicate and unobtrusive art
of the miniaturist which also has a
place here, is in danger of being
overlooked. But not by the discrim-
inating critic. It is noticeable that
most miniature painters are women.
Those represented here include Ethel
Blanchard, Sally Cross, Jean N.
Oliver, Lizzie Frances Waite, Eliza-
beth Taylor Watson, Nellie L.
Thompson, Emma G. Moore and
Ava D. Lagercrantz. All have con-
tributed work of high quality. Miss
Blanchard's three miniatures, in-
cluding a portrait of Roswell M.
Field, should be especially com-
mended, as also Miss Cross's charm-
ing "Portrait of Miss L." Very
noticeable, too, are Mrs. Watson's
"Suggestion of a Flower," Miss
Wait's portrait of "Elmer Wait"
and Miss Oliver's head of a lovely
child.

A word or two must be said re-
garding the exhibit of sculptures, a
relatively small but creditable show-
ing. Bela L. Pratt has sent four bas-
reliefs, including his already well-
known reliefs of Dr. Shattuck's chil-
dren and the Herbert Sears children,
singularly charming and faithful rep-
resentations of childhood. Herbert
Adams's "Figure of a Bather" is fine

MINIATURE (PORTRAIT OF MISS L.),
By Sally Cross.

in sentiment and execution. Samuel
J. Kitson is represented by a bust of
E. S. Converse and one of Col.
Henry Walker, and Thomas Brock
by a bust of Henry W. Longfellow,
all excellent and characteristic work.

In a final summing up of the
Poland Spring Art Exhibition of
1904, it cannot be said that it con-
tains no work deserving of unfavor-
able criticism, and no work that does
not add distinction to the gathering.
Mistakes will creep into the best
regulated art exhibitions. Yet it
must be said that the mistakes hang-
ing in the gallery at Poland are few
indeed. It has been the present
writer's task to praise a small part of
what has seemed worthy of praise,
leaving much meritorious work per-
force unmentioned.

Art, as somebody has said, is, after
all, a personal matter. Every eye
forms its own beauty, every mind its
own criterion, and the question of
what is good in art will always be

THE HOME PATH

747

determined by individual standards,
within the limits of certain broadly
accepted ideals. But there is much
room for latitude, for good art is as
broad and all-embracing as creation
itself.

When the world was younger, its
wise old Mother, the Church, made
art the instrument of her own ends.
She raised up a brilliant progeny of
painter sons, who nobly served her
in interpreting the Bible for the un-
learned majority. Art is no longer
the expression of a religious senti-
ment, and the world has lost its un-

questioning faith in theology and
the Scriptures. Yet art, many-sided
and individual as it has become, has
not lost its potency as a refining and
spiritualizing influence. It is a cor-
rective of public taste — with which
morals are inextricably intertwined
— the bearer of sweetness and light
to the multitude. It is not a luxury
for the rich, nor a fad for the few;
and the Gospel of Art cannot be, and
is not being, preached in any better
way than by such exhibitions as
those held annually at Poland

v_,r 1 HI;.,.

MINIATURE,
By Jean N. Oliver

The Home Path

By Frank Walcott Hutt

I CHOSE from many paths an August way
Because I knew the wild fern made it sweet,
Because I knew old fields of corn and wheat
Safeguarded it through all a summer day,
Till, of a glorious twilight, it should stray,
Dappled and dimpling to my eager feet
Unto a garden-path that soon should meet
A doorstone where my memory-children play.
The August way persuades me when the year
Grows fragrant with the feasts of aftermath ;
Calm voices murmur on my August path,
And through the turmoil of the town I hear
The whispering of leaves, the plash of rains,
The soothing symphonies of orchard lanes.

Joe Veltman's Moving Day

By A. L. Sykes

HISTORY does not tell us that
the place of Joel Veltman's
birth was a moving-van, but
it is well known that his father had
the moving fever in a no less violent
form than he bequeathed to his son,
and that Joel's memories of boyhood
must have been vivid pictures of
strange new places ; of exhilarating
journeys perched beside eloquent
drivers on the high seats of vans ; of
feasts fit for a king, spread upon
barrel tops and trunk lids, and of
entries, palpitant with expectation,
into towns, filled, for him, with boys
whom he would conquer or by whom
he would be conquered. Age could
not vanquish him, for in the lifetime
of his first wife he moved a dozen
times, and his friends and relatives
unanimously agreed that "the poor
critter was hauled about from pillar
to post till she had to die to get a
good rest."

At the end of a lonely year he
moved back to his native town with
a newly-acquired wife, — a hand-
some, buxom, black-eyed woman,
who could work all day and be as
fresh as a daisy at night, in contrast
to Joel, who was as lean as a
herring, liked dreaming better than
doing, and had the face of a fifty-
year-old boy, and wistful blue eyes
that seemed always to gaze into vast
distances.

The feel of spring was in the air;
the voices of the first frogs were like
little silver bells ringing in the dis-
tance, and Joel Veltman, sitting com-

fortably on the step of the back
door, felt stirred by a vague unrest.
He could hear the happy voice of his
wife as she sang softly over her
work, and presently she called him.

"Time for bed, Joel, if we're going
to get the pease in to-morrow, and
I want to get my flower seeds in,
too ; it's most too late for 'em, but
I'm bound that nobody'll have a
prettier front yard then mine this
summer."

He went in with his mass of fair
hair mixed with gray fluffed out
about his head in the semblance of a
halo, and his eyes shining with ex-
citement, and silently entered the
little sleeping room, where presently
she followed him and proceeded to
brush her hair vigorously before the
old-fashioned bureau. Reflected in
the low mirror she could see his face
on the pillow. Once she caught his
eyes fixed eagerly upon her, and
finally he spoke :

"Rilla, it's most Movin' Day, and
I've about decided to go to Ayre-
toun."

"For the summer?" she asked sar-
castically, her heart beating furi-
ously with the painful thought of
leaving the little place she called
"home ;" the garden ready for plant-
ing, and the new friends who had
grown dear to her.

"Now, Rilla, you don't need to get
riled. We've been married six
months and not a word yet. Just
because I haven't been suited is no
sign I can't be. I'd like to settle

748

JOEL VELTMAN'S MOVING DAY

'49

down., but somehow I can't get
suited."

"I hear from your folks that you
stay suited all right till spring comes
around; it's in your blood, I reckon,
like love of drink or wantin' to kill
people, and if I was you I'd try to
get rid of a bad habit before I died.
I promised to be your faithful wife,
ibut I didn't calculate to marry a
gypsy, and I'm not goin' to live with
one."

"Rilla, ain't you willin to go to
Ayretoun?" he asked, half queru-
lously.

She looked like a splendid Val-
kyrie maiden, as she stood in the
light from the dim lamp, with her
-firm white throat, and the dark
splendid masses of her hair out-
spread.

"I'm willin' to live in Millville, and
I'm willin' to live in Bridgeton, and
I'm willin' to live in Ayretoun, but
I'm not willin' to be yanked back
and forth from one to another as
long as I live. I don't want to rake
up no past dead leaves on your fam-
ily tree, Joel Veltman, but if you
want me to live you've got to let me
"have a home and get rooted-like."

"Seems to me I'd kinder hate to
get rooted," he said meditatively.

"I know you would, but you've
got to if you live with me. I'll go
this once, but you must promise
never to ask me again. I've got a
hundred dollars saved of my own,
and there's fifty more in the box, so
we could make a payment on this
little place, and own it before long,
if you wasn't like a tramp, — always
•a-wanderin'."

"There's no use in talkin', Rilla;
it seems best to me, and I can't see
it no other way."

"I believe you, Joel ; the trouble is
that it always seems best to you
about the first of every May, and

sometimes at the beginnin' of Sep-
tember."

"Well, well, let's not argufy any
more about it. It's settled that we
move to Ayretoun, and stay there,"
and the man gave a little sigh of sat-
isfaction and relief, and fell asleep
as quickly and quietly as a child.

Moving Day came, warm and
hazily fair; the roads were white
with dust, and the air sweet with
the fragrance of blossoms and the
fruitful earth. Joel was in his ele-
ment, tying the household goods
firmly in their places in the van, and
exchanging jocular remarks with the
driver, who lounged on the pl>rch,
flicking the flies from his boots with
his long whip, or lazily rising now
and then to lend a hand with the
heavy pieces of furniture.

The capable wife, for the first time
since her marriage, felt strangely
useless and out of place. She wan-
dered from house to garden, drop-
ping hot tears on the rich brown
earth of the flower beds, where en-
ticing unknown growths of another's
planting were pushing their way in-
to the sunlight, and from garden to
house again, walking through the
rooms, so clean, so bright, so pleas-
ant, but alas ! so empty.

"Load's ready," called Joel at
length, and, dusty and warm but tri-
umphant, he helped her into her
chair in the wagon, where she was
to sit, as it were in a little room en'
closed by walls of bedsteads and
bureaus.

"I'll come back for the other load
while you are fixin' the house at
Ayretoun," said Joel, cheerfully, but
the woman's eyes were blind with
tears, and she could not see the little
house as she turned her face for the
farewell glance. The great van
creaked lazily along, and the dust
enveloped them in a gray mist,

"50

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

through which could be dimly seen
the young shimmering green of the
fruit trees, and the pale yellow and
pink and silver of oak and elms and
maples, and the faint blue sky, look-
ing never so high and deep.

Frequently they met other moving-
parties, — the children running bare-
foot beside the vans and the women
sitting contentedly in their rocking
chairs, while the men of the family
were always ready to stop and ex-
change greetings with Joel and his
driver.

"Hello, Joel, got it again?" they
would cry, with a wink, or "Joel,
where are you goin' to hang out
now?" One driver, who had moved
his goods many times, called, "Wal
now, Joel Veltman ! Hain't you
never goin' to get settled?"

Every word fell like a stone on
the wife's heart,' and finally, as one
jeering party became lost in the dust,
she pulled the furniture about so
that she could not be seen, but she
could not shut out the sound of the
mocking voices calling after them :

"Good-bye, Joel ; see you next
spring," and "Make it September,
Joel ; you don't want to get moss-
growed."

They jogged along and Rilla from
her hiding place could see only the
monotonous bulge of the driver's
jaw as he chewed industriously, and
her husband's pale head and face in
its coating of dust, looking like a
clay bust against the blue back-
ground of the sky. Busy with her
thoughts, she paid little attention to
the conversation of the two men, but
presently the horses stopped, for
other travellers were to be greeted,
and at length these words forced
themselves upon her ears:

"Ever been to Bellview?" asked a
strange voice.

"No, but I've heard it's a fine
place," said Joel.

" 'Tis that. Trolleys, electric
lights, sewage system. What's your
trade?"

"Wagon painting."

"Jest the place for you, then. Try
it next movin' day."

"Well, p'raps,, — no, I've got to
settle somewhere, and I guess Ayre-
toun'll suit me."

"Well, if anything happens and
you should change your mind, let me
know. I want to rent a part of my
shop cheap to a good man."

"Of course," said Joel, "if any-
thing should happen, I might — " and
then he glanced apprehensively over
his shoulder at his wife, who was
apparently absorbed in her thoughts.
Joel clucked to the horses, and the
stranger, being an astute man, called
after him encouragingly, "See you
later?"

"Mebbe, mebbe," grumbled Joe,
and as he looked off toward the
smoke of Bellview's factories his
face wore an expression such as
might have been upon the face of
Rasselas when leaving the Happy
Valley he looked down upon the nar-
row wandering current of the Nile.

The young wife caught the look
and when they stopped at the little
inn where the sign-post told them
that their journey was half done, she
climbed up on the driver's seat and
held the reins while the men stood
about the pump and talked. The
landlord stood with them, and pres-
ently she heard the word "Bellview,"
and the two walked out of sight
around the corner of the house, and
the driver winked his eye knowingly
and climbed to his seat.

"He ain't scarcely out o' one fit
before he's into another, is he?" he
asked, with a sardonic glance.

JOEL VELTMAN'S MOVING DAY

'51

"It pays to mind a body's own
business," said Rilla stonily. "You're
paid to drive, so you jest turn the
horses around the other way."

"Why, what for? I jest wouldn't
da'st, ma'am."

"Who's goin' to pay you if I don't?
Here's the money in my hand now,
and if you don't obey orders you
sha'n't see a penny of it."

The driver swung himself down
from his seat to the ground and
scuttled fearfully around the corner
of the inn, saying : "Now, ma'am,
jest be ca'm a minute till I speak to
Mr. Veltman."

His minute stretched to five be-
fore he found Joel Veltman and the
landlord sitting comfortably on the
chopping block, discussing the vary-
ing advantages of adjacent towns.

"Well, I guess Ayretoun will have
to do for me this time," said Joel
rising, as the appearance of the
driver recalled him to the duties of
the present flitting.

"I reckon your wife has something
to say to you about that. 'Pears to
me that she's worse than you are,
and wants to move back to Bridge-
ton already," said the driver.

"Women's kittle cattle," laughed
the landlord, and the three men
sauntered around to the front of the
inn. Joel found no wife and no van,
and far down the broad white road
travelled a cloud of dust that could
conceal nothing but Rilla and her
household goods, drawn by two gal-
loping horses.

"Galloping them horses, by the
jumping Jehosophat !" gasped the
driver.

"There ain't no team to be got
here, nor anywhere else to-day, so
we might as well foot it," said Joel,
doggedly, and off they started,
ploughing through the dust and heat
of the country road.

"Women is deceiving critters," so-
liloquized the driver, after the first
mile was covered, "but they's two
sides to most questions. You've
moved more'n your share. Folks
say worms will turn, but I kind o'
think, Joel Veltman, that your worm
is a kind of a sarpint. I wouldn't
allow no woman to fool me twict."

"Now see here," said Joel mildly,
as nearly angry as he could be, "I
done what I thought was best. Rilla
ain't no fool; probably she done the
same. It's awful irritatin', and goin'
to make lots of extra work and
trouble and expense, but I ain't ask-
ing you to worry about it, and when
we get back to Bridgeton we'll know
what struck Rilla so suddent like,
and made her act like a crazy
woman."

"She wa'n't pleased with your
waverin' ways about Bellview, and
so she put on the breeches, and
drove home," said the driver, but
Joel gave no reply, and in silence
they trudged the remaining eight
miles back to Bridgeton.

As they neared the little house,
Joel saw that the familiar white cur-
tains fluttered at the windows ;
smoke ascended from the chimney,
and the savory smell of a good din-
ner was wafted to the nostrils of the
tired and hungry men. The team
was tied before the gate, and the
driver, after a pitying examination of
his horses, climbed triumphantly to
his seat, vowing to himself that no
woman should ever so much as
touch those reins again.

Joel went, tired and hungry, and
white with dust, around to the back
door. Here stood the tubs, the
mops, the brooms, all in their accus-
tomed places, and wonder of won-
ders ! as he looked into the pleasant
kitchen everything was as usual :
bright shining tins on the racks;

752

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

flowers and curtains at the windows ;
the polished range in its place, and
Rilla cooking away in neat print
dress and white apron, as though
she had never thought of moving.
She turned; saw him, and said
brightly:

"My, Joel ! You're jest a pillar of
dust. Dinner's most ready; hadn't
you better wash and change? I've
laid your clothes out on the bed."

Joel was too stunned to reply, and
into the bedroom he went, to find
everything as usual, from his toilet
necessities, laid in their places, to
the bed in its neat white coverlet,
and even his slippers in their place
at the foot.

He came out pink and shining, his
pale hair bright with cleanliness, and
found dinner on the table : chops
done to a turn ; feathery mashed po-
tatoes, asparagus cooked in the way
he liked it, and, to cap the climax, his
favorite pie.

"Sit down, Joel, and eat while it's
hot, and I'll pour your coffee," and
he sat down, too humbled by this
latter-day magic to ask a question,
and only Rilla knew how the women
of the neighborhood had turned out
in a body, and how hard twenty
pairs of hands had worked to put the
house in its usual order.

The dinner was good and Joel ate
with appetite, and afterward took
his pipe, and went out to speak to
the driver. In his bewilderment he
had not thought of him before. No
driver was to be seen, and Joel,
doubly bewildered, sat down under
the wistaria-laden porch to solve, if
possible, this puzzling problem.

Presently Rilla came out and sat
beside him. She rolled her arms
nervously in her apron, and tears
were in her eyes.

"Now see here, Joel," she said. "I
jest can't rest till we have an under-

standin'. I know you ain't mad or
sulky, but you don't say nothin', so
I'll have to. I saw you weren't goin'
to be satisfied at Ayretoun, even till
we got there, so I made up my mind
that I'd have a home even if you
didn't want one. I stopped and paid
a hundred dollars on the house, and
I guess it will be ours before long, if
we try. I won't bind you none, Joel,
but I want us to live here jest as
long as we live. I jest can't think of
livin' without a home."

"Where's the driver?" asked Joel
irrelevantly, for he had not yet re-
covered the power of thought.

"I paid him, and paid him extra,
and gave him enough to buy his din-
ner besides."

"Well, it beats me," said Joel,
"but somehow I can't be mad; p'raps
I'm too tired to feel, or p'raps I'm
goin' to be sick, and mebbe I ate too
much dinner, but I never felt this
way before."

"How, Joel?" she asked fearfully.

"Oh, kind o' quiet and dead-like,
as if there wasn't anything in the
world for me to do."

"But there is, Joel; more orders
than you can fill in a month. That
was one reason why I didn't want to
leave here," and with this suggestion
she left him and went back to her
work, half happy, yet half afraid
when she thought of her daring
deed.

As the man worked in his little
shop that afternoon the sound of his
wife's voice came to him from the
garden, where she dug and planted
to her heart's content, and a strange
new feeling of happiness crept into
his heart, and a curious sense of
pride filled him as he looked about
his neat little shop, and over the
garden-ground to the pleasant little
cottage which was to be theirs some
day.

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE

753

It was not until night, though,
that the last hold on the old life was
gone. Once more he lay in his com-
fortable bed watching his wife's
face as she combed and brushed her
splendid hair.

"I hope you untied all them strong
strings careful that I tie things on
loads with, Rilla," he said.

"I didn't, Joel. I cut 'em all to
pieces with the carving knife, when
I took the things off, and burned
'em afterward."

"All them good strings?"

"Yes, for remember, Joel, you
won't never need 'em again, but re-

member, too, I ain't bindin' you
none. When you feel as if you must
wander, you jest wander, but don't
forget that I'm waitin' for you, faith-
ful and true."

"I feel kind o' strange and queer-
like. Mebbe I'm not goin' to be
over-particular about wanderin'," he
said, drowsily, and then sleep took
him as it takes tired children.

The woman leaned long from her
window in the fragrant dark, and
again her tears dropped upon the
green growing things that grew be-
neath her window, but now they
were sweet tears of joy.

The Beginnings of American Science

The First Botanist

By John H. Lovell

TWO hundred years ago, at the
beginning of the eighteenth
century, North America, with
the exception of a narrow fringe of
English settlements along the At-
lantic seaboard and the French col-
onies in Canada and Louisiana, was
an unexplored wilderness. Phila-
delphia, which more than any other
city enjoys the honor of being the
birthplace of American science, was
not founded until 1683, and the
sources and course of the Schuylkill
were then unknown. The early
settlers, too often pressed by famine
and the severities of winter, and in
constant fear of the Indians, had
neither the time nor the inclination
to study the natural productions of
the New World. It was not possi-
ble for them to explore the forests
of the south, or to traverse the illim-

itable plains beyond the Alleghanies.
As to the great rivers and lofty
mountain ranges of the west they
were scarcely more than myths. The
early voyagers record with delight
the luxuriance of the vegetation, the
greenness of the forests, and the
abundance of the flowers. Even the
rugged coast of New England ap-
peared to Bartholomew Gosnold like
an extensive park. A few travellers
had carried back to Europe scattered
collections of animals and plants,
but at this period no production of
the new continent was rarer than a
native naturalist.

During the eighteenth century the
chemical and physical properties of
the earth's crust, and the forms of
life which it supports, were for the
first time carefully studied. Chem-
istry, geology and biology were

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZI N E

placed upon a scientific basis. The
ill-fated Lavoisier laid the founda-
tions of modern chemistry by the in-
troduction of the balance and the
demonstration of the principles of
combustion. Werner in Germany
and Hutton in Scotland investigated
the origin and structure of rocks and
their formation into strata, while
William Smith of England made the
first geological map. But the most
progressive science of the age was
biology. The reason for this is not
far to seek. It was due to the rise of
the spirit of geographical discovery
and the immense collections, which
were brought home to Europe.
Jesuit missionaries and adventurous
travellers penetrated the hidden
parts of Asia and Africa, while nu-
merous expeditions were dispatched
by England and France for the ex-
ploration of the Pacific Ocean. Of
these the most famous were the three
voyages of Cook. Many new islands
were brought to light, and among
them the island-continents of New
Zealand and Australia. There will
never again be an opportunity in the
world's history to investigate the
flora and fauna of a new continent.
But at this time the natural history
of the great islands of the Pacific, as
well as of Africa and the two Amer-
icas, was almost wholly unknown.

Numerous private and public
museums were formed at great ex-
pense ; the splendid collections of
Sir Hans Sloane, representing an
outlay of over 50,000 pounds, be-
came, after his death, the basis of the
British Museum, while the museum
of John Hunter, the first compara-
tive anatomist, cost him over 70,000
pounds. Public botanical gardens
were established at London, Paris
and Vienna. A wide popular inter-
est in the distribution and life hi's-
tories of animals was created by the

writings of Buffon. Hundreds of
students came to Sweden to listen
to Linnaeus, and, filled with en-
thusiasm by the teachings of the
great reformer, departed to explore
every quarter of the globe. Sparr-
mann visited the Cape of Good
Hope, Thunberg accompanied the
Dutch embassy to Japan, Fabricius
explored Greenland, Osbeck worked
in Java, Solander sailed with Cook
to the south sea, Gmelin long re-
mained in Persia, Kalm collected in
North America, Mutis in South
America, Koenig found many new
things in Tranquebar, while For-
skall died a martyr to science in
Arabia. Of the French botanists,
Joseph Jussieu remained an exile
for thirty-five years in Peru, and
Adanson deliberately risked his life
for the exploration of Senegal, a land
wholly unknown to naturalists be-
cause of the unhealthiness of its cli-
mate. Never was there a period of
equal activity in collecting. Daily
the number of known animals and
plants increased ; but there was no
recognized system of nomenclature
description, or classification. Fur-
ther progress in the descriptive
sciences became impossible, until
this enormous mass of material was
reduced to order. In Linnaeus biol-
ogy found its great organizer, and
with the publication of the Systema
Naturae entered upon a new era.
The little town of Upsala became
the scientific centre of the world.

The enthusiasm and activity with
which scientific investigation was
pursued in Europe was soon felt in
this country. Naturally attention
was directed chiefly toward the ex-
ploration of our fauna and flora,
though singularly enough the phys-
ical sciences yielded the greatest tri-
umph. The difficulties to be over-
come appeared almost insurmount-

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE

755

able. The Avork was carried on by
a few farmers and physicians amid
the active duties of their trade or
profession. After travelling through
New York and Pennsylvania, Dr.
Garden declared that he knew of
only three botanists, Colden, Bar-
tram and Clayton, on the continent.
From Charlestown, South Carolina,
he writes to Ellis, "there is scarce
one here that knows a cabbage
stock from a common dock, but
when dressed in his plate, by his
palate." As they were without
books, instruments, or organization,
they were dependent largely upon
the assistance of the naturalists of
the Old World; and in their corre-
spondence they repeatedly acknowl-
edge their obligations. Without the
aid and encouragement of Collinson,
Ellis and Fothergill in England ; of
Gronovius in Leyden ; and of their
common master, Linnaeus, there
would have been no American
science. Neither should their isola-
tion and the difficulties of communi-
cation be forgotten. So uncertain
and so ill-managed was the posts
from the northern provinces, says
Dr. Garden, that all mercantile cor-
respondence was obliged to be car-
ried on by sea. "I have never yet,"
he writes, "received one letter by
post from any of my acquaintances
in Philadelphia or New York, though
in some letters by vessels they often
tell me they have frequently wrote
to me by post." Communication by
sea even was often precarious, and
many letters were lost, and in time
of war practically it ceased.

The pioneer, or colonial period,
of American science occupied the
first three-quarters of the eighteenth
century, when its progress was
checked by the outbreak of the revo-
lutionary war ; and later, in common
with Europe, it suffered from the

upheaval of the French Revolution.
But a beginning had been made and
results of permanent value achieved,
which soon led to scientific indepen-
dence.

In physics and astronomy two
men gained eminence and enjoyed
a European reputation. They were
Benjamin Franklin and John Win-
throp. Franklin is now universally
recognized as a man of genius who
would have acquired fame in any
age. The American Philosophical
Society, The University of Pennsyl-
vania, the first public library and the
first hospital were instituted at his
instance and with his aid. Mirabeau
styled him as "one of the greatest
men who has served the cause of
philosophy and liberty." His last-
ing rank as a natural philosopher
rests upon his discovery of the iden-
tity of lightning with electricity. He
sent an account of his electrical ex-
periments to his friend Collinson,
who brought them to the notice of
the Royal Society. This seems to
have been regarded as a piece of pre-
sumption in a colonial printer, for
the Society laughed at his experi-
ments and thought them not worth
publishing. In France, where they
were successfully repeated, the
"Philadelphia experiments," as they
were called, met with a better recep-
tion and their value was generally
recognized. When this was learned
in England the Royal Society,
Franklin tells us, made him more
than amends for the slight with
which they had before treated him.
They voluntarily elected him an
honorary member, and ever after
sent him their Transactions free.

A few years after the invention of
lightning rods, in 1755, an earth-
quake terrified the superstitious peo-
ple of New England. A Boston min-
ister suggested that Franklin's "iron

756

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

points" might have caused the earth-
quake by drawing the electricity
from the clouds and concentrating it
in that part of the earth. The cause
"of those injured and innocent iron
points" was fully vindicated by John
Winthrop, for forty years professor
of mathematics and physics in Har-
vard College. Winthrop was ac-
counted the finest scholar of his day
in the colonies, in which he had no
equal as a mathematician and
astronomer. He was elected a fellow
of the Royal Society, and many of
his astronomical observations were
published in its volumes. His salary
was eighty pounds a year, on which,
he states, he was unable to support
his family.

In geology and zoology, beyond a
certain amount of collecting, very
little was accomplished, and the oc-
casional notes which have come
down to us in the various publica-
tions of the time are of biographical
rather than of scientific interest.
Franklin made some slight observa-
tions on the origin of springs and
the elevation of the Appalachian
Chain. John Bartram sent to Europe
several small collections of minerals
and fossils, an account of which was
published in the second edition of
the Index Lapidae of Gronovius.
Bartram regarded fossil shells as an
evidence that the sea had once over-
flowed the land. He also sent abroad
a few specimens of turtles, birds and
insects, but he declares that he was
so affected by their mortal pains that
he could never willingly deprive
them of life. Dr. Garden, of South
Carolina, procured as many fishes
and reptiles as possible, which he
sent at his request to Linnaeus for
description; and John Lawson, Sur-
veyor-General of North Carolina,
published a Description and Nat-

ural History of that province, which
passed through many editions.

Much more attention, indeed, was
given to American zoology during
this century in Europe than in this
country; and descriptions of many
endemic species of animals, espe-
cially of birds and insects, are to be
found in the writings of Buffon, Lin-
naeus, Edwards and others. By far
the most important contribution was
the Natural History of Carolina,
Florida and the Bahama Islands, by
the English naturalist Mark Cates-
by, which was completed in 1748.
The work was the result of years of
actual observation in the field, and
the splendid plates, with which it
was illustrated, were drawn and en-
graved by the author himself. It
gained a deserved celebrity, and was
influential in popularizing and ex-
tending a knowledge of the different
forms of life in the southern prov-
inces. A large number of birds,
fishes, animals, insects and plants
are described in this work ; but it
has been severely criticised for its
want of attention to details, as, for
example, some species of fish are
portrayed without the pectoral fins.
But as the first book on American
zoology it will always have a per-
manent value.

No branch of the natural sciences
received so much attention during
this period as botany. This was due
largely to the influence of English
horticulture, for the science at first
was almost wholly practical. Plants
remarkable for the beauty of their
flowers, or valuable for their fruit,
fragrance, foliage, or medicinal qual-
ities were chiefly desired. The in-
conspicuous smaller forms of vege-
tation were almost entirely passed
over. The advent of the Linnaean
classification, which was eagerly
welcomed in America, at once led to

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 757

greater attention to systematic '
botany. But as there were neither
large libraries or named collections,
it was necessary to send both speci-
mens and descriptions to Europe for
revision and publication.

Great enthusiasm prevailed in the
pursuit of gardening and horticul-
ture in England during the eight-
eenth century, and large sums were
expended in importing showy plants
from America. To meet this de-
mand expeditions were made to dis-
tant mountains and rivers to pro-
cure rare species, while herbaceous
plants were multiplied by culture.
Many of the English nobility laid
out gardens on a very extensive
scale. In a single year Lord Petre
planted 10,000 American species,
which at the time being mixed with
about 20,000 European and some
i\sian made a very beautiful appear-
ance. Great art and skill were
shown in their arrangement and in
contrasting their colors. So fully
was his nursery stocked with flow-
ering shrubs that 20,000 were hard-
ly missed. When I walk amongst
them, writes Collinson, I cannot
help thinking I am in North Ameri-
can thickets, there are such quanti-
ties. He had also extensive green-
houses in which were raised, in great
plenty, pine-apples, guavas, papaws,
limes and ginger, besides a magnifi-
cent collection of West and East In-
dia plants. Peter Collinson, a Lon-
don merchant, and Dr. Fothergill, a
wealthy physician, were likewise
very active in bringing rare plants
and seeds from the colonies. The
latter declares that it is acknowl-
edged by the ablest botanists that
there is in Great Britain no bit of
ground richer in curious American
plants than his garden. The Prince
of Wales is described as having a

laudable and princely desire to excel

all others. To such an extent did
the desire for rare plants prevail
that gardens were ravished by night
of their choicest treasures, and it be-
came necessary to enact a law in-
flicting severe penalties for this of-
fense. Near the middle of the century
horticulture suffered the severest
loss it ever felt in England, in the
death of Lord Petre, the Prince of
Wales and the Duke of Richmond.
To the last two their love of garden-
ing probably proved fatal. The
Prince of Wales undoubtedly lost
his life from the effects of a cold con-
tracted while watching the trans-
planting of some trees in very wet
weather, "but the good thing," ex-
claims Collinson, "will not die with
him."

The first American botanist and
the founder of the first botanical
garden on this continent was John
Bartram, the grandson of John Bar-
tram, who came over to Pennsyl-
vania with William Penn. Like his
father, he was a plain farmer, and
all his life was partially dependent
on his farm for the support of his
family; but by indomitable industry
he rose to be, in the opinion of Lin-
naeus, "the greatest natural botanist
in the world." He was born on
March 23, 1699, near the village of
Darby, in Delaware (then Chester)
County. He received such educa-
tion as the country schools of those
primitive days afforded, that is, he
barely learned to read and write.
Later in life he acquired sufficient
knowledge of Latin to read to some
extent descriptions of plants in that
language. In a letter to Dr. Solan-
der he frankly declares that Latin is
too hard for him. He became a great
reader of books relating to natural
history, but for religious literature,
except the Bible, he cared little. A
present of Barclay's Apology from

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Collinson he receives coldly ; adding,
however, that he will take care of it
for his sake. He had several books
on medicine and surgery, and in
many instances prescribed for his
poorer neighbors who were unable
to apply to the physicians of Phila-
delphia. His son says that he gave
them great relief, and, as his reme-
dies were mostly medicinal herbs,
we have no doubt they fared quite
as well.

At the age of thirty he possessed
sufficient property, inherited from
his father and uncle, to purchase a
tract of land on the Schuylkill at a
distance of about three miles from
Philadelphia, which was well adapt-
ed in fertility and exposure for
growing all kinds of vegetables.
Here, says his son, he built with his
own hands a large and comfortable
house of hewn stone, and laid out a
garden containing about five acres
of ground. Bartram was evidently a
skillful stone-mason, for he built
four houses, all of hewn stone, which
he himself split out of the rock; and
was accustomed to make stone steps,
door-sills, window-casings and
troughs. His dwelling house is still
standing, but is now included within
the city limits. It has undergone
but few changes, except that the
large lire-place has been rilled up.
A stone set in the wall bears the in-
scription, "John Ann Bartram, 1731."
In the wing there is an apartment
with large windows looking south-
ward, where plants too tender to en-
dure the rigors of a Pennsylvania
winter were protected. The garden
contained a great variety of shrubs
and trees, as well as herbaceous
plants, raised from seeds and roots
collected during his numerous jour-
neys, or received from his European
correspondents. There was a green-
house, also built by Bartram, over

the door of which was inscribed the
lines:

"Slave to no sect, who take no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature's
God."

The methods of husbandry prac-
tised by Bartram were well in ad-
vance of his time. Like his neigh-
bors, by diking and ditching he re-
claimed a portion of the rich bottom
lands overflowed by the highest
tides of the Schuylkill. His meadows,
stimulated by high fertilization and
irrigation, and recruited by being
occasionally sown to clover, yielded
the greatest crops of the best hay
and grain. His orchards were lux-
uriant and laden with fruit, though
planted on what was formerly a
barren sandy soil. After his death
the garden was inherited by his son
John, and, in 1891, through the
efforts of Mr. Thomas Meehan, it
became the property of the city of
Philadelphia, to be preserved as a
public park.

Born in a land which less than a
generation before was covered with
virgin forest, and with a natural
taste for the study of botany, Bar-
tram very soon became familiar with
all the plants to be found in his im-
mediate neighborhood. "I had
always/' he writes to Collinson,
"since ten years old, a great inclina-
tion to plants and knew all that I
once observed by sight, though not
their proper names, having no per-
son or books to instruct me." The
turning point of his life was the offer
of Joseph Breintnall, a Philadelphia
merchant, to convey to England to
Peter Collinson a portion of his ob-
servations and a collection of speci-
mens. This led to a long corre-
spondence between the two Quaker
naturalists, and resulted in a warm
friendship which lasted until Col-

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 759

linson's death. They never met.
Bartram never went to England, he
says, because he had a large family
of small children and his servants
could not be trusted to carry on the
work of the farm in his absence.

That eminent naturalist, John
Bartram, says Dr. Fothergill, may
almost be said to have been created
such by Collinson's assistance. He
first recommended the collecting of
seeds, and afterward assisted in dis-
posing of them in England, and con-
stantly excited him to persevere in
investigating the plants of America,
which he has executed with inde-
fatigable labor through a long course
of years, and with amazing success.
Collinson was a wholesale woolen
merchant in London, and for nearly
half a century was prominent in
England for his interest in all
branches of natural history. He was
a benefactor of the Philadelphia pub-
lic library company, and it was with
a glass tube presented to it by him
with some account of its use that
Franklin made his first experiments
with electricity. Collinson was long
a correspondent of Linnaeus, who
has bestowed his name on a labiate
plant common in New England, Col-
linsonia Canadensis. After 1749 he
possessed an extensive garden at
Mill Hill, where he introduced many
new and interesting plants, chiefly
from North America. He died in
1768, after a short illness, of an affec-
tion of the bladder, in the seventy-
fifth year of his age, "in the full pos-
session of all his faculties and of all
his enthusiasm for the beauties of
nature." His garden, unfortunately,
was twice robbed of many of its
most valued acquisitions. After his
death it became the property of his
only son ; subsequently it fell into a
state of great neglect, and in 1821

was almost entirely stripped of all
its chief curiosities.

Their voluminous correspondence,
which lasted for thirty-four years,
has been edited by Darlington, and
presents an extremely interesting
picture of the condition of botany
and horticulture in the times of the
colonies. With what delight they
hailed each new discovery, and how
carefully they cultivated rare species
and patiently waited for them to
bloom. "Oh, Botany, delightfullest
of all the sciences !" exclaims Collin-
son, "there is no end to thy gratifica-
tions." The earliest extant letter is
from Collinson, and is dated Jan. 20,
1734. It contains a list of plants
which he wishes to obtain, and in
reply to a request of Bartram's for
botanical books he writes : "Indeed,
I am at a loss which to recommend,
for, as I have observed, a complete
history of plants is not to be found
in any author. For the present I am
persuaded the gentlemen of the
Library Company at my request will
indulge the liberty, when thee comes
to town, to peruse their botanical
works." Later in the month he
writes again: '"I am very sensible of
the great pains and many tiresome
steps to collect so many rare plants
scattered at a distance. I shall not
forget it, but in some measure to
show my gratitude, though not in
proportion to thy trouble, I have
sent thee a small token ; a calico
gown for thy wife and some odd
little things that may be of use
amongst the children and family."
At another time he sends Bartram
sixty-nine different kinds of seeds
and a good suit of clothes. A part
of the collections sent over by Bar-
tram were presented by Collinson to
Lord Petre, who in return sent him
eighteen pounds, and subsequently
became greatly interested in his bo-
tanical excursions.

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NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Bartram now suggested that he
should receive some compensation
for his labors, and should make the
attempt to penetrate to the sources
of the Schuylkill. This proposal met
with the approval of his friends in
England, and they agreed to pay
him annually the sum of twenty
pounds, ten of which was subscribed
by Lord Petre, five by the Duke of
Richmond, and five by Philip Miller.
''This, we think," writes Collinson,
"will enable thee to set apart a
month, two, or three, to make an
excursion to the bank of the Schuyl-
kill to trace it to its fountain. We
shall send thee paper for the speci-
mens and writing, and a pocket-
compass, — expect thee'll keep a reg-
ular journal of what occurs every
day." In a word, in addition to
seeds and plants, he was directed to
collect birds, turtles, river-shells,
land-shells, minerals, and all curious
objects with which he might meet.
"My inclination and fondness to
natural productions of all kinds, is
agreeable to the old proverb : Like
the parson's barn, refuses nothing."
Fossils, according to Collinson, were
regarded as evidences of the deluge.
The journey was successfully per-
formed, and a map of the river and
an itinerary were duly forwarded to
England. Collinson says that the
map was very prettily done, and that
Lord Petre was much pleased with
the journal.

No little enthusiasm was required
to overcome the difficulties attend-
ing the pursuit of botany in colonial
days. Bartram complains that he
could not find anyone to accompany
him in his rambles after plants, and
that there is not zeal enough among
his countrymen to encourage any
discoveries of this kind. "Therefore,
I am often exposed to solitary and

difficult travelling, beyond our in-
habitants, climbing over mountains
and precipices, amongst the rattle-
snakes, and often obliged to follow
the track, or path, of wild beasts for
my guide through these desolate
and gloomy thickets." Once he fell
from a tree and was severely in-
jured, "in a dark thicket, no house
near, and a very cold wind, and
above twenty miles to ride home."
At another time, when "far beyond
the mountains, as I was walking in
a path with an Indian guide, hired
for two dollars, an Indian met me
and pulled off my hat in a great
passion and chawed it all round, — I
suppose to show me that he would
eat me if I came in that country
again."

In order that he might learn the
name§ of described American plants,
Bartram was wont to prepare two
sets of specimens, similarly num-
bered, one of which was sent to
some distinguished European bot-
anist for determination. One of
these lists, which had been pre-
pared by Dr. Dillenius of Oxford,
amounted to upwards of two hun-
dred names. The only books on
botany which could then be readily
obtained were Philip Miller's Dic-
tionary and Parkinson's Herbal.
Collinson assures him that they con-
tain the whole system of gardening
and botany as known in 1737. The
first edition of the Gardener's Dic-
tionary, the most celebrated work of
its kind, was published in 1731, and
is said to have laid the foundation of
all the horticultural taste and knowl-
edge in Europe. Its author, Philip
Miller, was superintendent of the
Physic Garden at Chelsea, belonging
to the Apothecaries' Company, a po-
sition he retained until an advanced
age. In one of his letters to John
Bartram he states that his herb-

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 761

arium contains ten thousand speci-
mens. Parkinson's Herbal or "The-
ater of Plants" was published in
1640, and contained about two thou-
sand engravings. Its author was a
London apothecary and herbarist to
the king.

Bartram also desired to obtain
Tournefort's Institutiones Rei Herb-
arise, a descriptive work on plants,
published in 1700. The cost was
fifty shillings, and Collinson writes:
"Now I shall be so friendly to tell
thee, I think this too much to lay
out. Besides, now thee has got Par-
kinson and Miller, I would not have
thee puzzle thyself with others; for
they contain the ancient and modern
knowledge of botany. Remember
Solomon's advice : in reading ( ?) of
books there is no end." To this
Bartram very pertinently replies : "I
take thy advice about books very
kindly, — although I love reading
such dearly; and I believe if Solo-
mon had loved women less, and
books more, he would have been a
wiser and happier man than he was."
Later he received a present of this
work from Lord Petre.

In 1738 Bartram made an autumn
journey through Maryland and Vir-
ginia as far as Williamsburgh, then
up the James River, returning home
over the mountains. He was absent
five weeks and travelled 1,100 miles,
a no inconsiderable distance, when
we remember the rough means of
conveyance. Collinson gave him
letters to all of his acquaintances.
Among these was Colonel Byrd, who
was reputed to have the best garden
in Virginia, and a very pretty green-
house well furnished with orange
trees.

He did not meet John Clayton, the
most distinguished of the Virginia
botanists, as he was absent in the
mountains. Clayton's name is made

familiar to every botanist by that
delicate spring flower Claytonia Vir-
ginica, or spring beauty. It was
from dried specimens and detailed
descriptions furnished by him that
Gronovius, with the aid of Linnaeus,
prepared the Flora Virginica pub-
lished in 1739 at Leyden. This will
always be historically of interest as
the first systematic work published
on American botany. Prepared with
the assistance of Linnaeus, who was
then in Leyden, it introduced his
classification into America, and
marked the beginning of the scien-
tific study of our flora. Clayton died
in 1773 at the advanced age of
eighty-eight, during the first years
of the Revolutionary War. So vigor-
ous was his health the preceding
year that he made a botanical tour
through Orange County. He left a
large herbarium and two volumes of
manuscript nearly ready for the
press, which were unfortunately de-
stroyed by an incendiary fire.

Another of his later correspon-
dents was John Mitchell, a botanist
and physician, who resided chiefly
at Urbana, a small town on the Rap-
pahannock. He proposed a number
of new genera of Virginia plants;
and his name has been commemo-
rated by Mitchella repens, or the
partridge berry, a common wood-
land perennial with red berries.
Bartram collected numerous seeds
and specimens, which, with a map
and journal, were dispatched to
England. But what was chiefly
wanted was shrubs and trees, as
laurels, Viburnums, Magnolias, and
especially evergreens. Collinson is
astonished at the number of flowers
and writes, "Surely your woods and
thickets are all flowers."

Some years later a great mis-
fortune befell Bartram and the cause
of Botany as well. On July 2, 1742,

762

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

Lord Petre was carried off by small-
pox in the thirtieth year of his age.
"All our schemes are broke," writes
Collinson, "all is at an end." Lord
Petre was a tall, handsome person-
age, with the presence of a prince.
The affability and sweetness of his
temper were beyond expression,
without the least mixture of pride
or haughtiness. "Few or none could
excel him in the knowledge of the
liberal arts and sciences. He was a
great mechanic, as well as a great
mathematician ; ready at figures and
calculations, — and elegant in his
tastes. For his virtues, and his ex-
cellences and his endowments I
loved him, and he me, more like a
brother than a friend."

In the autumn of this same year
Bartram made a trip to the Catskill
Mountains, where he obtained many
new and rare seeds. On this jour-
ney he was entertained by Dr. Cad-
wallader Colden, another early colo-
nial botanist, and a man prominent
in the politics of New York. Dr.
Colden resided for a portion of his
life at Coldenham, about nine miles
from Newburgh, in Orange County,
a lonely, solitary, and not very pleas-
ant spot, in the midst of the wilder-
ness and exposed to the attacks of
hostile Indians. Here he divided his
time between cultivating a small
portion of the large tract of land (for
which he had received a patent), and
scientific pursuits. His History of
the Five Indian Nations of Canada,
first published in 1727, and after-
wards reprinted in London, was the
first literary production of an Eng-
lish writer in New York. He was a
correspondent of Linnaeus, to whom
he wrote that previous to meeting
with his books he had become so
much discouraged in his attempts to
determine the many unknown plants
that he had laid aside all attempts in

that way for nearly thirty years. He
became very influential in intro-
ducing the Linnaean system into
America; and a paper describing
some four hundred plants growing
wild in the vicinity of Coldenham,
which he sent to the Swedish nat-
uralist, was published in the Acta
Societatis Upsaliensis. This was the
first treatise on the botany of New
York, and also of America, prepared
wholly by a native botanist. In one
of his letters to Linnaeus, Dr. Gar-
den speaks of meeting John Bar-
tram at Coldenham. " Here, by
good fortune, I first met with John
Bartram. How grateful was such
a meeting to me ! And how unusual
in this part of the world ! What con-
gratulations and salutations passed
between us ! How happy should I
be to pass my life with men so dis-
tinguished by genius, acuteness and
liberality, as well as by eminent bo-
tanical learning and experience."
Later in life Dr. Colden was ap-
pointed Lieutenant-Governor of the
province. When the British troops
took possession of New York, in
1776, a fire broke out which de-
stroyed a large part of the city. Dr.
Colden, then in his eighty-ninth
year, was so much agitated by the
sight that he died in a few hours.

His daughter, Jane Colden, was
his devoted assistant in the study of
plants, and was the first woman in
America to gain distinction as a
botanist. Peter Collinson, writing
to Linnaeus, says that "she is per-
haps the first lady that has studied
your system. She deserves to be
celebrated." She wrote descriptions
of many of the plants to be found
near Coldenham, using English
terms. John Ellis, who discovered
the animal nature of corals, pro-
posed that the goldthread, first sent
to Europe by her father, should be

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE

763

named in her honor. Linnaeus, how-
ever, referred the plant to his genus
Helleborus, "and when," says Dar-
lington, "it was subsequently ascer-
tained to be distinct, Salisbury, re-
gardless alike of gallantry and jus-
tice, imposed upon it the name of
Coptis."

Bartram received many expres-
sions of the honor and esteem in
which he was held by his European
correspondents. In October, 1740,
Collinson writes that Gronovius pro-
posed to call a new genus of plants
Bartramia, and that the name would
appear (as it did) in the next edition
of the Flora Virginica. This attempt
to commemorate his name, however,
did not succeed, as the plant was
finally referred to the genus Trium-
fetta. The name is at present borne
by a small genus of New England
mosses. Dr. Dillenius, for whom he
collected mosses, sent him his Flis-
toria Muscorum, a work which long
remained the chief authority on
these humble plants. "I take it to
be," remarks Bartram, "the com-
pletest of that kind that ever was
wrote. Before Dr. Dillenius gave
me a hint of it I took no particular
notice of mosses, but looked upon
them as a cow looks at a pair of new
barn doors." Of Bartram, as a col-
lector, Dillenius declared that he was
the only man who ever did things to
the purpose, and Collinson adds,
"Nothing can well escape thee." Sir
Hans Sloane, president of the Royal
Society, sent him his Natural His-
tory of Jamaica in two sumptuous
volumes, and a silver cup. Queen
Ulrica of Sweden wrote him a letter,
and he was elected a member of the
Academy of Science at Stockholm.
From Linnaeus he received his
Characteres Plantarum, "with a
very loving letter desiring his corre-
spondence."

In 1743 Bartram accompanied the
interpreter of Virginia, who had been
sent on a mission to the five nations
of Indians near the fort of Oswego,
on Lake Ontario. His journal, which
was published in England, contained
a particular account of the soil, vege-
tation, mountains and lakes, and also
of the daily proceedings of the
Indian chiefs. A copy of this rare
work was recently offered for sale
for thirty-eight dollars. Some twenty
years later he made a second trip
westward, going to Pittsburg and
the Ohio River.

Linnaeus was now rapidly rising
into prominence ; and the system of
binomial nomenclature, which in
Germany and England met with
many criticisms and censures, was
everywhere in America received
with delight and approval. Among
his principal colonial correspondents
were Clayton, Colden, Garden, Bar-
tram, Mitchell and Dr. Adam Kuhn,
who completed his botanical studies
at Upsala and became the first pro-
fessor of botany in this country. One
of the most important qualifications
of a great reformer is the ability to
impress his views upon his follow-
ers. This power Linnaeus possessed
in an eminent degree. Not only did
American naturalists promptly ac-
cept his reforms, but they labored
incessantly to send him new and
rare specimens of our flora and
fauna. Nearly a thousand of our
plants were named by him, besides
many insects, fishes, birds and mam-
mals. Finally, by his advice, his
pupil, Peter Kalm, came to America
in 1748, and spent three years in ex-
ploring New York, Pennsylvania
and Canada. He is the most famous
of the early botanical explorers, and
thSe narrative of his travels, which
was translated into English and sev-
eral other languages, is the first

764

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

work to give an extended account of
the botany of this continent. His
discoveries afforded much pleasure
to his old teacher, who, as a reward
for his industry, bestowed the name
Kalmia on that most beautiful genus
of shrubs, the laurels.

The only naturalist in the southern
provinces was Dr. Alexander Gar-
den, who was»both a delightful com-
panion and an enthusiastic student
of nature. In 1760 he received a
visit from John Bartram. In a letter
to Ellis, Dr. Garden writes : "I have
been lately in the woods with John
and have shown him most of our
new things, with which he seems
almost ravished of his senses and
lost in astonishment." After receiv-
ing an education at Edinburgh, Dr.
Garden came to Charlestown, South
Carolina, where he married and
practised medicine for thirty years.
Overwhelmed by the exacting duties
of a large practice, often for weeks
without an hour he could call his
own, confined in a town, and sickly
in health, it is astonishing that he
found time and strength to make
large collections of plants, fishes and
reptiles. His specimens were care-
fully preserved, their characters
were noted and they were then sent
to Ellis and Linnaeus. He had been
on the point of giving up botany in
despair, after vainly and at great
labor endeavoring to determine
many unknown species of plants by
the aid of the works of Ray and
Tournefort, when he met with the
writings of Linnaeus. These awak-
ened in him an ardent admiration
and a lifelong zeal and enthusiasm
for the natural sciences. His sym-
pathies during the Revolutionary
War were with the mother country,
and, in consequence, he suffered the
loss of nearly all of his property by
confiscation. Near its close he went

to London, where he resided until
his death some years later. He was
cordially welcomed in scientific
circles, and became a fellow and,
later, vice-president of the Royal
Society. His person and manners
were peculiarly pleasing, and his
correspondence reveals a man of
much benevolence and sincerity.

His name was given by his friend,
Mr. Ellis, to Gardenia jasminoides,
or the Cape Jessamine. This plant
was introduced into England in a
very singular manner. An East
India ship, the Godolphin, Captain
Hutchinson, put in at the Cape of
Good Hope. While on shore the
captain was attracted by the fra-
grance of a shrub bearing large,
waxy white flowers. He carefully
transplanted it with the earth into a
tub, and succeeded in carrying it
safely to England. As it was sup-
posed to belong to the jasmine fam-
ily, it was called the "Cape Jas-
mine." Subsequently Linnaeus dis-
covered that the species was in-
digenous in China. The Dutch, who
were famous florists, had exclusive
intercourse with China, and had in
some way brought this plant to the
Cape, which was then in possession
of one of their colonies. From four
cuttings James Gordon, a prominent
London nurseryman, and a corre-
spondent of Bartram, raised and sold
in a few years plants to the value of
500 pounds.

Bartram now prepared, though
sixty-six years of age, to make the
most important expedition of his
life. One of his neighbors, William
Young, sent to the king a few plants,
which seem to have been regarded
as new discoveries, though they had
been known for many years. So suc-
cessful did the venture prove that
provision was made for him to go to
England and devote himself to

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE

765

botanical study. Naturally Bartram,
who for thirty years had laboriously
explored the woods and mountains
with great danger and peril, felt
himself neglected, and by the advice
of his friends determined to send to
court a box of rarities never before
sent abroad. At the repeated solici-
tations of Collinson his services
were recognized and he was ap-
pointed botanist to the king of Eng-
land, with orders to search for the
sources of the St. John's River. His
salary was fifty pounds a year,
which continued to be punctually
paid until his death. He had now
the opportunity, for which he had
long planned and hoped, to make a
journey through the sub-tropical
land of Florida. As he was too old
to travel alone, he was accompanied
by his fourth son, William, who, to
his love of nature, united great skill
in drawing and painting. William
at this time was an unsuccessful
merchant at Cape Fear, North Caro-
lina. After journeying through
South Carolina and Georgia to St.
Augustine, they proceeded to Picp-
lata, where they embarked in a boat
and ascended the beautiful St. John's
River to its sources. They attended
carefully to the various branches and
lakes connected with it, and then de-
scended to its confluence with the
sea.

An accurate draft and survey were
made of the different widths, depths,
and courses both of the main stream
and its branches. The quality of the
soil and the vegetable and animal
productions were also carefully
noted. Many strange plants were
discovered and a large collection
was made of seeds and specimens.
During this long journey of several
thousand miles John Bartram suf-
fered constantly from ill health, but
never permitted himself to lose an

hour's time. His journal, with an
accurate map of the river, was sent
to the Board of Trade and Planta-
tions in England, by whose direc-
tions it was ordered to be published
for the benefit of the colony. It
finally appeared in an account of
East Florida, London, 1766, by Wil-
liam Stork.

His son William decided to re-
main on the river, at a place about
thirty miles from St. Augustine, and
try his fortune as an indigo planter.
No spot could have been more un-
suitable for the attempt. The land
was flat and low, extremely hot and
unwholesome, surrounded by stag-
nant water and swamp, and either
barren and unproductive or thickly
wooded. His crops failed to grow,
his slaves were too few, and one of
them was insolent and threatened
his life. Without money and almost
without food, alone and far from so-
ciety, a more forlorn condition for a
mild and gentle young man without
great physical strength can hardly
be imagined. The undertaking was
wisely abandoned and he returned
home. Though himself unaspiring,
William Bartram exerted an impor-
tant influence upon the early history
of our science. For five years he
travelled in Georgia and Florida at
the expense of Dr. Fothergill, to
whom his collections and drawings
were sent. He published a narrative
of his experiences in these provinces
which enjoyed much popularity.
Without his encouragement and as-
sistance Wilson, ''the father of
American ornithology," would never
have produced his celebrated work
on birds. His great facility in draw-
ing was placed also at the service of
Professor Barton while he was pre-
paring his Elements of Botany. Fre-
quent intercourse with his botanical
friends and the pursuit of his favor-

766

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

ite science formed the solace and de-
light of his old age. Death found
him busy in the study of nature. He
had just completed the description
of a plant, when the bursting of a
blood vessel in the lungs terminated
his life at the age of eighty-five.

The outbreak of the Revolutionary
War put an end to the colonial period
of American science. For more
than twenty years, (from the second
edition of the Flora Virginica, which
was consolidated in one volume in
1762 by Laurence, the son of John
Gronovius, to 1785), nothing was
published on the botany of America,
except a small German book on
North American shrubs and trees,
printed at Goettingen in 1781. The
entire energies of the colonies were
absorbed in the struggle for liberty.
All communication with the mother
country was broken off, and it was
no longer possible to send abroad
specimens of natural history. Dr.
Fothergill, in his last letter, ex-
presses the hope that after the war,
in which he foresees many lives will
be lost and the labor of ages ruined,
correspondence may be resumed.
But when this time came he was no
longer living and many others of the
early workers of this century, among
whom was "the immortal Swede,"
were dead. Early in the war an in-
cendiary fire swept away the man-
uscript of John Clayton, the results
of many years of patient labor, but
happily the author never knew of its
loss. The burning of New York at
the time of the British occupation
caused the death of Dr. Colden in a
few hours. Near the close of the
war Dr. Garden retired to England ;
but during the voyage he suffered so
severely from seasickness that a con-
sumptive tendency was confirmed,
from which he died a few years
later. The approach of the royal

army after the battle of Brandywine,
and the fear that his darling garden
would be despoiled, was believed by
his granddaughter to have hastened
the end of John Bartram. The
paralyzing influence of war, which
checked the Italian Renaissance in
mid-career, and after the Reforma-
tion turned Germany into a desert,
was now again felt throughout
Europe. The revolt of the colonies
was followed by the French Revolu-
tion and the campaigns of Napoleon ;
and amidst the clash of arms and the
downfall of ancient institutions a
mystical nature-philosophy re-
placed observation and experiment.
Lavoisier, the founder of modern
chemistry, perished under the guillo-
tine. The republic, it was declared,
had no need of scientific men. The
idea of revolution pervaded science
as well as politics. "Everything,"
says Marcou, "was revolution and
catastrophe." Terrible convulsions
were believed to have repeatedly
swept away all life upon the earth,
which had again been repopulated
by special creations during the fol-
lowing periods of quiescence. A
whole literature sprang up, of which
the watchword was revolution. It
was not until nearly a quarter of the
nineteenth century had passed away
that these ideas began to be dis-
carded and correct methods of in-
vestigation were re-established.

From the records of the American
Philosophical Society, of which John
Bartram was one of the original
members, it appears that he died at
the age of seventy-eight years and
six months. "He never coveted old
age," says his son William, "and
often observed to his children and
friends that he sincerely desired that
he might not live longer than he
could afford assistance to himself.
His wishes in these respects were

BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE

767

gratified in a remarkable manner;
for though he lived to be about
eighty years of age, yet he was
cheerful and active to almost his last
hours. His illness was very short.
About half an hour before he ex-
pired, he seemed, though but for a
few moments, to be in considerable
agony and pronounced these words,
"I want to die."

No portrait of him is in existence.
His stature, says William, was rather
above the middle size, his visage
was long, and his countenance ex-
pressive of a degree of dignity, with
a happy mixture of animation and
sensibility. He was modest and
gentle in manner, frank, cheerful,
and of great good nature ; a lover of
justice, truth and charity. He was
an opponent of slavery and gave
liberty to a most valuable male

slave, then in the prime of life, who
had been bred up in the family
almost from infancy. He was active
and industrious both in body and
mind, and was astonished to hear
men complaining that they were
weary of their time and knew not
what they should do.

He was a member of the Society
of Friends, from which, however, he
was excluded because of the liberal-
ity of his religious views. His creed,
says William, may. perhaps be best
collected from a pious distich, en-
graven by his own hand, in very
conspicuous characters, upon a stone
placed over the front window of the
apartment which was destined for
study and philosophical retirement:

" 'Tis God alone, Almighty Lord,
The Holy One, by me adored.
John Bartram, 1770."

$£gg$**

A Word to our Contributors

We take this occasion to correct an evident misunderstanding to
the style of fiction desired for the New England Magazine. There
seems to be a widely prevalent notion that stories deemed most accept-
able for our pages are tales of New England rural life. This is an
erroneous idea. What we do want is good stories of every variety — the
scene may be laid in Africa or China, provided the story be a story, and
worth the telling. — [The Editors.]

Errata: — The Editors desire to correct two unfortunate typographical errors that
occured in the June issue of this magazine. In the article "New England in Contem-
pory Verse," in a quotation of Mrs. Higginson's delightful poem she was made to say
"dead love." The stanza should read :

"The forest birches wave and gleam
Through boughs of feathery pine,
Ah, no dear love ! 'tis not a dream ;
This fairy home is thine."

Mr. Trowbridge in a quotation from his poem, "Mount Desert," was made to say:

"Town of hops and chops and show:"

The line should read : —

"Town of hops and shops and shows."

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