School had at least two days that made us as happy as children could well be. One was the first day of the term, and the other was the last. Anxious days and weeks and much nervous expectation led up to the first day of school; we wondered what our teacher would be like, and eagerly picked up and told and retold all the gossip that floated from her last place as to her good points and her bad,—especially her bad. Then there was always the question as to what pupils would be at school; what new faces we should see and what old ones would be gone, and whether or not we should like the new ones better than the old. Our minds were firmly made up on this point before we went to school, and no possible circumstance could make us change the opinion, or rather the determination, we had formed. Then we speculated and negotiated as to who should be our seat-mate for the term, or until we fought. There was always the question of studies and classes, and whether the new teacher would let us begin where the old left off, or whether we should have to commence the book over again. We almost always began again, and thus the first parts of our books were badly worn and thumbed, while the pages in the back were fresh and new.
We looked forward to the last day with all the expectancy of the first. Long before this the work began to drag; the novelty had all worn off, and our life was a constant battle with the teacher to see how much we need not do. As the last day drew near, our minds were filled with visions of how easy life would be when there was no school, and of the pleasure the summer held in store for us. On the last day we had no lessons to recite, and in the afternoon our parents were invited in, and we spoke pieces and read essays,—that is, the boys generally spoke the pieces and the girls read the essays. Somehow a boy never could write an essay, and even if he could manage to write one it would be beneath his dignity to stand up on the platform and read from little sheets of notepaper tied with red or blue ribbon. But this 76task seemed especially to fit the girls. In the first place, they could write better than the boys,—letters or essays or anything of the kind. In the next place, they could not be thought of as standing bolt upright and facing the whole school, visitors and all; they were too shy to stand out alone with nothing in their hands to hide their faces. So the girls read essays on Success, and Work, and Truthfulness, and Spring, and things like that, while the boys spoke pieces. Sometimes we were afraid, but after a little practice we promptly answered to our names, and went on the platform and spoke with the greatest assurance, holding our heads up and making the gestures according to printed forms laid down in the books.
I fancy that none of us ever really understood anything about the pieces that we spoke. I remember in a general way that they were mainly of our country, and brave boys fighting and winning victories and dying, and about the evils and dangers of strong drink. We had a great many pieces about intemperance, ambition, and the like. I especially remember one boy, with red hair and freckles and a short neck and large warts on his hands, who used always to 77speak a piece entitled “How have the Mighty Fallen.” I don’t know who wrote it, or where it came from, or what has become of it; but I remember the piece almost as well as if I heard it yesterday. This boy was the prize speaker of the school, and the piece told about Alexander and Cæsar and Napoleon, and how and why they failed. Their lack of success was due to ambition and strong drink. I know this piece made a deep impression on my mind, and I always vowed that I never would fail as Alexander and Cæsar and Napoleon had done,—and I never have. I remember that once my father came to school on the last day, in the afternoon, to hear us speak; and when I got home at night he told me that the boy who spoke the piece about How the Mighty had Fallen had all the elements of an orator, and he predicted that some day he would make his mark in the world. I felt that I would have given everything I possessed if only my father had said that about me. I know that in my tactful way I led up again and again to the piece that I had spoken, but about this my father said not a single word.
How I envied that red-headed lad, and how I wondered if there really was any chance that I might come out as well as he! For some years my remembrance of this youth had passed away, until the last time I went back home. Then, as I drove past his house with never a thought of my old-time friend, I looked over into the weed-covered yard,—perhaps it was weedy before, but I did not so remember it,—and there I saw a man with a hoe in his hand cleaning out a drain that ran from the cellar to the ditch in front of the house. I looked closely at him, and I never in the world should have known him; but he came down to the fence, and leaned on his hoe, and hailed me as I passed. No doubt he had heard that I had come to town. Then I remembered the piece about How the Mighty had Fallen, and the little red-headed boy at school; but this boy’s hair was white, he was bent, and his clothes were about the color of his hair and hands and face in those far-off years when he spoke the piece. I was shocked, but I tried not to let him know it. I asked him how he was, and how he was getting along; and he told me he was very well, and was doing first-rate. And then I thought of my poor father, 79who said that he had all the elements of an orator and would make his mark some day. Well, perhaps he had made his mark, even though he was cleaning out a cellar-drain,—and, after all, this is better work than making speeches, however fine.
To go back to the last day of school. I remember one piece that we used to speak, about Marco Bozzaris, and how he got into a fight with some Turks; and first he was killed, and then he killed the Turks, as it seemed to me. I had no idea who the Turks were, or why Marco Bozzaris was fighting them, or what it was all about; but I seemed to think there were certain parts of the piece that should be spoken in a loud voice, and certain others that should be said very softly. The book I learned it from had characters or figures that told us when we should speak softly and when we should speak loudly, and we always followed the instructions of the book. If it had told us to speak loudly when it said softly, and softly instead of loudly, we would have done it that way without a thought that it could make any difference with the piece. I have no doubt that if I should read “Marco Bozzaris” to-day 80I should read it loudly and softly in just the same places that I did at school, without any more regard for what it meant than I had then.
But there was one piece that I always thought especially fine. It was about Casabianca. The name now sounds to me like a Spanish name, but I am sure I had no thought then of what it was. It might have been a Swedish or an Irish name, for all I knew. I remember that this Casabianca was a lad about my own age, and somehow he was on a ship in a battle, and his father was with him. His father was called away on some important matter, and told Casabianca to stand right there on a certain spot and wait until he got back. Something must have detained him,—as I recall it, he was killed, or something of that kind,—at any rate, he did not get back, and it grew dark, and Casabianca began to cry. Pretty soon, to make matters worse, a fire broke out on board the ship, and the smoke began to smother him and the flames to roll around him. The other people on the ship ran to the shore, and they called to him to run too, and the gang-plank had not been taken in or burned, and he had lots of time to get away; but no, his father had gone off, and 81had told Casabianca to wait until he returned, and he proposed to wait. So he called wildly for his father a great many times; but his father did not come. Still the boy stood fast, and the flames crept slowly up until he was burned to cinders at his post.
This was a very exciting story, and we used to speak it with voices loud and soft, and with gestures that looked like rolling fire and smoke. I did not really know then, but I know now, that this piece was written by somebody who fancied himself or herself a poet, and that it was written to teach a moral lesson. I remember that the last line read: “But the noblest thing that perished there was that young and faithful heart.” From this I am sure that the lesson meant to be taught was the great virtue of obeying your parents.
I cannot recall that I ever heard any of our teachers say a word about this poem, so I infer that they must have approved its sentiments. Of course I am old enough now to know that a boy who would stick to a burning ship like that might just as well get burned up and be done with it at once. But I cannot exactly make up my mind what punishment should be 82given to the poet or the book-publisher or the teacher who allowed this sort of heroics to be given to a child.
In our pieces and in our lessons a great deal was said about the duties that children owe their parents, a great deal about how much our parents had done for us, and how kind and obedient we should be to them. But I cannot recall that there was a single line about the duties that parents owe to children, and how much they should do for the child who had nothing to say about his own entrance into the world. It is true that these books were written for children, but just as true that the children were to become parents, and that most of them would get little instruction beyond the district school. Which fact may to some extent account for the great number of bad and foolish parents in the world.
Many of these pieces told how much we owed the country, and of our duty to live for it and fight for it, and if need be to die for it. I cannot recall that a single one ever told of any duty the country owed to us, or anything that should be given in return for our service and our lives. All of which shows what a great handicap we children suffered by being obliged to go to school.
After the last piece had been spoken, the teacher put on her most serious face (she always had a variety of faces to put on) and told us how she loved us all,—although she had never said a word of this sort before,—how good and faithful and studious we had been; she told us how kind our parents were to let us go to school, how sad she felt at the final parting, and how impossible it was that the little group could ever be gathered together again this side of heaven, which she trusted all of us would some day reach, so that she might meet us once again. At this we began to regret that we had not treated her better and been more obedient to her rules. Then we felt sad, and drew our coat-sleeves across our eyes, and wished that she would stop talking and let us go out. Finally she spoke the last words and dismissed the school, and our days of captivity were done. Each child snatched his carefully packed books and slate, and with shouts and laughter rushed through the schoolhouse door into the free open world outside.
Our house stood a short distance beyond the town, and on the other side of the creek that ran my father’s mill. This little stream came down out of the hills from somewhere a long way off, and emptied into the river that wound through the long valley beside the road, flowing from no man knew where. I must have been nine or ten years old before I was allowed to go to the mouth of the stream and watch it join the river and run off between the high hills beyond the town into the great unknown world. Many years before, I had heard that there was such a place, but I was not allowed to go; it was so far away, and the dangers were supposed to be so very great,—though why, I cannot say, any more than I can give a reason for other things that we boys believed, or, for that matter, that we grown-up folk believe.
But I used to go quite early across the creek to the little town; at first holding my father or mother tightly by the hand, or, rather, having my hand held close by theirs. There were many wonders on the way: first, the old wooden bridge that used often to be carried off in the spring, when heavy rains and melting snow and ice came down the stream. But this bridge was nothing compared with the long covered one below the town, that I found some years later, when I had grown large enough to fish and was ashamed to hold my father and my mother by the hand.
Just across the stream was the blacksmith-shop into which I used to look with wondering eyes. I can see now the white-hot iron as the old bare-armed smith pulled it from the coals and threw the sparks in all directions, frightening me almost beyond my wits; still, I would always go back to the open door to be scared again. Especially in the early dusk, this old blacksmith-shop, with its great bellows and anvil and hammers, and its flying sparks and roaring fire lighting up the room and throwing dark shadows in the corners and around the edges, was a constant source of wonder and delight; and I used to beg my good father to throw away my stupid books and apprentice me to learn the blacksmith trade. But he steadfastly refused my prayers and tears, and told me that I would live to thank him for denying this first ambition of my life. Well, I did not learn the trade, and in a halting way I have followed the path into which the kind old miller guided my young reluctant feet. Still, I am not yet sure that he was right; for all my life, when I am honest with myself, I cannot help the thought that I have been a good deal of a blacksmith, after all.
Just beyond was the wagon-shop, where they made such nice long shavings, and where we used to go and play “I spy,” or “High spy,” as we boys called the game. The benches, wagons, and piles of lumber, and the garret overhead, furnished the best possible places for us to hide.
Then came the shoe-shop, where my father took us to get our winter boots, which he paid for by trading flour saved up from his tolls. This shop was a large affair, with three or four men and boys working steadily in the busy season of the year. Two or three checkerboards, 87too, were constantly in use, especially in the long winter evenings, and every man in the room would tell the player where he ought to move, or rather where he should have moved in order to win the game.
The old shoe-shop was a great place to discuss the questions of the day; it was even more popular than the store. Politics and religion were the favorite topics then, as they are to-day,—as they have ever been since the world began, and will ever be while the world shall last; for one of them has to do with the brief transitory life of man upon the earth, and the other with his everlasting hopes and doubts, desires and fears for another life when this is done. Besides politics and religion, men and women were discussed,—all the men and women for miles around who were not there; these critics debated about the skill of the blacksmith and the carriage-maker, the thrift of the merchant and the farmer, and the learning of the preachers and the doctors. This last topic was a never-ending subject for debate, as there were two of each. I do not remember what they said about the preachers, but I know that when any doctor was discussed his disciples stoutly claimed that 88he was the best in the whole country round, while his enemies agreed that they would not let him “doctor a sick cat.” As I recall those little groups, their opinions on men and women almost always seemed unfavorable and hard, like most of the personal discussions that I have ever heard. After much reflection I have reached the conclusion that all people are envious to a greater or a less degree, and of course each one’s goodness and importance increase in proportion as those of others are made to grow less.
The last time I went back along the road, I found that the wagon-shop and the shoe-shop had long since closed their doors. Cincinnati buggies and Studebaker wagons had driven away the last board of the old lumber-piles around which we children used to play; and New England shoe-factories had utterly destroyed the old forum where were discussed the mysteries of life and death. Even the customs of the simple country folks had changed, for I observed that the boys wore shoes instead of boots; but in those days all the girls wore shoes, and now they were wearing boots. The blacksmith-shop still stood beside the road, 89but the old smith had gone away, and his son was now hammering stoutly at the same piece of white-hot iron that his father pulled out of the red coals so long ago; but the little boy who once looked in with wondering eyes at the open door,—it seemed as if he too were dead and buried forever behind a great mass of shifting clouds heaped so thick and high as to make nothing but a dream of those far-off childhood years.
I had almost forgotten to tell the name of my boyhood town. It was Farmington; and I feel that I ought to write it down in this book, so that the world may know exactly where it is, for I am sure it was never in a book before, excepting a county atlas that once printed pictures and biographies of all the leading citizens of the place. I remember that the agent came to see my father, and told him what a beautiful picture the mill would make, and how anxious he was to have his portrait and history in the book. I really believe my father would have given his consent but for the reason that the season had been dry and he did not dare to sign a note. Poor man! I almost wish he had consented, for even if the book had never 90been seen by any but the simple country folk who paid for their glory, as we all must do in some way, still my father could have read his own biography, and looked at the picture of himself and his famous mill. And really this is about the only reason that any of us write books, if the truth were known.
Beyond the shop the road ran into a great common which we called a square. This really was a wonderful affair,—about the size of Rhode Island, as it seemed to us. Here we boys often gathered on Saturday afternoons, and, when I grew older, on the few nights that my father was away from home, or on some special occasion when I prevailed on him to let me go there and play.
On one side of the square was the country store,—a mammoth establishment, kept by a very rich man, who had everything that was ever heard of on his shelves. I used to marvel how he could possibly think to buy all the things that he had to sell. Across the road from the store was the country tavern, and alongside it was a long low barn with a big shed at the end. A fierce dog was kept chained inside the barn. We hardly dared to look into 91the tavern door, for we had all heard that it was a very wicked place. It was said that down in the cellar, in some secret corner, was a barrel of whiskey; and the tavern-keeper had once been sent for three months to the county jail, when some good people had gone in, one winter night, and told him that they were very cold, and asked him to sell them some whiskey to keep them warm. At any rate, our people would never let us go near the door. I used to wonder what kind of things they had to eat in the tavern. It was the only place I ever heard of where they charged anything for dinner or supper, and I thought the meals must be wonderful indeed, and I always hoped that some day I might have a chance to go there and eat.
On another side of the common was Squire Allen’s place. This was a great white house, altogether the grandest in the town,—or in the world, for that matter, so we children believed. It was set back from the road, in the midst of a grove of trees, and there was a big gate where carriages could drive into the front yard along the curving roadway and up to the large front door. Beneath the overhanging 92porch were four or five great square white pillars, and the door had a large brass knocker, and there were big square stone steps that came down to the road. Back of the house were a barn and a carriage-house, the latter the only building of the kind in Farmington.
Squire Allen was a tall man with white hair and a clean-shaven face. He carried a gold-headed cane, and when you met him on the street he never looked to the right or left. Everyone knew he was the greatest man in the place,—in fact, the greatest man in all the world. He had a large carriage, with two seats and big wheels and a top, and two horses; and he was nearly always riding in the carriage. I do not remember much about his family; I know that he had a little boy, but I was not acquainted with him, although I knew all the rest of the little boys in town. I would often see the Squire and his whole family out driving in their great carriage. I remember standing on the little bridge and looking down at the fishes in the brook; and I hear the rumble of wheels coming down the hill. I glance up, and there comes Squire Allen; his little boy is sitting on the front seat with him, and on the back seat 93are some ladies that I do not know. They drive down the hill, the old Squire looking neither to the right nor left. I am afraid of being run over, and I go as near the edge of the bridge as I dare, to escape the great rolling wheels. The little boy peers out at me as the carriage passes by, as if he wondered who could dare stand in the road when his father drove that way; but neither the Squire nor the ladies ever knew that I was there.
A few months ago, this same little boy called on me at my office in the city. He, like myself, had wandered far and wide since he passed me on the bridge. He came to ask me to help him get a job. Somehow, as I saw him then, and recalled the arrogance and pride that old Squire Allen and his family always had, I am afraid I almost felt glad that he had been obliged to come, I am almost sure I felt that at last fortune was making things right and even. I cannot find in my philosophy any good reason why the scheme is any more just if he was rich and I was poor when we were young, and I am rich and he is poor when we are growing old,—but still I believe I felt this way.
Old Squire Allen has been dead for a quarter of a century and more. Last summer, when I visited the old Pennsylvania town, I went to the little burying-ground, and inside the yard I found an iron picket fence, and in this enclosure a monument taller than any other in the yard, and on this stone I read Squire Allen’s name. Poor old man! It is many years since the worms ate up the last morsel of the old man that even a worm could find fit to eat, but still even after death and decay he lies there solitary and exclusive, the most commanding and imposing of all the names that seek immortality in the carved letters of the granite stones. Well, I am not sure but sometime I shall go back to Farmington and put up a monument higher than Allen’s, and have “Smith” carved on the base; and then I suppose it will be easier to go down under it to rest.
But it is only when I am especially envious that I have such thoughts as these. I was yet a little boy in Farmington when they placed the old Squire inside the burying-ground. What a day was that! The store was closed; the tavern door was shut; the old water-wheel stood still; all Farmington turned out in sad 95procession to follow the great man to his grave. The hawks and crows flying high above the town must have looked down and thought we mourned a king. At least no such royal funeral was ever seen in all those parts before or since. The burial of old Squire Allen was as like to that of Julius Cæsar as Farmington was like to Rome. So, after all, it would be very mean for me to buy a monument higher than his, just because I can; so I will leave him the undisputed monarch of the place, and will get for myself one of the small black oval-cornered slabs that we boys passed by with such contempt when we rambled through the yard to pick out the finest stones.
Farmington was a very godly place; so, at least, her people thought. Among the many well-known attractions of the town, its religious privileges stood easily at the head. A little way up the hill, on a level piece of ground, the early settlers long ago had built a great white church. The congregation professed the United Presbyterian faith; and this was the state religion, not only of Farmington but of all the country around. The church itself was a wonder to behold. It seemed to us children to have been built to accommodate all the people in the world and then have room to spare. No other building we had ever seen could be compared in size with this great white church. And when we read of vast cathedrals and other wonderful buildings, we always thought of the United Presbyterian church, and had no idea that they were half so grand.
The main part of the building was very long and wide, and the ceiling very high; but more marvellous still was the great square belfry in the front. None of us boys ever knew how high it was; we always insisted that it was really higher than it seemed, and we were in the habit of comparing it with all the tall objects we had ever seen or of which we had heard or read. It was surely higher than our flag-pole or our tallest tree, higher than Niagara Falls or Bunker Hill Monument; and we scarcely believed that anyone had ever climbed to its dizzy top, although there was a little platform with a wooden railing round it almost at its highest point. We had heard that inside the belfry was an endless series of stairs, and that the sexton sometimes went to the top, when a new rope was to be fastened to the bell; but none of us had so much as looked up through the closed trap-door which kept even the most venturesome from the tower.
The church stood out in plain view from every portion of the town; and for a long distance up and down the valley road, and over beyond the creek on the farther hill it loomed majestic and white,—a constant reminder to 98the people who lived round about that, however important the other affairs of life, their church and their religion were more vital still.
I never heard when the church was built. As well might we have asked when the town was settled, or when the country road came winding down, or even when the river began flowing between the high green hills. If any one object more than another was Farmington, surely it was the great white church.
I am certain that the people of the town, and, in fact, of all the country round, had no thought that religion was anything more or less, or anything whatever, than communion with the church.
High up in the belfry swung a monstrous bell. None of us had seen it, but we knew it was there, for every Sunday its deep religious tones floated over the valley and up the hills, breaking the stillness of the Sabbath day. Sometimes, when we were a little early at church, at the ringing of the bell we would look up to the tower and fancy that through the open slats of the belfry we could see some great object swinging back and forth; and then, too, all of us had seen the end of a rope 99in a little room back of the organ on the second floor, and we had been told that the other end was fastened to the great bell away up in the high tower, and we used to wonder and speculate as to how strong the sexton must be to pull the rope that swung the mighty bell.
Every Sabbath morning the procession of farmers’ wagons drove by our home on their way to church, and we learned to know the color of the horses, the size of the wagons and carriages, and the number of members in each family, in this weekly throng; we even knew what time to expect the several devotees, and who came first and who came last, and we assumed that those who passed earliest were the most religious and devout. These Sabbath pilgrims were dressed in their best clothes, and looked serious and sad, as became communicants of the church. The pace at which they drove, their manner of dress, cast of countenance, and silent and stolid demeanor were in marked contrast to their appearance on any other days.
The Sabbath, the church, and religion were serious and solemn matters to the band of 100pilgrims who every Sunday drove up the hill. All our neighbors and acquaintances were members of the United Presbyterian church, and to them their religion seemed a very gloomy thing. Their Sabbath began at sun-down on Saturday and lasted until Monday morning, and the gloom seemed to grow and deepen on their faces as the light faded into twilight and the darkness of the evening came.
My parents were not members of the church; in fact, they had little belief in some of its chief articles of faith. In his youth my father was ambitious to be a minister, for all his life he was bent on doing good and helping his fellowman; but he passed so rapidly through all the phases of religious faith, from Methodism through Congregationalism and Universalism to Unitarianism and beyond, that he never had time to stop long enough at any one resting spot to get ordained to preach.
My father seldom went to church on Sunday. He was almost the only man in town who stayed away, excepting a very few who were considered worthless and who managed to steal off with dog and gun to the woods and hills. But Sunday was a precious day to my father. Even if the little creek had been swollen by recent rains, and the water ran wastefully over the big dam and off on its long journey through the hills, still my father never ran his mill on Sunday. I fancy that if he had wished to do so the people would not have permitted him to save the wasted power. But all through the week my father must have looked forward to Sunday, for on that day he was not obliged to work, and was free to revel in his books. As soon as breakfast was over he went to his little room, and was soon lost to the living world. I have always been thankful that the religion and customs of the community rescued this one day from the tiresome monotony of his life. All day Sunday, and far into the night, he lived with those rare souls who had left the records of their lives and spirits for the endless procession of men and women who come and go upon the earth.
Both my father and my mother thought it best that we children go to church. So, however much we protested (as natural children always protest), we were obliged to go up the hill with the moving throng to the great white church.
In another part of the town, in an out-of-the-way place, was the unpretentious little Methodist church. It stood at the edge of the woods, almost lost in their shadow, and seemed to shrink from sight, as if it had no right to stand in the presence of the mighty building on the hill. We never went to this church, except to revivals, and we never understood how it was kept up, as its members were very poor. The shoemaker and a few other rather unimportant people seemed to be its only devotees. The Methodist preacher did not live in Farmington when I first knew the town, but used to drive in from an adjoining village in the afternoon, and preach the same sermon he had delivered in his home town in the morning, and then go on to the next village and preach it once more in the evening. Some years later, after a wonderful revival in which almost all outsiders except our family were converted to Methodism, this church became so strong that it was able to buy a piece of ground in the village and put up a new building with a high steeple, though it was nothing like as grand as the old white church on the hill. After this the 103Methodist preacher came to Farmington to live.
But although we were not United Presbyterians, we children went regularly to this church because we had to go. The old bell that rang out so long on Sunday mornings always had a doleful sound to us, and altogether Sunday was a sore cross to our young lives.
There were many substantial reasons why we did not like the Sabbath day. Games of all kinds were prohibited; and although we managed sometimes to steal away to play, still we had no sooner begun a game than someone came along and made us stop. It made no difference who chanced to come,—anyone had the right to stop our playing on the Sabbath day. Then, too, on Sunday we must dress up. This was no small affair, for if we put on our best clothes and our stockings and boots when we first got up we were obliged to wear them nearly the whole day; whereas if we had on our comfortable everyday clothes in the morning, we must change them in an hour or less, so as to get ready for church. Even if we put on our best clothes and went barefoot until the first bell rang, then we were obliged to 104wash our feet,—for our mother would not let us put on our stockings except in the early morning unless we first washed our feet. Then, after church was out and we had eaten dinner, we either had to wear our best clothes the rest of the day, or change them all; and then it was only a little while until bedtime, and we could not play even if we did change our clothes. If we just pulled off our boots and went barefoot the rest of the day, then we must wash our feet at night. Childhood was not all joy: it had its special sorrows, which grew less as years crept on, and one of the chief of these burdens, as I recall them, was the frequency with which we had to wash our feet.
But more burdensome if possible than this was the general “cleaning” on Sunday mornings. On week-days we almost always washed our faces and our hands each day, but as a rule this duty was left largely to ourselves, with a scolding now and then as a safeguard to its performance. Often, of course, we passed such a poor inspection at mealtimes that we were sent from the table to wash again. Still, for the most part we knew how much was absolutely required, and we managed to keep 105just inside the line. But on Sundays all was changed. Then our words and good intentions went for naught. We were not even allowed to wash ourselves. Our mother always took us in hand, and the water must be warm, and she must use soap and a rag, and we had to keep our eyes shut tight while she was rubbing the soapy rag all over our faces,—and she never hurried in the least. We might have stood the washing of hands and faces, but it did not end here. Every Sunday morning our mother washed our necks and ears; and no boy could ever see the use of this. Nothing roused our righteous indignation quite so much as the forced washing of our necks. The occasion, too, was really less on Sunday than on any other day, because then we always wore some sort of stiff collar around our necks. Neither was it enough to wash our hands; our sleeves must be pushed up nearly to our elbows, and our arms scrubbed as carefully as if they too were going to show. Even if we had been in swimming on Saturday night, and had taken soap and towels to the creek, and had been laughed at by the other boys for our pains, still we must be washed just the same 106on Sunday morning before we went to church. In the matter of Sunday washing our mother seemed never to have the slightest confidence in anything we said or did. There were no bathtubs in Farmington,—at least none that I ever heard of; so we boys had something to be thankful for, although we did not know it then. To be sure, we were often put into a common washtub on Saturday night or Sunday morning, but sometimes swimming was accepted in lieu of this.
When we were thoroughly cleaned, and dressed in our newest and most uncomfortable clothes, with stiff heavy boots upon our captive feet, our mother took us to the church. We were led conspicuously up the aisle, between the rows of high pews, set down on a hard wooden seat, the door of the pew fastened with a little hook to keep us safely in, and then the real misery began. The smallest of us could not see over the high pew in front, but we scarcely dared to play, except perhaps to get a piece of string out of our pockets, or to exchange marbles or jack-knives or memory-buttons, or something of the sort, and then we generally managed to get into some trouble and 107run the risk of bringing our mother into disgrace. In the pew in front of us there usually sat the little girl with the golden curls,—or was it the one with the black hair? I am not sure which it was, but it was one of these, and I managed sometimes to whisper to her over the pew, until my mother or hers stopped the game. I somehow got along better with her on Sunday than at any other time,—perhaps because neither of us had then anything better to do than to watch each other.
I could not understand then, nor do I to-day, why we were made to go to church; surely our good parents did not know how we suffered, or they would not have been so cruel and unkind. I remember that the services began with singing by the choir in the gallery, and I sometimes used to turn around and look up to see the singers and the organ; and I remember especially a boy who used to sway back and forth, sideways, to pump the organ. I had an idea that he must be a remarkable lad, and endowed with some religious gifts, second only to the preacher. After the first song came the first prayer, which was not very short, but still nothing at all to the one yet in store. Then came more singing, and then the long prayer. My! what agony it was! I remember particularly the old preacher as he stood during those everlasting prayers. I can see him now,—tall and spare and straight, his white face encircled with a fringe of white whiskers. I always thought him very old, and supposed that he came there with the church, and was altogether different from other men. As he prayed, he clasped his hands on the great Bible that lay upon the altar, and kept his eyes closed and his face turned steadily toward the ceiling. He spoke slowly and in a moderate tone of voice, and in the most solemn way. I never could understand how he kept his eyes closed and his sad face turned upward for so long a time, excepting that he had a special superhuman power.
I could not have sat through that prayer, but for the fact that I learned to find landmarks as he went along. At a certain point I knew it was well under way; at another point it was about half done; and when he began asking for guidance and protection for the President of the United States, it was three-quarters over, and I felt like a shipwrecked mariner sighting land. But even the longest prayers have an end, and when this was through we were glad to stand up while they sang once more. Then came the sermon, which was longer yet; but we did not feel that we must sit quite so still as during the long prayer. First and last I must have heard an endless number of the good old parson’s sermons read in his solemn voice; but I cannot now remember a single word of anyone I heard. After the sermon came singing and a short prayer,—any prayer was short after what we had passed through,—then more singing, and the final benediction, which to us children was always a benediction of the most welcome kind.
hen the church services were ended, we children stayed for Sunday-school. There was never anything especially alluring in Sunday-school; still it was far better than the church. At least ten or twelve of us boys could sit together in a great high pew, and no one could keep us from whispering and laughing and telling jokes. Even the teachers seemed to realize what we had been through, and were disposed to allow us a fair amount of liberty in Sunday-school.
The superintendent was a young man named Henry Pitkin. He was a few years older than the boys. I cannot now remember what he did on week-days; we never thought of him as working, or wearing old clothes, or doing anything except being superintendent of the Sunday-school. I presume he is dead, poor fellow, for I know he was always sickly,—at least, that is what we boys thought. I believe 111he was threatened with consumption, and I heard people speak of him with pity and say what a nice young man he was. I never knew him to take part in our games, or to go swimming or fishing, or anything of that kind. I cannot remember that he was cross or unkind, or what we boys called mean; but still I know we never talked so loud, and were always a little more particular, and sometimes stopped our games, when he came along the road. I am sure we felt sorry for him, and thought he never had any fun. He was always dressed up, even when it was not Sunday; and he never went barefooted, or shouted, or made any kind of jokes. I know that I often saw him go up to the church, to the Thursday evening prayer-meetings, in the summer-time. He would walk past us while we were playing ball on the square in the long twilight. None of us could understand why he went to prayer-meeting on Thursday night. None of us really knew what prayer-meeting was. We never had to go to church any day but Sunday, and although our curiosity was strong it never led us to go to the Thursday evening prayer-meeting. Everybody who went seemed awfully old, except Henry, and we never understood how he could go. Sometimes we met him going to the preacher’s for an evening visit, and this seemed still stranger. None of us boys ever went for an evening visit anywhere; and if we had gone we never would have thought of going to the preacher’s,—he was so old and solemn, and we were sure that if we ever went there he would talk to us about religion.
Our fathers and mothers and the grown-up people were always telling us what a good boy Henry was, and asking us why we didn’t do things the way he did. Of course, we couldn’t do as he did, no matter how hard we tried.
In the Sunday-school Henry always told us what to sing; he would talk to us softly and quietly, and he never scolded the least bit. He always asked us to be good, and told us how much happier we would be if we learned lots of verses, and never called bad names, or fought, and always tried to do right. Henry told us all about the lesson papers, and seemed to know everything there was in the Bible, and all about Damascus and Jericho and those foreign cities that are in the Bible. Then he used to give out the Sunday-school books. We usually 113took one of these home with us, but we never cared much about them. The stories were all rather silly, and didn’t amount to much.
We boys used to argue about what a superintendent was, and just how high an office Henry had. We all knew that it was not so high as the preacher’s, but we thought it was next to his, and some said it was below a deacon. Some of us thought that Henry was elected by the Sunday-school teachers, and some thought his office was higher than theirs and that he could turn them off whenever he had a mind to.
When the Sunday-school began, Henry would make us a little speech, telling us something about the lesson-papers, and sometimes telling us a story that he said came out of the Bible; and then he would have one of the boys pass around the singing-books, and tell us what piece to sing. The boys and girls rather liked the singing. With the boys the singing partook largely of the nature of physical exercise.
We used to stand up and sing together in a chorus, or as nearly in harmony as the superintendent and the organ could possibly keep us. True, the songs were not of a humorous or even cheerful nature; but then we really had 114no idea of what they meant, if indeed the teachers or the authors had, and we sang them with the same zest and vigor that we would have given to any other words. I especially remember one song that we sang pretty well, and very loud and earnestly; not with the least bit of sadness or even solemnity, but with great energy and zeal. It began with the lines, “I want to be an angel, and with the angels stand.” Now, of course, there was not a boy or girl in the school who wanted to be an angel; neither did the teachers or the superintendent, or even the parson. In fact, this was the last thing that any of us wanted; but we fairly shouted our desire to be an angel in a strong chorus of anything but angelic voices. I presume children sing that same song to-day in Sunday-school, and sing it without any more thought of its meaning than the little freckle-faced boys and girls who used to gather each Sunday in the old white church and fidget and fuss over their new stiff clothes and their hard and pinching boots.
Besides the singing, the chief work of the Sunday-school teachers was to have us learn verses from the Testament. Of course, none 115of us had any idea what these verses meant, or why we were to learn them, or what we were to do with them after they were learned. In a general way, we all knew that the Testament was a sacred volume, and not to be read or studied or looked at like any other book; and certainly the lives and characters of which it told were in no way human, but seemed hazy, nebulous, and far away.
I cannot recall all the means that were taken to make us learn those verses. Of course there was no whipping in the Sunday-school as there was in the district school, and the inducements given us were of a somewhat higher kind. I especially remember that for every certain number of dozen verses we learned we were given a red card; this card had a picture of a dove on the top and some verses below it, and a red border around the edges; then I know that for a certain number of red cards we were given a blue card similar to the red, except that the dove had been changed to a little spring lamb. I cannot recall what we got for the blue card; probably nothing at all. It was no doubt the ultimate. There must be somewhere an ultimate with children as with men.
I remember that at Christmas time we had a tree, and the two churches used sometimes to get up a rivalry as to the value of the presents, and there were little desertions back and forth on this account. I know we all thought that the number and value of the presents would be in some way related to the number of verses we had learned; and I am sure that the number of scholars and the regularity of attendance always increased toward Christmas time. I must have learned a great many million verses first and last, but none of them seem to have made any impression on my mind, and I can now recall only a few about John the Baptist, who came preaching in the wilderness of Judæa, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and whose food was locusts and wild honey, and who called on all the people in the wilderness to repent, for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Now, I am certain that John the Baptist did not seem a real man to me, and that I had no idea of what the wilderness of Judæa was like or what sort of people lived there. All this was only so many verses to be learned, for which I would get so many cards. I believe I thought that John the Baptist had 117some sort of relation to the Baptist church, and I wondered how he could live on locusts and wild honey; for I had seen locusts, and they were only a sort of flying bug, and no more fit to eat than a grasshopper or a horse-fly. I am sure that I thought this a very slim diet for a man,—even for a preacher, who we thought cared little about what he ate. I have grown older now, and wiser, and have heard many John the Baptists preaching in the wilderness and calling unwilling sinners to repentance; and now I do not so much wonder about the locusts, but I can scarcely understand how he was so fortunate as to get the wild honey.
But the one thing that most impresses me as I look back on the day-school and the Sunday-school where we spent so many of our childhood hours is the unreality of it all. Surely none of the lessons seemed in any way related to our lives. None of them impressed our minds, or gave us a thought or feeling about the problems we were soon to face.
Often on Sunday evening my father gathered us about the family table in the dining-room and read a sermon from Channing or Theodore Parker or James Martineau. I cannot 118recall to-day a single word or thought or impression that lingered from the sermons Channing preached, but I am sure that the force and power and courage of Parker left an impression on my life; and that even in my youth the kindly, gentle, loving words and thoughts of James Martineau were not entirely thrown away on me.
The old preacher, as he stood before us on Sunday morning, never seemed quite like a man,—we felt that he was a holy being, and we looked on him with fear and reverence and awe. I remember meeting him in the field one day, and I tried to avoid him and get away; but he came to me and talked in the kindest and most entertaining way. He said nothing whatever about religion, and his voice and the expression of his face were not at all as they seemed when I sat in front of him in the hard pew during the terrible “long prayer.”
But my father never feared him in the least, and often these two old men met for an evening to read their musty books, although I could not understand the reason why. After I had gone to bed at night I often heard them working away at their Greek, with more pains than 119any of the scholars at the school. I wondered why they did these tasks, when they had no parents to keep them at their work. I was too young to know that as these old men dug out the hard Greek roots, they felt the long stems reaching back through the toilsome years and bringing to their failing lives a feeling of hope and vigor from their departed youth.
Directly in the shelter of the church was the burying-ground. It had first been laid out at the corner of the road, on one side of the great building; but slowly and surely it crept around behind the sheds where the horses were hitched during the Sunday services, and then still farther on to the other side. The first part of the yard was almost filled with little mounds and leaning stones, and most of its silent tenants were forgotten by all save a few old people who lingered far beyond the natural term of life. The new yard, as we called it, was in every way more pretentious than the old; the headstones were higher, the grass was greener, the mounds were more regular, and the trees and shrubs were better kept. The bones of many of the dead aristocracy had been dug up out of the old yard by their proud relatives, and carefully laid in the new, where they might rest in the same exclusive surroundings in which they lived while still upon the earth.
As a child, these graveyards had no definite meaning to me, but I never went by them after nightfall if I could possibly go any other way, especially if I chanced to be alone. If I could not avoid going this way, I always kept well to the other side of the road, and walked or ran as fast as I could, with scarcely a glance toward the silent yard and the white stones that gleamed so grimly in the dusk. Sometimes a number of us boys would go through the yard in broad daylight, but even then we preferred almost any other spot.
I cannot recall when a sense of the real meaning of a churchyard came full upon me. I have no doubt that I unconsciously felt the gloom of the place before I fully understood what it really meant.
In the summer-time we children were usually taken through the graveyard on our way home from church; but after the long services even this seemed a pleasant spot. On Sunday we were not afraid, for all the worshippers went home this way.
The yards were filled with evergreen trees carefully trimmed and clipped, with here and there a weeping-willow drooping its doleful branches to the ground. Why these trees were chosen for the churchyard, I cannot tell; but I have never since seen an evergreen or a weeping-willow that did not take me back to that little spot. The footpaths wound in and out, and ran off in all directions to reach each separate plat of ground that the thrifty neighbors had set apart as the final resting-place which would be theirs until the resurrection came. Most of them firmly believed in this great day,—or at least they told themselves they did. Around the yard was a neat white fence, always kept in good repair; and the gates were carefully locked except on the Sabbath day. Many times I saw the old sexton wait until the last mourner had slowly left the yard, and then carefully lock the gate and go away. It seemed to me as if he were locking the gate to keep his silent tenants in, like a jailer who turns the bolts upon the prisoners in their cells.
As a little child, I used to look at the sexton half in awe, and I almost feared to 123come into his uncanny presence. I never could think that he was quite like other men, or else he could not shovel the dirt so carelessly into the open grave. I had never seen anyone but the old sexton fill the grave and smooth the little mound that was always made from the dirt that was left over after the coffin was put down; and I used to wonder, in my childish way, how the sexton himself would get buried when he was dead.
The church and the graveyard were closely associated in my mind. It seemed to me, as a little child, that the church had full jurisdiction of the yard, and that the care and protection of the graves and their mouldering tenants were the chief reasons why the church was there. The great bell tolled slowly and mournfully at each death, and we counted the solemn strokes to know the age of the hapless one whose turn had come. Sometimes we could even guess who had died, from the number of times it struck; but even these strokes did not impress me much. Almost always the number was very great. I could not see any connection between these old people and myself; and, besides, I felt that if the time could 124ever come when I had grown so old, I would have lived far beyond an age when there was any joy in life. On the day of the funeral, too, the bell commenced to toll when the hearse came into view from the church and began its slow journey up the hill, and it did not cease until the last carriage was inside the yard. The importance of the dead could always be told by the length of time the old bell rang while the procession crawled up the hill. We used to compare these processions, and dispute as to who had the longest funeral; but after old Squire Allen’s turn had come, there was no longer any doubt. As I grew older, and began to give rein to my ambitions and dreams, I hoped and rather believed that in the far-off years I might have a longer procession than the one that had followed him to the little yard, but of late years I have rather lost interest in this old ambition.
At almost every mound stood a white marble slab, and sometimes there was a grand and pretentious monument in the centre of the lot. When I was very young, I thought that those who had the finest monuments were the ones most loved and mourned. It was long before I 125realized that even the barred gates of a graveyard could not keep vanity outside. I often heard the neighbors talk about these stones. Sometimes they said it was strange that Farmer Smith could not show enough respect for his wife to put up a finer gravestone. Again, they said that it would have been better if Farmer Brown had been kinder to his wife while she lived, than to have put up such a grand monument after she was dead.
We boys sometimes went through the yard to pick out the slabs we liked the best; these were always the tallest and the largest ones. We carefully read the inscriptions on these stones, and never for a moment doubted a word they said, any more than we doubted Holy Writ. All the inscriptions told of the virtues of the dead, and generally were helped out by a Scriptural text. In the case of children the stone was usually ornamented with a lamb or a dove, which we thought wonderful and fine. Sometimes an angel in the form of a woman was coming down from the clouds to take a happy child away to heaven. I cannot recall that I saw any angels in the forms of men, though why all the angels were women I did not know then, nor, for that matter, do I know now.
I think the first time my faith was shaken in anything I saw on a gravestone was one day when I chanced upon a brand-new slab erected to the memory of the town drunkard by his “loving wife and children.” The inscription said that the deceased was a kind and loving husband and a most indulgent father. Everyone in Farmington knew that the wife had often called in the constable to protect her from the husband; but still here was the stone. Yet, after all, the inscription may not have been untrue; indeed, it may have been more truthful than those that rested above many a man and woman who had lived and died without reproach.
Even in the churchyard we boys knew which were the favored spots. We understood that the broad thoroughfares where carriages could drive were taken by the richest people of the town, and that the mounds away off at one side and reached only by narrow footpaths were for the poorer and humbler folk. I always hoped I might be buried where the teams could pass; it seemed as if I should be lonely away on the outskirts where no one ever came along.
Even when quite young, I could not help noticing how many graves were at first planted with flowers and decked and kept with the greatest care, and how soon the rosebushes were broken and the weeds and grass grew rank and high upon the mound. Everyone thought this a shame; and I thought so too. But that is not so clear to me to-day as it was then. I have rather come to think it fortunate that Nature, through time and change, heals the sore wounds and dulls the cruel memories of the past.
When I had grown old enough to go to the Academy on the hill, we boys had a playground just at the edge of the graveyard. Sometimes the strongest hitter would knock the ball clear over to the newest mounds that were slowly encroaching on our domain. When it was my turn to chase the ball, I always got it as quickly as I could, and ran away, for even this momentary intrusion of the dead into our games left an uneasy feeling in my mind.
The last time I was in Farmington I once more went inside the old graveyard; somehow it had a nearer and more personal meaning to me than it ever had before. In those far-off days the churchyard was only a casual thought that flitted now and then like a shadow through my mind,—never with much personal relation to myself, but more in connection with my father or mother, or with some old neighbor whom I knew and loved; but I find that more and more, as we grow older, the thought of churchyards becomes familiar to our lives and brings a personal meaning of which childhood cannot know.
Farmington itself, when I last saw it, had not much changed except to grow older and more deserted than when I was young. Some of the shops and stores were vacant, and many of the people had gone to more prosperous towns; but the churchyard had grown larger with the passing years. The old part was well-nigh forgotten, but the new yard had stretched out until it quite covered the field where we used to chase the ball, and had then slowly crept off over a ravine farther back, and was climbing on up the hill. I wandered for a while around the winding paths, and read again the inscriptions on the leaning stones; these had a meaning that I never felt before. When I read the ages of the dead, I found many a stone that told of fewer years than those that I could boast, and in the newer part I spelled out the names of some of those little white-haired boys that once skipped along the winding path with me without the slightest thought that they so soon would be sleeping with the rest.
The life of the child is not the life of the man, and the town of the child is not the town of the man.
I can never see Farmington except through my boyhood’s eyes, and no doubt the town and its people were not at all the same to the men and the women that they were to me. Every object meant one thing to them and quite a different thing to our childish minds. As I grew to boyhood, the mill-pond was only a place where I could fish and skate and swim, and the great turning wheel served only to divert my wondering eyes and ears as it kept up its noisy rounds. The old mill furnished us boys a place to hide and run and play our games. The whole scheme of things was ours, and was utilized by a boy’s varying needs to help fill up his life.
To the kind old miller the condition of the water in the pond was doubtless quite another 131thing, and every revolution of the groaning wheel must have meant bread to him,—not only bread for the customers whose grain he ground, but sorely needed bread for the hungry mouths of those who had no thought or care whence or how it came, but only unbounded faith that it would always be ready to satisfy their needs.
It is only by imagination, through the hard experience life has brought, that I know these familiar things had a different meaning to the old miller and to me. Yet even now I am not sure that they had for him a deeper or more vital sense. Perhaps the water for my swimming-hole was as important as the water for his bread. For after all both were needed, in their several ways, to make more tolerable the ever illusive game of life.
But I must describe Farmington and its people as they seemed to me,—as in fact they were to me, according to their utility in the small schemes of a little child.
The world seems to take for granted that every parent is a hero to his children, and that they look to the father and mother as to almost superhuman beings whose power they cannot understand but can rely upon with implicit faith. Even the street-car signs tell this old tale, and advertise “pies like mother used to make.” No doubt the infant looks with perfect confidence into the eyes of the mother who gave it birth, and in its tender years the child has the utmost trust in the wisdom and protection of the parent to whom it has always looked to satisfy its needs. But I cannot remember that in my youth either I, or any of my companions, had the feeling and regard for our parents that is commonly assumed. In fact, we believed that, as to wisdom and general ability to cope with the affairs of life, we were superior to them; and we early came to see their shortcomings rather than their strength. I cannot say that I looked upon my mother even as a cook exactly in the light of the street-car advertisements, but I distinctly recall that often when I visited the woodsheds of neighboring children and was kindly given a piece of pie or cake, I went back home and told my mother how much better this pie tasted than the kind she baked, and asked her why she did not make pies and cakes the way the neighbors did; but to all these suggestions I ever got the same 133reply,—if I did not like her cooking I could go elsewhere to board. Of course this put a stop to all discussion. I am quite certain that it is only after long years of absence, when we look back upon our childhood homes, the bread and pies are mixed with a tender sentiment that makes us imagine they were better than in fact they really were. I rather fancy that if our mother’s cooking were set before us once again, we should need the strong primitive appetite of our youth to make it taste as our imagination tells us that it did.
As to my father, I am sure I never thought he was a man of extraordinary power. In fact, from the time I was a little child I often urged him to do things in a different way,—especially as to his rules about my studies and my schooling. I never believed that he ran the mill in the best way; and I used to think that other men were stronger or richer, or kinder to their children, than my father was to us. It was only after years had passed, and I looked back through the hazy mist that hung about his ambitions and his life, that I could realize how great he really was. As a child, I had no doubt that any man could create conditions 134for himself; the copy-books had told me so, and the teachers had assured us in the most positive way that our success was with ourselves. It took years of care and toil to show me that life is stronger than man, that conditions control individuals. It is with this knowledge that I look back at the old miller, with his fatal love of books; that I see him as he surveys every position the world offers to her favored sons. He knows them all and understands them all, and he knows the conditions on which they have ever been bestowed; yet he could bury these ambitions one by one, and cover them so deep as almost to forget they had once been a portion of his life, and in full sight of the glories of the promised land could day by day live in the dust and hum of his ever-turning mill, and take from the farmer’s grist the toll that filled the mouths of his little brood. To appreciate and understand the greatness of the simple life, one must know life; and this the child of whatever age can never understand.
After my father and mother,—whom I did not appreciate, and who, I am bound to think, but half understood me,—no other men or women came very near my life. My relations 135were with the boys and girls,—especially the boys. The men and women were there only to board and clothe the children, and furnish them with a place to sleep at night. To be sure, we knew something of all the men and women in the town, but we saw them only through childish eyes. There was the blacksmith, who was very strong, and whom we liked and called “clever” because he sometimes helped us with our games. There was one old farmer in particular, who had a large orchard and a fierce dog, and who would let his apples rot on the ground rather than give us one to eat. We hated him, and called him stingy and a miser. Perhaps he was not that sort of man at all, and the dog may not have been so very fierce. No doubt someone had given them bad names, and the people preferred to believe evil of them instead of good. Then there was the town drunkard, whom all of us knew. We liked him when he was sober, although we were told that he was very bad; but he always laughed and joked with us, and watched our games in a friendly way, but when we heard that he was drunk we were all afraid of him and ran away. Then there 136was another man who kept a little store, and we knew he was very rich; we had no idea how much he was really worth, but anyhow we knew that he was rich. And so on, through all the neighborhood, we knew something of the men, and classified them by some one trait or supposed fact,—just as the grown-up world always persists it has a right to do. The women, too, we knew even better than the men, for it was the mothers who controlled the boys, and in almost every case it depended on them alone whether or not the boys might go and play. Still, we children only knew and cared about the grown-up people in a remote secondary way. Every home was full of boys, and by common affinity these boys were always together,—at least, as many of them as could get away from home. As a rule, the goodness and desirability of a parent were in exact proportion to the ease with which the children could get away from home. I am afraid that in this child’s-world my good parents stood very low upon the list,—much lower than I wished them to stand.
We children had our regular seasons’ round of games and sports. There was no part of 137the year in which we could not play, and each season had its special charm. There might not have been much foundation for the custom, but somehow certain games always came at certain times. When the season was over the games were dropped unceremoniously and left for another year.
Of course the little creek and the great mill-pond and the river were sources of never-failing delight. I cannot remember when I learned to swim, but I learned it very young and very well; and it was lucky I did, for I have been in deep water many times since then. The boys seemed to prefer water to land,—that is, water like a pond or a stream. We did not care for the kitchen tub and the wash-basin. It was the constant aim of our parents and teachers to keep us out of the water for at least a portion of the time, and they laid down strict rules as to when and how often we should go swimming. But when boys are away from home they are apt to forget what teachers and parents say; and we always contrived to get more swimming than the rules prescribed. This would have been easier except for the fact that it generally took us so long to dry our hair, 138and our teachers and parents could often detect our swimming by simply feeling of our heads. I shall always remember that a boy was never supposed to be a complete swimmer until he could swim the “big bend.” There was a bend in the river, which was very broad and deep, and a favorite swimming-place for the larger boys. I well remember the first time I swam across, and I have accomplished few feats that compared with this. All my life I had supposed that the big bend was very broad and deep, until I made a special examination of the place on my last visit, a little time ago, and really it was so changed that I could almost wade across. Still, at that very time there were little boys in the stream just getting ready to perform the same feat that I had accomplished long ago.
The same water that served us in summer-time delighted us equally in the winter months. We learned to skate as early as we learned to swim. Our skates were not the fancy kind that are used to-day, but were made of steel and wood, and were fastened to our boots with straps. Few boys could skate long without the straps coming loose; but then, a few difficulties 139more or less have little terror for a boy. It would be hard to make a town better fitted for boys than Farmington; even the high hills were made for coasting in the winter-time. In fact, nothing was lacking to us except that our parents and teachers were not so kind and considerate as they should have been.
In the summer-time we often climbed to the top of the hills and looked down the valley to see the river winding off on its everlasting course. Then we would fancy that we were mountaineers and explorers, and would pick our way along the hills with the beautiful valley far beneath. I do not know why we climbed the hills in the summer-time. It could not have been for the scenery, which was really very fine; for boys care little for this sort of thing. The love of Nature comes with maturing years and is one of the few compensations for growing old. More and more as the years go by we love the sun and the green earth, the silent mountains and the ever-moving sea. It seems as if slowly and all unawares our Mother Nature prepares and ripens us to be taken back into her all-embracing breast.
But boys like hills and animals and trees, not so much because they are a part of Nature as for the life and activity they bring. So we climbed the hills and the trees, and went far down the winding stream for no purpose except to go, and when we reached the point for which we started out we turned around and came back home. Still, since I have grown to man’s estate I do the self-same thing. I make my plans to go to a foreign port, and with great trouble and expense travel half-way round the earth, and then, not content with the new places I have found, and longing for the old ones once again, I turn back and journey home.
Since the days when we children followed the crests of the hills along the valley, this lovely scene has fallen under the notice of a business man. He has built a hotel on the top of the highest hill, overlooking the valley and the little town, and in the summer-time its wide verandas are filled day after day with women, young and old, who sit and swing in hammocks, and read Richard Harding Davis and Winston Churchill, and watch for the mail and wait for the dinner-bell to ring.
With what never-ending schemes our youth was filled, and in what quick succession each followed on the others’ heels! Our most cherished plans fell far short of what we hoped and dreamed. Somehow everything in the world conspired to defeat our ends,—and most of all, our own childish nature, which jumped from fad to fancy in such quick succession that we could never do more than just begin. Even when we carried our plans almost to completion, their result was always very far short of the thought our minds conceived.
With what infinite pains and unbounded hopes we prepared to go nutting in the woods! How many bags and sacks we took, and how surely these came back almost empty with the boys who started out with such high hopes as the sun rose up! How often did we prepare the night before to go blackberrying in the choicest spots, but after a long day of bruises and wasp-bites and scratches, come back with almost empty pails! Still, our failures in no way dampened the ardor of any new scheme we formed.
We could run and jump and throw stones with the greatest ease; but when we put any of our efforts to the test, we never ran so fast or jumped so high or threw a stone so far as we thought and said we could,—and yet our failures had no effect in teaching us moderation in any other scheme. I well remember one ambitious lad who started out to make a cart. He planned and worked faithfully, until the wonderful structure took on the semblance of a cart. Then his interest began to flag, and the work went on more slowly than before. For days and weeks we used to come to his shop and ask, “Will, when are you going to finish your cart?” We asked this so often that finally it became a standing joke, and the cart was given up in ignominy and chagrin.
When the snow was soft and damp, we often planned to make a giant snow-man or an enormous fort. We laid out our work on a grand scale, and started in with great industry and energy to accomplish it. But long before it was finished, the rain came down or the sun shone so hot that our work and schemes melted away before our eyes.
So, too, the grown-up children build and build, and never complete what they begin. When the last day comes, it finds us all busy with unfinished schemes,—that is, all who 143ever try to build. But this is doubtless better than not to try at all.
The difference between the child and the man lies chiefly in the unlimited confidence and buoyancy of youth. The past failure is wholly forgotten in the new idea. As we grow older, more and more do we remember how our plans fell short; more and more do we realize that no hope reaches full fruition and no dream is ever quite fulfilled. Age and life make us doubtful about new schemes, until at last we no longer even try.
Well, our youth brought its mistakes and its failures, its errors of judgment and its dreams so hopeless to achieve. But still it carried with it ambition and life, a boundless hope, and an energy which only time and years could quench. So, after all, perhaps childhood is the reality, and in maturity we simply doze and dream.