As I look back upon my childhood, it seems as if the world were an illusion and as if everything were magic that passed before my eyes. True, we children learned our lessons in our arithmetics and geographies and readers, but we only learned by rote and said them from our lips; they had no application to our lives,—they were only tasks which we must get through before our foolish parents and unkind teachers would leave us free to live. We seem to have breathed an enchanted air, and to see nothing as it really was. And still, can I be sure of this? Are the heartbeats of the young less natural and spontaneous than those of later life? Are the vision and hearing and emotions of youth less trustworthy than the dulled faculties and feelings of maturer years? Certain it is we children lived in a world that was all our own,—a world into which grown-up people could not come, from which in fact they had long since passed out never to return.
But we had our illusions and our dreams. Time and distance and proportion did not exist for us. Time is ever illusive to young and old alike; it is no sooner come than it is gone. The past is regretted, the present disappointing; the future alone is trusted, and thought to be worth our pains. Childhood is the happiest time of life, because the past is so wholly forgotten, the present so fleeting, and the future so endlessly long. But how little I really knew of time, of youth and of age, when I was young! We children thought that old age lay just beyond the time when childish sports would not amuse. We could see nothing in life beyond thirty that would make it worth living, excepting for a very few who were the conquerors of the world. True, we dreamed of our future great achievements, but these were still far off, and to be reached in strange fantastic ways. The present and the near future were only for our childish joys. We looked at older people half in pity, half in fear. I distinctly remember that when a child at the 146district school I thought the boys and girls at the Academy were getting old.
As to my parents, they always seemed old; and when I was not vexed about things they would not let me do, I felt sad to think their days of sport were past and gone. I well remember the terrible day when they laid my mother in her grave, and the one consolation I felt was that she had lived a long life and that her natural time had come. Even now, as I look back on the vague remembrances of my mother, I have no thought of any time when she was not old. Yet last year I went to see the little headstone that marks her modest grave. I read her name, and the commonplace lines that said she had been a good wife and a loving mother; and this I have no doubt was true, even though I found it on a churchyard stone. Poor soul! she never had a chance to be anything else or more. But when I looked to see her age, I felt a shock as of one waking from a dream; for there, chiselled in the marble stone and already growing green with moss, I read that she had died at forty-eight. And here I stood looking at my old mother’s grave, and my last birthday was my forty-sixth. Was my mother then so young when she lay down to sleep?—and all my life I had thought that she was old! I felt and knew, as I sadly looked upon the stone, that my career was all before me still, and that I had only been wandering and blundering in a zigzag path through childhood and youth, to begin the career I was about to run. True, as I drew close to the marble slab to read the smaller letters that told of the virtues of the dead, I put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses to spell the chiselled words. And these glasses were my second pair! Only a few days before, I had visited an oculist and told him that my old ones somehow did not focus as they should, but warned him not to give me a new pair that magnified the letters any more than the ones I had. After several trials he found a pair through which I could see much clearer than before, and he assured me on his honor that they were no stronger than the ones I was about to lay aside,—only they were ground in a different way. And although I had lived on the earth for six and forty years, I believed he told the truth. I remembered, too, that only a few days before an impudent college 148football hero gave me a seat in the street-car while he stood up. But then college boys were always thoughtless and ill-mannered, and boastful of their strength. I recovered from the shock that came upon me as I realized that my mother had died while she was really young; and then my mind recalled a day that had been buried in oblivion for many, many years,—a day when I rested upon the same spot where I was sitting now, and when the tremendous thought of eternal sleep dawned upon my mind. No doubt it was my mother’s stone that so long ago awakened me to conscious life. I remember that on that far-off day I was fifteen years of age, and that I consoled myself by thinking that at any rate I should live until I was sixty, which was so far away that I could not even dream that it would ever come. And now I was here again, and forty-six. Well, my health was good, my ancestors were long-lived,—all except my mother, who came to an untimely grave,—and I should live to be ninety at the very least. And then—there might be another world. No one can prove that there is not.
But I am lingering too long around the old graveyard of my childhood home, and if I do not go out into the living, moving world, no one will ever read my book. And still I fancy that I am like all the other men and women who were ever born; we eat and drink, and laugh and dance, and go our way along the path of life, and join the universal conspiracy to keep silent on the momentous final event that year by year draws closer to our lives.
Distance was as vague and illusive and as hard to realize as time. A trip to the next town, four miles away, awoke in my mind all the feeling of change and travel and adventure that a voyage across the sea can bring to-day. I recall one great event that stands out clearly in my childhood days. For months and months I had been promised a long trip with my older sister to visit my Aunt Jane. She lived miles and miles away, and we must take a railroad train to reach her home. For weeks I revelled in the expectation of that long-promised trip. I wondered if the train would really stop at our station long enough for me to get on board; if there would be danger of falling out if I should raise the window of the car; and what would happen if we should be carried past the 150town, or the train should run off the track. I am always sure of a fresh emotion when I think of the moment that we were safely seated in the car and the train began to move away. How I watched and wondered as the houses and telegraph poles flew past in our mad flight! And how I stored my mind with facts and fancies to tell the wondering boys when I returned! if indeed I ever should. I remember particularly how I pleaded with the train conductor to let me keep the pasteboard ticket that had been handed to me through the hole in the little window at the station when I took the train. I felt that this would be a souvenir of priceless worth, but the conductor regretfully told me that he must deny my wish. It seems even now as if I journeyed across a continent, there were so many things to see that were wholly new and strange. And yet my Aunt Jane lived only twenty miles away, and the trip must have been made in one short hour or less. Many times since then I have boarded a train to cross half the continent. I have even stood on the platform of the Orient Express in Paris, and waited for the signal to start on the long journey across 151Europe to Constantinople; but I have never felt such emotions as stirred my soul when the train actually moved away to take me to see Aunt Jane.
Men and their works are indeed inconsistent. The primitive savage who dwelt at home went to a foreign land when he moved his tent or paddled his log canoe across the stream; but civilized man, with his machines, inventions, and contrivances, has brought the world into such close connection that we must journey almost around the earth to find something new and strange.
Not time and space alone, but also men and women, were illusive to our young minds. My Sunday-school teacher, a fat asthmatic woman, who always held her lesson-paper between her stiff thumb and finger covered with a black glove, seemed a wonderful personage to me. How was it possible she could know so much about Palestine and Jerusalem and Judæa and the Dead Sea? Surely she had never visited these mythical realms, for there was no way to go. As easily might she have gone to the moon, or to some of the fixed stars; and still 152she talked of these things with the familiarity with which she would have spoken of a neighboring town. I never had any idea that she was like a common woman, until one day when I went to her house and found her with her sleeves rolled up and a great apron reaching clear around her dress, and she was washing clothes. After that, the spell was broken. How could anyone wash clothes if she really knew about Paul and John the Baptist and the river Jordan?
All the grown-up men seemed strange and unreal to my mind, and to have nothing in common with the boys. No matter what we did, we thought that if any man should come around he had a right promptly to make us stop. Most of the men never seemed to notice us, unless to forbid our doing certain things, or to ask us to turn a grindstone while they sharpened an axe or a scythe; and there were only a very few who even knew our names. Once in a long while some man would call me “that Smith boy,” but even then he seemed a little doubtful who I really was. If now and then a grown-up man took a friendly interest in our sports, or called us by our first names, we liked him, and would have voted for him for President of the United States if we could have had the chance.
I well remember Deacon Cole. I used always to see him in one of the front pews at church. Every Sunday morning he drove by our home, and he was usually the very first to pass. He wore a ruffled shirt, a long black coat, and a collar that almost hid his chin. His face was long and sad, and he never looked to the right or left during the services at the church. I had no doubt he was a very holy man. He always took up the collection just before the benediction had been said, and his boots would creak as he tiptoed from pew to pew. I did not know just what a deacon was, or how anyone ever happened to be a deacon. I remember I once asked my father; and although he could tell me all about Cæsar and Plato and Herodotus, he could never make it clear how Mr. Cole ever became “Deacon Cole.” But one day when I was down at the mill, a farmer drove up to the door with a load of corn. He wore overalls, an old patched coat, and a big straw hat. I looked at him closely before I could believe that he was Deacon Cole, and then slowly another illusion was dissolved. I found that a deacon was a man just like my father and other men that I had known.
In Farmington the girls were of small account. Of course we had to tolerate them, for all of us had sisters, and then, too, we were told that we ought to treat them more kindly than the boys: but still we never really wanted them around.
The girls were much prettier than the boys, and they had on clean clothes, and generally shoes, and they wore red or blue ribbons around their necks and white or colored sashes around their waists, and their hair was combed and fixed in long twists and tied with ribbon every day; and it was almost always as smooth and nice at night as when they came to school in the morning. As for us boys, our mothers combed our hair in the morning before we went to school, and occasionally with a fine-tooth comb; and when we left home it was usually parted on the side, and had no snarls, and lay down smoothly on the top 156of our heads,—but of course it was different before we got home. Sometimes even on our way to school we would turn somersaults, or walk on our hands, or “skin a cat” on the limb of a tree, and then our caps would fall off and our hair get pretty badly mussed. Then, too, we often ran and got warm, and had to take off our caps and fan ourselves, and run our hands through our hair; and sometimes we wrestled and fell down, and things like that; and when we were not playing ball we often went in swimming at noon, and of course we could not keep our hair straight, and did not much care or try. But the girls were different; they never would do anything that hurt their hair, and if it got mussed the least little bit they always stopped and combed it out so that it looked almost as well as when they went to school. Generally they had little pocket looking-glasses; but even if they had not, any of the girls would help the others to comb and tie their hair. But no boy would ever think of asking another boy to help him to fix his hair; if he had done anything like this, he would have known pretty well what he might expect to get.
We used to wonder how the girls could keep their clothes so smooth and nice; for many of them had a long way to walk to school, and the road was dusty, and the dirt got on them from the long grass and weeds. We thought the reason they looked so well was that they were different from the boys. All of us liked to watch the girls, for they were so pretty and behaved so well. Their side of the schoolhouse was always the cleaner, and they never threw things on the floor, and their desks looked better, for the books and the slates were not tumbled around as they were on our side of the room. And there was no writing on their desks, nor carvings made with jack-knives; and in every way one could tell which was their side of the house, even if no scholars were in the room.
The girls always behaved better in school than the boys; of course they whispered some, and giggled quite a bit, but they hardly ever threw apples, or brought in bugs, or set pins in the seat, or played jokes, or contradicted the teacher, or refused to do what she said. As a rule, they got their lessons better than the boys, and had more headmarks in spelling; 158and the teacher hardly ever made them stand on the floor, and did not keep them in at noon or recess or after school nearly as often as she did the boys. Then, if one girl told another that she could have a piece of her apple at lunch, or a bite of her stick candy, and took a pencil and marked off how much she could have, she would always bite in the right place, and never take any more,—if anything, she took a little less. But if a boy held up his apple and told another boy that he could take a little bite, not so far down as the core, very likely the boy would have to pull his hand back quick to keep his fingers from being bitten off. Really, no boy who was not green would let another boy take a bite of his apple, or his candy, or his gum. If he really wanted to give any of it away or trade it for something, he always took out his knife and cut off just the part he wanted to give away, or else he bit it out himself without taking any chances.
In the games we played, the girls were of no use; they could not run, or jump, or climb a tree, or even throw a ball or a stone, or do anything that had to be done to play a game. Sometimes they stood around and watched us 159boys, and coaxed us to choose them in, and sometimes we let them play just as we did the little fellows. But if they ever played “fox and geese” or “pump-pullaway,” they were sure to get caught the first thing, and they hurt the game. And when they had to catch you, of course you couldn’t run right through and knock them down just as if they were boys. Sometimes they coaxed us to let them play ball; but they never could hit the ball, and if they did it only went a little ways, and they couldn’t run to the first base, and you never knew where they were going to throw, and they were always in the way when you were running, and you were afraid to hit the ball as hard as you could, or to throw it very hard, when they were around. They were not much good to play “I spy,” for they never could hide very well. If they got behind a tree, their dresses would stick out, and they couldn’t climb up on any high place, or jump down, or lie down behind a log so that you couldn’t see them; and even if they had a chance to get in first, they ran so slow that they were always behind when they reached the post.
Of course they could jump rope pretty well, but boys seldom played such games as jumping the rope; it wasn’t really any game at all. And then the girls always wanted you to help to turn the rope, and maybe there would be only a girl at the other end. They did not quarrel with the teachers, and sometimes they told on us boys when we did something the teachers said we mustn’t do. When any of the boys got whipped hard in school, the girls cried and made a fuss; they never could stand anything like boys. Always at noon when we wanted to play ball or go in swimming, they would coax us to play “needle’s eye,” or “Sally Waters,” or some such silly game. And in the winter, when we were sliding down hill, they never had a sled of their own, but would always want to ride with us; and we always had to be careful, and go only in the safest places, or they would fall off and get hurt and cry.
When we went skating, they wanted us to draw them on a sled on the ice, and they never dared go anywhere unless the ice was thick. If it bent the least little bit, they ran away and cried for fear their brothers would get drowned. 161When they had skates, they never would go out on the river where the water was over their heads; and they were afraid of holes in the ice, or of our building a fire on the ice, and we always had to put on and take off their skates. We never could pull the straps tight, because it hurt their feet and made them cold; and then their skates would get loose all the time, and we had to fix them; and they couldn’t go far away on the ice, for they were afraid they wouldn’t get back before the school-bell or the supper-bell rang. Then, if they went out skating, or anywhere, after dark, they could not stay late, and we had to stop and go home with them when they got the least bit cold. They never thought they could go home alone after dark, but they could have gone as well as not if they had only thought so. Sometimes they went sleigh-riding with the boys in a big sled; but this was not half so much fun as hitching to cutters or jumping on sleds, and the girls never could do this.
When we went to see any of the other boys, we never went into the house. There was nothing to do in the house except to take off your hat and sit in a chair and tell the boy’s 162mother how your mother was. We always played around the yard, or went into the barn or out in the woodshed, where we could have some fun. But the girls couldn’t go out and play in the yard or in the barn or in the woodshed, and if they did they could not play anything that was good fun, but they would tease us to come into the house and look at the album while they told us who all the old pictures were, and would want us to stay in the sitting-room, or go into the parlor and hear them play a lot of tunes on the organ, and sing “Shall we gather at the river,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” and duets, and “Darling, I am growing old,” and such things, and that would spoil all the fun. And after they got through playing the organ and singing, if it was not time to go home they wanted us to play “Authors.” This was the only kind of cards that girls could play.
They never were any good to go fishing, but they always wanted to go, and we had to bait their hooks, and take off the fishes if they caught any, but they hardly ever did; and they talked about how sorry they were for the fishes and the worms, but they let us do all the 163work. And if sometimes they went hickory-nutting or chest-nutting with us, we let them help to pick up the nuts while we had to climb the trees and shake them off; but they couldn’t carry any of them home, and when we came to fences they never would climb over them for fear they would tear their dresses, and we always had to go away around until we could find bars or a gate or take down the fence; and they were afraid of cows and dogs, and tried to keep us from going anywhere, and bothered us and held us back. And then when we took them we had to be careful what we said, and could not run or walk very fast or go very far, and we always had to get back at a certain time, and couldn’t stay out after dark, or go across any water, or get into swamps or places where they could get their feet wet and catch cold.
Of course they got up parties, and wanted us to go; but these were always in the houses, and we had to wear our best clothes and our shoes, and be careful not to run against a chair, or tip over the lamp, or break anything, and we had to keep still, and couldn’t go outdoors, and had to play “needle’s-eye” and “post-office” 164and charades and “blindman’s-buff.” Of course we had a little cake and sometimes some ice-cream, but never half enough, and we were always glad when the party was out.
In fact, in our boys’ world there was no room for girls, except that we always liked to look at them and think how pretty and clean they were.
I was very small when I began to fish,—so small and young that I cannot remember when it was. In fact, my first fishing comes to me now, not as a distant recollection, but only as a vague impression of a far-off world where a little boy once lived and roamed. I am quite sure that I first dropped my line into the little muddy pool just behind our garden fence. I am sure, too, that this line was twisted by my mother’s hands from spools of thread, and the hook was nothing but a bended pin. I faintly recall my protests that a real fish-line and hook bought at the store would catch more fish than this homemade tackle that my kind mother twisted out of thread to save the trifling expense; but all my protests went for naught. I was told that the ones she made were just as good as the others, and that I must take them or go without. All that remains to me of those first 166fishing-days is the faint impression of a little child sitting on an old log back of the cheese-house, his bare feet just touching the top of the little pool, holding a fish-pole in his hands, and looking in breathless suspense at the point where the line was lost in the muddy stream.
More distinctly do I remember a later time, when I had grown old enough to go down the road to the little bridge, and to have a real fish-line and a sharp barbed hook which my brother brought me from the store. I go out on the end of the planks and throw my line close up to the stone abutments in the dark shadow where the water lies deep and still. The stream is the same fitful winding creek that comes down through the meadow behind the garden-fence; but here it seems to stop and linger for awhile under the protecting shadows of the little wooden bridge. I have no doubt that the spot is very deep,—quite over my head,—and with throbbing heart I sit and wait for some kind fish to take my baited hook. I learned later that I could wade clear under the bridge by pulling my trousers up above my knees; but this was after I had sat and fished. True, my older brothers had always told me that there was nothing but minnows in the muddy pool; but how did they know? Their eyes could see no farther into the unknown stream than mine.
I do not remember catching a single fish either behind the cheese-house or under the bridge; but I do remember the little bare-legged boy, with torn straw hat, waiting patiently as he held his pole above the pool, and wondering at the perversity of the fish. If I could only have seen to the bottom of the stream, no doubt I should have known there were no fishes there for me to catch; but as I could not see, I was sure that if I sat quite still and kept my line well up to the abutment of the bridge, the fishes would surely come swimming up eager to get caught.
Many a time I was certain that the fishes were just going to bite my hook; but at the most critical moment some stupid farmer would drive his noisy clattering wagon at full speed upon the sounding bridge, and as like as not shout to me, and of course drive all the fishes off. Or, even worse, the driver would halt his team just before he reached the 168little bridge, get down from the high wagon seat, unrein his horses, and drive them down the sloping bank to the edge of the bridge to get a drink. The stupid horses would push their long noses clear up under the bridge, close to the stone abutment where I had cast my line, clear down almost to the bottom of the pool, and drink and drink until they were fairly bursting with water, and finally they would stamp their feet, and splash through to the other side, pulling along the great wagon-wheels after them. Of course it was a waste of time to sit and fish after a catastrophe like this. But although I caught no fish, still day after day I would go back to the end of the planks and throw my baited hook into the pool, and sit and blink in the broiling sun and wait for the fish to bite.
But when I grew older I gave my fishing-tackle to my younger brothers and let them sit on the old log and the end of the bridge where I had watched so long, and, turning my back in scorn upon the little stream, sought deeper waters farther on.
I followed my older brother up to the dam, and sat down in the shade of the overhanging willow-trees, and cast my line over the bank into the deep water, which was surely filled with fish. Perhaps in those days it was not the fish alone, but the idea of fishing. It was the great pond, which seemed so wide and deep, and which spread out like glass before my eyes. It was the big willow-trees that stood in a row just by the water’s edge, with their drooping branches hanging almost to the ground, and casting their cool delicious shade over the short grass where we sat and fished; and then the blue sky above,—the sky which we did not know or understand, or really think about, but somehow felt, with that sense of freedom that always comes with the open sky. Surely, to sit and fish, or to lie under the green trees and look up through their branches at the white clouds chasing each other across the clear blue heavens,—this was real, and a part of the life of the universe, and also the life of the little child.
How many castles we built from the changing forms of those ever-hurrying clouds, moving on and ever on until they were lost in the great unknown blue! How many dreams we dreamed, how many visions we saw,—visions 170of our manhood, our great strength, and the wonderful achievements that would some day resound throughout the world! And those castles and dreams and visions of our youth,—where are they now? What has blasted the glowing promises that were born of our young blood, the free air, and the endless blue heavens above? Well, what matters is whether or not the castles were ever really built? At least the dreams were a part of childhood’s life, as later dreams are a part of maturer years. And, after all, if the dreams had not been dreamed then life had not been lived.
But here in the great pond we sometimes caught real fish. True, we waited long and patiently, with our lines hanging listlessly in the stream. True, the fishes were never so large or so many as we hoped to catch, but such as they were we dragged them relentlessly from the pond and strung them on a willow stick with the greatest glee.
I remember distinctly the time when some accident befell the dam, and the water was drawn off to make repairs. The great surface of stone and mud for the first time was uncovered to our sight, and I remember the flopping 171and struggling fishes that found themselves with no water in which to swim. I remember how we pounced upon these fishes, and caught them with our hands, and almost filled a washtub with the poor helpless things. I cannot recall that I thought anything about the fishes, except that it was a fine chance to catch them and take them home; although the emptying of the mill-pond must have been the greatest and most serious catastrophe to them,—not less than comes to a community of men and women from the sinking of a city in the sea. But we had then only seen the world from the point of view of children and not of fishes.
But it was not until I was large enough to go off to the great river that wound down the valley that I really began to fish. I had then grown old enough to get first-class lines and hooks and a bamboo pole. I went with the other boys down below the town, down where our little stream joined its puny waters with the great river that scarcely seemed to care whether it joined or not, and down to the long covered bridge, where the dust lay cool and thick on the wooden floor. Here I used to sit on the masonry just below the footpath, and throw my line into the deep water, and wait for the fish to come along.
Where is the boy or the man who has not fished, and who does not in some way keep up his fishing to the very last? Yet it is not easy to understand the real joys of fishing. Its fascination must grow from the fact that the line is dropped into the deep waters where the eye cannot follow and only imagination can guess what may be pulled out; it is in the everlasting hope of the human mind about the things it cannot know. In some form I am sure I have been fishing all my life, and will have no other sort of sport. Ever and ever have I been casting my line into the great unknown sea, and generally drawing it up with the hook as bare as when I threw it down; and still this in no way keeps me from dropping it in again and again, for surely sometime something will come along and bite! We are all fishers,—fishers of fish, and fishers of each other; and I know that for my part I have never managed to get others to nibble at my hook one-half so often as I have swallowed theirs.
173Our youthful fishing did not all consist in dropping our hooks and lines into the stream. In fishing, as everywhere in life, the expectation was always one of the chief delights. How often did we begin our excursions on the night before! We planned to get up early, that we might be ready to furnish the fishes with their breakfast,—to come upon them after their night’s sleep, when they were hungry and would bite eagerly at our baited hooks. How expectantly we took the spade and went to the garden and dug up the choicest and fattest worms,—enough to catch all the fishes in the sea! Then at night we dreamed of fish. We went to bed at twilight, that we might be ready in the gray morning hours. We started out early with lines and poles and bait. We stopped awhile at the big covered bridge and sat on the hard stone abutments, we put the wiggling worms upon the hooks and threw our lines far out into the stream. I cannot recollect that we thought of any pain to the fish, or still less to the worm,—though I do not believe that I could string a twisting worm over the length of one of those cold steel hooks to-day, no matter what reward might come. My father 174did not encourage me in fishing, although I do not remember that he said much about how cruel it really was. But he told me never to take a fish that I could not eat, and to throw the small ones back into the stream at once. Yet though all the fishes that came up were smaller than I had hoped or believed, still I was always reluctant to throw them back.
The first fishing-spot seldom fulfilled our expectations, and most of us waited awhile and then went farther down the stream. Slowly and carefully we followed the winding banks, and we always felt sure that each new effort would be more successful than the last. But our expectations were never quite fulfilled. Now and then we would meet men and boys with a fine string of fish. These were generally of the class my father called shiftless and worthless; but as for us, we had little luck. Gradually, as the sun got higher in the heavens, we went farther and farther down the stream, always hopeful for success in the next deep hole. Finally, tired and hungry, we threw away our bait, and, with our small string of sickly-looking fish, turned toward home. Sometimes on our return we came upon a more patient boy who had sat quietly all day at the hole we left and been abundantly rewarded for his pains. Generally, weary and worn out, we would drop our fish on the woodshed floor and go into the kitchen to get our supper. Not until the next day would we again think of our string of fish, and then we usually found that the cat had eaten them in the night.
When we reflected on our fishing, it was a little hard to tell where the fun came in; but on the whole this is true of most childish sports, and, for that matter, it holds good with all those of later years. But this has no tendency to make us stop the sport, or rather the hope of sport, for to give up hope is to give up life.
The last time I drove across the old covered bridge I stopped for a moment by the stone pier where I used to sit and fish. I looked over at the muddy stream, and the hard gray abutment where I had watched so patiently through many hot and dusty days; and there in the same place where I once sat and expectantly held my pole above the stream was another urchin not unlike the one I knew, or thought I knew, so long ago. I lingered a few moments, and shuddered as I saw the cruel boy push the barbed hook through the whole length of the squirming worm. I watched him throw the bait silently into the yellow stream, and, behold! in a short time he pulled out a little wiggling fish. I went up to him as he took the murderous hook from the writhing fish, and tried to make him think that it was so small that he ought to throw it back. But in spite of all I could say, the little brute stuck a willow twig through its bleeding gills and strung it on a stick, as I had done when I was a little savage catching fish.
I was very young when I first began to wonder why the world was so unreasonable; and now I am growing old, and it is not a whit more sensible than it used to be. Still, as a child I was in full accord with the other boys and girls about the stupidity of the world. Of course most of this perversity on the part of older people came from their constant interference with our desires and plans. None of them seemed to remember that they once were young and had looked out at the great wide world through the wondering eyes of the little child.
It seemed to us as if our elders were in a universal conspiracy against us children; and we in turn combined to defeat their plans. I wonder where my little playmates have strayed on the great round world, and if they have grown as unreasonable as our 178fathers and mothers used to be! Reasonable or unreasonable, it is certain that our parents never knew what was best for us to do. At least, I thought so then; and although the wisdom, or at least the experience, of many years has been added to my childish stock, I am bound to say that I think so still. Even a boy might sometimes be trusted to know what he ought to do; and the instinct and teachings of Nature, as they speak directly to the child, should have some weight.
But with our parents and teachers all this counted not the least. The very fact that we wanted to do things seemed ample reason why we should not. I venture to say that at least nine-tenths of our requests were denied; and when consent was granted, it was given in the most grudging way. The one great word that always stood straight across our path was “No,” and I am sure that the first instinct of our elders on hearing of our desires was to refuse. I wondered then, and I wonder still, what would happen if our elders and the world at large should take the other tack and persuade themselves to say “Yes” as often as they could!
Every child was told exactly what he ought 179to do. If I could only get a printed list of the rules given for my conduct day by day, I am sure they would fill this book. In arithmetic and grammar I always skipped the rules, and no scholar was ever yet found who liked to learn a rule or could tell anything about it after it was learned.
I well remember what a fearful task it was to learn the rule for partial payments in the old arithmetic. I could figure interest long before I learned the rule; and although I now have no trouble in figuring interest,—and if I have, some creditor does it for me,—still, to save my life, I could not now repeat the rule for partial payments. When was there ever a boy who knew how to do a sum, or parse a sentence, or pronounce a word, because he knew the rules? We knew how because we knew how, and that was all there was of the matter. Yet every detail of conduct was taught in the same way as the rules in school.
I could not eat a single meal without the use of rules, and most of these were violated when I had the chance. I distinctly remember that we generally had pie for supper in our youthful days. Now we have dessert for dinner, 180but then it was only pie for supper. Of course we never had all the pie we wanted, and we used to nibble it slowly around the edges and carefully eat toward the middle of the piece to make it last as long as possible and still keep the pie-taste in our mouths.
I never could see why we should not have all the pie we could eat. It was not because of its cost, for my mother made it herself, just the same as bread. The only reason we could see was that we liked pie so well. Of course we were told that pie was not good for us; but I have always been told this about everything I liked to eat or do. Then, too, my mother insisted that I should eat the pie after the rest of the meal was done. Now, as a boy, I liked pie better than anything else that I could get to eat; and I have not yet grown so old but that I still like pie. I could see no reason why I should not eat my pie when I was hungry for it and when it looked so good. My mother said I must first eat potato and meat, and bread and butter; and when I had enough of these, I could eat the pie. Now, of course, after eating all these things even pie did not seem quite the same; 181my real appetite was gone before the pie was reached. Then, too, if a boy ate everything else first, he might never get to pie; he might be taken ill, or drop dead, or be sent from the table, or one of the other boys might come along and he be forced to choose between going swimming and eating pie,—whereas, if he began the meal according to his taste and made sure of the pie, if anything else should be missed it would not matter much.
Our whole lives were fashioned on the rules for eating pie. We were told that youth was the time for work and study, so that we might rest when we got old. Now, no boy ever cared to rest,—it is the very thing a boy does not want to do; but still, by all the rules we ever heard, this was the right way. Since I was a child I have never changed my mind. I do not think the pie should be put off to the end of the meal. I always think of my poor Aunt Mary, who saved her pie all through her life, and died without eating it at last. And, besides all this, it is quite possible that as we grow old our appetites will change, and we may not care for pie at all; at least, the coarser fare that the hard and cruel world is soon 182to serve up generously to us all is likely to make us lose our taste for pie. For my part, I am sure that when my last hours come I shall be glad that I ate all the pie I could get, and that if any part of the meal is left untasted it shall be the bread and butter and potatoes, and not the pie.
Of course we were told we should say “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am.” I observe that this rule has been changed since I was young,—or possibly it was the rule only in Farmington and such provincial towns. At any rate, when I hear it now I look the second time to see if one of my old schoolmates has come back to me. But I cannot see why it was necessary for us to say “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am,” in Farmington, and so necessary not to say them in the outside world.
But while the rule made us say “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am,” it did not allow us to say much more. We were told that “Children should be seen and not heard.” It was assumed that what we had to say was of no account. As I was not very handsome when I was young, there was no occasion for me to be either seen or heard. True, we were industriously 183taught how to talk, yet we had no sooner learned than we were told that we “must not speak unless spoken to.” It is true the conversation of children may not be so very edifying,—but, for that matter, neither is that of grown-up folk. It is quite possible that if children were allowed to talk freely, they might have a part of their nonsense talked out by the time they had matured; and then, too, they might learn much that would improve the conversation of their later life. At any rate, if a child was not meant to talk, his faculties of speech might properly be withheld until a riper age.
To take off our hats in the house, to say “Thank you” and “Please” and all such little things, were of course most strictly enjoined. It did not occur to our elders that children were born imitators, or that they could possibly be taught in any other way than by fixed rules.
The common moral precepts were always taught by rule. We must obey our parents, and speak the truth. Just why we should do either was not made clear, although the penalty of neglect was ever there. The longer I 184live, the more I am convinced that children need not be taught to tell the truth. The fact is, parents do not teach them to tell the truth, but to lie. They tell the truth as naturally as they breathe, and it is only the stupidity and brutality of parents and teachers that drive them to tell lies. In high society and low, parents lie to children much oftener than children lie to parents; it would not occur to a child to lie unless someone made him feel the need of doing so.
I remember that when I was a child two things used to cause me the greatest trouble. One was the fact that I had to go to bed so early at night, and the other that I had to get up so early in the morning. I have never known a natural child who was ready to go to bed at night or to get up in the morning. I suppose this was because work came first, and pie was put off to the end of the day; and we did not want to miss any of the pie. Of course there were exceptions to the rule. We were ready to get up in the gray dawn of the morning, to go a-fishing or blackberrying, or to celebrate the Fourth of July, or on Christmas, or to see a circus come to town, or on any such 185occasion. And likewise we were ready to go to bed early the night before, so that we might be ready to get up. I remember one of my lies in connection with getting up in the morning. It was my father’s custom to call us some time before breakfast, to help do the chores; and as this was work and the bed was warm, we were never ready to get up. On this particular morning I was called twice, but seemed to be sound asleep, and did not move. Thereupon at the next call my father came up the stairs, saying, “You know what you are going to get,” and asking why I had not come before. There was nothing else to do, and so I promptly answered that I did not hear him the first two times. Somehow I learned that he surmised or found out that I had lied, and after this I regarded him as a sort of Sherlock Holmes. I did not know then, any more than my father did, that the reason I lied was that I was afraid of being whipped. Neither did my parents, or any of the others, understand that to whip us for lying only served to make us take more pains to conceal the truth.
We were given certain rules as to our treatment of animals. We were told to be kind to 186them, but no effort was made to awaken the imagination of the child so that in a way he might put himself in the place of the helpless beings with whom he lived. I am sure that had this been done the rule would not have been required.
In our association with each other, we were more simple and direct. When we lied to each other, we soon found that our tales were disbelieved, and thus the punishment was made to fit the crime. But among ourselves we were generally truthful, no matter how long or persistently our teachers and parents had made it seem best for us to lie. We knew that the other boys cared very little for the things that parents and teachers thought important; and, besides, we had no jurisdiction over each other, except as the strongest and most quarrelsome might take for himself, and against him we always had the right to combine for self-defence.
I seem to be living again in the world of the little child, and so hard is it to recross to that forgotten bourne that I cannot help wishing to linger there. I remember that as I grew beyond the time to play base-ball and to join in other still more youthful games, I now and then had 187the rare privilege of revisiting these early scenes in sleep; and often and often in my waking moments, when I realized that I dreamed and yet half thought that all was real, I tried to keep my eyes tight shut that I might still dream on. And if I can now and then forget my years and feel again the life of the little child, why should I not cling to the fond remembrance and tell the story which he is all too young to make us understand?
It is rarely indeed that the child is able to prevent the sorrows of the man or woman; and when he can prevent them, and really knows he can, no man or woman ever looks in vain to him for sympathy or help. But the happiness of the child is almost wholly in the keeping of men and women of maturer years, and this charge is of the most sacred kind. If schools for the education of children were closed, and those for the instruction of parents were kept open, surely the world and the children would profit by the change. No doubt men and women owe duties to themselves that even their children have no right to take away; but these duties are seldom inconsistent with the highest welfare of the child.
188As I look back at the father and mother who nourished me, I know that they were both wise and kind beyond others of my time and place; and yet I know that many of my deepest sorrows would have been spared had they been able to look across the span of years that divided them from me, and in thought and feeling become as little children once again.
The joys of childhood are keen, and the sorrows of childhood are deep. Years alone bring the knowledge that in thought and in feeling, as in the heavens above, sunshine and clouds follow each other in quick succession. In childhood the shadows are wholly forgotten in the brilliant radiance of the sun, and the clouds are so deep as to obscure for a time all the heavens above.
Over childhood, as over all the world, hangs the black pall of punishment,—which is only another name for vengeance and hate. In my day, and I fancy too often even now, parents believed that to “spare the rod” was to “spoil the child.” It was not the refinement of cruelty that made parents promise the child a whipping the next day or the next week, it was only their ignorance and thoughtlessness; but many times 189I went to bed to toss and dream of the promised punishment, and in the morning, however bright the sunshine, the world was wrapped in gloom. Of course it was seldom that the whipping was as severe as the fear that haunted the mind of the child; but the punishment was really there from the time it was promised until after it was given.
Few boys were mean enough to threaten to tell our parents or teacher of our misdeeds, yet there were children who for days or even weeks would hold this threat over their playmates and drag it forth on the slightest provocation. But among children this species of cruelty was generally condemned. We knew of no circumstances that could justify the threat to tell, much less the telling. A “tattle-tale” was the most contemptible of boys,—even more contemptible than a “cry-baby.” A “cry-baby” did not rank much below a girl. Still, we would suffer a great deal without flinching, to avoid this name.
In my time boys were not always so democratic as children are supposed to be. Somehow children do pick up a great deal from their elders, especially things they ought not to learn. 190I know that in our school there was always the same aristocracy as in our town. The children of the first families of the village were the first in the school. In games and sports these would usually get the foremost places, and each one soon knew where he belonged in the boys’ social scale. Certain boys were carefully avoided,—sometimes for sanitary reasons, more often, I fancy, for no reason at all. I am sure that all this discrimination caused the child sorrow and suffering that he could in no way defend himself against. So far from our teachers doing anything to show the cruelty and absurdity of this caste spirit, it was generally believed that they were kinder and more considerate and what we called “partial” to the children of influential parents than to the rest. And we were perfectly sure that this consideration had an important bearing on our marks.
As a general rule, we children did not care much to read; and, for that matter, I am inclined to think that few healthy children do. A child would rather do things, or see them done, than read about how someone else has done them. So far as we did read, we always 191chose the things we were told we should not read. No doubt this came from the general belief that the imagination of children should be developed; and with the ordinary teacher and parent this meant telling about fairies, giants, and goblins, and sometimes even ghosts. These stories were always told as if they were really true; and it was commonly believed that cultivating the imagination of a child meant teaching him to see giants instead of men, and fairies and goblins instead of beasts and birds. We children soon came to doubt the whole brood of fairies, and we never believed in ghosts except at night when there was no candle in the room, and when we came near the graveyard. After these visions were swept away, our minds turned to strong men, to kings and Indians and warriors, and we read of them.
My parents often despaired about the rules that I would not learn or keep, and the books I would not read. They did not seem to know that all the rules ever made could cover only the very smallest fraction of the conduct of a child or man, and that the one way to teach conduct was by an appeal direct to the heart, an effort to place the child in harmony with the life in which he lived. To teach children their duty by rule, or develop their imaginations by stories of fairies and angels and goblins, always was and always will be a hopeless task. But imagination is more easily developed in the little child than in later years, because the blood flows faster and the feelings are deeper and warmer in our youth. The imagination of the child is aroused when it really feels itself a part of all the living things with which its life is cast; feels that it is of kin to the parents and teachers, the men and women, the boys and girls, the beasts and birds, with whom it lives and breathes and moves. If this thought and this feeling take possession of the heart of the child, he will need no rules or lessons for his conduct. It will become a portion of his life; and his associations with his fellows, both human and animal, will be marked by consideration, gentleness, and love.
I remember that we boys used to argue as to which was better, summer or winter. Each season had its special charms, and each was welcome after the other one had run its course. One reason why we were never sure which was best was that Christmas came in winter and Fourth of July in summer. There were other lesser holidays that counted little with the boy. There was Thanksgiving; but ours was a village of New England people, and Thanksgiving was largely a religious day. The church-bells always rang on Thanksgiving, although usually we were not compelled to go to meeting. Then, too, Thanksgiving was the day for family reunions. Our aunts and uncles and grandfathers and grandmothers came to take dinner with us, or we went to visit them; and we had to comb our hair and dress up, and be told how we had grown, and how much we looked like our father or our 194mother or our aunt, or some other member of the family; and altogether the day was about as stupid as Sunday, and we were glad when it was over.
Then there was New Year’s day; but this was of little use. No one paid much attention to New Year’s, and generally the people worked that day the same as any other. Sometimes a belated Christmas present was left over to New Year’s day, and we always had a lingering expectation that we might get something then, although our hopes were not strong enough to warrant hanging up our stockings again. Washington’s Birthday was of no account whatever, and in those days Lincoln’s birthday and Labor-day had not yet been made holidays. We managed to get a little fun out of April Fool’s day, but this was not a real holiday, for school kept that day.
But Christmas and Fourth of July were really made for boys. No one thought of working on these days, and even my father did not make us study then. Christmas was eagerly looked forward to while it was still a long way off, and a good many of the boys and girls believed in Santa Claus. All the 195children had heard the story, but my parents always told us it was not true, and we knew that Santa Claus was really our father and mother, or sometimes our uncles and aunts and grandparents, and people like that. Of course we hung up our stockings; all boys and girls did that. We went to bed early at night and got up early in the morning, and after comparing our presents at home we started out through the neighborhood to see what the other boys and girls had got. Then there was the Christmas-tree in the evening at the church. This was one occasion when there was no need to make us go to church; and we all got a little paper horn of candy, or a candy cane, or some such treasure, plucked fresh from the green tree among the little lighted wax candles stuck on every branch. All day long on Christmas we could slide down hill or skate, and sometimes we even had a new pair of skates or a sled for a present. Altogether Christmas was a happy day to us children.
Of course there were some boys and girls who got very little at Christmas, and some who got nothing at all, and these must have grieved a great deal; and I wondered not a little why 196it was that things were so uneven and unfair. I know now that it was cruel that this knowledge could not have been kept from the little child until he had grown better able to know and understand. I also realize that even to my parents, who were not the very poorest, with so many children Christmas must have meant a serious burden both for what they gave and what they could not give, and that my mother must have denied herself many things that she should have had, and my father must have been compelled to forego many books that would have brought him comfort and consolation for his buried hopes.
As I have grown older, and have seen Christmas-giving develop into a duty and a burden, and often a burden hard to bear, I have come to believe less and less in this sort of indiscriminate matter-of-course gift-making. If one really wishes to make a present, it should be offered freely from the heart as well as from the hand, and given without regard to Christmas day. With care and thoughtfulness on the part of parents, almost any day could be a holiday to little children, and they would soon forget that “Christmas comes but once a year.”
But, after all, I think the boys of my time liked the Fourth of July better than Christmas day. This was no doubt largely due to the fact that children love noise. They want “something doing,” and the Fourth of July somehow satisfies this desire more than any other day. Then we boys ourselves had a great deal to do with the Fourth of July. In fact, there could not have been a real Fourth without our effort and assistance. As on Christmas eve, we went to bed early without protest on the night before the Fourth,—so early that we could not go to sleep, and would lie awake for hours wondering if it were not almost time for the Fourth to begin. We always started the celebration before daylight. The night before, we had put our dimes and pennies together and bought all the powder we could get the stores to sell us; and then the blacksmith’s boy had a key to the shop,—and, anyhow, his father was very “clever” to us boys. By the help of this boy we unlocked the door, took out the anvils, and loaded them on a wagon. We got a little charcoal stove from the boy whose father had a tin-shop, and with it a long rod of iron; and then we started 198out, before day had dawned, to usher in the Fourth. We drew the anvils up and down the road, stopping particularly before the houses where we knew that we would not be welcome. Then we unloaded one anvil, turned it upside down, filled the little square hole in the bottom level full of powder, put a damp paper over this, and a little trail of powder to the edge, and put the other anvil on top; then the bravest boy took the rod of iron, one end of which had been heated in the charcoal stove, and while the rest of us put our fingers in our ears and ran away, he boldly touched off the trail of powder,—and a mighty roar reverberated down the valley and up the sides of the hills to their very crests.
After saluting the citizens whom we especially wished to favor or annoy, we went to the public square and fired the anvils until day began to break, and then we turned home and crawled into our beds to catch a little sleep before our services should be needed later on.
It was generally eight or nine o’clock before we got our hurried breakfast and met again at the public square. We visited the shops and stores, and went up to the little knots of men 199and women to hear what they had to say about the cannonading, and intimated very broadly that we could tell who did it if we only would. Then we lighted our bits of punk and began the fusillade of fire-crackers that was next in order on our programme. At this time the cannon fire-cracker, with all its terrors, had not come; and though here and there some boy had a small cannon or a pistol, the noise was confined almost entirely to fire-crackers. Most of us had to be very saving of them; they were expensive in those days, and our funds were low especially after the heavy firing in the early hours. We always felt that it was not fair that we should be obliged to get up before daylight in the morning and do the shooting, and buy the powder too, and once or twice we carried around a subscription paper to the business-men to raise funds for the powder; but this met with poor success. Farmington never was a very public-spirited place.
There were always plenty of boys who could shoot a fire-cracker and hold it in their hands until it went off, and now and then one who could hold it in his teeth with his eyes shut tight. But this last exploit was considered 200dangerous, and generally was done only on condition that we gave a certain number of fire-crackers to the boy who took the risk. While we were all together, to hear someone else shoot fire-crackers was a very different thing from shooting them yourself. Although you did nothing but touch the string to a piece of lighted punk and throw the fire-cracker in the air, it sounded better when you threw it yourself than when some other boy threw it in your place.
Often on the Fourth of July we had a picnic in the afternoon, and sometimes a ball-game too. This, of course, was in case it did not rain; rain always stopped everything, and it seemed as if it always did rain on the Fourth. Some people said this was because so much powder was exploded; but it could not be so, because it generally rained on picnic days whether it was the Fourth or not. And then on Saturday afternoons, at the time of our best base-ball matches, it often rained; and this even after we had gone to the neighboring town, or their boys had come to visit us. In fact, rain was one of the crosses of our young lives. There was never any way of knowing whether it would come or not; but there it was, always hanging above our heads like the famous sword of Damascus—or some such man—that our teachers told us was suspended by a hair. Of course, when we complained and were rebellious about the rain our parents told us that if it did not rain we should have no wheat or corn, and everything would dry up, and all of us would starve; but these were only excuses,—for why could it not rain on Sunday, when there was nothing to do and no one to be harmed? Besides, there were six other days in the week besides Saturday, and only one holiday in the whole long summer; and how could there be any use of making it rain on those days?
Another thing that caused us a good deal of annoyance was that Fourth of July and Christmas sometimes came on Sunday. Of course, either a Saturday or a Monday was usually chosen in its place; but this was not very satisfactory, as some of the people would celebrate on Saturday, and some on Monday,—and, besides, we could not have a “truly Fourth” on any day except the Fourth.
When we had a “celebration,” it was generally in the afternoon, and was held in a 202grove beside the river below the town. Everyone went to the celebration, not only in Farmington but in all the country round. On that day the brass-band came out in its great four-horse wagon, and the members were dressed in uniform covered with gold braid. Some of them played on horns almost as long and as big as themselves; and I thought that if I could only be a member of the band and have one of those big horns, I should feel very proud and happy. There was always someone there to sell lemonade, which looked very nice to us boys, although we hardly ever had a chance to get any after the powder and the fire-crackers had been bought. There were swings, and things like that; but they were not much fun, for there were so many boys to use them, and, besides, the girls had to have the swings most of the time, and all we could do was to swing them.
Then we had dinner out of a basket. We always thought that this would be a great deal of fun; but it never was. The main thing that everyone carried to the dinner was cold chicken, and I hated chicken; and even if I managed to get something else, it had been 203smeared and covered over with chicken gravy, and wasn’t fit to eat,—and then, too, the butter was melted and ran over everything, and was more like grease than butter. Besides, there were bugs and flies and mosquitoes getting into everything, to say nothing of the worms and caterpillars that dropped down off the trees or crawled up on the tablecloth. I never could see any fun in a basket picnic, even on the Fourth of July.
After we were through with our dinners, Squire Allen came on the platform with the speaker of the day. The first thing Squire Allen did was to put on his gold spectacles; then he took a drink of water from a pitcher that stood on a stand on the platform; then he came to the front of the platform and said: “Friends and fellow-citizens: The exercises will begin by reading the Declaration of Independence.” Then he began to read, and it seemed as if he never would finish. Of course I knew nothing about the Declaration of Independence, and neither did the other boys. We thought it was something Squire Allen wrote, because he always read it, and we did not think anyone else could read the Declaration 204of Independence. We all came up quite close and kept still when he began to read, but we never stood still until he got through. And we never had the least idea what it was about. All I remember is the beginning, “When in the Course of Human Events”; and from what I have learned since I think this is all that anyone knows about the Declaration of Independence,—or, for that matter, all that anyone cares.
When Squire Allen finally got through the reading, he introduced the speaker of the day. This was always some lawyer who came from Warner, the county-seat, twenty miles away. I had seen the lawyer’s horse and buggy at the hotel in the morning, and I thought how nice they were, and how much money a lawyer must make, and what a great man he was, and how I should like to be a lawyer; and I wondered what one had to study to be a lawyer, and how long it took, and how much brains, and a lot of things of this sort. The lawyer never seemed to be a bit afraid to stand up there on the platform before the audience, and I remember that he wore nice clothes,—a good deal nicer than those of the farmers and 205other people who came to hear him talk,—and his boots looked shiny, as if they had just been greased. He talked very loud, and seemed to be mad about something, especially when he spoke of the war and the “Bridish,” and he waved his hands and arms a great deal, and made quite a fuss about it all. I know that he said quite a lot about the Declaration of Independence, and a lot about fighting, and how glorious it was; and told us all about Europe and Asia and Africa, and how poor and downtrodden and ignorant all those people were, and how free we were, all on account of the Declaration of Independence, and the flag, and the G. A. R., and because our people were such good fighters. He told us that whatever happened, we must stand by the Declaration of Independence and the flag, and be ready to fight and to die if we ever had a chance to fight and die. And the old farmers clapped their hands and nodded their heads, and said he was a mighty smart man, and a great man, and thoroughly patriotic, and as long as we had such men the country was safe; and we boys went away feeling as if we wanted to fight, and wondering why the people in 206other countries ever let the rulers run over them the way they did, and feeling sorry they were so poor and weak and cowardly, and hoping we could get into a war with the “Bridish” and help to free her poor ignorant serfs, and wondering if we were old enough to be taken if we did have a war, and wishing if we did that the lawyer could be the General, or the President, or anything else, for he certainly was a great man and could talk louder than anyone we had ever heard. I usually noticed that the lawyer was running for some office in the fall, and everyone said that he was just the man that we ought to have,—he was such a great patriot.
After the speech was over we went home to supper; and after dark, to the square to see the fireworks. This was a fitting close to a great day. We always noted every stage of preparation. We knew just how they put up the platform, and how they fixed the trough for the sky-rockets. We knew who touched them off, who held the Roman candles, and who started the pin-wheels, and just what they all cost. We sat in wonder and delight while the pin-wheels and Roman candles were going through their performance; but when the sky-rockets were touched off, we watched them until they exploded in the air, and then raced off in the darkness to find the sticks.
After the fireworks we slowly went home. Although it had been a long day since we began shooting the anvils in the gray morning, it was hard to see the Fourth actually over. Take it all together, we agreed that the Fourth of July was the best day of all the year.
My greatest regret at growing old was the fact that I must give up playing ball. Even while I could still play, I began to think how soon it would be when I could no longer take an active part, but must simply stand and watch the game. Somehow base-ball has always seemed to me the only thing in life that came up to my hopes and expectations. And thus it is by Nature’s fatal equation that the sensation that gave me the greatest pleasure has caused me the most regret. So, after all, in the final balance base-ball only averages with the rest. I know that, as a youth, I thought that nothing felt so good as a toothache—after it had stopped. Perhaps the world is so arranged that joys and sorrows balance one another, and the one who has the happiest life feels so much regret in giving it up that he comes out with the same net result 209as the one who feels pleasure in escaping a world of sorrow and despair.
But I meant to tell about my base-ball days. These began so long ago that I do not know the time, but I am sure they commenced as the game began, for base-ball was evolved from our boyish game of “two-old-cat and three-old-cat,” which we played while very young. Since I batted my last ball I have often sat on the bleachers of our great towns to see the game. But base-ball now is not the base-ball of my young days. Of course I would not admit that there are better players now than then, but the game has been brought to such a scientific state that one might as well stand and watch the thumping of some great machine as a modern game of ball. There used to be room for individual merit, for skill, for blunders and mistakes, for chance and luck, and all that goes to make up a game.
The hired players of to-day are no more players than mercenary troops are patriots. They are bought and sold on the open market, and have no pride of home and no town reputation to maintain. Neither I nor any of my companions could any more have played a 210game of base-ball with Hartford against Farmington than we could have joined a foreign army and fought against the United States. And we would have scorned to hire mercenaries from any other town. We were not only playing ball, but we were fighting for the glory and honor of Farmington. Neither had the game sunk to any such ignoble state that we were paid for our services. We played ball; we did not work at the trade of amusing people,—we had something else to do. There was school in the spring and autumn months; there were the grist-mill, the blacksmith-shop, and the farms in the summer-time, and only Saturday afternoons were reserved for ball, excepting such practice as we might get in the long summer twilight hours. We literally left our callings on the day we played ball,—left them as Cincinnatus left his plough in the furrow and rode off to war in obedience to his country’s call.
At school we scarcely took time to eat our pie or cake and cheese, but crammed them into our mouths, snatched the bat, and hurried to the ball-grounds, swallowing our luncheon in great gulps as we went along. At recess we played until the last tones of the little bell had died 211away, and the teacher with exhausted patience had shut the door and gone back to her desk; then we dropped the clubs and hurried in. When school was out, we went home for our suppers and to do our few small chores, and then rushed off to the public square to get all the practice that we could.
Well do I remember one summer Saturday afternoon long years ago,—how long, I cannot say, but I could find the date if I dared to look it up. The almanacs, when we got the new ones at the store about Christmas, had told us that there would be an almost total eclipse of the sun that year. The people far and near looked for the eventful day. As I recall, some wise astronomers hired a special ship and sailed down to the equator to make observations which they could not make at home. We children smoked little bits of glass over a lighted candle, that we might look through the blackened glass straight at the dazzling sun.
When the day came round, there it was a Saturday afternoon! Of course we met as usual on the public square; we chose sides and began the game. We saw the moon slowly and surely throwing its black shadow 212across the sun; but we barely paused to glance up at the wonders that the heavens were revealing to our view. We did not stop the game until it grew so dark that we could hardly see the ball, and then sadly and reluctantly we gathered at the home-base, feeling that the very heavens had conspired to cheat us of our game. Impatiently we waited until the moon began to drift so far past the sun that his friendly rays could reveal the ball again; and then we quickly took our places, and the game went on. It could not have been too dark to play for more than twenty or thirty minutes at the most, yet this marvel sank into insignificance in comparison with the time we lost from our game of ball.
Our usual meeting-place was on the public square. This was not an ideal spot, but it was the best we had. The home-base was so near the hotel that the windows were in constant danger, and the dry-goods store was not far beyond the second base. Squire Allen’s house and a grove of trees were only a little way back of the third base, and many a precious moment was lost in hunting for the ball in the grass and weeds in his big 213yard. The flag-pole and the guide-post, too, stood in the most inconvenient spots that could be found. We managed to move the guide-post, but the mere suggestion of changing the flag-pole was thought to be little less than treason; for Farmington was a very patriotic town.
We played base-ball for many years before we dreamed of such extravagance as special suits to play it in. We came to the field exactly as we left our work, excepting that some of us would manage to get a strap-belt to take the place of suspenders. We usually played in our bare feet, for we could run faster in this way; and when in the greatest hurry to make first-base, we generally snatched off our caps and threw them on the ground.
We had a captain of the team, but his rule was very mild, and each boy had about as much to say as any of the rest. This was especially true when the game was on. Not only did each player have a chance to direct and advise, in loud shouts and boisterous words, but the spectators joined in all sorts of counsel, encouragement, and admonition. When the ball was struck particularly hard, a shout went 214up from the gathered multitude as if a fort had fallen after a hard-fought siege. Then every person on the field would shout directions,—how many bases should be run, and where the fielder ought to throw the ball,—until the chief actors were so confused by the babel of voices that they entirely lost their heads.
Finally we grew so proud of our progress in base-ball that after great efforts we managed to get special suits. These were really wonders in their way. True, they were nothing but a shirt and a pair of trousers that came down just below the knee. But all the boys were dressed alike, and the suits were made of blue with a red stripe running down the side of the legs to help the artistic effect. After this, we played ball better than before; and the fame of our club crept up and down the stream and over beyond the hills on either side. Then we began issuing challenges to other towns and accepting theirs. This was still more exciting. By dint of scraping together our little earnings, we would contrive to hire a two-horse wagon and go out to meet the enemy in foreign lands. In turn, the outside 215clubs would come to visit us. The local feeling spread from the boys to their families and neighbors, and finally the girls got interested in the game and came to see us play. This added greatly to our zeal and pride. Often, in some contest of more than common interest, the girls got up a supper for the club; and when the game was done we ranged ourselves on the square and gave three cheers for the other club, and then three cheers for the girls. This they doubtless thought was pay enough.
A game of ball in those exciting times was not played in an hour or two after the day’s work was done. It began promptly at one o’clock and lasted until dark; sometimes the night closed in before it was finished. The contest was not between the pitcher and the catcher alone; we all played, and each player was as important as the rest. Our games never ended with four or five sickly tallies on a side. A club that could get no more runs than this had no right to play. Each club got forty or fifty tallies, and sometimes more; and the batting was one of the features of the game. Of course, we boys were not so cool 216and deliberate and mechanical as players are to-day. We had a vital interest in the game; and this, more than any other activity, was our very life. The base-ball teams of these degenerate days are simply playing for pay; and they play ball with the same precision that a carpenter would nail shingles on a roof. Ball-playing with us was quite another thing. The result of our games depended as much upon our mistakes, and those of the other side, as upon any good playing that we did. In a moment of intense excitement the batter would knock the ball straight into the short-stop’s hands; it was an easy matter to throw it to first-base and head off the runner, and every boy on the field and every man in the crowd would shout to the short-stop just what to do. He had time to spare; but for the moment the game was his, and all eyes were turned on him. As a rule, he eagerly snatched the ball and threw it clear over the first-baseman’s head, so far away that the batter was safely landed on third-base before the ball was again inside the ring. The fielder, too, at the critical time, when all eyes were turned toward him, would get fairly under the flying ball, and then let it 217roll through his hands while the batter got his base. At any exciting part of the game the fielding nine could be depended upon to make errors enough to let the others win the game.
Then, as now, the umpire’s place was the hardest one to fill. It was the rule that the umpire should be chosen by the visiting club; and this carried him into a violently hostile camp. Of course, he, like everyone else, could be relied on in critical times to decide in favor of his friends; but such decisions called down on him the wrath of the crowd, who sometimes almost drove him off the field.
It was a famous club that used to gather on the square. Whether in batting, catching, or running bases, we always had a boy who was the best in all the country round, and the base-ball club added not a little to the prestige that we all thought belonged to Farmington.
One game I shall remember to the last moment of my life. The fight had been long and hard, with our oldest and most hated rivals. The day was almost done, and the shadows already warned us that night was close at hand. We had come to the bat for the last half of the last inning, and were within one of the 218score of the other side, with two players out, and two on bases. Of course no more exciting situation could exist; for this was the most critical portion of the most important event of our young lives. It came my turn to take the bat. After one or two feeble failures to hit the ball, I swung my club just at the right time and place and with tremendous force. The ball went flying over the roof of the store, and rolled down to the river-bank on the other side. I had gone quite around the ring before anyone could get near the ball. I can never forget the wild ovation in which I ran around the ring, and the mad enthusiasm when the home-plate was reached and the game was won. Whenever I read of Cæsar’s return to Rome, I somehow think of this great hit and my home-run which won the game.
All the evening, knots of men and boys gathered in the various public places to discuss that unprecedented stroke. Next day at church almost every eye was turned toward me as I walked conspicuously and a little tardily up the aisle, and for days and weeks my achievement was the chief topic of the town. Finally the impression wore away, as all things do in this 219busy world where everybody wants the stage at once, and then I found myself obliged to call attention to my great feat. Whenever any remarkable play was mentioned or great achievement referred to, I would say, “Yes, but do you remember the time I knocked the ball over the store and made that home-run?” Many years have passed since then, and here I am again relating this exploit and writing it down to be printed in a book.
Since that late summer afternoon when I ran so fast around the ring amidst the plaudits of my town, I have had my rightful share of triumphs and successes,—especially my rightful share in view of the little Latin I knew when I started out in life. But among them all fame and time and fortune have never conspired to make my heart so swell with pride through any other triumph of my life as when I knocked the ball over the dry-goods store and won the game.