WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE

Green Peace.

When I was Your Age

BY
LAURA E. RICHARDS
AUTHOR OF “CAPTAIN JANUARY,” “MELODY,”
“QUEEN HILDEGARDE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON
ESTES AND LAURIAT
1894

Copyright, 1893,
By Estes and Lauriat.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.

TO THE
Dear and Honored Memory of my Father,

DR. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE.

Thy voice comes down the rolling years
Like ring of steel on steel;
With it I hear the tramp of steeds,
And the trumpet’s silver peal.

I see thee ride thy fearless way,
With steadfast look intent,
God’s servant, still by night and day,
On his high errand bent.

Thy lance lay ever in the rest
’Gainst tyranny and wrong.
Thy steed was swift, thine aim was sure,
Thy sword was keen and strong.

But were the fainting to be raised,
The sorrowing comforted,—
The warrior vanished, and men saw
An angel stoop instead.

O soldier Father! dear I hold
Thine honored name to-day;
Thy high soul draws mine eyes above,
And beacons me the way.

And when my heart beats quick to learn
Some deed of high emprise,
I almost see the answering flash
That lightens from thine eyes.

I greet thee fair! I bless thee dear!
And here, in token meet,
I pluck these buds from memory’s wreath,
And lay them at thy feet.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE.

CHAPTER I.
OURSELVES.

There were five of us. There had been six, but the Beautiful Boy was taken home to heaven while he was still very little; and it was good for the rest of us to know that there was always one to wait for and welcome us in the Place of Light to which we should go some day. So, as I said, there were five of us here,—Julia Romana, Florence, Harry, Laura, and Maud. Julia was the eldest. She took her second name from the ancient city in which she was born, and she was as beautiful as a soft Italian evening,—with dark hair, clear gray eyes, perfect features, and a complexion of such pure and wonderful red and white as I have never seen in any other face. She had a look as if when she came away from heaven she had been allowed to remember it, while others must forget; and she walked in a dream always, of beauty and poetry, thinking of strange things. Very shy she was, very sensitive. When Flossy (this was Florence’s home name) called her “a great red-haired giant,” she wept bitterly, and reproached her sister for hurting her feelings. Julia knew everything, according to the belief of the younger children. What story was there she could not tell? She it was who led the famous before-breakfast walks, when we used to start off at six o’clock and walk to the Yellow Chases’ (we never knew any other name for them; it was the house that was yellow, not the people) at the top of the long hill, or sometimes even to the windmill beyond it, where we could see the miller at work, all white and dusty, and watch the white sails moving slowly round. And on the way Julia told us stories, from Scott or Shakspere; or gave us the plot of some opera, “Ernani” or “Trovatore,” with snatches of song here and there. “Ai nostri monti ritornaremo,” whenever I hear this familiar air ground out by a hand-organ, everything fades from my eyes save a long white road fringed with buttercups and wild marigolds, and five little figures, with rosy hungry faces, trudging along, and listening to the story of the gypsy queen and her stolen troubadour.

Julia wrote stories herself, too,—very wonderful stories, we all thought, and, indeed, I think so still. She began when she was a little girl, not more than six or seven years old. There lies beside me now on the table a small book, about five inches square, bound in faded pink and green, and filled from cover to cover with writing in a cramped, childish hand. It is a book of novels and plays, written by our Julia before she was ten years old; and I often think that the beautiful and helpful things she wrote in her later years were hardly more remarkable than these queer little romances. They are very sentimental; no child of eight, save perhaps Marjorie Fleming, was ever so sentimental as Julia,—“Leonora Mayre; A Tale,” “The Lost Suitor,” “The Offers.” I must quote a scene from the last-named play.

Scene I.

Parlor at Mrs. Evans’s. Florence Evans alone.
Enter Annie.

A. Well, Florence, Bruin is going to make an offer, I suppose.

F. Why so?

A. Here’s a pound of candy from him. He said he had bought it for you, but on arriving he was afraid it was too trifling a gift; but hoping you would not throw it away, he requested me to give it to that virtuous young lady, as he calls you.

F. Well, I am young, but I did not know that I was virtuous.

A. I think you are.

Scene II.

Parlor. Mr. Bruin alone.

Mr. B. Why doesn’t she come? She doesn’t usually keep me waiting.

Enter Florence.

F. How do you do? I am sorry to have kept you waiting.

Mr. B. I have not been here more than a few minutes. Your parlor is so warm this cold day that I could wait.

[Laughs.

F. You sent me some candy the other day which I liked very much.

Mr. B. Well, you liked the candy; so I pleased you. Now you can please me. I don’t care about presents; I had rather have something that can love me. You.

F. I do not love you.

[Exit Mr. Bruin.

Scene III.

Florence alone. Enter Mr. Cas.

F. How do you do?

Mr. C. Very well.

F. It is a very pleasant day.

Mr. C. Yes. It would be still pleasanter if you will be my bride. I want a respectful refusal, but prefer a cordial acception.

F. You can have the former.

[Exit Mr. Cas.

Scene IV.

Florence with Mr. Emerson.

Mr. E. I love you, Florence. You may not love me, for I am inferior to you; but tell me whether you do or not. If my hopes are true, let me know it, and I shall not be doubtful any longer. If they are not, tell me, and I shall not expect any more.

F. They are.

[Exit Mr. Emerson.

The fifth scene of this remarkable drama is laid in the church, and is very thrilling. The stage directions are brief, but it is evident from the text that as Mr. Emerson and his taciturn bride advance to the altar, Messrs. Cas and Bruin, “to gain some private ends,” do the same. The Bishop is introduced without previous announcement.

Scene V.

Bishop. Are you ready?

Mr. B. Yes.

Bishop. Mr. Emerson, are you ready?

Mr. C. Yes.

Bishop. Mr. Emerson, I am waiting.

Bruin and Cas [together]. So am I.

Mr. E. I am ready. But what have these men to do with our marriage?

Mr. B. Florence, I charge you with a breach of promise. You said you would be my bride.

F. I did not.

Mr. C. You promised me.

F. When?

Mr. C. A month ago. You said you would marry me.

Mr. B. A fortnight ago you promised me. You said we would be married to-day.

Mr. C. Bishop, what does this mean? Florence Evans promised to marry me, and this very day was fixed upon. And see how false she has been! She has, as you see, promised both of us, and now is going to wed this man.

Bishop. But Mr. Emerson and Miss Evans made the arrangements with me; how is it that neither of you said anything of it beforehand?

Mr. C. I forgot.

Mr. B. So did I.

[F. weeps.

Enter Annie.

A. I thought I should be too late to be your bridesmaid, but I find I am in time. But I thought you were to be married at half-past four, and it is five by the church clock.

Mr. E. We should have been married by this time, but these men say that Florence has promised to marry them. Is it true, Florence?

F. No. [Bessy, her younger sister, supports her.

A. It isn’t true, for you know, Edward Bruin, that you and I are engaged; and Mr. Cas and Bessy have been for some time. And both engagements have been out for more than a week.

[Bessy looks reproachfully at Cas.

B. Why, Joseph Cas!

Bishop. Come, Mr. Emerson! I see that Mr. Cas and Mr. Bruin have been trying to worry your bride. But their story can’t be true, for these other young ladies say that they are engaged to them.

F. They each of them made me an offer, which I refused.

[The Bishop marries them.

F. [After they are married.] I shall never again be troubled with such offers [looks at Cas and Bruin] as yours!

I meant to give one scene, and I have given the whole play, not knowing where to stop. There was nothing funny about it to Julia. The heroine, with her wonderful command of silence, was her ideal of maiden reserve and dignity; the deep-dyed villany of Bruin and Cas, the retiring manners of the fortunate Emerson, the singular sprightliness of the Bishop, were all perfectly natural, as her vivid mind saw them.

So she was bitterly grieved one day when a dear friend of the family, to whom our mother had read the play, rushed up to her, and seizing her hand, cried,—

“‘Julia, will you have me?’ ‘No!’ Exit Mr. Bruin.”

Deeply grieved the little maiden was; and it cannot have been very long after that time that she gave the little book to her dearest aunt, who has kept it carefully through all these years.

If Julia was like Milton’s “Penseroso,” Flossy was the “Allegro” in person, or like Wordsworth’s maiden,—

“A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay”

She was very small as a child. One day a lady, not knowing that the little girl was within hearing, said to her mother, “What a pity Flossy is so small!”

“I’m big inside!” cried a little angry voice at her elbow; and there was Flossy, swelling with rage, like an offended bantam. And she was big inside! her lively, active spirit seemed to break through the little body and carry it along in spite of itself. Sometimes it was an impish spirit; always it was an enterprising one.

She it was who invented the dances which seemed to us such wonderful performances. We danced every evening in the great parlor, our mother playing for us on the piano. There was the “Macbeth” dance, in which Flossy figured as Lady Macbeth. With a dagger in her hand, she crept and rushed and pounced and swooped about in a most terrifying manner, always graceful as a fairy. A sofa-pillow played the part of Duncan, and had a very hard time of it. The “Julius Cæsar” dance was no less tragic; we all took part in it, and stabbed right and left with sticks of kindling-wood. One got the curling-stick and was happy, for it was the next thing to the dagger, which no one but Flossy could have. Then there was the dance of the “Four Seasons,” which had four figures. In spring we sowed, in summer we reaped; in autumn we hunted the deer, and in winter there was much jingling of bells. The hunting figure was most exciting. It was performed with knives (kindling-wood), as Flossy thought them more romantic than guns; they were held close to the side, with point projecting, and in this way we moved with a quick chassé step, which, coupled with a savage frown, was supposed to be peculiarly deadly.

Flossy invented many other amusements, too. There was the school-loan system. We had school in the little parlor at that time, and our desks had lids that lifted up. In her desk Flossy kept a number of precious things, which she lent to the younger children for so many pins an hour. The most valuable thing was a set of three colored worsted balls, red, green, and blue. You could set them twirling, and they would keep going for ever so long. It was a delightful sport; but they were very expensive, costing, I think, twenty pins an hour. It took a long time to collect twenty pins, for of course it was not fair to take them out of the pin-cushions.

Then there was a glass eye-cup without a foot; that cost ten pins, and was a great favorite with us. You stuck it in your eye, and tried to hold it there while you winked with the other. Of course all this was done behind the raised desk-lid, and I have sometimes wondered what the teacher was doing that she did not find us out sooner. She was not very observant, and I am quite sure she was afraid of Flossy. One sad day, however, she caught Laura with the precious glass in her eye, and it was taken away forever. It was a bitter thing to the child (I know all about it, for I was Laura) to be told that she could never have it again, even after school. She had paid her ten pins, and she could not see what right the teacher had to take the glass away. But after that the school-loan system was forbidden, and I have never known what became of the three worsted balls.

Flossy also told stories; or rather she told one story which had no end, and of which we never tired. Under the sea, she told us, lived a fairy named Patty, who was a most intimate friend of hers, and whom she visited every night. This fairy dwelt in a palace hollowed out of a single immense pearl. The rooms in it were countless, and were furnished in a singular and delightful manner. In one room the chairs and sofas were of chocolate; in another, of fresh strawberries; in another, of peaches,—and so on. The floors were paved with squares of chocolate and cream candy; the windows were of transparent barley-sugar, and when you broke off the arm of a chair and ate it, or took a square or two out of the pavement, they were immediately replaced, so that there was no trouble for anyone. Patty had a ball every evening, and Flossy never failed to go. Sometimes, when we were good, she would take us; but the singular thing about it was that we never remembered what had happened. In the morning our infant minds were a cheerful blank, till Flossy told us what a glorious time we had had at Patty’s the night before, how we had danced with Willie Winkie, and how much ice-cream we had eaten. We listened to the recital with unalloyed delight, and believed every word of it, till a sad day of awakening came. We were always made to understand that we could not bring away anything from Patty’s, and were content with this arrangement; but on this occasion there was to be a ball of peculiar magnificence, and Flossy, in a fit of generosity, told Harry that he was to receive a pair of diamond trousers, which he would be allowed to bring home. Harry was a child with a taste for magnificence; and he went to bed full of joy, seeing already in anticipation the glittering of the jewelled garment, and the effects produced by it on the small boys of his acquaintance. Bitter was the disappointment when, on awakening in the morning, the chair by his bedside bore only the familiar brown knickerbockers, with a patch of a lighter shade on one knee. Harry wept, and would not be comforted; and after that, though we still liked to hear the Patty stories, we felt that the magic of them was gone,—that they were only stories, like “Blue-beard” or “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

CHAPTER II.
MORE ABOUT OURSELVES.

Julia and Flossy did not content themselves with writing plays and telling stories. They aspired to making a language,—a real language, which should be all their own, and should have grammars and dictionaries like any other famous tongue. It was called Patagonian,—whether with any idea of future missionary work among the people of that remote country, or merely because it sounded well, I cannot say. It was a singular language. I wish more of it had survived; but I can give only a few of its more familiar phrases.

Milldam—Yes.

Pilldam—No.

Mouche—Mother.

Bis von snout?—Are you well?

Brunk tu touchy snout—I am very well.

Ching chu stick stumps?—Will you have some doughnuts?

These fragments will, I am sure, make my readers regret deeply the loss of this language, which has the merit of entire originality.

As to Flossy’s talent for making paper-dolls, it is a thing not to be described. There were no such paper-dolls as those. Their figures might not be exactly like the human figure, but how infinitely more graceful! Their waists were so small that they sometimes broke in two when called upon to courtesy to a partner or a queen: that was the height of delicacy! They had ringlets invariably, and very large eyes with amazing lashes; they smiled with unchanging sweetness, filling our hearts with delight. Many and wonderful were their dresses. The crinoline of the day was magnified into a sort of vast semi-circular cloud, adorned about the skirt with strange patterns; one small doll would sometimes wear a whole sheet of foolscap in an evening dress! That was extravagant, but our daughters must be in the fashion. There was one yellow dress belonging to my doll Parthenia (a lovely creature of Jewish aspect, whose waist was smaller than her legs), which is not even now to be remembered without emotion. We built houses for the paper-dolls with books from the parlor table, even borrowing some from the bookcase when we wanted an extra suite of rooms. I do not say it was good for the books, but it was very convenient for the dolls. I have reason to think that our mother did not know of this practice. In the matter of their taking exercise, however, she aided us materially, giving us sundry empty trinket-boxes lined with satin, which made the most charming carriages in the world. The state coach was a silver-gilt portemonnaie lined with red silk. It had seen better days, and the clasp was broken; but that did not make it less available as a coach. I wish you could have seen Parthenia in it!

I do not think we cared so much for other dolls, yet there were some that must be mentioned. Vashti Ann was named for a cook; she belonged to Julia, and I have an idea that she was of a very haughty and disagreeable temper, though I cannot remember her personal appearance. Still more shadowy is my recollection of Eliza Viddipock,—a name to be spoken with bated breath. What dark crime this wretched doll had committed to merit her fearful fate, I do not know; it was a thing not to be spoken of to the younger children, apparently. But I do know that she was hanged, with all solemnity of judge and hangman. It seems unjust that I should have forgotten the name of Julia’s good doll, who died, and had the cover of the sugar-bowl buried with her, as a tribute to her virtues.

Sally Bradford and Clara both belonged to Laura. Sally was an india-rubber doll; Clara, a doll with a china head of the old-fashioned kind, smooth, shining black hair, brilliant rosy cheeks, and calm (very calm) blue eyes. I prefer this kind of doll to any other. Clara’s life was an uneventful one, on the whole, and I remember only one remarkable thing in it. A little girl in the neighborhood invited Laura to a dolls’ party on a certain day: she was to bring Clara by special request. Great was the excitement, for Laura was very small, and had never yet gone to a party. A seamstress was in the house making the summer dresses, and our mother said that Clara should have a new frock for the party. It seemed a very wonderful thing to have a real new white muslin frock, made by a real seamstress, for one’s beloved doll. Clara had a beautiful white neck, so the frock was made low and trimmed with lace. When the afternoon came, Laura brought some tiny yellow roses from the greenhouse, and the seamstress sewed them on down the front of the frock and round the neck and hem. It is not probable that any other doll ever looked so beautiful as Clara when her toilet was complete.

Then Laura put on her own best frock, which was not one half so fine, and tied on her gray felt bonnet, trimmed with quillings of pink and green satin ribbon, and started off, the proudest and happiest child in the whole world. She reached the house (it was very near) and climbed up the long flight of stone steps, and stood on tiptoe to ring the bell,—then waited with a beating heart. Would there be many other dolls? Would any of them be half so lovely as Clara? Would there—dreadful thought!—would there be big girls there?

The door opened. If any little girls read this they will now be very sorry for Laura. There was no dolls’ party! Rosy’s mother (the little girl’s name was Rosy) had heard nothing at all about it; Rosy had gone to spend the afternoon with Sarah Crocker.

“Sorry, little girl! What a pretty dolly! Good-by, dear!” and then the door was shut again.

Laura toddled down the long stone steps, and went solemnly home. She did not cry, because it would not be nice to cry in the street; but she could not see very clearly. She never went to visit Rosy again, and never knew whether the dolls’ party had been forgotten, or why it was given up.

Before leaving the subject of dolls, I must say a word about little Maud’s first doll. Maud was a child of rare beauty, as beautiful as Julia, though very different. Her fair hair was of such color and quality that our mother used to call her Silk-and-silver, a name which suited her well; her eyes were like stars under their long black lashes. So brilliant, so vivid was the child’s coloring that she seemed to flash with silver and rosy light as she moved about. She was so much younger than the others that in many of their reminiscences she has no share; yet she has her own stories, too. A friend of our father’s, being much impressed with this starry beauty of the child, thought it would be pleasant to give her the prettiest doll that could be found; accordingly he appeared one day bringing a wonderful creature, with hair almost like Maud’s own, and great blue eyes that opened and shut, and cheeks whose steadfast roses did not flash in and out, but bloomed always. I think the doll was dressed in blue and silver, but am not sure; she was certainly very magnificent.

Maud was enchanted, of course, and hugged her treasure, and went off with it. It happened that she had been taken only the day before to see the blind children at the Institution near by, where our father spent much of his time. It was the first time she had talked with the little blind girls, and they made a deep impression on her baby mind, though she said little at the time. As I said, she went off with her new doll, and no one saw her for some time. At length she returned, flushed and triumphant.

“My dolly is blind, now!” she cried; and she displayed the doll, over whose eyes she had tied a ribbon, in imitation of Laura Bridgman. “She is blind Polly! ain’t got no eyes ’t all!”

Alas! it was even so. Maud had poked the beautiful blue glass eyes till they fell in, and only empty sockets were hidden by the green ribbon. There was a great outcry, of course; but it did not disturb Maud in the least. She wanted a blind doll, and she had one; and no pet could be more carefully tended than was poor blind Polly.

More precious than any doll could be, rises in my memory the majestic form of Pistachio. It was Flossy, ever fertile in invention, who discovered the true worth of Pistachio, and taught us to regard with awe and reverence this object of her affection. Pistachio was an oval mahogany footstool, covered with green cloth of the color of the nut whose name he bore. I have the impression that he had lost a leg, but am not positive on this point. He was considered an invalid, and every morning he was put in the baby-carriage and taken in solemn procession down to the brook for his morning bath. One child held a parasol over his sacred head (only he had no head!), two more propelled the carriage, while the other two went before as outriders. No mirth was allowed on this occasion, the solemnity of which was deeply impressed on us. Arrived at the brook, Pistachio was lifted from the carriage by his chief officer, Flossy herself, and set carefully down on the flat stone beside the brook. His sacred legs were dipped one by one into the clear water, and dried with a towel. Happy was the child who was allowed to perform this function! After the bath, he was walked gently up and down, and rubbed, to assist the circulation; then he was put back in his carriage, and the procession started for home again, with the same gravity and decorum as before. The younger children felt sure there was some mystery about Pistachio. I cannot feel sure, even now, that he was nothing more than an ordinary oval cricket; but his secret, whatever it was, has perished with him.

I perceive that I have said little or nothing thus far about Harry; yet he was a very important member of the family. The only boy: and such a boy! He was by nature a Very Imp, such as has been described by Mr. Stockton in one of his delightful stories. Not two years old was he when he began to pull the tails of all the little dogs he met,—a habit which he long maintained. The love of mischief was deeply rooted in him. It was not safe to put him in the closet for misbehavior; for he cut off the pockets of the dresses hanging there, and snipped the fringe off his teacher’s best shawl. Yet he was a sweet and affectionate child, with a tender heart and sensitive withal. When about four years old, he had the habit of summoning our father to breakfast; and, not being able to say the word, would announce, “Brescott is ready!” This excited mirth among the other children, which he never could endure; accordingly, one morning he appeared at the door of the dressing-room and said solemnly, “Papa, your food is prepared!”

It is recorded of this child that he went once to pay a visit to some dear relatives, and kept them in a fever of anxiety until he was taken home again. One day it was his little cousin’s rocking-horse, which disappeared from the nursery, and shortly after was seen airing itself on the top of the chimney, kicking its heels in the sunshine, and appearing to enjoy its outing. Another time it was down the chimney that the stream of mischief took its way; and a dear and venerable visitor (no other than Dr. Coggeshall, of Astor Library fame), sitting before the fire in the twilight, was amazed by a sudden shower of boots tumbling down, one after another, into the ashes, whence he conscientiously rescued them with the tongs, at peril of receiving some on his good white head.

Such boots and shoes as escaped this fiery ordeal were tacked by Master Harry to the floor of the closets in the various rooms; and while he was in the closet, what could be easier or pleasanter than to cut off the pockets of the dresses hanging there? Altogether, Egypt was glad when Harry departed; and I do not think he made many more visits away from home, till he had outgrown the days of childhood.

At the age of six, Harry determined to marry, and offered his hand and heart to Mary, the nurse, an excellent woman some thirty years older than he. He sternly forbade her to sew or do other nursery work, saying that his wife must not work for her living. About this time, too, he told our mother that he thought he felt his beard growing.

He was just two years older than Laura, and the tie between them was very close. Laura’s first question to a stranger was always, “Does you know my bulla Hally? I hope you does!” and she was truly sorry for any one who had not that privilege.

The two children slept in tiny rooms adjoining each other. It was both easy and pleasant to “talk across” while lying in bed, when they were supposed to be sound asleep. Neither liked to give up the last word of greeting, and they would sometimes say “Good-night!” “Good-night!” over and over, backward and forward, for ten minutes together. In general, Harry was very kind to Laura, playing with her, and protecting her from any roughness of neighbor children. (They said “bunnit” and “apurn,” and “I wunt;” and we were fond of correcting them, which they not brooking, quarrels were apt to ensue.) But truth compels me to tell of one occasion on which Harry did not show a brotherly spirit. In the garden, under a great birch-tree, stood a trough for watering the horses. It was a large and deep trough, and always full of beautiful, clear water. It was pleasant to lean over the edge, and see the sky and the leaves of the tree reflected as if in a crystal mirror; to see one’s own rosy, freckled face, too, and make other faces; to see which could open eyes or mouth widest.

Now one day, as little Laura, being perhaps four years old, was hanging over the edge of the trough, forgetful of all save the delight of gazing, it chanced that Harry came up behind her; and the spirit of mischief that was always in him triumphed over brotherly affection, and he

“Ups with her heels,
And smothers her squeals”

in the clear, cold water.

Laura came up gasping and puffing, her hair streaming all over her round face, her eyes staring with wonder and fright!

By the time help arrived, as it fortunately did, in the person of Thomas the gardener, poor Laura was in a deplorable condition, half choked with water, and frightened nearly out of her wits.

Thomas carried the dripping child to the house and put her into Mary’s kind arms, and then reported to our mother what Harry had done.

We were almost never whipped; but for this misdeed Harry was put to bed at once, and our mother, sitting beside him, gave him what we used to call a “talking to,” which he did not soon forget.

Nurse Mary probably thought it would gratify Laura to know that naughty Harry was being punished for his misdoings; but she had mistaken her child. When the mother came back to the nursery from Harry’s room, she found Laura (in dry raiment, but with cheeks still crimson and shining) sitting in the middle of the floor, with clenched fists and flashing eyes, and roaring at the top of her lungs, “I’ll tumble my mudder down wid a ’tick!”

CHAPTER III.
GREEN PEACE.

Not many children can boast of having two homes; some, alas! have hardly one. But we actually had two abiding-places, both of which were so dear to us that we loved them equally. First, there was Green Peace. When our mother first came to the place, and saw the fair garden, and the house with its lawn and its shadowing trees, she gave it this name, half in sport; and the title clung to it always.

The house itself was pleasant. The original building, nearly two hundred years old, was low and squat, with low-studded rooms, and great posts in the corners, and small many-paned windows. As I recall it now, it consisted largely of cupboards,—the queerest cupboards that ever were; some square and some three-cornered, and others of no shape

Maud.

at all. They were squeezed into staircase walls, they lurked beside chimneys, they were down near the floor, they were close beneath the ceiling. It was as if a child had built the house for the express purpose of playing hide-and-seek in it. Ah, how we children did play hide-and-seek there! To lie curled up in the darkest corner of the “twisty” cupboard, that went burrowing in under the front stairs,—to lie curled up there, eating an apple, and hear the chase go clattering and thumping by, that was a sensation!

Then the stairs! There was not very much of them, for a tall man standing on the ground floor could touch the top step with his hand. But they had a great deal of variety; no two steps went the same way: they seemed to have fallen out with one another, and never to have “made up” again. When you had once learned how to go up and down, it was very well, except in the dark; and even then you had only to remember that you must tread on the farther side of the first two steps, and on the hither side of the next three, and in the middle of four after, and then you were near the top or the bottom, as the case might be, and could scramble or jump for it. But it was not well for strangers to go up and down those stairs.

There was another flight that was even more perilous, but our father had it boarded over, as he thought it unsafe for any one to use. One always had a shiver in passing through a certain dark passage, when one felt boards instead of plaster under one’s hand, and knew that behind those boards lurked the hidden staircase. There was something uncanny about it,—

“O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted.”

Perhaps the legend of the hidden staircase was all the more awful because it was never told.

Just to the right of the school-room, a door opened into the new part of the house which our father had built. The first room was the great dining-room; and very great it was. On the floor was a wonderful carpet, all in one piece, which was made in France, and had belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, a brother of the great Emperor. In the middle was a medallion of Napoleon and Marie Louise, with sun-rays about them; then came a great circle, with strange beasts on it ramping and roaring (only they roared silently); and then a plain space, and in the corners birds and fishes such as never were seen in air or sea. Yes, that was a carpet! It was here we danced the wonderful dances. We hopped round and round the circle, and we stamped on the beasts and the fishes; but it was not good manners to step on the Emperor and Empress,—one must go round them. Here our mother sang to us; but the singing belongs to another chapter.

The great dining-room had a roof all to itself,—a flat roof, covered with tar and gravel, and railed in; so that one could lie on one’s face and kick one’s heels, pick out white pebbles, and punch the bubbles of tar all hot in the sun.

But, after all, we did not stay in the house much. Why should we, with the garden calling us out with its thousand voices? On each side of the house lay an oval lawn, green as emerald. One lawn had the laburnum-tree, where at the right time of year we sat under a shower of fragrant gold; the other had the three hawthorn-trees, one with white blossoms, another with pink, and a third with deep red, rose-like flowers. Other trees were there, but I do not remember them. Directly in front of the house stood two giant Balm-of-Gilead trees, towering over the low-roofed dwelling. These trees were favorites of ours, for at a certain time they dropped down to us thousands and thousands of sticky catkins, full of the most charming, silky cotton. We called them the “cottonwool-trees,” and loved them tenderly. Then, between the trees, a flight of steps plunged down to the green-house. A curious place this was,—summer-house, hot-house, and bowling-alley, all in one. The summer-house part was not very interesting, being all filled with seeds and pots and dry bulbs, and the like. But from it a swing-door opened into Elysium! Here the air was soft and balmy, and full of the smell of roses. One went down two steps, and there were the roses themselves! Great vines trained along the walls, heavy with long white or yellow or tea-colored buds,—I remember no red ones. Mr. Arrow, the gardener, never let us touch the roses, and he never gave us a bud; but when a rose was fully open, showing its golden heart, he would often pick it for us, with a sigh, but a kind look too. Mr. Arrow was an Englishman, stout and red-faced. Julia made a rhyme about him once, beginning,—

“Poor Mr. Arrow, he once was narrow,
But that was a long time ago.”

Midway in the long glass-covered building was a tiny oval pond, lined with green moss. I think it once had goldfish in it, but they did not thrive. When Mr. Arrow was gone to dinner, it was pleasant to fill the brass syringe with water from this pond, and squirt at the roses, and feel the heavy drops plashing back in one’s upturned face. Sometimes a child fell into the pond; but as the water was only four or five inches deep, no harm was done, save to stockings and petticoats.

The bowling-alley was divided by a low partition from the hot-house, so that when we went to play at planets we breathed the same soft, perfumed air. The planets were the balls. The biggest one was Uranus; then came Saturn, and so on down to Mercury, a little dot of a ball. They were of some dark, hard, foreign wood, very smooth, with a dusky polish. It was a great delight to roll them, either over the smooth floor, against the ninepins, or along the rack at the side. When one rolled Uranus or Jupiter, it sounded like thunder,—Olympian thunder, suggestive of angry gods. Then the musical tinkle of the pins, as they clinked and fell together! Sometimes they were British soldiers, and we the Continentals, firing the “iron six-pounder” from the other end of the battle-field. Sometimes, regardless of dates, we introduced artillery into the Trojan war, and Hector bowled Achilles off his legs, or vice versa.

The bowling-alley was also used for other sports. It was here that Flossy gave a grand party for Cotchy, her precious Maltese cat. All the cat-owning little girls in the neighborhood were invited, and about twelve came, each bringing her pet in a basket. Cotchy was beautifully dressed in a cherry-colored ribbon, which set off her gray, satiny coat to perfection. She received her guests with much dignity, but was not inclined to do much toward entertaining them. Flossy tried to make the twelve cats play with one another, but they were shy on first acquaintance, and a little stiff. Perhaps Flossy did not in those days know the proper etiquette for introducing cats, though since then she has studied all kinds of etiquette thoroughly. But the little girls enjoyed themselves, if the cats did not, and there was a great deal of chattering and comparing notes. Then came the feast, which consisted of milk and fish-bones; and next every cat had her nose buttered by way of dessert. Altogether, the party was voted a great success.

Below, and on both sides of the green-house, the fertile ground was set thick with fruit-trees, our father’s special pride. The pears and peaches of Green Peace were known far and wide; I have never seen such peaches since, nor is it only the halo of childish recollection that shines around them, for others bear the same testimony. Crimson-glowing, golden-hearted, smooth and perfect as a baby’s cheek, each one was a thing of wonder and beauty; and when you ate one, you ate summer and sunshine. Our father gave us a great deal of fruit, but we were never allowed to take it ourselves without permission; indeed, I doubt if it ever occurred to us to do so. One of us still remembers the thrill of horror she felt when a little girl who had come to spend the afternoon picked up a fallen peach and ate it, without asking leave. It seemed a dreadful thing not to know that the garden was a field of honor. As to the proverbial sweetness of stolen fruit, we knew nothing about it. The fruit was sweet enough from our dear father’s hand, and, as I said, he gave us plenty of it.

How was it, I wonder, that this sense of honor seemed sometimes to stay in the garden and not always to come into the house?

Laura was found in the Sugar-Barrel.

For as I write, the thought comes to me of a day when Laura was found with her feet sticking out of the sugar-barrel, into which she had fallen head foremost while trying to get a lump of sugar. She has never eaten a lump of sugar, save in her tea, since that day. Also, it is recorded of Flossy and Julia, that, being one day at the Institution, they found the store-room open, and went in, against the law. There was a beautiful polished tank, which appeared to be full of rich brown syrup. Julia and Flossy liked syrup; so each filled a mug, and then they counted one, two, three, and each took a good draught,—and it was train-oil!

But in both these cases the culprits were hardly out of babyhood; so perhaps they had not yet learned about the “broad stone of honor,” on which it is good to set one’s feet.

I must not leave the garden without speaking of the cherry-trees. These must have been planted by early settlers, perhaps by the same hand that planned the crooked stairs and quaint cupboards of the old house,—enormous trees, gnarled and twisted like ancient apple-trees, and as sturdy as they. They had been grafted—whether by our father’s or some earlier hand I know not—with the finest varieties of “white-hearts” and “black-hearts,” and they bore amazing quantities of cherries. These attracted flocks of birds, which our father in vain tried to frighten away with scarecrows. Once he put the cat in a bird-cage, and hung her up in the white-heart tree; but the birds soon found that she could not get at them, and poor pussy was so miserable that she was quickly released.

I perceive that we shall not get to the summer home in this chapter; but I must say a word about the Institution for the Blind, which was within a few minutes’ walk of Green Peace.

Many of our happiest hours were spent in this pleasant place, the home of patient cheerfulness and earnest work. We often went to play with the blind children when our lessons and theirs were over, and they came trooping out into the sunny playground. I do not think it occurred to us to pity these boys and girls deprived of one of the chief sources of pleasure in life; they were so happy, so merry, that we took their blindness as a matter of course.

Our father often gave us baskets of fruit to take to them. That was a great pleasure. We loved to turn the great globe in the hall, and, shutting our eyes, pass our fingers over the raised surfaces, trying to find different places. We often “played blind,” and tried to read the great books with raised print, but never succeeded that I remember. The printing-office was a wonderful place to linger in; and one could often get pieces of marbled paper, which was valuable in the paper-doll world. Then there was the gymnasium, with its hanging rings, and its wonderful tilt, which went up so high that it took one’s breath away. Just beyond the gymnasium, were some small rooms, in which were stored worn-out pianos, disabled after years of service under practising fingers. It was very good fun to play on a worn-out piano. There were always a good many notes that really sounded, and they had quite individual sounds, not like those of common pianos; then there were some notes that buzzed, and some that growled, and some that made no noise at all; and one could poke in under the cover, and twang the strings, and play with the chamois-leather things that went flop (we have since learned that they are called hammers), and sometimes pull them out, though that seemed wicked.

Then there was the matron’s room, where we were always made welcome by the sweet and gracious woman who still makes sunshine in that place by her lovely presence. Dear Miss M—— was never out of patience with our pranks, had always a picture-book or a flower or a curiosity to show us, and often a story to tell when a spare half-hour came. For her did Flossy and Julia act their most thrilling tragedies, no other spectators being admitted. To her did Harry and Laura confide their infant joys and woes. Other friends will have a chapter to themselves, but it seems most fitting to speak of this friend here, in telling of the home she has made bright for over fifty years.

Over the way from the Institution stood the workshop, where blind men and women, many of them graduates of the Institution, made mattresses and pillows, mats and brooms. This was another favorite haunt of ours. There was a stuffy but not unpleasant smell of feathers and hemp about the place. I should know that smell if I met it in Siberia! There were coils of rope, sometimes so large that one could squat down and hide in the middle, piles of hemp, and dark mysterious bins full of curled hair, white and black. There was a dreadful mystery about the black-hair bin; the little ones ran past it, with their heads turned away. But they never told what it was, and one of them never knew.

But the crowning joy of the workshop was the feather-room,—a long room, with smooth, clean floor; along one side of it were divisions, like the stalls in a stable, and each division was half filled with feathers. Boy and girl readers will understand what a joy this must have been,—to sit down in the feathers, and let them cover you up to the neck, and be a setting hen! or to lie at full length, and be a traveller lost in the snow,—Harry making it snow feathers till you were all covered up, and then turning into the faithful hound and dragging you out! or to play the game of “Winds,” and blow the feathers about the room! But old Margaret did not allow this last game, and we could do it only when she happened to go out for a moment, which was not very often. Old Margaret was the presiding genius of the feather-room, a half-blind woman, who kept the feathers in order and helped to sew up the pillows and mattresses. She was always kind to us, and let us rake feathers with the great wooden rake as much as we would. Later, when Laura was perhaps ten years old, she used to go and read to old Margaret. Mrs. Browning’s poems were making a new world for the child at that time, and she never felt a moment’s doubt about the old woman’s enjoying them: in after years doubts did occur to her.

It was probably a quaint picture, if any one had looked in upon it: the long, low room, with the feather-heaps, white and dusky gray; the half-blind, withered crone, nodding over her knitting, and the little earnest child, throwing her whole soul into “The Romaunt of the Page,” or the “Rhyme of the Duchess May.”

“Oh! the little birds sang east,
And the little birds sang west,
Toll slowly!”

The first sound of the words carries me back through the years to the feather-room and old blind Margaret.

CHAPTER IV.
THE VALLEY.

The time of our summer flitting varied. Sometimes we stayed at Green Peace till after strawberry-time, and lingered late at the Valley; sometimes we went early, and came back in time for the peaches. But in one month or another there came a season of great business and bustle. Woollen dresses were put away in the great cedar-lined camphor-chests studded with brass nails; calico dresses were lengthened, and joyfully assumed; trunks were packed, and boxes and barrels; carpets were taken up and laid away; and white covers were put over pictures and mirrors. Finally we departed, generally in more or less confusion.

I remember one occasion when our rear column reached the Old Colony Station just as the train was starting. The advance-guard, consisting of our mother and the older children, was already on board; and Harry and Laura have a vivid recollection of being caught up by our father and tumbled into the moving baggage-car, he flashing in after us, and all sitting on trunks, panting, till we were sufficiently revived to pass through to our seats in the passenger-car. In those days the railway ran no farther than Fall River. There we must take a carriage and drive twelve miles to our home in the Island of Rest. Twelve long and weary miles they were, much dreaded by us all. The trip was made in a large old-fashioned vehicle, half hack, half stage. The red cushions were hard and uncomfortable; the horses were aged; their driver, good, snuff-colored Mr. Anthony, felt keenly his duty to spare them, and considered the passengers a minor affair. So we five children were cramped and cooped up, I know not how long. It seemed hours that we must sit there, while the ancient horses crawled up the sandy hills, or jogged meditatively along the level spaces. Every joint developed a separate ache; our legs were cramped,—the short ones from hanging over the seat, the long ones because the floor of the coach was piled with baskets and bandboxes. It was hot, hot! The flies buzzed, and would not let one go to sleep; the dust rolled in thick yellow clouds from under the wheels, and filled eyes and mouth, and set all a-sneezing. Decidedly, it was a most tiresome jaunt. But all the more delightful was the arrival! To drive in under the apple-trees, just as the evening was falling cool and sweet; to tumble out of the stuffy prison-coach, and race through the orchard, and out to the barn, and up the hill behind the house,—ah, that was worth all the miseries of the journey!

From the hill behind the house we could see the sunset; and that was one thing we did not have at Green Peace, shut in by its great trees. Here, before our eyes, still aching from the dust of the road, lay the great bay, all a sheet of silver, with white sails here and there; beyond it Conanicut, a long island, brown in the noon-light, now softened into wonderful shades of amethyst and violet; and the great sun going down in a glory of gold and flame! Nowhere else are such sunsets. Sometimes the sky was all strewn with fiery flakes and long delicate flame-feathers, glowing with rosy light; sometimes there were purple cloud-islands, edged with crimson, and between them and the real island a space of delicate green, so pure, so cold, that there is nothing to compare with it save a certain chrysoprase our mother had.

Gazing at these wonders, the children would stand, full of vague delight, not knowing what they thought, till the tea-bell summoned them to the house for a merry picnic supper. Then there was clattering upstairs, washing of hands in the great basin with purple grapes on it (it belonged in the guest-chamber, and we were not allowed to use it save on special occasions like this), hasty smoothing of hair and straightening of collars, and then clatter! clatter! down again.

There was nothing remarkable about the house at the Valley. It was just a pleasant cottage, with plenty of sunny windows and square, comfortable rooms. But we were seldom in the house, save at meal-times or when it rained; and our real home was under the blue sky. First, there was the orchard. It was an ideal orchard, with the queerest old apple-trees that ever were seen. They did not bear many apples, but they were delightful to climb in, with trunks slanting so that one could easily run up them, and branches that curled round so as to make a comfortable back to lean against. There are few pleasanter things than to sit in an apple-tree and read poetry, with birds twittering undismayed beside you, and green leaves whispering over your head. Laura was generally doing this when she ought to have been mending her stockings.

Then there was the joggling-board, under the two biggest trees. The delight of a joggling-board is hardly to be explained to children who have never known it; but I trust many children do know it. The board is long and smooth and springy, supported at both ends on stands; and one can play all sorts of things on it. Many a circus has been held on the board at the Valley! We danced the tight-rope on it; we leaped through imaginary rings, coming down on the tips of our toes; we hopped its whole length on one foot; we wriggled along it on our stomachs, on our backs; we bumped along it on hands and knees. Dear old joggling-board! it is not probable that any other was ever quite so good as ours.

Near by was the pump, a never-failing wonder to us when we were little. The well over which it stood was very deep, and it took a long time to bring the bucket up. It was a chain-pump, and the chain went rattlety-clank! rattlety-clank! round and round; and the handle creaked and groaned,—“Ah-ho! ah-ho!” When you had turned a good while there came out of the spout a stream of—water? No! of daddy-long-legses! They lived, apparently, in the spout, and they did not like the water; so when they heard the bucket coming up, with the water going “lip! lap!” as it swung to and fro, they came running out, dozens and dozens of them, probably thinking what unreasonable people we were to disturb them. When the water did finally come, it was wonderfully cold, and clear as crystal.

The hill behind the house was perhaps our favorite play-room. It was a low, rocky hill, covered with “prostrate juniper” bushes, which bore blue berries very useful in our housekeeping. At the top of the rise the bare rock cropped out, dark gray, covered with flat, dry lichens. This was our house. It had several rooms: the drawing-room was really palatial,—a broad floor of rock, with flights of steps leading up to it. The state stairway was used for kings and queens, conquerors, and the like; the smaller was really more convenient, as the steps were more sharply defined, and you were not so apt to fall down them. Then there was the dining-room rock, where meals were served,—daisy pudding and similar delicacies; and the kitchen rock, which had a real oven, and the most charming cupboards imaginable. Here were stored hollyhock cheeses, and sorrel leaves, and twigs of black birch, fragrant and spicy, and many other good things.

On this hill was celebrated, on the first of August, the annual festival of “Yeller’s Day.” This custom was begun by Flossy, and adhered to for many years. Immediately after breakfast on the appointed day, all the children assembled on the top of the hill and yelled. Oh, how we yelled! It was a point of honor to make as much noise as possible. We roared and shrieked and howled, till we were too hoarse to make a sound; then we rested, and played something else, perhaps, till our voices were restored, and then—yelled again! Yeller’s Day was regarded as one of the great days of the summer. By afternoon we were generally quite exhausted, and we were hoarse for several days afterward. I cannot recommend this practice. In fact, I sincerely hope that no child will attempt to introduce it; for it is very bad for the voice, and might in some cases do real injury.

Almost every morning we went down to the bay to bathe. It was a walk of nearly a mile through the fields,—such a pleasant walk! The fields were not green, but of a soft russet, the grass being thin and dry, with great quantities of a little pinkish fuzzy plant whose name we never knew.[1] They were divided by stone walls, which we were skilful in climbing. In some places there were bars which must be let down, or climbed over, or crawled through, as fancy suggested. There were many blackberries, of the lowbush variety, bearing great clusters of berries, glossy, beautiful, delicious. We were not allowed to eat them on the way down, but only when coming home. Some of these fields belonged to the Cross Farmer, who had once been rude to us. We regarded him as a manner of devil, and were always looking round to see if his round-shouldered, blue-shirted figure were in sight. At last the shore was reached, and soon we were all in the clear water, shrieking with delight, paddling about, puffing and blowing like a school of young porpoises.

At high-tide the beach was pebbled; at low-tide we went far out, the ground sloping very gradually, to a delightful place where the bottom was of fine white sand, sparkling as if mixed with diamond dust. Starfish crawled about on it, and other creatures,—crabs, too, sometimes, that would nip an unwary toe if they got a chance. Sometimes the water was full of jelly-fish, which we did not like, in spite of their beauty. Beyond the white sand was a bed of eel-grass, very dreadful, not to be approached. If a person went into it, he was instantly seized and entangled, and drowned before the eyes of his companions. This was our firm belief. It was probably partly due to Andersen’s story of the “Little Sea-Maid,” which had made a deep impression on us all, with its clutching polyps and other submarine terrors.

We all learned to swim more or less, but Flossy was the best swimmer.

Sometimes we went to bathe in the afternoon instead of the morning, if the tide suited better. I remember one such time when we came delightfully near having an adventure. It was full moon, and the tide was very high. We had loitered along the beach after our bath, gathering mussels to boil for tea, picking up gold-shells or scallop-shells, and punching seaweed bladders, which pop charmingly if you do them right.

German Mary, the good, stupid nurse who was supposed to be taking care of us, knew nothing about tides; and when we came back to the little creek which we must cross on leaving the beach, lo! the creek was a deep, broad stream, the like of which we had never seen. What was to be done? Valiant Flossy proposed to swim across and get help, but Mary shrieked and would not hear of it, and we all protested that it was impossible. Then we perceived that we must spend the night on the beach; and when we were once accustomed to the idea, it was not without attraction for us. The sand was warm and dry, and full of shells and pleasant things; it was August, and the night would be just cool enough for comfort after the hot day; we had a pailful of blackberries which we had picked on the way down, meaning to eat them during our homeward walk; Julia could tell us stories. Altogether it would be a very pleasant occasion. And then to think of the romance of it! “The Deserted Children!” “Alone on a Sandbank!” “The Watchers of the Tide!” There was no end to the things that could be made out of it. So, though poor Mary wept and wrung her hands, mindful (which I cannot remember that we were) of our mother waiting for us at home, we were all very happy.

The sun went down in golden state. Then, turning to the land, we watched the moon rising, in softer radiance, but no less wonderful and glorious. Slowly the great orb rose, turning from pale gold to purest silver. The sea darkened, and presently a little wind came up, and began to sing with the murmuring waves. We sang, too, some of the old German student-songs which our mother had taught us, and which were our favorite ditties. They rang out merrily over the water:—

Die Binschgauer wollten wallfahrten geh’n!
(The Binschgauer would on a pilgrimage go!)

or,—

Was kommt dort von der Hoh’?
(What comes there over the hill?)

Then Julia told us a story. Perhaps it was the wonderful story of Red-cap,—a boy who met a giant in the forest, and did something to help him, I cannot remember what. Whereupon the grateful giant gave Red-cap a covered silver dish, with a hunter and a hare engraved upon it. When the boy wanted anything he must put the cover on, and ask the hunter and hare to give him what he desired; but there must be a rhyme in the request, else it could not be granted. Red-cap thanked the giant, and as soon as he was alone put the cover on the dish and said,—

“Silver hunter, silver hare,
Give me a ripe and juicy pear!”

Taking off the cover, he found the finest pear that ever was seen, shining like pure gold, with a crimson patch on one side. It was so delicious that it made Red-cap hungry; so he covered the dish again and said:

“Silver hunter, silver rabbit,
Give me an apple, and I’ll grab it!”

Off came the cover, and, lo! there was an apple the very smell of which was too good for any one save the truly virtuous. It was so large that it filled the dish, and its flavor was not to be described, so wonderful was it! A third time the happy Red-cap covered his dish, and cried,—

“Hunter and hare, of silver each,
Give me a soft and velvet peach!”

And when he saw the peach he cried out for joy, for it was like the peaches that grew on the crooked tree just by the south door of the greenhouse at Green Peace; and those were the best trees in the garden, and therefore the best in the world.

The trouble about this story is that I never can remember any more of it, and I cannot find the book that contains it. But it must have been about this time that we were hailed from the opposite side of the creek; and presently a boat was run out, and came over to the sand beach and took us off. The people at the Poor Farm, which was on a hill close by, had seen the group of Crusoes and come to our rescue. They greeted us with words of pity (which were quite unnecessary), rowed us to the shore, and then kindly harnessed the farm-horse and drove us home. German Mary was loud in her thanks and expressions of relief; our mother also was grateful to the good people; but from us they received scant and grudging thanks. If they had only minded their own business and let us alone, we could have spent the night on a sandbank. Now it was not likely that we ever should! And, indeed, we never did.

CHAPTER V.
OUR FATHER.
(THE LATE DR. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE.)

There is so much to tell about our father that I hardly know where to begin. First, you must know something of his appearance. He was tall and very erect, with the carriage and walk of a soldier. His hair was black, with silver threads in it; his eyes were of the deepest and brightest blue I ever saw. They were eyes full of light: to us it was the soft, beaming light of love and tenderness, but sometimes to others it was the flash of a sword. He was very handsome; in his youth he had been thought one of the handsomest men of his day. It was a gallant time, this youth of our father. When hardly more than a lad, he went out to help the brave Greeks who were fighting to free their country from the cruel yoke of the Turks. At an age when most young men were thinking how they could make money, and how they could best advance themselves in the world, our father thought only how he could do most good, be of most help to others. So he went out to Greece, and fought in many a battle beside the brave mountaineers. Dressed like them in the “snowy chemise and the shaggy capote,” he shared their toils and their hardships; slept, rolled in his cloak, under the open stars, or sat over the camp-fire, roasting wasps strung on a stick like dried cherries. The old Greek chieftains called him “the beautiful youth,” and loved him. Once he saved the life of a wounded Greek, at the risk of his own, as you shall read by and by in Whittier’s beautiful words; and the rescued man followed him afterward like a dog, not wishing to lose sight of him for an hour, and would even sleep at his feet at night.

Our father’s letters and journals give vivid pictures of the wild life among the rugged Greek mountains. Now he describes his

Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe.

lodging in a village, which he has reached late at night, in a pouring rain:—

“Squatted down upon a sort of straw pillow placed on the ground, I enjoy all the luxury of a Grecian hut; which in point of elegance, ease, and comfort, although not equal to the meanest of our negro huts, is nevertheless somewhat superior to the naked rock. We have two apartments, but no partitions between them, the different rooms being constituted by the inequality of the ground,—we living up the hill, while the servants and horses live down in the lower part; and the smoke of our fires, rising to the roof and seeking in vain for some hole to escape, comes back again to me.”

Again, he gives a pleasant account of his visit to a good old Greek priest, who lived with his family in a tiny cottage, the best house in the village. He found the good old man just sitting down to supper with his wife and children, and was invited most cordially to join them. The supper consisted of a huge beet, boiled, and served with butter and black bread. This was enough for the whole family, and the guest too; and after describing the perfect contentment and cheerfulness which reigned in the humble dwelling, our father makes some reflections on the different things which go to make up a pleasant meal, and decides that the old “Papa” (as a Greek priest is called) had a much better supper than many rich people he remembered at home, who feasted three times a day on all that money could furnish in the way of good cheer, and found neither joy nor comfort in their victuals.

Once our father and his comrades lay hidden for hours in the hollow of an ancient wall (built thousands of years ago, perhaps in Homer’s day), while the Turks, scimitar in hand, scoured the fields in search of them. Many years after, he showed this hollow to Julia and Laura, who went with him on his fourth journey to Greece, and told them the story.

When our father saw the terrible sufferings of the Greek women and children, who were starving while their husbands and fathers were fighting for life and freedom, he thought that he could help best by helping them; so, though I know he loved the fighting, for he was a born soldier, he came back to this country, and told all that he had seen, and asked for money and clothes and food for the perishing wives and mothers and children. He told the story well, and put his whole heart into it; and people listen to a story so told. Many hearts beat in answer to his, and in a short time he sailed for Greece again, with a good ship full of rice and flour, and cloth to make into garments, and money to buy whatever else might be needed. When he landed in Greece, the women came flocking about him by thousands, crying for bread, and praying God to bless him. He felt blessed enough when he saw the children eating bread, and saw the naked backs covered, and the sad, hungry faces smiling again. So he went about doing good, and helping whenever he saw need. Perhaps many a poor woman may have thought that the beautiful youth was almost like an angel sent by God to relieve her; and she may not have been far wrong.

When the war was over, and Greece was a free country, our father came home, and looked about him again to see what he could do to help others. He talked with a friend of his, Dr. Fisher, and they decided that they would give their time to helping the blind, who needed help greatly. There were no schools for them in those days; and if a child was blind, it must sit with folded hands and learn nothing.

Our father found several blind children, and took them to his home and taught them. By and by some kind friends gave money, and one—Colonel Perkins—gave a fine house to be a school for these children and others; and that was the beginning of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, now a great school where many blind boys and girls learn to read and study, and to play on various instruments, and to help themselves and others in the world.

Our father always said, “Help people to help themselves; don’t accustom them to being helped by others.” Another saying of his, perhaps his favorite one, next to the familiar “Let justice be done, if the heavens fall!” was this: “Obstacles are things to be overcome.” Indeed, this was one of the governing principles of his life; and there were few obstacles that did not go down before that keen lance of his, always in rest and ready for a charge.

When our father first began his work in philanthropy, some of his friends used to laugh at him, and call him Don Quixote. Especially was this the case when he took up the cause of the idiotic and weak-minded, and vowed that instead of being condemned to live like animals, and be treated as such, they should have their rights as human beings, and should be taught all the more carefully and tenderly because their minds were weak and helpless.

“What do you think Howe is going to do now?” cried one gentleman to another, merrily. “He is going to teach the idiots, ha, ha, ha!” and they both laughed heartily, and thought it a very good joke. But people soon ceased to laugh when they saw the helpless creatures beginning to help themselves; saw the girls learning to sew and the boys to work; saw light gradually come into the vacant eyes (dim and uncertain light it might be, but how much better than blank darkness!), and strength and purpose to the nerveless fingers.

So the School for Feeble-minded Children was founded, and has been ever since a pleasant place, full of hope and cheer; and when people found that this Don Quixote knew very well the difference between a giant and a windmill, and that he always brought down his giants, they soon ceased to laugh, and began to wonder and admire.

All my readers have probably heard about Laura Bridgman, whom he found a little child, deaf, dumb, and blind, knowing no more than an animal, and how he taught her to read and write, to talk with her fingers, and to become an earnest, thoughtful, industrious woman. It is a wonderful story; but it has already been told, and will soon be still more fully told, so I will not dwell upon it now.

But I hope you will all read, some day, a Life of our father, and learn about all the things he did, for it needs a whole volume to tell them.

But it is especially as our father that I want to describe this great and good man. I suppose there never was a tenderer or kinder father. He liked to make companions of his children, and was never weary of having us “tagging” at his heels. We followed him about the garden like so many little dogs, watching the pruning or grafting which were his special tasks. We followed him up into the wonderful pear-room, where were many chests of drawers, every drawer full of pears lying on cotton-wool. Our father watched their ripening with careful heed, and told us many things about their growth and habits. We learned about the Curé pear, which, one fancied, had been named for an old gentleman with a long and waving nose; and about the Duchesse d’Angoulême, which suggested, in appearance as in name, a splendid dame in gold and crimson velvet. Then there were all the Beurrés, from the pale beauty of the Beurré Diel to the Beurré Bosc in its coat of rich russet, and the Easter Beurré, latest of all. There, too, was the Winter Nelis,—which we persisted in calling “Winter Nelly,” and regarded as a friend of our own age, though this never prevented us from eating her with delight whenever occasion offered,—and the Glout Morceau, and the Doyenne d’Eté, and hundreds more. Julia’s favorite was always the Bartlett, which appealed to her both by its beauty and its sweetness; but Flossy always held, and Laura held with her, and does hold, and will hold till she dies, that no pear is to be named in the same breath with the Louise Bonne de Jersey.

Oh good Louise, you admirable woman, for whom this green-coated ambrosia was named! what a delightful person you must have been! How sweetness and piquancy must have mingled in your adorable disposition! Happy was the man who called you his! happy was the island of Jersey, which saw you and your pears ripening and mellowing side by side!

I must not leave the pear-room without mentioning the beloved Strawberry Book, which was usually to be found there, and over which we children used to pore by the hour together. “Fruits of America” was its real name, but we did not care for that; we loved it for its brilliant pictures of strawberries and all other fruits, and perhaps even more for the wonderful descriptions which were really as satisfying as many an actual feast. Was it not almost as good as eating a pear, to read these words about it:—

“Skin a rich golden yellow, dappled with orange and crimson, smooth and delicate; flesh smooth, melting, and buttery; flavor rich, sprightly, vinous, and delicious!”

Almost as good, I say, but not quite; and it is pleasant to recall that we seldom left the pear-room empty-handed.

Then there was his own room, where we could examine the wonderful drawers of his great bureau, and play with the “picknickles” and “bucknickles.” I believe our father invented these words. They were—well, all kinds of pleasant little things,—amber mouthpieces, and buckles and bits of enamel, and a wonderful Turkish pipe, and seals and wax, and some large pins two inches long which were great treasures. On his writing-table were many clean pens in boxes, which you could lay out in patterns; and a sand-box—very delightful! We were never tired of pouring the fine black sand into our hands, where it felt so cool and smooth, and then back again into the box with its holes arranged star-fashion. And to see him shake sand over his paper when he wrote a letter, and then pour it back in a smooth stream, while the written lines sparkled and seemed to stand up from the page! Ah, blotting-paper is no doubt very convenient, but I should like to have a sand-box, nevertheless!

I cannot remember that our father was ever out of patience when we pulled his things about. He had many delightful stories,—one of “Jacky Nory,” which had no end, and went on and on, through many a walk and garden prowl. Often, too, he would tell us of his own pranks when he was a little boy,—how they used to tease an old Portuguese sailor with a wooden leg, and how the old man would get very angry, and cry out, “Calabash me rompe you!” meaning, “I’ll break your head!” How when he was a student in college, and ought to have known better, he led the president’s old horse upstairs and left him in an upper room of one of the college buildings, where the poor beast astonished the passers-by by putting his head out of the windows and neighing. And then our father would shake his head and say he was a very naughty boy, and Harry must never do such things. (But Harry did!)

He loved to play and romp with us. Sometimes he would put on his great fur-coat, and come into the dining-room at dancing-time, on all-fours, growling horribly, and pursue us into corners, we shrieking with delighted terror. Or he would sing for us, sending us into fits of laughter, for he had absolutely no ear for music. There was one tune which he was quite sure he sang correctly, but no one could recognize it. At last he said, “Oh—Su-sanna!” and then we all knew what the tune was. “Hail to the Chief!” was his favorite song, and he sang it with great spirit and fervor, though the air was strictly original, and very peculiar. When he was tired of romping or carrying us on his shoulder, he would say, “No; no more! I have a bone in my leg!” which excuse was accepted by us little ones in perfect good faith, as we thought it some mysterious but painful malady.

If our father had no ear for music, he had a fine one for metre, and read poetry aloud very beautifully. His voice was melodious and ringing, and we were thrilled with his own enthusiasm as he read to us from Scott or Byron, his favorite poets. I never can read “The Assyrian came down,” without hearing the ring of his voice and seeing the flash of his blue eyes as he recited the splendid lines. He had a great liking for Pope, too (as I wish more people had nowadays), and for Butler’s “Hudibras,” which he was constantly quoting. He commonly, when riding, wore but one spur, giving Hudibras’s reason, that if one side of the horse went, the other must perforce go with it; and how often, on some early morning walk or ride, have I heard him say,—

“And, like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn.”

Or if war or fighting were mentioned, he would often cry,—

“Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!”

I must not leave the subject of reading without speaking of his reading of the Bible, which was most impressive. No one who ever heard him read morning prayers at the Institution (which he always did until his health failed in later years) can have forgotten the grave, melodious voice, the reverent tone, the majestic head bent above the sacred book. Nor was it less impressive when on Sunday afternoons he read to us, his children. He would have us read, too, allowing us to choose our favorite psalms or other passages.

He was an early riser, and often shared our morning walks. Each child, as soon as it was old enough, was taught to ride; and the rides before breakfast with him are things never to be forgotten. He took one child at a time, so that all in turn might have the pleasure. It seems hardly longer ago than yesterday,—the coming downstairs in the cool, dewy morning, nibbling a cracker for fear of hunger, springing into the saddle, the little black mare shaking her head, impatient to be off; the canter through the quiet streets, where only an early milkman or baker was to be seen, though on our return we should find them full of boys, who pointed the finger and shouted,—

“Lady on a hossback,
Row, row, row!”

then out into the pleasant country, galloping over the smooth road, or pacing quietly under shady trees. Our father was a superb rider; indeed, he never seemed so absolutely at home as in the saddle. He was very particular about our holding whip and reins in the right way.

Speaking of his riding reminds me of a story our mother used to tell us. When Julia was a baby, they were travelling in Italy, driving in an old-fashioned travelling-carriage. One day they stopped at the door of an inn, and our father went in to make some inquiries. While he was gone, the rascally driver thought it a good opportunity for him to slip in at the side door to get a draught of wine; and, the driver gone, the horses saw that here was their opportunity; so they took it, and ran away with our mother, the baby, and nurse in the carriage.

Our father, hearing the sound of wheels, came out, caught sight of the driver’s guilty face peering round the corner in affright, and at once saw what had happened. He ran at full speed along the road in the direction in which the horses were headed. Rounding a corner of the mountain which the road skirted, he saw at a little distance a country wagon coming slowly toward him, drawn by a stout horse, the wagoner half asleep on the seat. Instantly our father’s resolve was taken. He ran up, stopped the horse, unhitched him in the twinkling of an eye, leaped upon his back, and was off like a flash, before the astonished driver, who was not used to two-legged whirlwinds, could utter a word.

Probably the horse was equally astonished; but he felt a master on his back, and, urged by hand and voice, he sprang to his topmost speed, galloped bravely on, and soon overtook the lumbering carriage-horses, which were easily stopped. No one was hurt, though our mother and the nurse had of course been sadly frightened. The horses were turned, and soon they came in sight of the unhappy countryman, still sitting on his wagon, petrified with astonishment. He received a liberal reward, and probably regretted that there were no more mad Americans to “steal a ride,” and pay for it.

This presence of mind, this power of acting on the instant, was one of our father’s great qualities. It was this that made him, when the wounded Greek sank down before him—

“ ... fling him from his saddle,
And place the stranger there.”

It was this, when arrested and imprisoned by the Prussian government on suspicion of befriending unhappy Poland, that taught him what to do with the important papers he carried. In the minute during which he was left alone, before the official came to search

The Doctor to the Rescue!

him, he thrust the documents up into the hollow head of a bust of the King of Prussia which stood on a shelf; then tore some unimportant papers into the smallest possible fragments, and threw them into a basin of water which stood close at hand.

Next day the fragments carefully pasted together were shown to him, hours having been spent in the painful and laborious task; but nobody thought of looking for more papers in the head of King Friedrich Wilhelm.

Our father, though nothing could be proved against him, might have languished long in that Prussian prison had it not been for the exertions of a fellow-countryman. This gentleman had met him in the street the day before, had asked his address, and promised to call on him. Inquiring for him next day at the hotel, he was told that no such person was or had been there. Instantly suspecting foul play, this good friend went to the American minister, and told his story. The minister took up the matter warmly, and called upon the Prussian officials to give up his countryman. This, after repeated denials of any knowledge of the affair, they at length reluctantly consented to do. Our father was taken out of prison at night, placed in a carriage, and driven across the border into France, where he was dismissed with a warning never to set foot in Prussia again.

One day, I remember, we were sitting at the dinner-table, when a messenger came flying, “all wild with haste and fear,” to say that a fire had broken out at the Institution. Now, in those days there lay between Green Peace and the Institution a remnant of the famous Washington Heights, where Washington and his staff had once made their camp.

Much of the high ground had already been dug away, but there still remained a great hill sloping back and up from the garden wall, and terminating, on the side toward the Institution, in an abrupt precipice, some sixty feet high. The bearer of the bad news had been forced to come round by way of several streets, thus losing precious minutes; but the Doctor did not know what it was to lose a minute. Before any one could speak or ask what he would do he was out of the house, ran through the garden, climbed the slope at the back, rushed like a flame across the green hill-top, and slid down the almost perpendicular face of the precipice! Bruised and panting, he reached the Institution and saw at a glance that the fire was in the upper story. Take time to go round to the door and up the stairs? Not he! He “swarmed” up the gutter-spout, and in less time than it takes to tell it was on the roof, and cutting away at the burning timbers with an axe, which he had got hold of no one knows how. That fire was put out, as were several others at which our father assisted.

Fire is swift, but it could not get ahead of the Doctor.

These are a few of the stories; but, as I said, it needs a volume to tell all about our father’s life. I cannot tell in this short space how he worked with the friends of liberty to free the slave; how he raised the poor and needy, and “helped them to help themselves;” how he was a light to the blind, and to all who walked in darkness, whether of sorrow, sin, or suffering. Most men, absorbed in such high works as these would have found scant leisure for family life and communion; but no finger-ache of our father’s smallest child ever escaped his loving care, no childish thought or wish ever failed to win his sympathy. We who had this high privilege of being his children love to think of him as the brave soldier, the wise physician, the great philanthropist; but dearest of all is the thought of him as our loving and tender father.

And now, to end this chapter, you shall hear what Mr. Whittier, the noble and honored poet, thought of this friend of his:—

THE HERO.

“Oh for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear;
My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!

“Oh for the white plume floating
Sad Zutphen’s field above,—
The lion heart in battle,
The woman’s heart in love!

“Oh that man once more were manly,
Woman’s pride and not her scorn;
That once more the pale young mother
Dared to boast ‘a man is born’!

“But now life’s slumberous current
No sun-bowed cascade wakes;
No tall, heroic manhood
The level dullness breaks.

“Oh for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear!
My light glove on his casque of steel,
My love-knot on his spear!”

Then I said, my own heart throbbing
To the time her proud pulse beat,
“Life hath its regal natures yet,—
True, tender, brave, and sweet!

“Smile not, fair unbeliever!
One man at least I know
Who might wear the crest of Bayard,
Or Sidney’s plume of snow.

“Once, when over purple mountains
Died away the Grecian sun,
And the far Cyllenian ranges
Paled and darkened one by one,—

“Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder,
Cleaving all the quiet sky;
And against his sharp steel lightnings
Stood the Suliote but to die.

“Woe for the weak and halting!
The crescent blazed behind
A curving line of sabres
Like fire before the wind!

“Last to fly and first to rally,
Rode he of whom I speak,
When, groaning in his bridle-path,
Sank down a wounded Greek.—

“With the rich Albanian costume
Wet with many a ghastly stain,
Gazing on earth and sky as one
Who might not gaze again!

“He looked forward to the mountains,
Back on foes that never spare;
Then flung him from his saddle,
And placed the stranger there.

“‘Alla! hu!’ Through flashing sabres,
Through a stormy hail of lead,
The good Thessalian charger
Up the slopes of olives sped.

“Hot spurred the turbaned riders,—
He almost felt their breath,
Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down
Between the hills and death.

“One brave and manful struggle,—
He gained the solid land,
And the cover of the mountains
And the carbines of his band.”

“It was very brave and noble,”
Said the moist-eyed listener then;
“But one brave deed makes no hero;
Tell me what he since hath been?”

“Still a brave and generous manhood,
Still an honor without stain,
In the prison of the Kaiser,
By the barricades of Seine.

“But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew.

“Wouldst know him now? Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lip language,
The idiot clay a mind;

“Walking his round of duty
Serenely day by day,
With the strong man’s hand of labor,
And childhood’s heart of play;

“True as the knights of story,
Sir Lancelot and his peers,
Brave in his calm endurance
As they in tilt of spears.

“As waves in stillest waters,
As stars in noon-day skies,
All that wakes to noble action
In his noon of calmness lies.

“Wherever outraged nature
Asks word or action brave;
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave;

“Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,—
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own!

“Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?”

CHAPTER VI.
JULIA WARD.

Once upon a time, in a great house standing at the corner of Bond Street and Broadway, New York city, there lived a little girl. She was named Julia, after her lovely young mother; but as she grew she showed no resemblance to that mother, with her great dark eyes and wealth of black ringlets. This little girl had red hair, and that was a dreadful thing in those days. Very fine, soft hair it was, thick and wavy, but—it was red. Visitors, coming to see her mother, would shake their heads and say, “Poor little Julia! what a pity she has red hair!” and the tender mother would sigh, and regret that her child should have this misfortune, when there was no red hair in the family so far as one knew. And the beautiful hair was combed with a leaden comb, as one old lady said that would turn it dark; and it was soaked in honey-water, as another old lady said that was really the best thing you could do with it; and the little Julia felt that she might almost as well be a hunchback or a cripple as that unfortunate creature, a red-haired child.

When she was six years old, her beautiful mother died; and after that Julia and her brothers and sisters were brought up by their good aunt, who came to make her home with them and their father. A very good aunt she was, and devoted to the motherless children; but sometimes she did funny things. They went out to ride every day—the children, I mean—in a great yellow chariot lined with fine blue cloth. Now, it occurred to their kind aunt that it would have a charming effect if the children were dressed to match the chariot. So thought, so done! Dressmakers and milliners plied their art; and one day Broadway was electrified by the sight of the little Misses Ward, seated in uneasy state on the blue cushions, clad in wonderful raiment of yellow and blue. They

Julia Ward and her Brothers, as Children.

(From a miniature by Miss Anne Hall.)