[i1]

MERRICK RICHARDSON AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY-FIVE.

LOOKING BACK

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

By

Merrick Abner Richardson

AUTHOR OF

"JIM HALL AND THE RICHARDSONS", "EIGHT DAYS OUT", "MINA FAUST",
"ROSE LIND", "PERSONALITY OF THE SOUL", "CHICAGO'S
BLACK SHEEP", "TWILIGHT REFLECTIONS."

Privately Printed

CHICAGO: MCMXVII

Copyright 1917
By
Merrick Abner Richardson

PREFACE

My spare time, only, is occupied in literary efforts. I never allow them to interfere with either my business or social life.

In composing, in a mysterious way, I comprehend the companionship of my imaginary friends as vividly as I do the material associates of life. To me imagination is the counterpart or result of inspiration, while inspiration is light thrown upon the unrevealed. The image may be the result of known or unknown cause, but the mystery does not blot out the actual existence of the image. The material image we call sight, the retained memory, and the unknown revelation, but all are comprehensive images.

I see a bird, its form created a picture on my eye, the image of which mysteriously remained after the object had disappeared. Now what or who cognizes the primitive object, the formed picture or the retained image?

The materialist assumes he has solved the mystery when he says; The appearance of the object formed an impression on your brain; omitting the important part of who comprehends the impression.

These material and spiritual views are not the two extremes, there is no midway, one is right and the other is wrong. Either man is a spiritual, responsible being or he is just temporary mud.

Therefore imagination, to me is incomprehensible realization, while materialism is the symbol of passing events. This explains how my imaginary friends become so dear to me.

The ideas presented in my story of Mary Magdalene I gained through descriptions conveyed to me by Jona while traveling across the Syrian desert. He always began in the middle of his story and worked out both ways, which made it difficult to take notes, besides at the best it was but a legend, dim and indistinct.

In this work I have carefully avoided Oriental style, language or customs for two reasons: First, there is not an Oriental scholar now, who could do them justice, Second, one is perfectly safe in bringing any people of any age right down to our times. For, the culture of one tribe or race does not influence incoming souls for the next generation. The human family enter life on about the same plane. A child from the low tribes of the jungles or from the desert wild, if brought up by a Chicago mother, might become as great as one of the royal family. The feelings, aspirations, sorrows and love of Mary Magdalene and Peter were similar to what ours would have been under the same conditions. Therefore I bring the story of Magdalene right down to yesterday.

I first constructed the story of Magdalene while in Jerusalem, then I revised it in Egypt, and have been revising it at intervals ever since. From Jona's continued reiteration regarding her prepossessing gifts, spiritual and unwavering qualities, especially her firmness before Caiaphas, I formed her personality in my mind and associated her with bright women of today, then I let Magdalene talk for herself.

To me she was no exception from the women I associated with in Chicago. There are not wanting women in Oak Park who under the same circumstances would have followed Jesus to Jerusalem, disdained to deny him and would have pleaded before the sanhedrim at the dead of night to have saved their associate from the misguided servants of the devil.

The reminiscenses of the pioneer Richardsons, Jim and Winnie, Sunshine days around Wabbaquassett, John Brown, roving escapades of the Richardson Brothers, my athletic exploits, my travels and other scenes of my life are primitive truths copied from memory and set forth in my original form of expression.

My attack on materialists or infidelic instructors stands on its own feet and opposes a tendency that will create degeneracy if continued.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LOOKING BACK

MY ANCESTORS

Ezekiel Richardson, with his wife Susanna, joined the Protestant Church in the Village of Charlestown, Mass.—now Boston—in 1630. The following year Thomas and Samuel Richardson joined the same church; the records of the will of Ezekiel prove them to have been his brothers.

When they came to New England, or where from, is unknown, but as about thirty ships of British emigrants came into Boston Harbor about that time, it is safe to assume that they came on one of these vessels, but possibly they may have come on one of the boats which followed the Mayflower nearly ten years previous.

It appears that there arose dissensions in the church and those good Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers strove among themselves until 1634, when the three Richardsons, with several other families, withdrew and decided to start a colony and a church of their own, where they could worship God in peace.

WOBURN

Through a swamp on the west, called Cat Bird Glen, ran a trout brook to the meadows below. Beyond this woodland glen lay an upland plain, held by the Indians as a camping ground, which the Richardsons concluded they might, through the persuasion of powder and bullets, be able to occupy and leave the parent church at Charlestown to mourn their departure.

Accordingly about twenty families, including the Richardsons, took possession of the site, dug their cellars, and built primitive homes together with a log church and named the town Woburn.

Joy mingled with pride encouraged the men to subdue the soil, hunt, snare and trap the game and fish, while the buxom dames hummed their spinning wheels as they cooed their frolicsome babies beneath the shadows of the great forest monarchs who seemed loath to give way to the encroaching steps of the white man.

Contrary to the general rule, that rats and ministers advance hand in hand with civilization, in this case the ministers failed to appear for the reason that the home church of England refused to recognize the seceders as children of God by turning down their supplication for a regular ordained preacher.

Here the true spirit and determination which seems to tinge the veins of the Richardsons made its first appearance. Ezekiel, by the grace of God, took upon himself the leadership in all the praying and singing of the independent church for about ten years. He officiated at all weddings and funerals, besides established the whipping post for those who did not appear in church, with clean shirts on, three Sundays each month to hear him preach two long sermons, when it is said he often preached so loud that he could be distinctly heard in the Charlestown church two miles away, to the annoyance of his old-time associates.

After Ezekiel's thrifty swarm had become greater than the parent hive at Charlestown and the hand of time began pressing heavily upon his shoulders, a regularly ordained preacher was sent in, which the parishioners did not like as well as they did Ezekiel, for he could not clothe and feed himself as Ezekiel had done, but he stayed until he died, and here is a sample of primitive piety in our grandfather's days:

"The Reverend Mr. Carter of the Woburn Episcopal Church died, and being a good man, our forefathers decided to turn out in mass, give him a Christian burial and charge the expenses to the town. Of the itemized bill—coffin, shroud, grave-digging, and stimulants,—the latter, the liquor bill, exceeded all the other expenses."

See Woburn Town Records, Volume 3, page 68.

Thus while we find traces of weakness in our ancestors, a principle seems to have been involved which made New England a hot-bed for vags and tramps. No wonder we sigh for the good old days when respectable citizens did not have to lock their doors on Sunday, for all the thieves were in church.

TRADITIONS

Through the first appearance of the Richardsons in Charlestown we have an unbroken line of nine generations through Ezekiel of Woburn 1630 to Marvin of Chicago 1917.

Ezekiel of Woburn.
Theopolis of Woburn.
John of Stafford Street.
Uriah of Stafford Street.
John of Devil's Hop Yard.
Warren of Wabbaquassett Lake.
Merrick of Chicago.
Arthur of Chicago.
Marvin of Chicago.

Of course, my brothers and cousins perpetuate this name, the same as I do. Collins and Gordon, my brothers, with Orino, the son of my Uncle Orson, alone have raised about twenty boys.

The living male descendants of Ezekiel, Samuel and Thomas, who carry our name, must now be more than one hundred thousand Richardsons, and I presume few of them trace back their relation more than three generations, but they could if they would.

MY GRANDMOTHER'S STORY

My grandmother, Judith Burroughs Richardson, who died in 1859, age 94, seemed in the evening of her life-day to think, dream and commune with her ancestors and friends, who long since entered Paradise, and now seemed to be throwing back kisses to loved ones approaching that land of delight.

From her experience and traditional reminiscences I here give a condensed sketch of her apparent and vivid memories:

James Burroughs, her grandfather, was the son of the minister, George Burroughs, her great-grandfather, who was hanged at Salem, Mass., August 19, 1692, for being in league with the devil.

James was arrested soon after, but escaped from Salem jail and, under the name of Jim Hall, lived in Connecticut for several years. Later, under his right name, he married Winnie Richardson, a Stafford Street girl, and they settled near Brattleborough, Vermont, where grandmother's father, Amos Burroughs, was born.

After James died, her grandmother Winnie came to West Stafford to live with them. She died before grandma was born and was buried in the family lot near their house. Her gravestone was still standing when my father was old enough to go with his grandfather Amos Burroughs and see them.

The homestead where Winnie died and grandmother was born and married can be found by following the south road out of West Stafford and turning the first road to the right, across the brook and up the hill to the first farm scene.

Winnie's father, Theopolis, son of Ezekiel, and several other men with their families, came West when she was a little girl and took possession, or squat, on the northern rise of a highland plain, where a grand view of the far-away Western mountains can be seen. They called their camp Stafford.

John, Winnie's brother, who was conducting an Indian trading post at Medford came on later, with his two brothers, Gershom and Paul, and opened up the famous Stafford Street, which was laid out twenty rods wide and about two miles long, the southern terminus being about one mile northeast of Stafford Springs.

John Richardson took up the first farm at the north entrance on the west side and Silas Dean took the first on the left, or east, side from the old campus on the hill at the north end of the street.

All between the walls, which was later changed to sixteen rods, was commons. The church in the center was used for spiritual devotion, recorder office and court of justice.

[i18]

ARRIVAL OF THE WOBURN PIONEERS AT STAFFORD STREET WHEN WINNIE RICHARDSON WAS TEN YEARS OF AGE. RECENT VIEW OF THE WESTERN HILLS FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMP.

RECORDS

The records of those New England pioneers are dim, as the Puritans considered church members only, as persons.

Boston records (Woburn), as we have seen, seem to extol Ezekiel.

Theopolis according to his will, must have been a financial success.

The Stafford Street records, I was informed by Mrs. Larned, who now lives on the old homestead, were kept in their family from the beginning until lately, when they became such a source of annoyance from ancestor seekers, like myself, that they sent them to the recorder's office at Stafford Springs.

At the recorder's office at Stafford Springs I found that John Richardson from Medford came to Stafford Street in 1726, this, though meager, acts as the official connecting link between Woburn and Stafford.

Another scrap I found was that Paul Richardson had taken land adjoining his brother, John Richardson, this identifies both John and Paul.

Regarding Gershom, the other one of the three brothers, I found this:

"Gershom Richardson, son of Gershom and Abigail, born in 1761."

This would make the elder Gershom Richardson contemporary with John and Paul.

E. Y. Fisk, an early settler, told me that a part of the early church records have been burned.

In the old graveyard just south of the brook which crosses Stafford Street still remains the headstone of Lot Dean, who died in 1818.

Lot would be of the next generation from Silas Dean, who took the farm opposite John Richardson.

Near the grave of Lot are the headstones of Uriah Richardson and his wife Miriam, who died October 18, 1785, at the age of 75. Uriah must have been all right, for Miriam, who died twenty years later, had had inscribed on his headstone:

"The memory of the just is blessed."

Grandmother remembered Uriah, the son of John and the father of John, her husband.

Now while the traditions, records and gravestones may prove each in themselves to be weak evidence, together they form an unbroken chain from Ezekiel down to our times.

[i22]

ANCIENT CEMETERY OF THE STAFFORD STREET PIONEERS WHERE MOST OF THE GRAVE STONES ARE FOUND BROKEN AND IN THE WALL WHICH IS BUILT AROUND THE LOT.
LEFT TO RIGHT. M. A. RICHARDSON. WALTER SKINNER. LUCIUS ABORN.

OLD HOMESTEAD

With my interesting nieces, Joe and Lina Newell, one bright summer day, I visited the ancient homes of the Stafford Street, Conn., Richardsons.

E. Y. Fisk and his son now possess the historical property. The son from Springfield, who was haying there at the time, invited us and all the other Richardson tribe to come and camp on the homestead grounds, sit on the old walls, gaze over the western mountains and even coquet with the star Venus evenings, all of which look now the same as when our ancestors saw them 200 years ago.

That day, July 19, 1916, with those girls, viewing the scenes and taking pictures of the surroundings, imprinted on my mind an oasis of beauty ever awaiting recall as I journey over the trackless sands of time.

The present seemed to pass away as the past unfolded its charms while we were reminded of the long ago.

Sacredly we listened to the voice of Mother Mary calling Winnie from the kitchen door, saw the men in homespun shirts and trousers coming up from the meadow below. Heard the careless boy whistling while unyoking the lazy oxen. Saw old dog Towser sleeping in the shade. And in the pasture far away we seemed to hear the faint tinkling of the cow bell on the brindle steer.

Day dreams, says one.

Imagination, says another.

May it not be that when death removes this earthly garment, we will again realize that the past, present, and future are one.

If the image of the face before me now is the retention of the face I saw yesterday, may not all fiction, invention and imagination be retention of occurences we can only recall in parts?

The power of recall is mysterious. If we dream of the dead as living when we know that they are dead, but we cannot recall that which we know, may we not know of pre-existence but lack the power to recall?

Thus Lina, Joe and myself spent a happy summer day on the New England hills, which we will pleasantly recall when the cold winds of winter rattle the doors and windows and we are hugging the radiators.

JIM HALL

During the days of the New England pioneers our early church had more trouble in evolutionizing Christianity from bigotry than in driving the red man from his native lair. Therefore, as the records show my ancestors to have been entangled in this muss, I have arranged, in this family record, and the story of my life, the story of Winnie and Jim.

One warm May evening, in 1693, a stranger, who said his name was James Hall, appeared at the door of Deacon Felker's home in Stafford, Conn., and applied for a job. His face betokened firmness, his speech was clear and distinct, while a tinge of sadness seemed to pervade his distant smile.

He claimed to be a good chopper and, as the deacon was now clearing up his future home in the New England wilderness, he soon bargained with Jim for all the season.

Hall soon became a favorite in the colony, broke all the unruly steers, saddled the ugly colts, collared Bill Jones, the terror of the town, and thrashed him soundly; but did not attend church until the influence of Winnie Richardson changed hatred to forgiveness.

LOVE SPATS

For some weeks the Felkers had had many callers, who sympathized deeply with the poor broken-hearted mother over her lost Juda among the Indians, but time, the blessed obliterator of all earthly troubles, soon brought forward other scenes and changes, and people laughed, joked and enjoyed themselves at Stafford as usual.

Winnie Richardson and her father were over to see the Felkers almost every day and Mr. Richardson would hear nothing about the pay for the colt which the Indians had stolen from Jim while searching for Juda, saying he had another one as nice, which, if Jim would come over and break, so Winnie could ride it, he would call it square.

One evening Winnie came over and, as was her custom, fluttered around and fussed over Jim, bandaging up his sore foot, which he had hurt during the hunt for Juda. Then she made tea for Mrs. Felker and slicked up the room, while Jim lay back in the chair and watched all her movements.

Jim felt almost like crying, he was so worn out and heart-broken over the loss of little Juda. Everyone knows how sweet home and friends seem under such circumstances; but here was Winnie, who had won his heart, and he wanted to tell her so, but she would not let him.

"Winnie," he said, in as a careless a manner as he was capable of, "you do not know how much that new gown becomes you."

[i29]

WINNIE RICHARDSON, WAITING ON THE EASTERN BLUFFS OF OLD WABBAQUASSETT.

"Thanks, Jim, I'm glad you like it; do you know I have worked on it ever since you went away? I was so worried about you I had to work or ride old Dan, to keep from going wild. Several times I rode down to the Springs, followed the trail around the west bend way up to old Wabbaquassett, around to the eastern highlands from where I gazed across the pretty waves, hoping to see you coming, but saw only Nipmunk maidens sporting in their canoes."

"Then, if I had never come back, Winnie, I suppose you would have worked on that gown and ridden to Wabbaquassett Lake all the remainder of your life."

"I do not know. I know I wanted you to come home."

Jim was encouraged. This was more than she had ever said before, so he ventured to say, "Winnie, come here and give me your hand."

She came forward, and placing her hand in his, said, laughingly, "Well, Jim, what?"

"Now, Winnie, why were you worried for fear I would not come home and what did you want me to come back for?"

"Why, Jim, are you so simple as all that? You know that father expects you to break his colts in the spring, besides he thinks he cannot get along without your opinion on cabbages and turnips, then why would it not worry me? Now, Jim, I'm going home, and I want you to limp over tomorrow and see me, and stay all day, and we will have a good visit. But, really, Jim, you must not talk serious to me; you must give up that." Both were silent a moment and then she continued: "There, James Hall, has that little lecture almost killed you? I see you have the dumps. That will never do. Look up here, Mr. Hall, have you forgotten that Miss Richardson is present?"

Jim looked up and endeavored to catch her eye, but no use. When she saw how pitiful he looked she burst out laughing and walked away with her chin way up high, then came back with a smile, bade him good-night, and she was gone.

Jim was in trouble. Mrs. Felker was delirious with grief. Little Juda, the sunshine of the home, was gone, and Winnie had told him plainly he must abandon all serious thoughts. He lay awake way into the night and formed his plans thus: "I will not go over to Richardsons in the morning, nor the next day nor the next, and perhaps never. I will take my axe and go up among the old hickory trees and work from sun to sun and try to banish little Juda from my mind, and also try to forget what a fool I am; fool—fool—of course I am, tossing around here all night over a girl that does not care for me. The idea of my consulting with her father over a cabbage patch. I think Jim Hall is not quite dead gone yet—no, I will not show my face there again very soon, of course not. Now I will turn over and go to sleep." But poor Jim, like many others, would like to forget his Winnie, but could not. Winnie had won his heart. She had come to stay.

Morning came and as the sun banished the dew from the grass, so daylight had upset all of Jim's plans concerning the hickory logs. He did not want to see Winnie in particular—no, but then he must not treat Mr. Richardson shabbily because Winnie had misused him. "Oh, I'll go over, of course I will, and visit the old folks, and if I see her I will pass the time of day to her—that is all."

[i33]

GOOD MORNING, MISS RICHARDSON!

He found the old gent out feeding pigs and soon they were engaged in a friendly conversation. When they turned into the house, Aunt Mary came briskly forward to greet him and asked many questions concerning his long hunt for Juda among the Indians, which he could have answered more sensibly had he not been expecting Winnie. Of course, he was not anxious to see her, but he wondered where she was.

"Jim," said Mr. Richardson, "you will find plenty of those early apples down in the orchard if you care for them." So Mr. Hall started through the orchard and came spat upon Winnie by the wild rose bush, on the orchard wall.

"Good morning, Miss Richardson," he said, as he extended his hand in a cold businesslike manner.

Winnie paid no attention to his good morning, but brushing aside his extended hand she began fixing a white rose in the buttonhole of his coat as she said in a soft tone: "Jim, how would you feel if you were a girl and had gone and primed yourself all up nice so as to look sweet as possible, waiting for your fellow to come and say, 'Hello, Winnie, how sweet you look this morning!' but instead to see him come stalking through the trees as though he was monarch of all he surveyed, saying 'good morning, Miss Richardson.' Now, own up, Jim, that you deliberately planned that scheme to frighten me."

"Well, but you see, my dear."

"Yes, Jim, I see. I know all about it. You have been nerving yourself up to show that you did not care for me. You did it nicely. I thought you could not hold out more than a minute, but I think you did about two. And now you're smiling, calling me dear, and will not let go of my hand. You did not sleep well last night, did you?"

"No, I did not."

"Was Mrs. Felker nervous?"

"Yes, she did not sleep a wink before two o'clock."

"And how about Frank?"

"Oh, he always sleeps like a log."

"Say, Jim, why do you take such an interest in Frank; where did the Felkers get him?"

"Boston, or somewhere East."

"What is his name?"

"Burroughs, they say."

"Burroughs—Burroughs—he did not come from Salem, did he?"

Winnie, noticing Jim's emotion, turned back to the original theme and continued: "And I suppose Juda was on your mind?"

"Yes, she was, and still I know it is wrong to worry about her, but I shall never cease to love that little angel. You know, I have lots of love letters she wrote me? She used to bring them over into the lot herself and then turn her back while I read them. She said she could not bear to see a man read a love letter. She was like her mother, artful as she could be. She used to enjoy our love spats, as she called them; she would pretend to get mad and go pouting around all day and expect me to come and make up with her, and sometimes it required lots of coaxing, but, of course, she always gave in at last. You see, now she is gone, I cannot help thinking about those things, and that is not all the trouble with me, either."

"That is enough, Jim. You need not tell your other troubles. Come along to the grove, I want to talk with you."

Following the cart path they entered the woods, when she turned quickly and said: "Jim, I have something on my mind which I wish to unload, and you will not think me silly even if I am wrong?"

"No, no," he replied with a searching look. "I like to have you confide in me."

"Do you know, Jim, that I think there is a possible chance yet to find Juda alive."

He sprang to his feet as he exclaimed, "Tell me, Winnie, tell me all you know!"

"Do not get excited; I have no proof. Tell, me, Jim, all about the first day you were out hunting for Juda, who you saw and what they said?"

After he had gone through with the particulars she asked: "How many Indians camped at Wabbaquassett Lake that first night?"

"Only four, besides those regular lake dwellers."

"Did you see them all at one time?"

"Yes, we saw the four and talked with them. They came from the West."

"Were they Mohawks?"

"No, they were Narragansetts."

"Well, if Juda had been with the camp when you and Frank came upon them, could they have concealed her?"

"Certainly, but I do not think she was there."

"I do not think, Jim, she was killed by the wolves," said Winnie, as she frowned thoughtfully while looking on the ground. "If she is dead the Indians killed her."

"Did not you and all the neighbors, after we had gone, find the place where the wolves had killed her?"

"Oh, yes, Jim, I was there, but those Indians are so cunning. You see they broke camp about noon and that must have been about the time she would have arrived there. Now, if she arrived at the camp after they had gone, she could have come back home, but if lost, why did she not hear the calls for her, for the wolves disturb no one until after dark."

"Suppose your theory is true, Winnie, what steps would you take to find her?"

"Will you do what I want you to do about it?"

"Yes, Winnie, I feel like Queen Esther, when risking her life for her people."

"Queen Esther? Jim Hall, who taught you the Bible?"

He studied a moment and then said: "Go on about Juda, please."

Winnie scrutinized him keenly, then turned from the painful subject and continued about Juda. "I want you to wait several months until the Indians think we have given her up, then go quietly among the tribes; you know you talk all their tongues, and if you find her, Jim, I will love you for your bravery, and if you do not, the endeavor ought to count some. Now I suppose you want to go in and visit with papa and mamma."

"Y-e-s."

"What makes you drag out that 'yes' so long?"

"I thought you might like to take a walk in the grove."

"If you had not been so cross to me this morning."

"Well—but, I really did think—"

"What has changed your mind, Mr. Hall?"

"Well, Winnie."

"Well, Jim, say, do you really want to make up? Oh, catch me, Jim, my heart—my heart!"

Jim sprang and saved her from falling into the brook, as she pushed him from her and began laughing.

"Oh, Winnie, you do not know how you did frighten me, you are a roguish girl, but I like you and think you a perfect pet."

"Perfect pet—get out. Did you know John Bragg was over to see me?"

"John Bragg?"

"Yes, John Bragg."

"I thought you had given him up?"

"Oh, no. I did think when you and I came home from church on the black colt, it would give him a shock, but he is all the more attentive. Think of it, all the fathers and mothers have had their daughters cooing around him for the last three years and he does not bite, but is in great agony over me. Now, what can I do? I will have to marry him to get rid of him, won't I?"

"To get rid of him?"

"Oh, Jim, but his father is rich. You see, it is dignified to have such a beau. He came over last night after I left you and said his father had bought of Mr. Converse a beautiful saddle horse and he wanted me to take a ride on it, but when I told him I was engaged he looked downcast. He proposed to bring over his sister Lydia and, if it pleased you, we would all go up to the west bend fishing together and have a fish fry. What do you thing of that?"

"I would be delighted to go."

"Yes, but he will expect to escort me and leave you to attend to Lydia."

"That is all right; I like Lydia."

"You do?"

"Of course, I do."

"But, Jim, you are older than Lydia."

"I do not think she cares for that by what she said."

"What she said? When was all this talk?"

"Oh, not long ago."

"Not long ago? Look around here, James Hall!" At this he smiled and she said, "There, now, you were fooling me—own up that it was not true."

"It may not be exactly true, but bordering on the truth."

"What do you mean by bordering on the truth?"

"I actually saw her."

"Did you talk that way to her?"

"Oh, no; we did not speak."

"There, Jim, now I like you just a little bit; sort of sisterly love, you know. That is all, Jim—do you hear?"

"No," he said, drawing her to him. "I did not catch that last sentence. Come a little nearer, Winnie."

"Never! Never! James Hall," she said, withdrawing with a flushed face. "You are holding a secret from me and unless you confide all, Winnie Richardson will die an old maid."

"Thank God," he replied, with irony, "That cuts off John Bragg."

"John is already cut off. I love the tracks you make in the dust more than I do him, but no girl should allow herself to follow a love trail into a snare. You may be all right. I think you are, but do not advance another shade until I know all."

Jim dried her falling tears as caressingly as he dared, but the mystery still remained.

Winnie turned and gazed to the far away hills, but she did not see them, for her soul was silently summoning courage for the trying ordeal. Jim could but see in her the model of pure virtue and loveliness, as she turned to him, saying:

"Is your name James Hall?"

"No."

"Were you ever married?"

"Yes."

"Is your wife alive?"

"No."

"What is your name?"

"James Burroughs."

"Is your father alive?"

"No."

"What was his name?"

"George Burroughs."

"Where did he die?"

"Salem."

"When?"

"August 19, 1692."

"Was he that George Burroughs?" Here Winnie's voice failed, and Jim answered, "He was."

Winnie stepped back while her thin lips parted and seemed to look as white as the ivories between them.

"Was your wife that beautiful Fanny Shepherd, who died with a broken heart at Casco Bay, after the report of your death?"

"She was."

Winnie stood a moment as if to satisfy herself that the world was real and she was not dreaming, then coming softly forward she sat on his knee and putting her arm around his neck began kissing him, while she said: "Mother is to have hot biscuits, butter and honey for supper, and we must go now, and after that I will give her a hint of what has happened, and we will take to the parlor and you must tell me the story of your life, and you may talk just as serious as you please. Now, Jim, I want you to hug and kiss me for keeps."

Father and mother were puzzled to conjecture what had caused the turn in the tide, for the distance between Winnie and Jim had suddenly disappeared, and Winnie began bossing him around, just like regular married folks.

"Jim," said Winnie, as they entered the parlor. "Your clothes do not fit, your boots are too big, and your hair is too long. Oh, dear me, after we are married what a time I will have fixing you up. What makes you smile?"

"Who has said anything about marrying, Winnie?"

"I did."

"When is all this to take place?"

"Oh, it will be several months yet. You know, papa and mamma will want me to look nice and I will have to make all my new clothes. Now begin your story."

"Will you promise not to cry, Winnie?"

"Really, I will try. But think of it, it seems to me something like one rising from the dead; and still, believe me, dear, something of this kind impressed me from the day you arrived in Stafford, nearly eight years ago. If I should tell you my dreams you would call me visionary, but I will tell that some other time. Now begin and I will be good except when I want to pet you."

JIM'S STORY

I was born in Boston, May 1, 1670. My father, George Burroughs, then an ordained minister, was traveling on a circuit, preaching in stores, schoolhouses or any place where it was convenient, as most preachers did at that time. When I was four years old we moved to Salem, where father had charge of the Salem Mission, and when I was twelve years of age my mother died.

Father's liberal views did not please Samuel Harris and several other officials of the church, and they petitioned the presiding elder that he be removed.

Soon father learned that a settlement at Casco Bay, Maine, a landing on the coast nearly 100 miles north of Salem, had no preacher, so accordingly, one morning after a friend had given us our lodging, breakfast and two dollars in money, we started on foot for Casco Bay. The evening before leaving, we had spent several hours fixing up mother's grave, and as we passed by the yard the next morning we went in and knelt, and I remember how father thanked God that our angel mother had passed to the land of dreams, "Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

On our way along the north shore road, father preached several times, for which the people lodged, fed and gave us some money. On arriving at our destination, father announced that he would preach next morning, Sunday, in Gordon Richardson's barn. Well do I remember the text, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give ye rest." I noticed all paid close attention and some shed tears, and when we sang, all joined in and it seems to me I have never heard such voices since. It was a bright, clear summer day, all the little settlement was quiet, and when those standing outside joined in the chorus the peaceful strains seemed to waft my soul far away and make me think that I was with my mother.

After it was over Lucius Aborn, when shaking hands, said, "Your talk suits me, Mr. Burroughs, and although I'm not a church-going man, here is my dollar, and I want you and the boy to come right up to my house and stay six or eight weeks, and we will all pitch in and find you a place to live and preach."

CASCO BAY

Oh, how well we prospered in that little one-horse town, where there was little money, but the fields, orchards and gardens brought forth their fruit abundantly, while fish and game were plenty. The business center consisted of one large grocery and notion store, a sawmill, gristmill, fish and game market, and several large storehouses. I soon found employment in the store which was kept by Obadiah Stubbs, where I worked while I was not in school as long as I lived there.

At the end of one year, father had ninety members in his flock, and was still preaching in the schoolhouse. Eight years after our arrival, the congregation had built a commodious log and plastered church and father was receiving four hundred dollars salary, while I had saved two hundred dollars. With this and father's savings, we bought the Dimmick place, a comfortable village home.

On my twenty-first birthday I married Fanny Shepherd, a beautiful blue-eyed girl of eighteen, when we, with father, moved into our new quarters, and as Mr. Stubbs had proposed taking me in as a partner, we looked forward to a happy and prosperous life.

Father's affectionate acts and words to Fanny caused her to love him and, when we were blessed with a little baby boy, our happiness was complete, but, oh, how little did I dream of the dark storm that was gathering on yonder horizon, whose distant thunder I could not hear, and angry lightning I could not see, but whose dark mantle, when spread over, would cause me to bow down in grief, such as few ever realize.

DEACON HOBBS

Deacon Hobbs, returning in March, from Salem, stated in open church that he had learned that George Burroughs was not a regularly ordained minister, even if he once had been, and if he received spiritual aid, as he claimed, it was not the spirit of God, but that of the devil. He advised all members to beware of wolves in sheep clothing.

Father replied: "'An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit.' Look to the right and left, Deacon Hobbs, and view the two hundred members working in the Master's vineyard. Compare my life of the past few years with yours. I, with my son's assistance, and the liberality of my flock, have saved enough to buy a modest home, while you have sponged up nearly half the wealth of this town. Your barns, storehouses, and pockets are full. I have not charged usury for money, cheated the red man out of his honest dues or trampled upon the rights of widows and orphans; all these things you have done. I think I divine your purpose; but now listen, you steeple of soulless piety, neither insinuations nor acts will intimidate me. Not for an extension of this momentary life would I budge one hair to the right or left from the path my Master has laid out for me. He knows it all, and why should I fear?" At this point Hobbs left the church.

THE ARREST

On May 4, 1692, father, Fanny and myself were at the table with the baby boy in father's arms, he saying that it did not seem to him that the whole family was there unless he had the baby on his knee. As dear Fanny was joking him about feeding a baby two weeks old, two officers stepped into the room and read a warrant to him. It was for the arrest of George Burroughs as being suspected of being in complicity with the Devil. The warrant was dated Boston, April 30th, 1692. (See Boston Records.)

Without permission to bid us privately good-bye, his hands were shackled, he was placed on a horse, and they rode away at full gallop.

Fanny was in no condition to be left alone, but she urged me to saddle her father's horse at once and follow on. Soon the horse was waiting for me, but she could not let me go, she wept so bitterly while she flung her lovely arms around my neck, but at last with one sweet kiss she bade me hasten and said she would go home to Father Shepherd's until I returned.

Fanny, oh, Fanny! How little did I think the heart which loved me so fondly would soon be silent in the grave and I a fugitive and a wanderer—no friends, no home, and no one to love me.

Twenty miles away I caught up with them, when we rode nearly three days, with father's hands unnecessarily shackled, most of the time. The second day he said: "Jimmy, this is my last earthly ride. The church is in error and will continue its injustice until some tragedy awakens the people, then it will be restrained. I may as well suffer as another. Jesus intends righteousness to eventually govern His church, but his professed followers are often blind to truth and righteousness, and will be until some great wrong is committed whereby they can place right against wrong for compromise. Do not weep, my boy, soon, in a moment as it were, you and I will stand before the judge, and who will this judge be? Our lives, just the plain record of our lives. There and then we can easily forgive those who have wronged us, but if we have wronged others, will their forgiveness to us set us free? Not unless a higher power steps in. Oh, this will be all right, my son, when the sunlight of Jesus shall awaken us to the new born day. I was thinking last night how glad I was that Jesus had already pleaded my cause. Oh, yes, the cause of poor unworthy me. Pray, pray, humbly my brave boy. Pray that you enter not into temptation and seek revenge. Do not forget that your Heavenly Father knows your inmost secret thoughts, and when you pray ask Jesus to forgive my tormentors, for as he said on Calvary, 'They know not what they do.'"

I will omit the bitter experience I passed through during father's sham trial and cruel execution.

THE MARTYRS

The public records of the execution of the Salem martyrs were:

June 10, 1692.

Bridget Bishop.

July 19, 1692.

Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, Lizzie Howe, Rebecca Nurse, Susanna Martin.

August 19, 1692.

George Burroughs, John Proctor, George Jacobs, John Willard, Martha Carrier.

September 19, 1692.

Giles Corey.

September 22, 1692.

Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Reed, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker.

Abel Pike, John Richardson, Mary Parsons, Annie Hibbins, Margaret Jones, and others were known to have been executed, but there is no record of their arrest or trial at Salem. On the gallows, Richardson said: "Go on with your hanging, I do not want to live in a world with such fools."

THE ESCAPE

The evening after father's execution I started for Casco Bay, and on arriving at a tavern about ten miles out, I found two officers awaiting me. I was at once taken back to the same prison and placed in a cell to await my turn on gallows hill.

The jailer, whom I had know when a boy, said his orders were to give me bread and water once a day. He was a man about my size, but I knew that I was stronger than he; besides in a struggle for life, I believed my guardian angel would increase my power. I concluded that if once outside the jail, with ten minutes the start, I could reach the woods and make my way to some far-away Indian tribe and in time come and take Fanny and the baby to live with me among the natives, who, now, to me, seemed angels.

Accordingly, when he came about noon the third day, I pointed to the wall back of him, saying, "What is that?" and when he turned, I slipped my hand under his arm and seized him by the throat, and with the other in his long hair I broke him backwards over my knee to the ground, continuing my deadly grip until he ceased to struggle and lay like one dead. Then, quickly, before he revived, I slipped on his official garb and drawing his hat over my face started for the door, which I passed through and slammed behind me. Then lazily locking it and dangling the bunch of keys I had taken from him I walked towards Cotton Mather, who was standing, his back to me, and unlocked one of the cells. Then, as he did not notice me, I passed him, and on turning towards the outer door I saw the jailer's assistant, who was talking to a female prisoner, whom I also passed without interruption. Stepping into the free world, I locked the door behind me, leaving the keys in the door, and walked down the road, to a woodshed, where I threw off the official garb and ran to the woods for dear life.

I now worked my way to Casco Bay with great difficulty. I could not travel nights, for fear of the wolves, so I crept cautiously along in the daytime through the woods and came down and slept in barns nights, where I usually found milk or eggs; and on the fifth day, as the sun was setting, I arrived in an opening on what we called Chestnut Hill, and looked down on the village of Casco Bay.

[STUBBS' STORE]

Oh, I wanted to see Fanny so badly, but I knew I was on dangerous ground, as officers would surely be waiting for me, and probably at Father Shepherd's was where they would expect to find me. Accordingly I decided to wait until midnight and then go down to Mr. Stubbs' store, where I had worked so many years, and could easily gain entrance, and hide among the boxes and lie there through the day to learn from overhearing what was going on about the village. So after breaking into the store and eating my fill of Stubbs' crackers and cheese, I fixed my nest under the dirty old front counter and fell asleep.

In the morning I heard the boy unlock the store, which reminded me of the times I first came there. He walked directly on the brown sugar hogshead and stood and ate for about three minutes, and then began to hunt for the broom while with his mouth full of cheese he tried to whistle a lively tune.

Soon another boy came in and I heard him say, "Hello, Ralph, did you hear about the 'tectives?"

"'Tectives—what is a 'tective?"

"Why, don't you know, Ralph? I have always known that. Besides father told us all about it this morning. They are officers with their coats buttoned up, and you would think they were real men until they catch you and take you to jail and hang you; so father says."

"Gracious alive! Have you seen a live one, Bill?"

"No, I never have, but father has. He said there were two hanging around Uncle William's last night. He thinks they are the same ones which carried off our minister, and he says he don't know who they are after unless it is Jim Burroughs, and it can't be him, either, for he is dead, they say the Indians or wolves have eat him up."

"Golly, that's strange, Bill. Maybe they're after Jim's wife. You know them pleggy ministers at Salem kill lots of good folks."

"Oh, no, Ralph, no 'tectives haven't touched her, because she's got a baby, besides she is awful sick. When she heard Jim was dead she went right into spazumbs or something, and she is going to die. Why, she moans so loud we can hear her clear over to our house. Mother said she was crazy all day and thought that Jim was at the foot of the bed and would not take her in his arms. She kept saying, 'Oh, Jim, Jim, don't you love me any more, won't you let me put my arms around your neck and kiss you once more before I die?'"

Here the conversation ended, and I could see Ralph with his arm on Bill's shoulder both sobbing and wiping the tears with their dirty sleeve and I bowed my face down and moaned until Ralph said, "What was that noise?"

Stubbs came in and said, "Ralph, why have you not swept the floor?"

"Because I can't find the broom. Besides Bill has been telling me all about how sick Jim Burroughs' wife is, and how there is 'tectives around here to catch some one—I think you had better look out."

"It isn't 'tectives, Ralph, say detectives. Do wipe the sugar off your mouth and speak more proper."

"Didn't know there was sugar on my mouth—Oh, yes, there was a lump fell out of the hogshead when I was sweeping, and it was so dirty that I did not like to put it back into the clean sugar, so I ate it."

"I thought you said you had not swept, for you could not find the broom."

"Oh—I—yes—say, Mr. Stubbs, did you ever see a live detective?"

"Now, that will do, Ralph; never mind the sweeping; go and count Mrs. Armstrong's eggs, for she is waiting. Now, Ralph, do not count double-yelk eggs for two any more, do you understand?"

"I don't see why, as long as there might be a rooster and a pullet."

"Yes—yes—Mrs. Armstrong, he is coming as soon as he grasps the cause of twins."

PAUL DIMOCK

Stubbs and the boy now trudged around the store waiting on customers until about 10 o'clock, when Paul Dimock came in and engaged Stubbs in an undertone, but being directly over my head, I could hear all. "I have learned," said Dimock, "that two detectives are stopping at Deacon Hobbs', and have been several days, and no one knows who they are looking for."

"You see, Paul," said Stubbs, "that Hobbs was instrumental in Brother Burroughs' arrest, and I have been told his daughter, Abigail, swore at Salem that she saw two black devils standing behind Brother Burroughs while praying—"

At this point a third party came in, and I recognized the well-known voice of Susan Beaver.

"Isn't it awful about Deacon Hobbs?" she said. "I suppose that is your secret? Why, I do think it is just terrible."

"What news, Mrs. Beaver? What have you heard?"

"Why, last night when Tom came home late, he said he saw two strangers come out of the woods and sneak into the deacon's house. So, out of curiosity, Sarah and I slid around and peeped in at the window, and sure enough there they were, eating supper and the deacon was—hush, there comes old Hobbs now."

"Good afternoon, Deacon," said Stubbs, "what is the news?"

"Bad news, awful bad. They say Fanny Burroughs is very low. My heart aches for that family. James was a good boy, and I wonder if anyone knows for certain that he is dead. I think possibly he may be among the Indians yet, although Shepherds' folks are sure he is dead, or he would come to Fanny. I suppose you have no particulars. Then there was George, his father, that they hung down at Salem. I wonder where they got evidence to convict him? To be sure, he and I did not exactly agree as to our religious views, but I never took that to heart, and would have done all I could to have saved him, even if he was not a regular ordained minister. I think from his record here that he was honest, don't you, Mr. Dimock?"

"Yes, Deacon Hobbs, I do. And James, his son, was an honest, upright and worthy citizen, and whoever was instrumental in causing those officers at Salem to come into our midst and take them away and murder them outright will surely repent when it is too late. I believe they have imprisoned Jim, and either have or will hang him, for the report of his being killed by the Indians, or wolves, may have come direct from Salem. Oh, Mr. Hobbs, it shatters my faith, that our Heavenly Father allows such men to live. This is terrible," he uttered, as he wiped the perspiration from his face and repeated, "terrible, terrible." Then as if aroused by wrong, he raised his voice as he faced the deacon, and continued: "Deacon Hobbs, I am no more safe than they were. If an officer should come in here now and arrest me for complicity with the devil, I should consider it my death knell, would you not?"

"Well, really," began the deacon, "I do not know. You see, I have been down to Salem and talked with Cotton Mather and others prominent in the church, and they seem to be worthy Christians. I have thought George Burroughs may have been convicted of some other crime. You see, the prison is closely guarded and all we get is hearsay."

SUSAN BEAVER

The reader will remember that Susan Beaver was talking when the deacon came in, and now stood listening to his subterfuge, and Dimock's stinging insinuations. As I remember Susan, she was short, stout, with black eyes, glistening teeth, and quick movements. She tried to keep silent, but now her cup of wrath was full, and reached the high-water mark, where danger could not restrain the break, and she broke:

"Deacon Hobbs, you miserable old liar, I saw the detectives in your house myself. Maybe they're waiting to take my husband to Salem. If so, you can inform them that they can never cross our threshold unless it is over my dead body. You say you do not know much about it. Was not Abigail at Salem, swearing against the minister? Did not you both swear he was in league with the Devil? Now you say he may have been convicted of some other crime. George Burroughs, that worthy Christian minister, defile his name, now he is dead, will you? Oh, you ought not to live another minute," and suiting the action to the word, she sprang across the store to the old cheese box. Now, I knew the cheese knife was long and heavy, and in the hands of a desperate woman. Bang-slam-bang, they went around and around the store, he holding a chair before him and crying, "Help! Murder!" while she struck out wildly without speaking a word. Dimock and Stubbs sprang in to save the deacon's life, but when I peeped through the crack and saw the broad grin on Dimock's face, I concluded their interference was not genuine. The deacon worked around the counter, when she sprang on top and had him in a trap, at which he dropped his chair and ran and plunged through the window headlong. After he had escaped, and Susan had time to think, she sat down and began to cry, but on being assured by Dimock that no one would think the less of her, she left the store.

While Paul was helping board up the broken window, I overheard Stubbs ask him: "Do you consider Cotton Mather and his associates murderers?"

"Oh, no," was the reply, "not exactly that. It is a phenomenal wave of insanity. Similar waves have spread their gloomy pall over the innocent, long before Joshua put the women and children to death at Jericho. These Salemites are at war with the Devil on the same principle that one nation wars with another; they justify themselves through a spasmodic lunacy, that duty calls them to kill their fellow beings.

"God works in a mysterious way. Cotton Mather may be blind. He may be a tool in the hand of a higher power. Finite beings do not comprehend the infinite. If God permits, does He not sanction? These cruelties will have a tendency to humanize Christianity. When years have passed and Brother Burroughs thinks over earthly life he will not regret that his Maker called him home at noon. Friendship and love will increase towards the Burroughs family. They are just leaving their lights along the shore. The love of Jesus will spread when the church shall have hatched out of its shell of ignorance; then it will stand on a higher and more liberal plane; midnight to us may be morning to the angels. Do you know, Stubbs, what is the main trouble with the human family?"

"I do not, Paul. What is it?"

"It is that they know less than they are aware of."

After the store had been closed and Stubbs was working on his books, I heard the door open and some one come in.

"Good evening, doctor. How is Fanny Burroughs?"

The doctor came near and replied in an almost inaudible voice, "She is dead." The little bullet-headed doctor was affected, for I could hear his voice tremble. "Oh, well," he replied to Stubbs' inquiry, "She had no disease, the poor girl actually died of a broken heart. Such suffering I never saw before, but when she did go if you had seen her, Stubbs, you would never question the theory of life beyond dissolution of the body. She raised her eyes upwards, smiled so sweetly and said: 'Oh, father, father, where is Jim?' I am sorry, Stubbs, I have not led a better life, for I have known Fanny Shepherd since she was born and if God will forgive the past, I will turn over a new leaf and try to meet her when I die. I know now that our minister, whom I always ridiculed, was right there in the room with us when she was dying. Besides, Mr. Stubbs, I believe Jim is alive, for if he had been dead he would have been the first one for her to recognize. You see, she was expecting to see him and he was not there."

Here Jim's heart and voice seemed to fail and Winnie put her arm around his neck and they sobbed convulsively for a moment and then continued.

When all was still I crept from my hiding place, washed my face, but could not eat. As usual, the shutters were closed, so I lit a candle and began to rummage around the store. I found Stubbs had a new musket with a horn of powder and a bag of shot, and as I knew he would gladly give them to me, I took them. Then I waited until near dawn, when I went out to the hill in the woods and stayed all day, on the very spot where I had spent many happy hours with Fanny. I could look down into the room where I had courted and wedded my dear Fanny, and could see part on one of her arms, as her body lay near the window, in Father Shepherd's house. Also I saw the village carpenter making my Fanny's coffin and a stranger digging her grave. That night I slept in the store again and the next day, from the same hill, I saw them lower her body into the grave, but my heart was locked in despair; I could not weep.

REVENGE

At night I came down and went to the grave. The distant stars seemed to be shedding their soft light on a lonely world, while the moon about setting cast her ghastly beams among the chestnut trees, making the scene, oh, so lonely, in that silent little graveyard. Out upon the cold waters of the bay I could see the silver waves glisten in the moonlight among the familiar bayous, which I should never see again, while far beyond the bosom of the great Atlantic seemed to heave a sigh of grief at my loneliness. I fell upon dear Fanny's grave, kissed the clay and wondered if she was there. Then breathing a long farewell, I folded my hands in prayer, asking God to forgive me for the crime I was about to commit.

Hastily I then walked towards Stubbs' store, resolved to settle with Deacon Hobbs and then turn my back on white man forever. I entered the store and wrote on a slip of brown paper: "Obadiah Stubbs, a friend has taken your gun and ammunition," and placed the slip in the cash drawer.

When outside of the store I walked lively to the deacon's nearest storehouse, then ran from one to the other, and at last set fire to his home, then stepped back into the lilac bushes and cocked my gun.

Soon I saw great curls of smoke ascending from the storehouses on the wharf, then the barns and sheds, and now the home had caught fire. Then seeing the family in danger, to awaken them I seized a rock and dashed it through the window.

The family were now aroused and Hobbs ran to the well for water, when I raised my gun, but a shadow came before me, and I could not see him. Again he ran out and again I raised the gun, determined to kill him, just as I felt a soft pressure on my shoulder and turning quickly I found myself alone. Then I knew I must not.

As I walked away from old Chestnut Hill, I gave one last, lingering look. It was now daybreak, and as I gazed down on the little village where I had spent so many happy days I saw that all of Deacon Hobbs' wealth had ascended into smoke. Stubbs' old store looked as dingy and dirty as ever. Father's church, on which I had often looked so fondly, now seemed silently waiting to catch the first glimmer of the morning sun as it came to give light and life to the hills and valleys of old New England. Father Shepherd's house, the door through which I had passed so many times with a light heart, were all plain to my view. Once more I looked through the trees to the grave of Fanny and walked away.

ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS

About noon, the first day out, I met three Indians and we took lunch together, they furnishing bear meat and I cheese and crackers, which I had borrowed from Stubbs. After this I trudged on, following an old trail in a westerly direction, hoping to find Indians who could give me shelter for the night, but finding none, I started a fire at dark to scare the wolves away and prepared to stay in the woods alone.

As darkness came on and my fire lit up the woods, I was lonely and yearned for a friend, while a strangeness came over me which caused me to shudder. The excitement had past, and I was left to contemplate as to the course I had taken and where my pathway of life might be leading me. I saw myself, as only a short time before, a promising young man of the wild wood harbor village; but now alone in the wilderness, soon to be a ragged, friendless outcast. Was my condition better or worse than Fanny's or father's? Silently I knelt and implored the unseen to forgive all and keep me pure in heart as I wended my way over mountains of trouble and through vales of temptation.

While pondering I heard the flapping of wings, and a large owl came and lit on a dry limb above me and began its lonely hooting. The night was still, save the occasional bark of a wolf and the echo of the bird's dreary chant, which under ordinary circumstances would have startled me, but now rising to my feet I gazed at the intruder with an eye of gladness and longed to caress him as a friend, while I murmured, "Your lot on earth as compared with mine is to be envied. Carelessly and thoughtlessly your days pass with no regret for the past or anxiety for the morrow, while my sympathetic heart, actuated by an ingenious brain, dashes cold waves of sorrow against bleak rocks of cruel destiny."

I closed my eyes and again implored my Heavenly Father to increase my strength to tread the thorny way. Then I pondered over my condition again and cried, "Oh, the heart—the human heart—that beats in sympathy! Oh, the soul that longs to comfort some one and yearns to be loved in return!"

Gazing high into the far away Eternity where all seemed lovely and serene, I said, "Silence is the token of love. Fanny is; yes, she still lives, but she is silent and in her silence she loves me still."

Then the stars, hills and trees, like friends, came near and shared with me my troubles, and as I sank upon the ground overcome I thought I was a child again and mother whispered low and sweet, "Love your enemies and Jesus will love you."

Resting upon a bed of leaves with my boots for a pillow, the angel of dreams took me in her fair arms. Fanny and I were walking beside a laughing crystal stream, gathering wild flowers, whose fragrance seemed to fill the balmy air, where familiar birds came and warbled sweet notes over our heads while the soft sunshine bore upon the scene, peeping into the shady grove and forming our peaceful nook into a perfect bower of love. Here upon a bank strewn with tiny violets I kneeled at Fanny's feet and asked her to become my wife. She did not speak, but looked on me with her own sweet smile as she glided softly away. I arose to follow her, when I awoke and found myself alone in the dark woods.

[i64]

POOR JIM, LONELY BUT NOT ALONE, FANNIE IS NEAR.

Morning came at last, and not being able to taste my food, I trudged on, and in a few days reached Springfield, where I first assumed the name of James Hall. There I worked about ten days for a man named Anson Newell, but when I learned there were two families there from Salem I feared detection and decided to go.

HUNTING FOR BABY

I now abandoned the idea of living with the Indians and worked my way over the Green Mountains, then down the Hudson River to New York. During the winter my mind was continually on my baby boy, and when spring came I started East to try to locate him. At Hartford I stayed a few days, hoping to find someone from Casco Bay, but being unsuccessful I went on and spent the night with about thirty Indians in the dark grove south of Wabbaquassett Lake. Here I found a buck and his squaw, who had lived near Casco Bay, but they knew nothing of church affairs.

Next morning near Stafford, just as I was turning north from the river bend, I met a party of hunters, one of whom I recognized as Josiah Converse, from near Casco Bay. After passing, I overheard him remark—"That man looks and walks just exactly like Jim Burroughs, and if I did not know he was dead, I would swear it was he." This remark disturbed me, for I had thought that my full beard and shabby clothes had disguised me. Soon I passed near my baby boy but did not know it.

When I arrived at Casco Bay I was puzzled as to how I was to get my information. Stubbs' store could not be approached now, as I had left traces of my last visit and someone might be on the alert, so I hung around Chestnut Hill three days, secreted near the road, hoping to see someone passing who was a stranger. Several acquaintances passed each day, among whom was old Deacon Hobbs, which made my blood boil, and I almost forgot that I was to love my enemies. One day a strange boy approached and I ran up to the brow of the hill and then turned and met him.

"Does Deacon Hobbs live in this town?" I inquired.

"Yes, he lives over there in that cottage."

"Do you think he wants to hire a man?"

"Oh, no, he does not want help. He is poor now; all he had is burned up."

"Who did it?

"We do not know, but think it was an angel from heaven, and every one is glad."

"Why were they glad?"

"Oh, because he killed the minister. That was last year, and I was not here."

"How did he do it?"

"Well, he did not kill him, but he got some folks down in Salem to come up and arrest him and they hanged him."

"Did he kill anyone else?"

"Yes, he killed James Burroughs and Fanny, too, so Mr. Shepherd says."

"Who were they?"

"James was the minister's son and Fanny was his wife. I live with the Shepherds and heard them say these things."

"Did James and Fanny have any children?"

"Yes, they must have had one, for I heard Mrs. Shepherd tell how the minister's sister came on from Boston and took it home with her."

Then looking inquiringly in my face, he said, "Say, mister, are you sick?"

"Oh, no," I replied, and we passed on.

On arriving at Boston I learned that uncle had died and Aunt Hannah had gone with her sister, Abigail, who lived in Salem. In Salem, with great difficulty, I learned they had sold out all their property and gone West. All further efforts were fruitless and I returned to New York and began to work at my last winter's job, where I worked quietly, ever on the alert to gain tidings of my boy.

MULDOON

One day while I was working with an Irishman named Muldoon, the proprietor, Mr. Benjamin, came along, leading his little daughter, who, pointing to Muldoon, said, "Papa, what makes you hire paddies? I do not like them." Muldoon resented the innocent prattle, and turning to Benjamin, said: "Will ye allow that wee bit of a brat to spake that way of a gintleman?"

"You are no gentleman to call a child a brat, and if you answer back I'll discharge you at once."

Pat tugged away in silence and when Benjamin had gone he said: "I niver knew but one mon in me life as mane as ould Benjamin and that was Cotton Mather himself."

"What do you know about Cotton Mather?" I eagerly inquired.

"Nothing good, sir."

"Were you ever at Salem?"

"Do yees think that auld Ben aught to larn that wee bit of a snipe to insolt the loikes of me?"

"But, Pat, that does not answer my question."

"Thin why should a gintlemin aloix yee be axen meself quistions which I niver knew a-tal-tal?"

"Yes, you do know, and if I explain why I am so anxious you'll tell me all you can, won't you, Pat?"

"Yees moight be an officer."

"Nonsense, Pat, haven't you worked beside me for a long time?"

"Sure, but you moight be."

"No, I am not, and you should not be afraid, for you have never committed any crime."

"Oh, but it was the innocent that they murthered. But, Jim, if yees will lit me come to your room at the did o' night and yees will kiss the Holy Cross and hold the sacred Mary to your heart while ye swear niver to till, I might till yees the bit I know."

When Pat arrived at midnight he whispered in my ear, "Ye see, that if Cotton Mather hears that I till the truth he will git some one to swear I am posist with the devil and they will hang me sure."

After I had explained to him how large a dowery had been left for the Burroughs family, and that a child had been lost, he said: "Then it is not Giles Corey yees are after hearing, for I might tell yees more about him, for I lived with him both before and after he was dead."

"No, I want you to tell me all about George Burroughs. Did you ever hear about him?"

"Faith and indade, I did, I heard him make his last prayer when on the gallows, asking God to forgive his inimies and we all wipped loike babbies, we did."

"Did he have a family?"

"Yis, a son. A fair young mon. He looked so much loike yees that I think of him when yees walk along, but he is dead, poor bye. When he started home he lost his way and the wolves ate him. Some said he may not be ded, but shot up in prison to be hung, but I know he was dead, for I hilped to bury his bones."

"Did you see them?"

"No, they were in a box, but I knew he was ded, fer he did not smill like a live man, and his wife died, but they had a little one, who is alive now."

"Where is he?"

"He was first taken to Boston to his Aunt Hannah's and thin to his Aunt Abigail's in Salem, thin a man came on from Stafford, Conn., and took him to keep. His wife was Aunt Hannah's daughter and Aunt Agibail wint to Stafford hersilf."

The day I arrived at Stafford Street I walked from Hartford, and the nearer I came the faster I walked. When I arrived at the village some men were working on the road and in answer to my inquiry, said: "The widow Abigail Drake lives in that red house," which they pointed out. I called on her under the pretense of buying her home, and staid quite a while. She mentioned some of the best families, Deans, Converses, Richardsons, etc., but I could not find out who had the boy until I spoke of the church, when she mentioned that Deacon Felker had adopted a boy who was her nephew. Then I asked her who his parents were. She hesitated, and then said, "His father and mother are both dead."

"Were you acquainted with his father?"

"Yes, I was; he was a man about your build, only when I saw him last he was in trouble, and pale and thin."

"What trouble?"

"Trouble," she replied wiping the tears away with her apron. Then coming near me inquired quizzically, "What is your name?"

I saw she was on the point of detecting me, and looking straight in her eye I answered, "James Hall."

Again she hesitated and then said, "You do look so much like James Burroughs, who is dead, that I thought the dead had been raised." She then told me all about father's execution, Fanny's death and mine, after which I walked over to Deacon Felker's.

When I arrived, there was no one in but the deacon, so I struck him up for a job. Soon I saw a lady coming up the walk who I at once recognized as Cousin Phoebe, whom I had not seen for fifteen years. Beside her ran a little boy. The deacon introduced me, and in shaking hands I squeezed hers so hard that she looked up quickly, then presuming me to be very rough, she spoke pleasantly. Then I picked up my own little boy and as in some phantom mirror, Fanny seemed to look me right in the face.

While waiting for tea, Winnie Richardson came in and adroitly introduced herself by saying, "I presume our town looks tame to you, especially if you've been living in the city, but to us who have never traveled Stafford is the center of the world."

At the conclusion of Jim's story the sweet Winnie softly caressed the troubled man with her arm around his neck, and here we leave Winnie and Jim, to whirl and swirl in their frail barques of life, on the restless waves of time, until they mysteriously cross the bar out into the unknown ocean of Eternity, from whence, if they return to guide our thoughts, we do not comprehend it.

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OUR MOUNTAIN HOME NEAR WABBAQUASSETT LAKE, BUILT BY WARREN RICHARDSON, 1832.
PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN, 1870, EXCEPT MARIETTE. LEFT TO RIGHT. ELIZA, ADELIA, COLLINS, CAROLINE, MERRICK, GORDON, JANETTE.

OUR WABBAQUASSETT MOUNTAIN HOME

John, my Grandfather Richardson, son of Uriah, built his home on the east side of the Devil's Hopyard, while Abner, one of John Dimock's ten sons, built his home on the west side.

John Richardson raised a family of boys, John, Warren, Collins, Marvin, Orson, and one girl, Fanny, while Abner Dimock raised a family of girls, Lovey, Manerva, Luna, Hannah, Arminia, Abigail, and one boy, Abner.

Warren Richardson crossed the Hopyard, wooed and won Luna Dimock, and they built their nest near Wabbaquassett Lake, where the flowers bloom in early spring, wild birds awake the summer morn and the babbling brook sings through the winding vale below, all day long.

Here they raised a group of laughing, frolicing, romping backwoods mischief and their names were:

Mariette A.—Married Frank Slater.
Eliza L.—Married Lucius Kibbes.
Adelia A.—Married Epaphro Dimock.
Caroline C.—Married Lucius Aborn.
Collins W.—Married Martha Aborn.
Merrick A.—Married Mary Hoyt.
Gordon M.—Married Amanda Pitt.
Janette A.—Married George Newell.

Wabbaquassett retained its virgin bloom of nature long after the surrounding country had been occupied by white invaders.

Stafford, Ellington, Somers and Tolland Streets had become self-centered, while the sleeping beauty, Wabbaquassett, was held by the Nipmunks as a sort of rendezvous for the Pequods, Mohegans. Mohawks, Narragansetts and several other tribes who were roaming over New England, stealing fowls, cattle and even children, for the red man felt that the brooks, lakes and forests, together with all they contained, virtually belonged to him.

Wabbaquassett of old, with its broad sandy shore, dreaming in the protecting arms of a dense forest of oak, pine, chestnut and maple giants was truly the gem of New England.

When the Richardsons, Dimocks, Newells and Aborns began their encroachment into these forests the Indians were loath to leave their pow-wow home in the oak grove, on the south shore of the lake, for the American Indian dreaded the law more than the tomahawk, but the following instance routed them.

A buck named Wappa, who lived on the shore, south of the old West Rock, killed his squaw, Dianah, for which he was tried at Tolland Street and hanged. On the gallows he saw Captain Abner Dimock, my mother's father, among the spectators and called for him to come on the gallows and pray for him.

My father and mother were in the crowd and when the sheriff asked the Indian if he was ready, mother fainted. The execution took place August 22, 1816, after which the Indians left Wabbaquassett and never returned.

In those days, Wabbaquassett, since called Square Pond, and now Crystal Lake, was the nucleus of four prominent families, Dimocks, Richardsons, Newells and Aborns.

The group consisted of the following families:

Of these twenty families in 1850 I now find, at the Lake, only one descendant, A. M. Richardson, son of my brother, Collins, who with his interesting wife, Bessie, actually holds the fort alone.

WOODCHUCK IN THE WALL

Recently when my son Arthur and myself with our families were touring with automobile over the Alleghanies, up the sea-shore, and over the Green Mountains, we spent several days at the Lake, with many old-timers who came to meet us, when they coaxed me to tell the woodchuck story, which ran as follows: Bow-wow-wow is heard on the hillside across the little meadow from our old farm house. We boys, Gordon and I, drop our hoes and run, for we knew by the sound that old Skip had a woodchuck in the wall and wanted us to come and get him out.

"Hold on, Gordon," said I, "now is the time for us to give our Towser a chance."

Towser was a young bull terrier, we boys had bought of Holmes, who had recommended him to be able to catch the largest ox by the nose and hold him, or catch a hog by the ear and hold the hog, or off would come the ear, and as for woodchucks, he would pick them up as a hen would pick up kernels of corn.

Our Towser, as we boys called him, was at once unchained and we were off to the pasture on the hillside, where in days gone by, old Skip had captured so many woodchucks.

As we ran along, the conversation ran thus:

"Hey-hey, Towser," said I, "Mr. Woodchuck don't know that you're coming; he thinks it is old Skip, but when he sees you, he will know that he's got to die."

"Oh, dear," said Gordon, "when he gets those great white teeth on to him, won't the blood fly? I hope he won't swallow him whole, for we want his hide to make shoe strings."

"You bet," said I. Then patting the dog on the head, I continued: "Won't old Skip be ashamed when he sees you, Towser?"

Skip was a little brindle cur who had watched the whole farm night and day for ten years. He would never worry the cat or chase the chickens, but would speak, roll over, sit up, or play he was dead, to please us boys. He could hustle the cattle out of the corn, keep the pigs from the door and had kept all the rabbits and woodchucks away from the garden. In fact, he was a friend to everyone except Towser. Of course, he was jealous of him.

When we boys arrived on the scene, we found old Skip bounding over the wall back and forth, barking, squealing, pawing and biting off roots in his great excitement, while the woodchuck was chattering, whistling and snapping his teeth in great shape.

"Oh, look here, Gordon," said I, as I peeped into the wall, "He is as big as two tomcats; it must be the one father said had been nibbling all our green pumpkins."

"Yes, yes," says Gordon, "Pa said Skip has been trying to get between him and his hole all summer, and now our Towser has got him at last. Say, Merrick, don't you think we had better let Skip kill him. I'm afraid that Towser will tear him all to flitters and we won't have his hide left."

Now there was a terrible yelping and we discovered that the big bulldog was shaking little Skip unmercifully. We clubbed him off, and tried to drive Skip home, as, of course, we would not need him any more, but he would not go, so we tied him to a white birch tree with Towser's chain and continued tearing down the wall.

Gordon's countenance took on a sort of a funeral aspect as he said, "Now, Mr. Woodchuck, you have got to die."

"Yes," said I, as I jammed my dirty thumb into my mouth to keep from weeping, "My heart aches for him, but it has got to be done."

Towser was anxious to get at the woodchuck. Everytime we boys rolled off a stone, he would jam his head into the wall, so anxious was he to get at his prey, while poor little Skip, who should have had the honor, was up under the white birch tree trying to break the chain and come down and help, not even minding his bleeding ear, where Towser had bit him.

At last the right stone was removed and the unfortunate old woodchuck could do no better than face grim death, and he did it bravely. Standing on his little hind legs, with his front paws extended, he chattered defiance, while snapping his white teeth and awaiting the onslaught.

Towser plunged into the wall and out came the woodchuck, but to our surprise, Towser had not got the woodchuck, but the woodchuck had Towser right by the nose.

Over and over they rolled as the blood squirted from the dog's nose, each sommersault working them farther and farther down the swale in the direction of the woodchuck's hole. Towser roared, bellowed and squealed, but the woodchuck would not let go his lucky hold.

We boys saw the danger of escape and I, seizing a club, started on to help Towser, while Gordon ran to unchain Skip, as it began to look now as if old Skip's help might be necessary after all.

The clever old woodchuck, who was watching to take advantage of the first favorable opportunity, when he saw Skip coming, let go his grip and started for his hole. Towser, who was also figuring for his own personal safety, when released, curled his tail between his legs and started for home, crying "ki-yi-yi-yi."

Skip bounded forward just in time to seize his woodchuckship by the tail, just as he was entering the hole. Now a desperate struggle ensued, the woodchuck trying to pull the dog into the hole and the dog trying to pull the woodchuck out.

Skip was losing ground, when, seizing him by the hind legs, I planted my bare feet in the gravel and pulled with all my might. The woodchuck chattered and squealed, the dog shook and growled, as I pulled them out, when the tail broke, he darted into the hole, and the game was lost.

Then we boys took Skip up to the spring and washed his poor bleeding ear and promised him right then and there that we would take Towser back to Mr. Holmes and that he, Skip, might run the farm as long as he lived.

Lemuel Warner followed up the woodchuck story by acting out, in his genial manner, the stuttering man trying to testify in prayer-meeting. Orino Richardson and Perlin Richardson came in with their extremely ridiculous tales, followed by hymns and old plantation songs.

In all this we seemed to forget ourselves, with the fifty years of ups and down on Life's tempestuous waves, and in friendly glee we were back again in that fair morning, dreamily anticipating Life's strange journey, so unlike the reality fond memory now reveals.

Together we all visited the cemeteries on the hill at the north, where the rippling waves of old Wabbaquassett click along the shore so near the feet of those whose voices we do not hear, but whose sweet smiles seem to reflect back to us their beauty as our earthly vision grows dim.

Soon the stranger will pause to read and say: "Who were all these Richardsons, Newells, Aborns and Dimocks?" In the silence reason seems to whisper: They came forth in the dawn; enjoyed a brief day; and returned to the silence of an endless Eternity.

"Now dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,

When fond recollections present them to view;

The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,

And every loved spot which my infancy knew.

The wide-spreading Pond, and the Mill that stood by it,

The Bridge and the Rock where the cataract fell;

The Cot of my Father, the dairy-house nigh it,

And e'en the rude Bucket which hung in the Well."

SUNDAY MORNING

Father and mother did not marry until their home had been established, but they lost no time when they got started, for, thirteen years gave them a brood of eight children.

Father was a shrewd dealer in land and cattle, through which he gained enough to purchase about 350 acres of wild land and built a house and barn, while mother, as was customary for New England women, braided palm leaf hats for the slaves of the Southern planters, until she had saved enough to furnish the house. Then they got married.

Our living room was the big kitchen, where we warmed ourselves by the old-fashioned fireplace while the pots and kettles hung on the crane before us. Beside it was a brick oven, where mother baked the good things, especially on Thanksgiving Day, when we did not fill up with old common potatoes.

The parlor, which we were seldom allowed to enter, was to a little boy dazzling. Looking-glass, with gilded frame, paper of many colors, and high-shining brass andirons in the fireplace.

Sunday morning we all gathered there for family worship and one morning father gave us a lesson on "Inspiration," which has nerved me up to fight infidelity all my days.

He had quite a collection of books and one day he brought home a book on geology, from which, after studying it evenings, he declared that the creation of the world in science and the Bible exactly agreed.

That lesson and the surroundings on that sunny Sabath morning is one of the old landmarks in my memory to which I often return in moments of reflection.

"Now children," he began, "no one knows who wrote the first chapter of Genesis, which appears to have no connection with the other chapters. It may have been written by Moses, his sister, Miriam, or some other person along about that time, say four or five thousand years ago. The strange thing about it is that, according to their new geology, the writer revealed the secrets of that which transpired millions of years ago.

"People had supposed, until about one hundred years ago, that the first chapter of Genesis was a fable, or fairy tale, but now geology proves it to have been a true history of what the writer knew nothing about.

"It must have been that an angel who had lived all through the time the world was being made, sat right beside or in some way influenced the author to write the wonderful story of the creation. This is what I call real inspiration, don't you?

"Some folks think, and I would not wonder if it might be true, that fiction is a faint glimmer of inspiration, and that composers are often led along by the spirit of some person who once lived in this world. Let this be as it may, I wish one of you children might become a novelist, but you never will, you will be farmers just like all us New England mountaineers.

"Learned men have discovered, by digging in the rocky surface of the earth, that under certain conditions, oysters or other animals, will turn to stone. They call them fossils. Scientists have also learned that each kind, wherever found, represents the age in which the animal lived. So, the fossil, you see, is an animal which died and turned to stone, perhaps millions of years ago.

"By investigation they find that one kind of rock, called azoic, contains no fossils, so they know there was a day or age when there was no life in this world, and this is the first day in the Bible, which I have been reading to you.

FIRST DAY

"They find by the conglomerate condition of the azoic rock that after the gaseous confusion of the elements had subsided, it sort of settled into one boiling mass of mixed elements. Then the heavier elements, gold, mercury, lead and the like, condensed and formed a center of attraction, while the more rare elements, such as oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, formed a floating band around it, then, as the Bible states, darkness must have been upon the face of the deep until the lighter elements rarefied, when the sun would feebly penetrate in the daytime and the rotation of the world would make it correspond to the first day and night of the Bible.

SECOND DAY

"This day, in which the firmament was formed, is wonderful in that it was preparation for the day when the land should appear, as it would need rain to make the vegetation grow. Man's highest imagination cannot grasp or conceive the wonders of this strange scheme. It really meant condensing part of the water to become liquid, or seas, and raising part to become clouds, or rain, as we now find them. So again the two accounts agree as to the second day.

THIRD DAY

"Seas and land appear. This Bible account exactly agrees with the carboniferous and crustacean births which followed on through the ages, when vegetation grew in such abundance that its decay, when submerged by eruptions, laid the foundations for our coal and oil fields.

FOURTH DAY

"While the former days occupied millions of years each, this day was not a duration of time, not even one moment. It was simply an illustration of the then present conditions. Had we been on earth at that time we would have seen all the heavenly bodies and their movements just as this Bible account describes, and as we see them now.

FIFTH DAY

"As the fourth Bible day did not include time to produce geological changes, the two ages divonian, or fish, and amphibious, or reptilian, ages exactly fit in to make up the fifth day.

"Could we have visited the earth when it first became solid with the sea floating over it, we would have seen at the bottom of the sea animals of the oyster family beginning to live in their shells, which later they took up and carried around on their backs, and now we call them turtles. We know they were there, for they are still sleeping in their little stone coffins on mountain tops, which God raised up when He made dry land. God called them all moving creatures, which have life, which, of course, included fish and frogs.

"Now hark, I will read the twentieth verse over again. There now, you see God did not make the birds up in the mountains and tell them to fly. He made them in the water, I guess He fixed legs where the fins were, so they could hop and crawl, and then fixed wings where the legs were, so they could fly, and this exactly corresponds to the reptilian age in geology. That transformation must have made even God stop and think, for it took millions of years. Many kinds came out of the water, so you see we have many kinds of birds on the land. Some of them were awfully large. One, geologists call the Pterodactyl, had a mouth and teeth like a horse, tail like a fish or snake, and wings which he could spread more than twenty-five feet. I imagine it flew from shore to shore catching turtles for breakfast, who were out on the sand laying eggs as big as our old peck measure.

SIXTH DAY

"God made cattle and all other big walking things, and all the creeping things.

"The family of largest animals are called Dinosaur. Their fossil bones are found in the Rocky Mountains. They must have lived there on the plains before the upheavel of the mountains. Some of them were about one hundred feet long and twenty-five feet high. In New Jersey, geologists have dug up the fossil bones of an animal they call the Iguanodon, a sort of frog with a snake tail; when he sat up his head was about thirty feet high. Had he lived on men he would have eaten three for dinner. It seems that when those animals raised up on all four, like elephants, they lost their fish-like tails, except to use as fly whiskers. Those animals lived all through what is called the mammalian age in geology, or the sixth day in the Bible.

"Now, children, this twenty-fifth verse ends up the creation of the world and all its animals. Then God called a halt and said, 'Let us make something special.' What was it?" "Man, man," we said. "What was man to be like?" "Just like God himself."

"Is God an animal?"

"No."

"What is He?"

"Nobody knows."

"Think again, what did I read last Sunday about Christ at Jacob's well?"

"Oh, yes, God is a spirit."

"Then is man a spirit or an animal?"

"Both," I said.

"How so, Merrick?"

"Why, God made she-male man and he-male man of dirt, so they could have a lot of children. Then the image man, we cannot see, who was to do the thinking, was to have dominion, that means it was to boss themselves and everything else around. That is the man that goes to Heaven when he dies."

"How is that, Luna, for a boy of eight years old?" he said to mother.

"You are all right, Merrick," she said, drawing me to her for a kiss. "Now, you must try to govern yourself and not be so stubborn, even if you do think you are in the right. Let wisdom instead of spunk be your guide, and then the angels will be with you in your dreams and our pretty school-ma'am will not have to switch you so often."

"Pretty school-ma'am, eh! Why, she walks just exactly like a cow."

HUSKING BEE

One of my earliest recollections is of hearing mother telling a neighbor housewife about the prayer meeting up at Uncle Sam's. Mother was a great tease, and to see her act out Aunt Lovey in this particular case was enough to make the bushes laugh.

In order to picture the scene at the prayer meeting, I will give one of mother's escapades by the way of contrast between Lovey, Uncle Sam's wife, and her wide-awake sisters, of which mother was accused of being the ring leader in many daring acts. Therefore, I will begin with the story of the husking bee at Grandfather Dimock's home, when mother was a girl.

At a husking in those days all in the neighborhood would gather, not so much, I imagine, to husk corn as for the frolic, and the good things they had to eat.

The custom was to set the shocks of corn around a large circle and all husk from the outside. Then if a lady found a red ear she was privileged, if she dare, to throw it across a space at a man whom, if she hit, was privileged to chase her around the outer ring, for which if he caught her while on the circuit he could kiss her.

Well, mother found a red ear and she threw it at the minister, hitting him, whack! side of the head. His name was Frink, a real minister of the Gospel, yet he could not allow such an opportunity to escape, so he dropped his dignity and started.

[i92]

GIRL RUNNING REPRESENTS MY MOTHER WHEN 16. FRINK, THE MINISTER, CHASING FOR A KISS WHICH HE DID NOT GET.

The arranged plan was that all should get out of the way to give the lady a chance to run, while the real plan was for all to stumble into the way and see the fun.

Mother, finding it impossible to break through, turned quickly and lit out for the orchard. This bold but admirable act caused 200 huskers to raise on tip-toe, for it was a pretty scene in the moonlight to see the daring maid, clad in a pretty white frock, dodging among the dark shadows of the apple trees, evading the terrific lunges of her eager pursuer, whose physiognomy took on a strange earnestness which betokened his consideration that the prize was worth striving for.

When the girl, by artful dodging, escaped and struck out for home, old Jasiah Bradley, forgetting his 80 years, roared out, "Stand back! Stand back! Give the girl a chance," at which two rows quickly formed, giving the girl, whose knee action betokened great speed, a clear way until as she crossed the line, Frink extended his hand to grab, but did not catch her.

This illustration represents the innocent dare of the family to which mother belonged, except the oldest Lovey, who was very sedate, and in this case said that Luna ought to be spanked and put to bed. Lovey wore her skirts very long and would walk way around to pass through the gate, while her astonishing sisters would jump or climb over the fence and whistle just like boys.

PRAYER MEETING AT UNCLE SAM'S

Lovey married Samuel Harwood. They built their home on Chestnut Hill, where they raised a fine family. Monroe was their youngest son, who figured very seriously in the catastrophy I am about to relate.

Uncle Sam and Aunt Lovey were both strictly religious, but did not agree as to the mode of procedure. She threw her whole religious weight on the sixth verse of the sixth chapter of Matthew, while he was a roaring Methodist. Together they attended church on Sunday, but Lovey never attended the weekly home prayer meetings, neither would she allow the church to have one at her home, and so they worshiped for years until Sam's grey locks and the children's clamor induced her to try it just once. Such an unusual event caused the whole church to turn out in mass for a real good spiritual uplifting.

Their house, which my wife and I rode by last time we were in Connecticut, is of the old dominion style. Kitchen, dining and living rooms all in one, and very commodious. Under the stairs to the second story were the stairs to the deep, dark cellar below, of which there was no broad stair at the top, and the cellar door opened into the cellar.

On that memorable evening the room was crammed to suffocation when the meeting opened with the hymn, "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand." Then Abner Dimock, who always prayed so loud as to be heard a mile, and several others, led in prayer, which was followed by inspiring testimonials, to all of which Uncle Sam chimed in Amen, amid the shouts of halleluiah, while Aunt Lovey sat in dreamy silence, with her nose turned just a trifle askance.

The pinnacle was reached when Anise Ladd arose to testify, for every one knew Anise poured forth her feelings without reserve.

"I," she began, "was born peevish and as my neighbors can here testify, was, to say the least, irritable through my maiden and middlehood earthly career, but last winter at our revival meetings, I experienced a genuine halleluiah wave of godliness, and now I coo like a turtle dove and fret or scold no more."

To Uncle Sam, who was tipping back in his chair, this wonderful halleluiah testimony so coincided with his desires toward Lovey, that he shouted, "Glory to God," as in the expansion of his joy he lost his balance, his chair striking the cellar door, which flew open, causing him, still in the chair, to start, head downwards, on his perilous journey into the dismal region below. He did not swear, neither did he shout halleluiah, but fresh grunts followed in rapid succession as he pounded from stair to stair.

During the excitement all trying with lighted tallow candles to ascertain if he was still alive, his son, Monroe, continued roaring and laughing until some one said, "Why, Monroe, it might have killed your father," to which he replied between spasms, "I should have laughed just the same, if I had known it had killed him."

During the excitement Aunt Lovey pressed her hand to her heart, but did not speak until urged by the pastor, when she said: "Well, really, you were all talking so much about going to heaven that when I witnessed Samuel's sudden departure, I wondered, yes, I really wondered, whether my halleluiah husband had started for heaven or for the other place."

Uncle Sam survived and lived on the old place until he was 94 years old, but that was the first and last prayer meeting up to Uncle Sam's.

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ANISE LADD'S HALLELUJAH TESTIMONY. UNCLE SAM LOSING HIS BALANCE. AUNT LOVEY, NONCHALANT, UNDER THE PICTURE ON THE WALL.

GOLDEN DAYS

Oh, those golden days when with indulgent parents we gathered around the table of plenty. There we romped in the orchards, woods and meadows, among the wild flowers and through the shady dells, where we chased the rabbits and squirrels, hunting the shy nests of birds, watching the pretty fish in the crystal stream, as they darted about showing their silver sides. The side hills teemed with wild fruit, shadberries, checkerberries, cherries, grapes, strawberries, etc. Wild birds were in abundance and their songs were gay; I think I hear them now. Father taught us that we must not destroy the nests of crows, hawks or other bad birds, not even the homes of the mischievous woodchucks, who nibbled our pumpkins. He said, "Let them bring up their little families. God provides room and food for all."

When we brought the little blue eggs in for mother to see, she would kiss and hurry us back with them to the nest, for she said the mother bird's heart would ache if we broke one of her little eggs.

And yet, after all, my brother, Gordon, and myself were not real neighborhood pets, for the two little sun-burned blondes were not as innocent as they looked. Aunt Becky Bragg, our second-door neighbor, was quoted as saying that Warren Richardson's two little whiteheaded urchins were the bane of her life, and all attempts to chide them seemed only to add fuel to the flames.

We must have been useful about the farm, in teaching the chickens and cats to swim and the colts and steers to let us ride them, who occasionally dumped us where we least expected. One lively pastime was to tie a tin pan to one of the sleepy old cattle's tail, and watch him bound over the bushes to clear himself from what seemed to be following him. I can now see these great gentle creatures with half-closed eyes chewing their cuds, while father was around them, but when we appeared, they would stop chewing, bulge out their eyes and make ready to jump over the wall at our first gesture.

Still we had our confiding pets, hens, lambs and even pigs. We had a curly-haired pig which would follow us around and lie down for us to scratch him, and as for dogs—why, old Major, the neighborhood tramp of suspicious character, stood in well with us and licked our hands and faces as we fed and gave him a warm shelter from the cold night.

Father and mother understood it all, I know they did, but they realized how we would soon be out in the hand-to-hand conflict of life, and they wanted us to look back to our childhood mountain home with gladness and not pain.

I was exceedingly stubborn and moderately truthful, so much so that one of the first remembrances of my life was that in some mysterious way I had acquired the nickname of Old Honesty. Oh, it did make me so mad to be called that, for I must have considered it a sort of defamation of character.

THE WILD SEXTON STEER

One day in the spring of 1855, when all the folks were away except Gordon and myself, we felt somewhat elated that we were running the farm on our own hook, so we conjured up a little fun.

Our long barnyard opened with bars towards the house across the center to separate the cattle from the sheep. Here, just for sport, when no one was around, we would put up two or three bars and then chase the cattle, one by one, and see them jump over.

We had a ferocious wild steer, we called Sexton, which would jump over almost anything to get away from us boys, so he was usually our victim for sport.

Father was accustomed, each fall, to bring muck into the barnyard, which through the winter was covered with cornstalks, straw and manure from the stables, which the cattle would tread in during the rainy spring and mix it ready for the land. On this occasion it had been raining, and the mixture, soft as jelly, was about a foot deep, with the exception of a dry spot by the house bars.

Our custom was to teach all the newcomers into our ranch, or farm, to carry us on their backs, and as the bushes hung low in the pastures and the steers had no manes to cling to, we often got dumped, but we did not care for scratches and bruises, for I boasted to be able to hang to a frightened steer's tail through a bush pasture longer than any boy in the neighborhood.

On this occasion the wild Sexton steer was in the yard—a big black fellow, who was so mean that he would kick the boards off the barn, just if we tickled him with the tines of a pitchfork. Really, he was so unruly that he had no respect for the other cattle, or even a ten-rail fence, when Gordon and I, with the dog, got after him.

Forgetting we were going to prayer meeting that evening, and that we had already put on our Sunday clothes, I said to Gordon:

"I think now is a good time to teach old Sexton to let us ride him."

"Oh, Merrick, don't try that again, he will kill you."

"Nonsense, I'm not afraid; if he throws me off, I will land on my feet."

"You may and you may not; see how black his eyes are; let us take our bows and arrows and go and shoot at Kendel's cats. Mr. and Mrs. Kendel went to Sommers today, so there is no one at home but Grandpa Bragg and he cannot see well enough to tell whether it is us or the Wires' boys."

"Never mind the cats, Gordon," I said as I stripped off my coat in a real businesslike manner, "I am dying for a ride on that steer. Come and help me catch him. There, that's right, now we have him, so, bossy—so, bossy—so-so-bossy, so. Look out, there, Gordon!"

"Merrick, I told you we could not catch him."

"It was because you was so slow. Now you come and stand on this dry spot and when I chase him around, stop him, and I will creep up—there, that is better—so-bossy-so."

"There he goes again. What did I tell you, Merrick? I said we could not catch him."

[i104]

ALL THE FOLKS AWAY FROM HOME EXCEPT US TWO BOYS.

"Oh, that is because you are so slow. Now, when I get him here again and he lets me put my hand on him, you must be ready to grab the foot I raise and throw me over square on his back, then I will ride him around and around until he gets tired out; that is just the way they tame elephants. Here we have him again, grab, now grab—there I am. Say, isn't it funny he does not move or stir? Why, I am having a regular picnic up here."

"Oh, Merrick, but if you could see his eyes, and his neck is curved like a ram's horn. He is going to do something. You better seize his tail and slide off backwards before he starts."

"Oh, you little fraid goose, I am just here on his back and he can't help himself. It's just fun, and when I tell the girls about it, won't it make their eyes open wide? He can't just help himself, now punch him a little with the fork handle right under the flanks—gee whiz, it is funny he doesn't start, isn't it? I wonder if steers ever rear up in the front?"

"First you know, Merrick, he will rear up behind and send you into the middle of next week. See, he won't stir when I punch him with the fork handle. He is just getting ready to do something terrible, and when he does start, something will happen. Oh, how he kind of swells up."

"I'm not afraid. Just twist his tail a little, twist it harder. Hey-hey, here I go—look out! Gordon, stop him—whoa-whoa—Oh, Gordon, where have I been? What did he do? Where am I now? and where are my pants?"

"Why, Merrick, just as you were talking to me, he hollered 'Bah,' and started. First your legs flew up and before you caught your balance he stopped suddenly, threw up his head and his horns caught your pants and ripped them clean off, and you took the most awful plunge. You actually flew through the air about ten feet, like a quail, and then disappeared in this manure pond. I thought he had killed you. Say, are you almost dead?"

"Dead, no, but where are my pants and did anybody see us? Did Charlotte Lewis and Mariva Shepherd come this way from school?"

"No, they did not, but see your pants are on his horns now. Oh, Merrick, your eyes, and ears, and hair are just chuck full. Do you think you are hurt inwardly?"

"Hurt? No, I'm not hurt. Gee-whiz, I'm glad the school girls weren't coming along about then. Say, Gordon, lets run for the brook and I will dive, head-foremost, right into the old deep hole, and when I come up I will be span clean."

"Gracious, Merrick, but there is ice floating down now and aren't your legs cold?"

"Cold? No. Pa says there are lots of people in the world who wear no pants—say, Gordon, now listen—if you won't ever tell of this to no living soul I will do all the chores: milking, feeding the hogs, cleaning the stables, building the fire mornings, and I'll be hanged if I don't help you lie yourself out of every mean scrape you get into in the next ten years."

[i108]

ALWAYS WELCOME AT SISTER CAROLINE'S WABBAQUASSETT HOME.
LEFT TO RIGHT. CAROLINE, MARTHA, WALTON, WARREN, EVERETT, LUCIUS.

SCHOOL DAYS

Nearby was a backwoods school which was called the White Birch, where about eighty scholars met in winter to fit themselves for future eminence. Here it was that life's troubles began with me. The mode of punishment in those days for a boy was to draw him over the master's knee and spank him, and I am quite sure I got more floggings than all the other seventy-nine scholars together. Tom Wheelock often spanked me so furiously that the rising dust often made the other scholars think he was setting me on fire.

From the first at school I had been a mental genius. When eight years old I could calculate in my head problems intended for large scholars to work out with slate and pencil. The knottiest problems in Colburn's old mental arithmetic were as simple for me as three times ten, and this I could do without ever looking at the rules. But, oh, my spelling, reading and writing were shockingly deficient, and my grammar was laughable. Once the master compelled me to write a composition, and when he read it he laughed and said, "The ideas are good, Merrick, but it needs a Philadelphia lawyer to connect them."

I would as soon fight as eat and was ready to hammer any boy of my size who had broken up a bird's nest, and was ready to protect the girls to the limit of my strength and ability. Whether I was right or wrong, I can now see that I was unconsciously following the dictates of conscience. When fourteen years old I took a serious dislike to punishment of any kind, and the result was that I left school for good.

[i112]

WABBAQUASSETT GIRLS. NEWELL HILL IN THE DISTANCE.

COUNTRY BOYS IN TOWN

My boyhood days were spent in what might be termed, the upper strata of the last stages of the tallow candle age. Mother dipped candles each fall to light us through the year. Whale oil was also used, but a little later coal oil from Pennsylvania came into vogue.

In order to obtain whale oil, vessels for that purpose were sent out from New Bedford, New London, New York and other harbors along the northern Atlantic Coast. Accordingly, four of us youngsters, my brother Collins, Lucius Aborn, Lyman Newell and myself, formed a scheme to go catching whales and decided to visit New York and look the matter up and, if possible, learn why our parents so seriously objected to having us become sailors.

Accordingly, we went to Hartford and took the night steamer, on the Connecticut River, for New York. While waiting for the boat in Hartford we all went out to get shaved and I remember it, for it was my first shave.

The barber must have been a funny fellow, of the Abe Lincoln type, who looked serious when he said and did funny things. He was not sparing of his lather, for my ears held quite a lot, but I bore it bravely until he grabbed me right by the nose to begin, which made me burst out laughing and let the lather run into my mouth. When I sobered down he would seize me by the nose and begin again, which would make my friends and the other barbers all laugh. I laughed a little myself, but he never smiled—just watched for his chance to seize me. When he got through, without a smile, he said he never charged boys anything for the first shave.

On the steamer, of which the cabins seemed to me as dazzling, beautiful and wonderful as the constellation of Orion does now, the cabin porter got our cow-hide boots, while we were asleep, and shined them and then demanded ten cents for each boot, but we compromised on ten cents for the whole lot, and threatened to throw him overboard at that.

When we landed at Peck Slip, New York, we at once inquired for the office where sailors were enlisted for three-year voyages catching whales.

The agent was a man probably seventy years old and began inquiring our names and where we were from, and then he said he knew about Square Pond, as he once drove stage right along its shore on the old route from Hartford to Boston. Then he said: "Sit down, boys," and he talked to us to this effect:

"Now, boys, you do not want to enlist for a three years' voyage. If you have got the fishing fever I can get you all a chance on a smack for three months, off the coast of Newfoundland, catching codfish. Then if you are not sick of the job you can go whaling." We listened to him kindly and finally gave up, not only the whaling, but the fishing altogether.

We then began canvassing the book stores for a book which Lyman had heard about, which boys ought not to read, and that was why he wanted it. The title was "Fanny Hill," and when we inquired at the book stores we were turned down, until we struck a Yankee who sold second-hand books, who inquired where we were from, and when our boat would leave New York, and then said he hardly dare sell it to us for fear he would be arrested.

[i116]

BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, WORTHY MEN, CHARMING OLD WABBAQUASSETT.
CENTRAL LOWER LADY FIGURE, JULIA NEWELL WARNER, MY LIFE-LONG ESTEEMED FRIEND.

The price he said was $1.00, and he would run the risk, if we would come around just before the boat started and then promise, all of us, not to open the package until the boat had left the dock. To this we readily agreed and then went on taking in the town, thinking more about the book than we did about the giants, pygmies, monkeys and elephants which we found at Barnum's Museum.

We were now hungry again, so we took another oyster stew and then started up the Bowery, when we heard music and were invited in where a wheel table was turning. One could put down ten cents and might win $100.00. We were going shares in everything, so decided to risk ten cents, and the other boys allowed me to try. "Forty dollars," cried the man, and then discovered his mistake, that it was only forty cents, and then began telling of folks from the country winning money, and this was one of the stories which did not take:

"A large man," he said, "came to New York from the mountains of Pennsylvania and offered to bet $50.00 that he could carry a feather-bed tick full of buckshot across Broadway on his head. Well, boys, we loaded the tick, which took nearly all the shot in the city, and he started. He won the bet, I saw him do it, but you see that stone pavement on Broadway, do you? Well, boys, when he crossed the street the load was so heavy that he mired into that stone pavement clear up to his knees, but he won the $50.00."

Then we told him that we were liars ourselves, and trudged on, actually having beat the gamblers out of thirty cents.

After another oyster stew dinner we strolled into the Bowery Theatre, where minstrels were playing, which amused us, as it was the first we had ever seen, and supposed they were genuine darkies. They sat in a half circle and after singing and playing, the two end men would ask questions, and one dialogue ran this way:

"Rastus, I heard you was out last night."

"Yes, Sah, I was out prominading on Broadway."

"Did you have your best girl along?"

"Zartenly."

"Did you take her home?"

"Zartenly."

"Did she invite you in?"

"Not zackly. We stood inside the gate."

"Did she exhibit great affection?"

"Great what?"

"Great affection."

"I suppose so."

"What did she and you do?"

"Dat am a pointed question, sah."

"Well, but you said she showed great affection."

"Showed what?"

"Great affection, Rastus. Did she love you?"

"Yes, sah, she squozed my hand and then I squoze her with my arm."

"Squoze, Rastus? Why, there is no such word as squoze."

"Yes, there is, for she said she had never been squoze by a regular man before."

"Where do you get that word?"

"Noah Webster, sah. Shall I instruct you?"

"Certainly."

"Is not rise, rose, risen, proper?"

"Certainly."

"Then why not squize, squoze, squizzen?"

Then they all sang again.

One incident that I yet remember was that all had on light-colored vests, and while crossing Broadway, dodging here and there among the omnibusses, trucks, and other vehicles, such as we had never seen before, I slipped on the wet stone pavement and fell flat on my stomach, but it soon dried off and I was at the front again, and at the appointed time we appeared at the book store and gave the man his dollar, who again cautioned us not to let the police see it.

It was papered up nicely and I can now see how nervously Newell jammed it into his inside pocket, which was not quite large enough, and then we boarded the steamer, all the while looking out of the corners of our eyes that no one suspicioned us.

After the steamer had cleared the dock and Lute Aborn said we were on the high seas, we slipped around behind the wheel pit, for it was a side-wheeled steamer, and as Newell was nervously untying the string, he said: "Now we will all look at the pictures first and then you, Lute, who is the best reader, will read it aloud"—when, behold, it was nothing but a New Testament worth ten cents.

This little Fanny Hill experience was really a blessing in disguise to us boys, but we did not think so at the time, and if we could have gotten hold of that dealer we would have taught him that there was yet a God in Israel.

AS A YANKEE TIN PEDDLER

At the Methodist Church just south of Wabbaquassett there were revivals each winter and with other I experienced religion, but mine, even though serious, sort of struck in and did not break out again for several years.

At the age of nineteen I had become sort of terror to my enemies, for I was quick, strong and fearless. One night I had my usual warning dream, of trouble ahead, and the next day I nearly killed a man as fearless as myself. The following day when I caught my father weeping I resolved ever after to avoid all personal encounters, which determination for self-control has carried me over many a rickety bridge in safety, and my warning dreams have never troubled me since.

Farming soon became too tame for me, and while nature's adornments which made up and surrounded our quiet home, often charmed my soul into serious dreamlike fancies, yet, somehow I enjoyed singing funny songs and telling stories, together with their proper amendments and legitimate construction—in fact, like my mother, I could tell an old story which every one had heard forty times in such a way as to cause laughter. Therefore, as farm life seemed to be an insufficient incubator for hatching out fresh productions, I mysteriously evolved into the seemingly exalted position of a Yankee Tin Peddler.

[i122]

ALBUM OF SUNNY DAYS.
CENTRAL LOWER LIKENESS IS OF MY COUSIN O. M. RICHARDSON, NOW RETIRED MANUFACTURER OF ROCKVILLE, CONN. THREE GIRLS IN CENTRAL SCENE, LINA, ELVA AND JOSEPHINE NEWELL, DAUGHTERS OF MY SISTER JANETTE AT HER OLD WABBAQUASSETT HOME. 1890.

There were at that time at least ten firms in New England and York State who manufactured tinware, for which they loaned carts and gave credit to lively chaps who had teams. The peddler would go on the road and trade the tinware for barter, old iron, copper, brass, lead, zinc and all kinds of paper stock, besides cow hides and sheep pelts or anything of which he knew the value, and ship it in to pay his account. It was a lucrative business for a clever boy, often clearing $100.00 per week besides his expenses. Also it gave him a chance to study human nature, as a good peddler must be able to read his customer before he says the wrong thing, for a frolicsome Irish woman appreciates a tone and language with perhaps a friendly slap on the shoulder, which would frighten an elderly, sedate, bloodless maiden into spasms.

Soon my two brothers and myself with several neighboring young men were into the business, and in the Spring of 1861 Alonzo Shepherd and myself ventured a trip to Long Island by the way of New York City. On this trip we acquired both wealth and fame. The ridiculous instances of our travels often come up before me now. We were continually playing tricks on each other which always ended in laughter. On this trip we became horse traders, which proved to be more lucrative than peddling.

In 1863 I shipped my team to Batavia, New York, and in August sent for my brother Gordon to come to Dunkirk, where I had another team, and we peddled through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, returning to Connecticut in the Fall, after which I returned to Elba, N. Y., where, December 10th, I married Mary Jane Hoyt, a beautiful, intelligent girl of twenty years.

The following year, 1864, with several other teams each, we came West again and returned to Albany for the winter. On my return I followed the shore road of Lake Ontario around to Watertown, N. Y., while Gordon returned through Pennsylvania, our object being to buy horses of the mountain farmers.

[i126]

MARY JANE HOYT, ELBA. N. Y., 1863. WILDER WOODS.
THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN THE SUMMER BEFORE WE WERE MARRIED.

THE THOMPSON FAMILY.

From Watertown, I worked East, where I fell in with a family by the name of Thompson, who owned a large stock-raising farm in the foot hills of Mount Seward, not far from North Elba, the Adirondack home of John Brown.

My experience with the Thompsons left a vivid impression on my memory which never grows dim.

As I remember them Mr. Thompson was short, heavy set, blue eyed, fair complexion, with a physiognomy indicating that he seldom suffered defeat. He was usually thoughtful and serious, but when telling stories or relating experience he was full of mirth.

Mary, his wife, was an interesting woman. Her stout figure, dark eyes and hair with fair skin made her look striking, especially in laughing, when her eyes twinkled and gave expression of mirth. All the animals on the farm were seemingly her special pets, but their little dog Joe came in for the lion's share. Really the little white, curly fellow with black eyes and nose, when standing erect with head and tail up, did look as though he was monarch of all he surveyed. Everybody loved him except the cats. Much of Mrs. Thompson's time was given over to church work, for which she must have been well fitted, as her Christian character was discernible at every move and turn.

Vida, their daughter of sixteen summers, was fair, with large dark eyes, auburn hair and prominent chin. Her quick glance and mirthful smile betokened self-esteem and decisive character, while glee and dare innocently portrayed pent emotion and artful design.

During the evening I turned the conversation to the story of John Brown, and was glad to learn that Mr. Thompson had been a near friend of Brown and was with him on the Kennedy farm only a few days before the raid on Harper's Ferry.

At Mrs. Thompson's suggestion we planned that we four take a horseback ride after church services on the morrow, up to the Brown farm and see John's grave and the big rock nearby from which, in former days, he had done much preaching to the mountaineers.

Our horses were good lopers, taking us up and downhill through the woods to the farm, at which we arrived very quickly, but found none of the family at home. We finally gained entrance to the little farm house and sat in John's chair by his cheap desk. Afterwards we climbed on the big rock now near his grave which seems to stand as a lone sentinel, in the rocky wilds, silently calling the coming generations to the resting place of the ashes of him who followed the dictates of conscience, regardless of immediate results.

After enjoying hot cream biscuit with wild honey and crabapple jelly, with a neighbor of the Browns, we started down the mountain, and through the evening we sat before the crackling hickory flames in the great fireplace while Mr. Thompson gave his experience with the Browns, which were substantially as follows:

[i131]

JOHN BROWN, 1850.
GOD CALLS EVERY MAN AND WOMAN TO DUTY AND REQUIRES A RESPONSE ACCORDING TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL ABILITY.

JOHN BROWN.

One evening in the summer of 1850, John Brown, whom I had known in Springfield, Mass., as a successful wool merchant, surprised us by calling, and relating his troubles.

"I," he said, "through misfortune or mismanagement, have lost the fortune which I amassed in 25 years. In trying to retrieve, I shipped my stock to Europe, but after staying there about four months I sold it so low that my loss, including the expense of the trip, left me stranded. My ardor for the slave has not in the least abated, and through the assistance of Gerritt Smith I have taken up land and am building a home over in North Elba, I am a sort of instructor to the colored folks of Smith's Wild Wood Colony.

"I have several colored men working for me in clearing up and planting, and they work well. I brought along some blooded cattle, pigs and hens, and finding many hard maples on the place, which produce sap for sirup, we feel quite independent. Two of our heifers have come in and we have plenty of milk, so I tell my wife if we have not crossed the Jordan into the land of milk and honey, we have crossed the Connecticut into the land of milk and maple molasses. Now I must be going in order to reach home before dark."

"Stay, Mr. Brown," I said, "why, we have not visited at all yet."

"I know, Mr. Thompson, but I came just to let you know where we are, and if you will come to see us we will treat you to fried chicken, boiled potatoes, hot corn bread and fresh butter. Will you come?"

"Surely; how far is it, John?"

"About 25 miles up the mountain, and 10 miles down; but I am still good for four miles an hour. Say, Mrs. Thompson, set on something for me to eat, the very best you have, for the Bible says, 'Be not slow to entertain strangers for thereby you may be entertaining angels, unaware.'"

Soon after, early one morning, we saddled our horses and rode over to call on our new neighbors, when Brown would hear nothing but that we must stop with them overnight, and although we all visited, cooked, ate and slept in the same room, we did enjoy ourselves.

Before retiring, we all knelt in family worship, when Brown prayed so clear and fervent that no one could doubt his faith in the loving Father, who he believed was listening.

Ruth, Brown's eldest daughter, and her husband, Henry Thompson, were with them, and several of the younger children. Oliver, one of those killed at Harper's Ferry, recently, was then about 10 years old.

After supper, Brown and I climbed onto the great rock, beside where his body now lies, when he revealed to me his disconnected plans of venturing into a slave state and arming negroes who could fight for their own liberty.

"But," said I, "the law gives those Southerners the right to hold slaves."

"What law?" he exclaimed as he extended his lower jaw defiantly and repeated, "What law? Jesus defined laws as the will or mandate of Jehovah. If you call the conclusions of an assembly of men today which another assembly of men tomorrow can prove to be felonious, law, then John Brown is an outlaw; but if the Saviour's definition, 'Love the Lord, thy God, with all thy mind and soul, and thy neighbor as thyself,' is law, then John Brown is a law-abiding citizen, and will, if needs be, die for those who are in bondage, who have committed no crime."

Then raising his tall form and moving slowly to and fro in the moonlight on the great rock, he continued in a soft tone.

"God calls every man and woman to duty and requires a response according to their individual ability. I feel that I have had a call to open the gate of freedom to the slaves in this, Columbia. This call is not a direct communication from God, but more in the line of duty. I am somehow impressed that I am the man to answer this call, for, when I pray for guidance, the echo seems to come back, 'Your strength is sufficient.' When you and I were boys, Dan, we read of famous persons whose characters glittered before us, but we somehow overlooked the fact that duty and praise do not travel hand in hand, but rather, that duty treads the thorny way and fame creeps softly after.

"Not only is this God's law, but it coincides with experience. Disappointment mingled with failure seems to be the earthly lot of man, and yet it is not failure. When the morn of eternity dawns, and you and I shall stand to be judged according to our past records, what will be more glorious than that we meet failure in trying to accomplish good? I know that slavery is a sin, and, if needs be, I will die for the cause."

Of course, I saw Brown occasionally during the next nine years, but I have no time this evening to relate his wildcat crusades in Kansas and Missouri, so we will pass over to the closing days of his life.

Oliver, Brown's youngest son, grew up on the North Elba farm, and through him I was kept informed concerning Brown's border free-booters until Brown came and took him to the Kennedy Farm near Harper's Ferry.

NEAR HARPER'S FERRY.

Anna, Brown's oldest daughter by his second wife, returned from Maryland about the last of October, 1859, when at her father's request she sent for me and gave me all the particulars concerning their rendezvous at the Kennedy Farm and their contemplated raid on Hall's Rifle Works at Harper's Ferry.

The next day, after promising my pets, my wife and Vida, that I would not join the mutineers, as Vida liked to call them, I left for Washington, and was soon in consultation with John Brown in the attic of the little house on the Kennedy Farm, where Anna had, as Brown said, acted as his watchdog, entertaining and detaining all strangers until he or his men could disperse or prepare.

I soon discovered that his attitude toward universal freedom had not abated, and that all his men, including three sons, had become much like him, as, at the prayer meeting in the little church nearby and the family altar, they often chimed in "Amen." As I think of them now I can truthfully say I never saw a band of men more Christianized in their expressions than those, for John had instilled into their minds his theory that the world was to be benefited by the struggle they were about to begin.

One day Oliver, his father and I walked down to Harper's Ferry, and while returning in the evening, Oliver and I pressed him for an explanation of the course he would pursue when he had taken possession of the arms at the Rifle Works, as the slaves would be useless at first, but he had none—he seemed to rely implicitly upon God and the Northern abolitionists to see him through.

Suddenly stopping us under the dark shadowy trees, and laying one hand on Oliver's shoulder and the other on mine, he said low and earnestly: "I do not know where I shall be when that beautiful moon has made its journey around this world once more, but one thing I do know and that is this: through my ceaseless efforts I have corralled the slave holders until now I have them in a trap. If my efforts are not impeded the slave will eventually free himself. If they are, and I am destroyed, the North, through sympathy for me and justice to the slave, will continue my cause until the bondmen are free. So you see I have them in a trap, but my aim is to avoid a bloody war, for the families in the South are as dear to me as those in the North, but slavery is a sin and must cease. Soon this generation will be passed, other men our lands will till and other men our streets will fill. When we are all gone the South as well as the North will speak kindly of him who dared to oppose his country's unjust laws."

All of Brown's men as well as myself considered the Harper's Ferry raid an unwise move, but to Brown, human life seemed a secondary matter, as compared to the continuation of national sin.

The last evening I stayed at the Kennedy Farm. After a supper of corn cake and molasses, Stephens and Tidd, who had melodious voices, sang "All the Dear Folks at Home Have Gone" and "Faded Flowers." Their voices echoing softly down the glens where the tree of freedom was about to appear rooted and nourished in the blood of those brave helpless invaders. Oliver Brown, noticing my emotion, gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder, saying, "Now we will all join in with father, 'Nearer my God to Thee,'" which we did before kneeling together for the last time at that strange family altar.

When I left for the North next day, the understanding was that the raid would not take place until about November 1st, but condition made it expedient for them to move at once, which they did.

I arrived home the 17th of October, and after supper I saddled the horses, when my wife, Vida and myself ran up the mountains at a spirited canter, arriving at the Brown Farm in the dark. In the small frame house we found his wife, Mary, and three of his daughters, Anna, Sarah and Ellen; Mary, the wife of Oliver; Henry and Ruth Thompson and several neighbors.

All listened in silence, while I related the incidents of my visit at the Kennedy Farm, but, of course, none of us knew that Brown had already taken possession of Harper's Ferry, that Oliver and Watson had been killed, and that the old man was holding out so grimly in the engine house.

About ten days later the exaggerated telegrams concerning Harper's Ferry were afloat which set us all agog, but not until Friday the 21st did we get a copy of the New York Times, of the 18th, which I took up to the Elba home, and we all listened while Annie read it through, then for several moments all remained silent, as we thought father and all were dead.

Later we learned that the father was alive, but Watson and Oliver were dead, and that Owen was missing, which was considered equivalent to being dead.

John Brown's trial ended October 21st. On November 2d he was sentenced to be hanged, which execution was carried out December 2, 1859.

Of those missing, Cook and Haslet were captured, and we took it for granted that Owen and the other three for whom there was a reward offered had been killed at the Ferry, but not reported.

THE DEAD APPEAR

Near the time set for the execution of Mr. Brown we were all nervous, especially our Vida and Sarah Brown; they were about ready to fly, and what happened, Vida must tell it herself.

"Oh, no, papa; you're telling the story; keep right on."

Well, as I have said, we knew that the three Brown boys, Watson, Owen and Oliver, were dead and the father was to be executed December 2d, and we were running back and forth to the Elba Farm all the time, trying to help the women to bear up under this trying ordeal.

One dark evening, the last of November, two neighboring girls came in and stayed until after 10 o'clock, when Vida and my wife accompanied them to the gate. When she returned, as we were sitting before the fire in this big fireplace, a soft rap came on the door, which we seldom use, and as I rose up Vida said: "That is Flossy, let me go."

The door being in the entry, from where we sat Mary and I could not see Vida when she opened it, but listened if we might recognize the voice. The voice being inaudible, I started to go just as Vida uttered a low moan, staggered backwards to where I could see her, and fell in a dead faint.

I sprang to the open door and called out, but could see nor hear no one. Then I closed and locked it, and Mary brought the camphor, but we could not bring her back, so as to tell whom she had seen for a long time. When she recovered she said it was one of the Browns, but she thought he was dead. I instantly decided it was John Brown, who had escaped from Charlestown jail, which was a feasible conclusion, as all the news we were receiving in the Adirondacks was nearly a week old and unreliable.

Rushing out I ran down into the road, calling John by name, when I heard a voice near the house, and turning back, discovered it was Owen Brown, who had been reported missing, and we supposed he was dead.

When in out of the cold and before the big fireplace with Mary washing his hands and face, Vida trying to untangle his unkempt hair and I getting off his shoes, which had not been removed in weeks, he covered his face with his hands and wept, but did not speak.

After supper he listened to our reports from Harper's Ferry and North Elba as we had gained them, and then inquired if I thought it was imprudent for him to try to visit those at home, to which I assured him that he would be more safe in Washington than he was in the Adirondacks.

"Then," said he, "it is better that they never know you have seen me." Then turning to Vida said: "You can keep a secret?" Vida put her hand on his head saying, "Try me and see."

It was soon arranged that Mary should spend the next day cleaning and fixing his clothes, Vida would run Fleet Foot Jim up to the Elba Farm and without revealing anything bring back all the news, while I was to borrow what money he might require, and the following night he and I were to run, on saddle, to Robert Doan, a staunch abolitionist, from which place he would make his way to his brother at Dorsett, Ohio.

VIDA'S DARING EXPLOIT

We were unable to get Owen ready for the night ride until the second evening, when Vida declared her intention to accompany us as far as Jobe's Hill, seventeen miles down the mountain. "For," said she, "when Mr. Brown is clear from the Adirondack region, he can make his way in comparative safety to Utica, or if he is going to Ohio, he can follow the lake shore to Rochester. Now do not say no, Papa, for I am not afraid; they will never catch Old Jim while I am on his back. Besides, a lady riding with two men might fool even a shrewd detective, if such a thing might be that any of our mountain greenhorns have turned detectives for the sake of the reward which is out for Owen."

"Why, Vida," said Owen.

"Please do not object, Mr. Brown. I am an Adirondack lassie who used to go barefoot in summer, and I know as much about these backwood aspirants as anyone."

"Now, my dear child," I said.

"Papa," she continued, "will you, for once, allow your pet to have her own way? If you should be caught, think of the consequences; and you, Mamma and I would be ashamed to hold up our heads in church. Now, Mamma, will you take my side?"

"You know, Papa," said Mrs. Thompson, "that all the girls are accustomed to—"

"All right—all right," I said, for I felt that Vida's plan was sensible.

[i143]

ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS.
VIDA THOMPSON ON HER WILD MIDNIGHT RIDE.

At 10 o'clock, when we went out to saddle the horses, we were startled by two strangers standing near the gate, but soon learned they were wood choppers from the timberlands farther up the mountain, who had become confused, thinking they might be on the wrong road.

Fleet Foot Jim, who was always proud when my wife or Vida was on his back, pranced, nibbled his bit, paced and cantered until Vida patted his neck and talked baby talk to him, when he steadied down and we went on at a brisk trot, seldom speaking until we reached Jobe's Hill, where Vida kissed me again, bidding me not to worry, shook hands good-bye with Owen and she was off on a spirited run through the midnight gloom.

Brown and I listened to the klick of the horse's feet as they made the turn down through the dark timber valley, then ascending the hill the klicking grew fainter until they passed over the brow of the hill, when it ceased altogether.

"Listen," said I to Brown, "the long wooden bridge we came over is not more than two miles away," and as we waited the rumbling thunder from old Jim's heels on the bridge assured us that Vida's lonely midnight ride up the Adirondack Mountains would soon be over, and so it was, for she left the hemlock grove on Jobe's Hill at just 11:30 and bounced into her waiting mother's arms at home at 12:15, making the 17 miles in 45 minutes, which she always refers to as her glorious midnight ride.

OWEN BROWN'S STORY

"Soon after you left us at the Kennedy Farm we were startled by the rumor that the authorities were about to come down upon us, so we decided to seize the arsenal Sunday night.

"Father routed us out earlier than usual for our family worship on Sunday morning, and all of us knelt together for the last time.

"Now Oliver and Watson are dead, father is to be hanged tomorrow, I am a fugitive with a large reward over me and most of the others are either dead or soon will be.

"We left Kennedy Farm at dusk Sunday, October 16, 1859. In our party there were, besides father; Watson, Oliver and I, Marriam, the two Coppic boys, Cook, Tidd, Kagi, Taylor, Bill Thompson, Hazlett, Copeland, Leary, Greene, Anderson and several other men.

"Father rode in the wagon and the others walked two by two, all but Marriam, Cook, Barclay, Coppic and myself, who were left to guard the arms and other effects until we heard from the raid.

"Tidd came out to us in the morning stating that the battle was going on fiercely and that our men were being hemmed in on all sides. Then he reported that more than fifty had been killed, the Mayor of Harper's Ferry had been shot, and Watson and Oliver were dead; so, upon this report we decided to flee from the scene and leave all behind.

"We hastily ate and fixed up as much lunch as we could carry, when Marriam, Coppic, Cook, Tidd and myself ran across the country to Maryland Heights, where we could view the scene but could not help.

"At first we saw no troops, but hundreds of men from behind trees, rocks and buildings firing at our men, who, as yet, held the town. We could see father, with sword in hand, walking about apparently encouraging the men.

"Soon we saw a squad of more than a hundred soldiers leave the bridge and march down the street towards father and his few men, and could see father begin preparing for the onslaught.

"When they were about two hundred feet distant father apparently gave the word to fire, and it was kept up until two of our men and more than twenty of their troop lay dead in the street, while their live ones retreated in confusion to the covered bridge from whence they came.

"Truly it was a strange sight to see father, an old man, with a handful of mountaineers holding the town of Harper's Ferry against that company of Maryland regulars, besides receiving an occasional shot from behind buildings or other places of safety. He was facing odds of more than fifty to one, who, not knowing what father's re-enforcements might be, were really panic stricken.

"Through continuous firing, one after another of our few men were shot down, until father abandoned the arsenal and seemed to be barricading the engine house with his few men, probably not more than three or four besides himself.

"Colonel Robert E. Lee, with a company of United States Marines, appeared just before dark but did not attempt to capture the enemy's stronghold in the engine house, possibly because he had heard the rumor that father had three or four thousand men in the mountains waiting his command.

"Knowing that anything more on our part to help father would virtually be suicide, we gathered up our effects and started on our night tramp through the Blue Ridge Mountains in a northwesterly direction.

"We traveled in the roads strung out about ten rods apart, myself in advance, so when I met anyone I would engage him in conversation until the other boys were concealed from the view of the road. When passing villages we climbed the fences and ran around.

"Soon our food was ear corn, which we pillaged from the farmers. This we could not pop or roast, as we dare not build a fire. We could travel in the rain nights, but we could not sleep days when it was wet and cold, and we suffered terribly. After several days suffering, Cook proposed to venture into the town for food, to which Tidd strongly objected and I often had my hands full trying to quiet their quarrels.

"About the sixth day out we slept on a mountain which overlooked Ole Forge, near Chambersburg, Pa., where Cook was determined to go down for food, which he did, and never returned, and as you know, was captured and will soon share the fate of others at Charlestown.

"Marriam was now so weak that he could go no further, and I at a great risk, got him down to Chambersburg, where he boarded a train without detection. Then we were but three."

"Fearing that Cook might be forced to reveal our whereabouts and intentions, we traveled all that night back towards the hill from whence we came, making our course as zigzag as possible, so detectives would be unable to design our intentions or lay in wait for us.

"The third day after Cook's capture, an old lady hunting nuts in the woods came spank upon us, while we were sleeping in the sun. We were still near Chambersburg and from what she had heard she knew who we were, and told us so. To kill her would be wrong, to let her go back and report would be dangerous; but she soon put us at ease by telling about her abolition friends in Massachusetts and how her son, with whom she lived, and all her neighbors would help us on the way.

"We trusted her and at dark we found ourselves in her son's home eating chicken-pie and drinking hot coffee, which we had not partaken of in ten days. Soon another sympathizer came in and the two men arranged to take us on our journey as far as they could before morning.

"When we were small, father used to tell us children about the angels and I formed the idea that they were sweet, lovely and looked beautiful, but oh, Mr. Thompson, that dear old lady, I wish you could have seen her just as she looked to me that night, stepping around so softly to make us comfortable. Why, Thompson, she seemed so handsome, while looking through my tears I actually think she might have been an angel which God sent to comfort us. When we were ready to start, she put her arm around each of our necks and kissed us, saying, 'We will play that I am your mother, just for tonight.'

"Acting on our host's guarantee, we rode boldly down through Chambersburg, where Cook had just been taken, but all was well. At break of day, when about forty-five miles away, we jumped out with our luggage, eight loaves of bread and part of a boiled ham, and fled into the woods.

"Now we found ourselves among the Quakers, who fed and protected us, and in a few days we separated, I working my way to you, and here I am tonight.

"Father taught his followers that the move on Harper's Ferry would precipitate conditions which would free the slaves. If, as we believe, God was leading him, it surely will, for dark as it appears to us today, it may be all right when viewed by the coming generations."

Then in a voice, just like old John Brown himself, Owen softly sang a verse of the hymn, "God Moves in a Mysterious Way His Wonders to Perform." We rode a little way in silence and again he struck up:

"Let us love one another as long as we stay
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way."

[i151]

NEAR JOHN BROWN'S ADIRONDACK HOME, 1911.

AFTER THE MIST HAD CLEARED AWAY

Forty-six years have passed since the sixteen year old Vida played her part so well in the strange drama of freedom's birth, and now, in an automobile tour to the coast of Maine with my wife, Mary Prickett, and our sixteen year old Vida, who to me, is a veritable imprint of the afore-characterized Vida Thompson. I again travel the winding roads of the old Adirondack Mountains.

We visit the John Brown farm, sit in his easy chair, and climb the great rock which silently stands sentinel where, in turn, the cold winter's blasts in their wild midnight ride howl weirdly, and the sweet spring mornings awaken the forest song birds who shy their nests among the wild flowers near the grace of the old Hero—John Brown.

The Browns are gone from North Elba. New York State has secured possession of the farm and erected a fitting monument to the memory of John Brown. When the old home is gone, and the monument has been replaced, the great rock will stand there just as Brown found it, seeming to say, "I alone will stay and guard his long repose."

Strangers now live in the Thompson home, the evergreen on Jobe's Hill is seen no more, the long wooden bridge over which Old Jim thundered out the distant echo as he hastened the fair Vida through the mountains, has been replaced and each fair day, as the evening sun nears Ontario's restless waves, it kisses a fond adieu to the little cemetery where Mr. and Mrs. Thompson sleep, while a little child smoothes Grandma Vida's silver locks on yonder's distant shore where the grand old Pacific ebbs and flows as time rolls on.

[i155]

YANKEE HORSEMEN.
LEFT TO RIGHT, UPPER. PERRIN, PARKHOUSE, WILSON, MERRICK, SLATER.
LEFT TO RIGHT, LOWER. JONES, WESTCOTT, COLLINS, GORDON, SHERMAN.

YANKEE HORSEMEN GO WEST

The following year, 1865, it appears Gordon and I were not satisfied to let well enough alone, so we gave up our lucrative business for something more leisurely, by going into Batavia, New York, as fruit dealers. We had a stack of money and pitched right in, buying up whole orchards and paying approximately 40 per cent down, and when apples declined from $8.00 to $5.00 per barrel we had hardly enough money left to get out of town with, but our brother, Collins, loaned us all we needed and we struck out again at our old business, undaunted, as though nothing had happened.

The next year, 1866, we three brothers, with our wives, and all our teams hung out for the winter at Cleveland, Ohio.

Collins and Martha.
Merrick and Mary.
Gordon and Amanda.

In the spring, 1867, with about fifty teams, we scattered over the south and west planning a rendezvous on the Mississippi River, where we all grouped for about three months. Our evenings of sport are better remembered than imagined. We had expanded our business until there were nearly 100 of us, playing tricks on each other, wrestling, lifting, swimming, running horses, telling stories, singing songs, etc.

One of our men, a hostler, named Kelly, made an impromptu speech one evening, which was comical, but without the surroundings could not be appreciated. Ramson Young started an old-time school play of snapping the whip. It consisted of a captain standing at his post and as many as were take hold of hands and when he gave the word, all start on a swing to run around him. Of course, the outer one must run faster and the trick was to all pull the outer or tail man off his feet and see him try to save himself from falling. They got Kelly on the end and when he came around the next man let go of his hand, his body got ahead of his legs and he ran among the tables and dishes and through the camp fire in his big bare feet, before he could stop, but did not catch on that it was intentional.

Next evening the boys gathered again and when Kelly saw that he would be on the tail end, he let go, and stepping onto a stump said: "Gentlemen, I am a Hoosier, born in the State of Indiana, and an uneducated man, but you will never again get me on the tail end of that 'ere." I did not like to see Young impose on Kelly, so I embraced the first opportunity to even up matters. One evening while waiting in camp for supper, near Duluth, Kelly was exhibiting his new shotgun, when Young said to me: "I'm going to bet with Kelly he cannot hit my new hat at twenty paces, and you must load the gun, but put in no shot."

"I will do nothing of the kind," I said.

"Yes, you will, Mr. Richardson; this is just for a joke."

"I tell you I will have nothing to do with your tricks."

"Kelly," he cried, "I will bet you a quarter that you cannot hit my new hat at twenty paces, and Mr. Richardson says he will load the gun."

"All right," says Kelly, "Richardson is honest; I will trust him."

I again refused, but when they both insisted I took the new gun and ammunition and when out of sight I put in, not only a good charge of powder, but a whole handful of buckshot, and when I delivered it, Young said to Kelly: "Suppose we make it fifty cents instead of a quarter?" "All right," said Kelly.

By this time all the boys were excited, for they knew Kelly could hit the hat, and Young began betting five and ten cents each, with them, until he had nearly two dollars up and his new straw hat on stake.

Young caught me smiling, and looked at a little scared as he whispered, "There is no shot in the gun?" to which I paid no attention. Now Kelly squared himself and took aim long and steady and then fired. Of course, blowing the new hat all to driblets.

Young gave me one wicked glance and then stood around like a rooster in the rain, and when the joke got out he simply remarked, "If a man cannot trust a preacher, who can he trust?"

We had a ministerial looking fellow with us, who gave his name as Wilson from New Jersey. He had worked for us but a few months when one morning three men came up and stopped one of our teams. Wilson, who was driving a front team, looked back, and, dropping his rein, ran for the woods, nearly a half mile distant, looking neither to the right or left until he disappeared into the bushes. Next day, going through a piece of woods, I heard Wilson's voice, "Is everything all right?" and when told that the men only wanted to buy a horse, he still suspected that he had seen one of them before. Although he was with us until near the end of our travels he never told us why he ran so fast.

Of course, our lives were full of peculiar incidents. Mr. Young, who deputized me to load the gun, delighted in telling the fortunes of those who came around the camp fire in the evening, and it was rich to listen to him when he had a fellow and girl on the string, who were really serious.

MY RELATION

We camped over Sunday near the home of a distant relative of mine, who had come out west many years before and had been prosperous. He was a great big generous farmer of about seventy-five years, who enjoyed our stories and songs hugely, while he supplied our camp with eggs, ham, chicken, cream and vegetables. One of his neighbors told me a secret about the old man's narrow escape from death, which I have not forgotten.

It appears that after his first wife's death, the old chap married a young woman of the neighborhood, who made him an excellent wife, although there was a slight blemish of character on the family from which she came. It seems that before the marriage he had agreed never to twit her about her relation, but had broken over several times, for which she had warned him to desist if he valued his life.

One day, as the story went, she was making pies and he was in the kitchen tormenting her, for which she gave him tit for tat until he remarked, "Well, thank the Lord I was reared in a family of God-fearing and law-abiding citizens." She uttered an unprintable phrase, and drew a butcher knife from the table drawer. It was the one which the old gent had often used to slay pigs and calves, but he had never dreamed it would one day be used to wind up his own earthly career.

A glance at the keen, ugly blade caused him to unceremoniously discontinue the argument and rush out the back door crying, "Help! Help!" Knowing the unscrupulous character of the family to which his sweetheart belonged, and the heat to which he had fired her passion, he, without stopping to either pray or swear, lit out for the orchard, hoping to distance his fair pursuer and climb a tree.

In this horrid dilemma of running while looking, both before and behind, he forgot about the old unused well without a curb, and just as she was about to plunge the awful knife, he dropped into the well just deep enough to save himself from decapitation.

"I was one," said the relator, "to help old John out of the well and patch up an armistice, which I think he has held sacred, and twitted his wife no more about her relation."

[i163]

OUR EVERYDAY TRANSACTIONS, EXCEPT SUNDAY.

HORSE JOCKIES

We had now abandoned our tin peddling business except as a means of settling expense bills, and had become successful horse dealers.

Our fine horses gave us a sort of prestige and welcome in traveling over the country. Our lookout for bargains was always in unmanageable young horses, which usually became docile through kind treatment. Of the three brothers, Collins was the best judge of a horse, while Gordon and I were close buyers. Our method was to trade for or buy unmanageable young sound horses and put them on the wheel of a four-horse team. After they had fought and tired themselves out they would come along and soon be working all right. In this way we could tame the ugliest animals and never whip them. Then they were for sale and would please the buyer. Sometimes we had more than one hundred horses, which gave a good selection for the buyer.

A few of our men were on good salary, but many were hangers on.

Frank Button, from Vermont, was always on hand in the time of trouble. He was kind-hearted, but when on a lark was always looking for the bully of the town. The Aurora papers came out one morning with large headlines, stating that Ben Grim, the "Terror or Terrier" of Aurora, had tackled one of Richardson's horse jockies, named Button, who although appearing like a common cloth-bound wooden-button, proved to have been brass inside, but it was hoped that Grim would live.

At Davenport we camped over Sunday on the river just north of the town, where the Methodist minister (a jolly good fellow) thought to invite us to come and hear him preach. In coming up through the teams he chanced to climb the six-horse van to see how things looked inside. Tiger, the one-eyed brindle pup, could not stand for that, and when we all rushed to see what the stranger was yelling about, we found the minister swinging from the top bar of the Broad Gauge by both hands, while Tiger was swinging from the seat of the minister's pants by his teeth. Our liberal donation for his new pants virtually healed the breach, but that evening, when in his sermon he lauded us for our Christian benevolence and sympathy, he said nothing about the seat of his pants, nor even mentioned the faithfulness of our beloved Tiger.

At Evansville I boarded an Ohio River steamer for Louisville, on which there were four colored men, accustomed to singing old plantation melodies at each landing. I took them with us through the hills of old Kentucky for several weeks and we all learned to sing their songs. I am wishing now I could be in that old camp once more, and hear those voices again:

"Oh, Dearest May, You're Lovelier Than the Day," "Down on the Old P. D.," "My Old Kentucky Home Far Away," "Darling Nelly Gray," and the like.

Prosperity and joy were with us in every way, and never in all our travels did we have a man get severely hurt. We three brothers were strong, athletic and humorous and always made companions of our men.

Our foot and horse racing was often exciting. Our last foot race was in Cleveland, Ohio, where after we three brothers had outdone all the men we ran it off between ourselves on the Lake Shore, where Collins won, but I told him it was just by the length of his nose.

Some of us were good marksmen, but when we run on to a backwoodsman in Missouri, who had about a dozen squirrels he had killed that morning, all shot in the eye except one, which was hit in the ear, for which he apologized, as he declared that in the tallest tree he was able to hit ninety-nine out of one hundred in the eye, we boasted no more about our marksmanship.

If Frank and Jesse James, the notorious outlaws of the Wild West, ever visited our camp, we did not know it. I visited their old home twice while in Missouri, and listened to their mother's story about her boys she loved so well. At that time the State of Missouri had out rewards, in the aggregate of more than $50,000 for their capture, dead or alive.

LANDED IN CHICAGO

In the fall, Collins and Gordon returned to Connecticut, while I, having spent much time in the South, laid up in Cleveland for the winter. They returned to Cleveland in the spring, when at the solicitation of our dear wives we decided to dispose of as many of our teams as possible during the summer and locate permanently in some large city, which we did, and in the fall of 1868, with about 100 horses and seventy-five men, we landed in Chicago.

We purchased the northwest corner of Canal and Lake Streets, running to the alley each way. Besides some little stores on Lake Street, there was an immense ice house and a large wooden structure occupied by Garland, Downs & Holmes, as sales station of a carriage manufacturer in Boston. These gave us ample room for all our teams, but before our titles were perfected the city condemned most of the property in opening Dutch Broadway (Milwaukee Avenue) into Lake Street, and although we never came into legal possession of the property the city's appraisement was such that our purchase left us a good bonus besides our occupation of the building for over a year. We then lived over stores on Canal Street, where the Chicago & Northwestern Depot now stands.

In 1869 we bought property on both sides of Lake Street, in the second block west of Western Avenue, where we built homes on the south and a factory on the north side of the street. We then sold our teams, mostly to our men on the installment plan, holding the property in our name until paid for. Then we started manufacturing tinware, working about fifty tinners, selling the ware to those who bought the teams. It was a success. Soon all the teams were off our hands, and the once prolific and romantic business and escapades of the three Richardson brothers had entirely disappeared.

In 1872 Collins sold out to Gordon and me, he returning to Connecticut and settling down on a farm.

In 1874 we sold out the tin factory, and Gordon, who had always been a lover of fast horses, began dealing in them again.

I, who had all the time been exhorting and writing books, entered the Evanston Theological Seminary, preparing for the ministry, but when Dr. H. W. Thomas experienced his troubles with Rock River Conference, I abandoned that course, but kept up, through private instructors, the languages and scientific studies for five years, including one year of experimental astronomy on the great telescope then at Cottage Grove.

DR. THOMAS

Thomas' ideas moulded my thoughts into lines of truth. He was a good man, a profound scholar and deep thinker, but lived before his time. The following I copy from his thoughts:

THE ORIGIN AND DESTINY OF MAN

BY H. W. THOMAS, D.D.

We say that this is the 12th day of December. We say that this is the year 1870. We say that it is the Sabbath evening, and that we are gathered here in the house of worship. We say that we look into each other's faces, and that you hear my words. But is this a dream, or is it reality? For in the night-time we have often dreamed that we have seen large assemblages; we have heard music and singing; we have listened to sermon or lecture; we have loved, we have hoped, we have wept, we have been glad—and in the morning we have found it was only a dream. There have not been wanting, in our world's history, those who have held that all our day-life is only another kind of a day-dream. And, when we come to think of it, it is not the easiest thing to disprove this. I do not know how to prove that I am here better than just to say so. I do not know how I can be much more certain of the fact than I am of certain facts in my dreams. Yet somehow we feel that there is something more in this life than simply an illusion, and I guess that our senses do not deceive us. The revolving earth is beneath our feet; the heavens are above our heads. But if this be so, how came we here? How and whence did we come? Are we the results of some process of material nature, the fortuitous concurrence of innumerable atoms, or are we the creatures of a living God? Is there an order and a plan about our being? Shall our days end with the autumn and the snow, or will there be a spring time? and shall we wake in the long tomorrow and be forever? Now we may ask, "Is this that we call death the end of our being?" It seems to me, if we get a correct view of death, that it is only another form of birth. Personally, I think that one coming down to a point of dying may find it something like the setting of the sun. Had we never seen the going down of our sun, we would dread the thought of darkness coming on. Men would gather in the deepest alarm as the great orb began to descend in the west. They would gaze anxiously at the last lingering rays on the tree-tops and hilltops. But as the sun gradually disappeared, and darkness began to settle over them, they would see in the distance a twinkling star; and as they looked at this, another would appear, and another, and another, till, as they stood gazing, the whole starry heavens would shine out before them. Instead of the going down of the sun being an eclipse, it only makes visible the splendor of the heavens. So we should go down to dying, thinking of the change as only revealing to us the vaster universe beyond.

[i170]

H. W. THOMAS, D. D.
"I AM GLAD THAT IMMORTALITY IS NOT ONLY A FAITH BUT A GREAT FACT. I AM GLAD THAT WHILE THE SNOWS OF WINTER MAY LIE OVER THE GRAVES OF LOVED ONES, THEIR SPIRITS ARE UP WITH GOD."

Socrates, before he died, said he expected soon to be with Homer, and Hesiod, and Orpheus, and Musaius. Cicero apostrophized his departed daughter, and said he would meet her in the realms of the blest. Dante thought to find his Beatrice in the spirit-life.

As I stand here, it seems like a dream that I am talking to you in the light of this beautiful room; that the time will soon come when others shall be here and we shall be gone. Yes, my friends, the strange mystery lies before us.

EARLY CHICAGO

Chicago, then about 300,000 inhabitants, was virtually in the hands of the gang. The heelers from the assessors' office boldly reduced the valuation on property to those who stood their assessments for what they called electioneering purposes, while raising the assessment on those who refused to bribe, until the burden on the honest taxpayer became griveous to bear.

Cases are said to be on record where two vacant lots lying side by side were assessed, one five times as much as the other, and that not one of our aldermen paid personal property tax, while families whose income was less than $400.00 per year, were heavily assessed on their household effects.

John Wentworth ("Long John"), one of Chicago's early mayors, who had fought the Indians at Fort Dearborn, with several other large land holders, refused to pay their taxes until the court of last resort decided they must pay as assessed, but the effect of the attempt was good, for the following year the valuation on real estate was cut down nearly one-half.

This so diminished the income of the Cook County wolves that a panic ensued, which incensed the ever-irritable element and finally swelled into anarchy, consummating in the Haymarket Riot, in 1886, in which several officers were maimed or killed, and for which a few of the chief conspiring anarchists were executed, and thus civilization was restored.

Good men were then selected for responsible positions, while the dirty constables and rotten, self-elected magistrates, who held courts in extreme corners of the county, where victims were summoned to appear, only to find that judgment had been rendered against them, were at last stamped under the heels of decency.

Mr. Story, editor of the Chicago Times, who had amassed a large fortune, as the story ran, became infatuated with a feminine spiritual medium, who acted both as advisor and architect in the construction of a marble mansion on Grand Boulevard, whose apparent cost would have been four times his capital. The warmth of the medium did not offset the chill of old age, and becoming weary, he laid down the burden of life and the mansion was never completed.

Philip Hoyne was perhaps then the most noted criminal lawyer in Chicago, and this was the story of how he first became famous.

A man had been arrested for horse stealing who had no lawyer and the judge appointed Hoyne, then a young man, to defend him.

"What shall I do for him?" inquired Hoyne.

"Clear him if you can," said the judge.

Hoyne took the prisoner into the ante-room, used for counsel, and said to him:

"Mr. O'Flerity, did you steal the horse?"

"I did, your honor."

"Do you expect to go to the penitentiary?"

"I do, sir."

"Do you want me to clear you?"

"If you can do it. I swear by the Holy Virgin Mary that I will come to your wake and bring all me relations."

Hoyne raised the window and said, "Do you see those woods yonder?"

"Indade, I do, sir."

"Now, I will hold my watch and see how long it takes you to run there."

When Hoyne returned to court the judge inquired where his client was.

"I do not know."

"Did I not place him in your charge?"

"Yes, but you said, 'Clear him if you can,' and the last I saw of him he was entering the woods about two miles away."

HORSE RACING IN CHICAGO

Mr. Billings, the original West Side gas monopolist, had a pacer which could go on the street 2:40 or better, and my brother Gordon drove Tom, the silver-tailed trotter, who could crowd 2:30 very close. Billings lived on Lake Street, near Union Park, while we lived farther west, and we used to race horses nearly every day.

One noon, on going home to lunch, Billings tackled us on Washington Street for a race. Tom drawing us two was a little handicapped, so it made the race about an even thing. Billings became so excited that he did not turn off at Sheldon Street, to his home, but kept on through Union Park. When at Robey Street we encountered a fat colored woman and her dog crossing the street. A policeman saw us coming and tried to get her out of the way, but we ran over the whole bunch.

We turned right back to the policeman, who knew Billings had been instrumental in getting him his job. He said he was not much hurt, only his shins ached terribly where we had run over them with both wheels. The woman had been rolled over and over in the mud, but she said she did not care, only for her dog.

We decided on the officer's advise that it was better to settle the case out of court, so we gave the woman a dollar for her dog. The next noon we had the race over again, and really it was rich to hear Billings and my brother both tell how easily they would have won had not their horses gone into the air.

We West Siders had what we called the gentlemen's race track, on the south wing of Central Park (Garfield Park). Every Saturday afternoon many of the prominent men with their wives and fast horses assembled there, one to show the other how easy his horse could do the other fellow's nag up.

Mr. Eighmy, a man past 75 years, usually had a fine stepper and he was a good driver. One day in a race of five or six, we could see from the grandstand that on turning into the back stretch they had purposely enclosed the old gent in a pocket, allowing Wrigley with Fly-Away and my brother Gordon with Tom to pass on the outside. Soon we saw the sulky in front and the one at the old gent's side, together with his own, all in a mixup and turning flipflops. When we reached the spot we found them all bruised and bleeding, with their horses loose on the prairie, but the old man was game, and this is what he said:

"I ran between them purposely. I knew it would top us all over, but I said to myself, 'Old Eighmy, you haven't long to live at the best, and if you must die you might as well kill a couple of these damn mean cusses for the good of the community, after you're gone.'"

Isaac Waxwell and Jim Rawley were forever wrangling. Jim was usually on the judge's stand and Isaac claimed that Jim did not give him a fair show. He certainly should have had a fair show, for it was rich to see him drive in the dead heat; he had a peculiar way of leaning forward and sticking out his elbows so it looked as though he was pushing on the reins.

John Brennock, a pioneer packer from the stockyards, was a unique character. He was a big man with a large head, and his mouth was very large in proportion to his head. Everyone liked Brennock and knew he was rich, for he had told them so. His last resort, in a dead heat, was to bawl so loud as to frighten the other drivers' horses off their feet.

HOPEFUL AND RARUS

On the sportsman's track, adjoining ours on the west, national events took place. The race between Hopeful and Rarus was the most exciting of anything which ever took place in those days. About 60,000 people gathered to see the race.

The blooded Rarus was a tall six-year-old bay trotter of national fame, from Beldom Brothers' stock farm in California. Hopeful was a chubby little white pacer, from a farm on the New England hills. He was twenty-two years old, and had never been on a race track until that season.

Neither horse had ever lost a race, and while the press, from the Atlantic to the Rockies, leaned hopefully towards Hopeful, yet they seemed to think that he was overmatched.

The match was really a strife between the people and the sporting fraternity, for horse racing throughout the country had become demoralized to the extent that the gamblers seldom allowed the best horse to win. Therefore, all the people wanted to see the old farmer, with his handsome pet, win the race.

It was a delightful October day and not only did the whole city turn out, but thousands came in from the country, to witness the great national race which had long been advertised.

Rarus came out first, stepping lively around the mile course and speeding down past the grandstand, which brought forth applause, for all admired the Pacific Ranger, who had come to Chicago to win the laurels of the day.

When Hopeful came out and paced slowly up past the grandstand he looked one way and the other to those who applauded him with a sort of confident grin, but when he turned at the north end of the home stretch and let loose, the people just yelled and roared, while the women acted as though they would like to hug him in their arms.

When lots were chosen and Hopeful won the pole, there was another shout, but it was soon followed by a row in the judge's stand, as there seemed to be a misunderstanding as to who should call time, or give the word to go, but it was finally settled, and the horses appeared for probably the most exciting race ever pulled off on the American continent.

At the word "go" they were off and we all craned our necks as they shot around the south bend, Hopeful hugging the pole and Rarus laying on the wheel of his sulky. On the back stretch, Rarus pulled out endeavoring to pass, and our hearts were in our mouths, while the little mountaineer elevated his head a trifle and steadily held the big ranger on the hub until they came under the wire, Hopeful winner, first in three.

We were still uneasy, for the impression was prevalent that the blooded animal was a stayer, while Hopeful could not make the second mile as fast as the first, but he still held the pole, and we argued that if Rarus had done his best we were all right.

When they came out for the second heat we soon discovered that we were being jockeyed, for several times they came under the wire, neck and neck, and yet were called back by the starter, whose neck we wanted to wring, for we knew he was doing it to fuss, worry and tire our Hopeful.

The last time they were called back, Rarus turned sooner than usual, and before Hopeful could turn he was at full speed and came under the wire far ahead and got the word "go," which gave him time to swing in and take the pole.

A murmur seemed to stifle the friends of Hopeful as the horses swung into the back stretch, where we hoped to see the pacer try to pass, but he steadily hung on the hub, as he had done around the south bend, and continued this all the way around the north bend, when suddenly his driver pulled him out into the center of the home stretch, and the great race was on in dead earnest.

We had taken some ladies from the ground into our carriage, so they could see, while I stepped onto the tire of one wheel with my wife, Mary's hand on my neck to keep me from falling. In the excitement she gripped me so hard I can almost feel her hand now.

Our position near the judge's stand gave us a full view of the horses as they were coming, with Hopeful's head high and his knees far apart. For a few seconds the silence which seemed to reign was only broken by the seemingly far away sound of the horses' feet on the soft dirt, but soon those at the north started a cheer, which wildly broke along the throng like a wave, as Hopeful steadily poked his nose farther to the front until Rarus flew up into the air, when the news began flashing over the wires into the country that Hopeful had won.

Amid the cheers and yells, a ridiculous scene occurred which the reader should have witnessed to appreciate. Suddenly in the crowd nearby a gruff voice seemed uttering smothered oaths, while a woman shouted shrieks of terror, as she suddenly appeared above the throng sitting on the top of a man's head, he pawing with both hands to try to get her off, while she was struggling for release.

The cause of this strange episode took place something like this: He was a burly, cross-eyed Wolverine, from the tall pine tree country, who came down to bet his hard-earned money on the famous Pacific Coast trotter. During the excitement someone knocked his glasses off, and in order for the cross-eyed man to see to find them he had to put his face near to the ground. She, Mrs. Durgan, a little woman, it seems, when awfully tickled, was accustomed to spat her hands on her knees and run backwards while laughing. When she heard Hopeful had won, forgetting where she was, she indulged in her old habit of running backwards until she sat on his head.

When he felt her alight he sprang erect and, of course, not being able to see out or know what was happening, uttered a few excusable oaths. After the good-natured man had found his spectacles he looked pitifully at the woman, who was deluged in a flood of tears, and then turning to me smiled, as he said, "Didn't that beat hell?"

That was long, long ago. Should the recording angel call the roll today of those who were there that day, not one in ten would answer, and in a few years all will be silent. Where have they gone, and will they come again?

CHICAGO PIETY

Jim Sackley, an Irishman of merited renown, was living in the neighborhood of Lake Street and Western Avenue, when we arrived in Chicago. He had been a sort of self-appointed constable of the town of Cicero, which he said included all the territory west of Western Avenue.

Thompson Brothers at the time were running a general store on Lake Street and, as they were politically inclined, their store seemed to be a gathering place for the worthy aspirants of the neighborhood.

One evening Gordon and I were in the store when Tony McGuel, a gentleman from Cork, came in to announce the death of his wife. We all huddled around him in sympathy, for we had not even heard that she was sick. The surroundings of the scene were made all the more pitiful, as it had taken place just before pay day at the car barns, and he needed a little assistance financially, so Hiram and Harvey Thompson headed the subscription list, and soon we had raised quite a respectable sum.

Jim Sackley was there and in just the frame of mind to shed sympathy copiously, for it was said that one of his near relatives had recently passed away and he was in communication, at intervals, with the priest, who was still praying her out of purgatory. Not only this, but Jim, although not an Irishman himself, for as he had said his children were all born in this country, yet he had seen the auld sod and, like Joseph and his kinsmen in Egypt, with a five dollar bill in his hand he fell on Tony's neck and they kissed and hugged like mother and babe.

Of course, they had both been drinking slightly, which made the tears flow more freely, which so affected us all that we pulled out our linen and wiped away the surplus moisture.

After Tony had gone with about $13.00, which Sackley said would only buy the cheapest coffin, Sackley and Harvey Thompson shaved, put on clean shirts, and called at the home to view the corpse and, if necessary, offer prayer, when to their surprise the corpse met them at the door, and said she did not know where Tony was; the last she heard of him he was trying to borrow money to attend a wake down on Canal Street.

[i186]

EARLY CHICAGO.

PUBLIC CONVEYANCE

During those days the Chicago Street Railway Company suffered much through what might be called growing pain. The Randolph Street cars turned at Union Park over onto Lake Street, as far as Robey, and there they stopped during the busy hours of morning and evening, only running to their barns on Western Avenue, when they were not in a hurry.

Their excuse for not running all their cars to Western Avenue was that they could not afford to carry passengers so far for five cents, as hay was $5.00 a ton and oats twenty-seven cents per bushel, besides the public demanded such extravagant service.

The patrons continually murmured about the cars being cold in winter, so the company filled into each car about a foot of loose straw to keep feet warm. This did not work, for the ladies' skirts dragged in the mud and tobacco spittle, and as a result our common council rashly passed an ordinance requiring the company to heat their cars.

The company's first impression was that it could be done with hot water bags, which the wise city fathers rejected, so the company turned to red hot iron. They made receptacles at intervals under the seats, where they carried hot iron, which they exchanged, the cold for the hot, at the return of each trip. This could hardly be considered a success, for if one set over where there was no heat the chills would creep up his spinal column, while if he sat over a fresh hot slab he was in danger of being blistered, but the ordinance had been obeyed, and the company was proud of their West Side horse car line until the cruel hand of competition disturbed their sweet repose.

A wide awake German by the name of Kolbe bought up the old North Shore buss line and furnished it with much better horses than the railroad company were using and started in to carry passengers over the same route for four-cent fare.

At first the railroad company ignored Mr. Kolbe, but soon reduced their fare to four cents, and even at that the busses got all the passengers, for they were driven faster.

Now the fun began. The company ordered their drivers to make the trip as fast as the omnibusses, or they would be discharged, while Kolbe gave orders to his drivers to outdo the company. This gave the passengers, whose destination was State Street, regular joy rides, but those who attempted to get on or off along the route, took their lives in their hands. During the heat of excitement, Kolbe dropped the fare to three cents, which the company followed. Even at this, the more frisky passengers continued to patronize the buss line, leaving only a few grandfathers and gentle dames to ride in the cars. This dropped the fare to two cents, when the company bought Kolbe out, paying him a fabulous price for his old bus line, in railroad stock, which now advanced rapidly, and thus the wide awake German made a handsome fortune.