CHAPTER VII
Elected to be the First President of New Hampshire Daughters in Massachusetts and New Hampshire—Now Honorary President—Kind Words which I Highly Value—Three, but not "of a Kind"—A Strictly Family Affair—Two Favourite Poems—Breezy Meadows.
On May 15, 1894, I was elected to be the first president of the New Hampshire Daughters in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and held the position for three years. Was then made Honorary President.
Some unsolicited approval:
Hers was a notable administration, and brought to the organization a prestige which remains. Rules might fail, but the brilliant president never. She governed a merry company, many of them famous, but she was chief. They loved her, and that affection and pride still exist.
A daughter of the "Granite State," who can certainly take front rank among business women, is Kate Sanborn, the beloved president of New Hampshire's Daughters.
Another thing that has occupied Miss Sanborn's time this summer aside from farming and writing is the program for the coming winter's work for the Daughters of New Hampshire. It is all planned, and if all the women's clubs carry such a program as the one which Miss Sanborn has planned, and that means that it will be carried out, the winter's history of women's clubs will be one of unprecedented prosperity.
If New Hampshire's daughters now living out of their own State do not keep track of each other, and become acquainted into the bargain, it will not be the fault of their president, who has carried on correspondence with almost every one of them, and who has planned a winter's work that will enable them to learn something about their own State, as well as to meet for the promoting of acquaintance.
OUR FIRST MEETING
This meeting was presided over by our much loved First-President, Kate Sanborn, and it was the most informal, spontaneous, and altogether enjoyable organization meeting that could be imagined, and the happy spirit came that has guided our way and helped us over the rough places leading us always to the light.
Our first resolve was to enjoy to the utmost the pleasure of being together, and with it to do everything possible to help our native State. To these two objects we have been steadfastly true in all the years; and how we have planned, and what we have done has been recorded to our credit, so that we may now say in looking back, "We have kept the faith and been true."
At this time there are so many memories, all equally precious and worthy of mention here, but we must be brief and only a few can be recalled.
In our early years our Kate Sanborn led us through so many pleasant paths, and with her "twin President," Julia K. Dyer, brought the real New Hampshire atmosphere into it all.
That was a grand Dartmouth Day, when the good man, Eleazar Wheelock, came down from his accustomed wall space to grace our program and the Dartmouth Sons brought their flag and delighted us with their college songs.
Since then have come to us governors, senators, judges, mayors, and many celebrities, all glad to bring some story with the breath of the hills to New Hampshire's Daughters. Kate Sanborn first called for our county tributes, to renew old acquaintances and promote rivalry among the members. We adorned ourselves with the gold buttercup badges, and adopted the grey and garnet as our colors.
NEW HAMPSHIRE'S DAUGHTERS
Members of the Society Hold an Experience Meeting.
The first meeting of the season of New Hampshire's Daughters was held at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, Saturday afternoon, and was a most successful gathering, both in point of attendance and of general interest. The business of the association was transacted under the direction of the president, Miss Kate Sanborn, whose free construction of parliamentary law and independent adherence to common sense as against narrow conventionality, results in satisfactory progress and rapid action. The 150 or more ladies present were more convinced than ever that Miss Sanborn is the right woman in the right place, although she herself indignantly repudiates the notion that she is fitted to the position.
The Daughters declare that the rapid growth of the organization is due to Miss Sanborn more than to any other influence. Her ability, brightness, wit, happy way of managing, and her strong personality generally are undoubtedly at present the mainstays of the Daughters' organization. She is ably assisted by an enthusiastic corps of officers.
My Dear Kate Sanborn:
Your calendar about old age is simply au fait. After reading it, I want to hurry up and grow old as fast as I can. It is the best collection of sane thoughts upon old age that I know in any language. Life coming from the Source of Life must be glorious throughout. The last of life should be its best. October is the king of all the year. A man should be more wonderful at eighty than at twenty; a woman should make her seventieth birthday more fascinating than her seventeenth. Merit never deserts the soul. God is with His children always.
Yours for a long life and happiness,
PETER MACQUEEN.
PETER MACQUEEN
Dear Kate Sanborn:
The "Indian Summer Calendar" is the best thing you have done yet. I have read it straight through twice, and now it lies on my desk, and I read daily selections from it, as some of the good people read from their "Golden Treasury of Texts."
Mary A. Livermore.
Dear Miss Sanborn:
It gives me pleasure to offer my testimonial to your unique, original, and very picturesque lectures. The one to which I recently listened, in the New England Conservatory of Music, was certainly the most entertaining of any humorous lecture to which I have ever listened, and it left the audience talking, with such bright, happy faces, I can see it now in my mind. And they continued to repeat the happy things you said; at least my own friends did. It was not a "plea for cheerfulness," it was cheerfulness. I hope you may give it, and make the world laugh, a thousand times. "He who makes what is useful agreeable," said old Horace of literature, "wins every vote." You have the wit of making the useful agreeable, and the spirit and genius of it.
Sincerely,
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
I published a little volume, A Truthful Woman in Southern California, which had a large sale for many years. Women tourists bought it to "enlarge" with their photographs. Stedman wrote me, after I had sent him my book:
My Dear Kate Sanborn:
I think it especially charming that you should so remember me and send me a gift-copy of Truthful Kate's breezy and fascinating report of Southern California. For I had been so taken with your adoption of that Abandoned Farm that I had made a note of your second book. Your chapters give me as vivid an idea of Southern California as I obtained from Miss Hazard's watercolors, and that is saying a good deal. We all like you, and indeed who does not? And your books, so fresh and sparkling, make us like you even more. Believe that I am gratified by your unexpected gift, and by the note that convoyed it.
Edmund C. Stedman.
New York Public Library,
Office of Circulation Department,
209 West 23rd Street,
February 19,1907.
MISS KATE SANBORN,
Metcalf, Mass.
DEAR MISS SANBORN:
You may be interested to know that your book on old wall-papers is included in a list of books specially recommended for libraries in Great Britain, compiled by the Library Association of the United Kingdom, recently published in London. As there seems to be a rather small proportion of American works included in the list, I think that this may be worthy of note.
With kindest regards, I remain,
Very truly yours,
Arthur E. Bostwick.
Chief of the Circulation Department.
My Dear Miss Kate Sanborn:
How kind and generous you are to my books, and therefore, to me! How thoroughly you understand them and know why I wrote them!
When a book of mine is sent out into the cold world of indifferent reviewers, I read their platitudinous words, trying to be grateful; but waiting, waiting, knowing that ere long I shall get a little clipping from the Somerville Journal, written by Kate Sanborn; and then I shall know what the book is. If it's good, she'll say so, and if it isn't, I think she would say so; but that alternative never has come to me. But I would far rather have her true words of dispraise than all machine-made twaddle of nearly all the book columns of our great American press.
It is such generous minds as yours that have kept me writing. I should have stopped long ago if I had not had them.
Alice Morse Earle.
It is impossible to give you a perfect pen picture of Breezy Meadows or of its mistress, Kate Sanborn, just as it is impossible to paint the tints of a glorious sunset stretching across the winter sky. Breezy Meadows is an ideal country home, and the mistress of it all is a grand woman—an honor to her sex, and a loyal friend. Her whole life seems to be devoted to making others happy, and a motto on one of the walls of the house expresses better than I can, her daily endeavour:
"Let me, also, cheer a spot,
Hidden field or garden grot,
Place where passing souls may rest,
On the way, and be their best."
Barbara Galpin.
As a lecturer, Miss Kate Sanborn is thoroughly unique. Whatever her topic, one is always sure there will be wit and the subtlest humour in her discourse, bits of philosophy of life, and the most practical common sense, flashes of laughable personal history, and gems of scholarship. It is always certain that the lecture will be rendered in inimitably bright and cheery style that will enliven her audience, which, while laughing and applauding, will listen intently throughout. No wonder she is a favourite with lecture goers, for few can give them so delightful an evening as she.—MARY A. LIVERMORE.
There is only one Kate Sanborn. Her position as a lecturer is unique. In the selection and treatment of her themes she has no rival. She touches nothing that she does not enliven and adorn. Pathos and humour, wit and wisdom, anecdote and incident, the foibles, fancies, freaks, and fashions of the past and present, pen pictures of great men and famous women, illustrious poets and distinguished authors, enrich her writings, as if the ages had laid their wealth of love and learning at her feet, and bidden her help herself. With a discriminating and exacting taste, she has brought together, in book and lecture, the things that others have overlooked, or never found. She has been a kind of discoverer of thoughts and things in the by-paths of literature. She also understands "the art of putting things." But vastly more than the thought, style, and utterance is the striking personality of the writer herself. It is not enough to read the writings of Miss Sanborn, though you cannot help doing this. She must be heard, if one would know the secret of her power—subtle, magnetic, impossible of transfer to books. The "personal equation" is everything—the strong, gifted woman putting her whole soul into the interpretation and transmission of her thought so that it may inspire the hearts of those who listen; the power of self-radiation. It is not surprising that Miss Sanborn is everywhere greeted with enthusiasm when she speaks.—ARTHUR LITTLE.
Miss Kate Sanborn is one of the best qualified women in this country to lecture on literary themes. The daughter of a Dartmouth professor, she was cradled in literature, and has made it in a certain way the work of her life. There is nothing, however, of the pedantic about her. She is the embodiment of a woman's wit and humour; but her forte is a certain crisp and lively condensation of persons and qualities which carry a large amount of information under a captivating cloak of vivacious and confidential talk with her audience, rather than didactic statement.
J. C. CROLY, "Jenny June."
One of the friends I miss most at the farm is Sam Walter Foss. He was the poet, philosopher, lecturer and "friend of man." His folk songs touched every heart and even the sombre vein lightened with pictures of hope and cheer. He was humorous and even funny, but in every line there is a dignity not often reached by writers of witty verse or prose. Mr. Foss was born in Candia, N.H., in June, 1858. Through his ancestor, Stephen Batcheller, he had kinship with Daniel Webster, John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Pitt Fessenden.
Mr. Foss secured an interest in the Lynn Union, and it was while engaged in publishing that newspaper that he made the discovery that he could be a "funny man." The man having charge of the funny column left suddenly, and Mr. Foss decided to see what he could do in the way of writing something humorous to fill the column. He had never done anything of this kind before, and was surprised and pleased to have some of his readers congratulate him on his new "funny man." He continued to write for this column and for a long time his identity was unknown, he being referred to simply as the "Lynn Union funny man." His ability finally attracted the attention of Wolcott Balestier, the editor of Tit-Bits, who secured Mr. Foss's services for that paper. Before long he became connected with Puck, Judge, and several other New York periodicals, including the New York Sun.
Mr. Foss's first book was published in 1894, and was entitled Back Country Poems and has passed through several editions. Whiffs from Wild Meadows issued in 1896 has been fully as successful. Later books are Dreams in Homespun, Songs of War and Peace, Songs of the Average Man.
SAM WALTER FOSS
He had charge of the Public Library at Somerville, Massachusetts, and his influence in library matters extended all over New England.
His poems are marked by simplicity. Most of his songs are written in New England dialect which he has used with unsurpassed effect. But this poetry was always of the simplest kind, of the appealing nature which reaches the heart. Of his work and his aim, he said in his first volume:
"It is not the greatest singer
Who tries the loftiest themes,
He is the true joy bringer
Who tells his simplest dreams,
He is the greatest poet
Who will renounce all art
And take his heart and show it
To any other heart;
Who writes no learnèd riddle,
But sings his simplest rune,
Takes his heart-strings for a fiddle,
And plays his easiest tune."
Mr. Foss always had to recite the following poem when he called at Breezy Meadows
THE CONFESSIONS OF A LUNKHEAD
I'm a lunkhead, an' I know it; 'taint no use to squirm an' talk,
I'm a gump an' I'm a lunkhead, I'm a lummux, I'm a gawk,
An' I make this interduction so that all you folks can see
An' understan' the natur' of the critter thet I be.
I allus wobble w'en I walk, my j'ints are out er gear,
My arms go flappin' through the air, jest like an el'phunt's ear;
An' when the womern speaks to me I stutter an' grow weak,
A big frog rises in my throat, an' he won't let me speak.
Wall, that's the kind er thing I be; but in our neighborhood
Lived young Joe Craig an' young Jim Stump an' Hiram Underwood.
We growed like corn in the same hill, jest like four sep'rit stalks;
For they wuz lunkheads, jest like me, an' lummuxes and gawks.
Now, I knew I wuz a lunkhead; but them fellers didn't know,
Thought they wuz the biggest punkins an' the purtiest in the row.
An' I, I uster laff an' say, "Them lunkhead chaps will see
W'en they go out into the worl' w'at gawky things they be."
Joe Craig was a lunkhead, but it didn't get through his pate;
I guess you all heerd tell of him—he's governor of the state;
Jim Stump, he blundered off to war—a most uncommon gump—
Didn't know enough to know it—'an he came home General Stump.
Then Hiram Underwood went off, the bigges' gawk of all,
We hardly thought him bright enough to share in Adam's fall;
But he tried the railroad biz'ness, an' he allus grabbed his share,—
Now this gawk, who didn't know it, is a fifty millionaire.
An' often out here hoein' I set down atween the stalks,
Thinkin' how we four together all were lummuxes an' gawks,
All were gumps and lunkheads, only they didn't know, yer see;
An' I ask, "If I hadn' known it, like them other fellers there,
Today I might be settin' in the presidential chair."
We all are lunkheads—don't get mad—an' lummuxes and gawks,
But us poor chaps who know we be—we walk in humble walks.
So, I say to all good lunkheads, "Keep yer own selves in the dark;
Don't own to reckernize the fact, an' you will make your mark."
Next is the poem which is most quoted and best known:
THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
"He was a friend to man, and lived in a house
by the side of the road."—HOMER.
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the peace of their self-content;
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran;—
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by—
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban;—
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardour of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears—
Both parts of an infinite plan;—
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travellers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by—
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish—so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat
Or hurl the cynic's ban?—
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Mr. Foss's attribution to Homer used as a motto preceding his poem, "The House by the Side of the Road," is, no doubt, his translation of a passage from the Iliad, book vi., which, as done into English prose in the translation of Lang, Leaf and Myers, is as follows:
Then Diomedes of the loud war-cry slew Axylos, Teuthranos' son that dwelt in stablished Arisbe, a man of substance dear to his fellows; for his dwelling was by the road-side and he entertained all men.
SAM WALTER FOSS
Sam Walter Foss was a poet of gentle heart. His keen wit never had any sting. He has described our Yankee folk with as clever humour as Bret Harte delineated Rocky Mountain life. Like Harte, Mr. Foss had no unkindness in his make-up. He told me that he never had received an anonymous letter in his life.
Our American nation is wonderful in science and mechanical invention. It was the aim of Sam Walter Foss to immortalize the age of steel. "Harness all your rivers above the cataracts' brink, and then unharness man." He told me he thought the subject of mechanics was as poetical as the song of the lark. "The Cosmos wrought for a billion years to make glad for a day," reminds us of the most resonant periods of Tennyson.
"The House by the Side of the Road," is from a text of Homer. "The Lunkhead" shows Foss in his happiest mood: gently satirizing the foibles and harmless, foolish fancies of his fellow-men. There is a haunting misty tenderness in such a poem as "The Tree Lover."
"Who loves a tree he loves the life
That springs in flower and clover;
He loves the love that gilds the cloud,
And greens the April sod;
He loves the wide beneficence,
His soul takes hold of God."
We have too little love for the tender out-of-door nature. "The world is too much with us."
It was a loss to American life and letters when Sam Walter Foss passed away from us at the height of his strong true manhood. Later he will be regarded as an eminent American.
He was true to our age to the core. Whether he wrote of the gentle McKinley, the fighting Dewey, the ludicrous schoolboy, the "grand eternal fellows" that are coming to this world after we have left it—he was ever a weaver at the loom of highest thought. The world is not to be civilized and redeemed by the apostles of steel and brute force. Not the Hannibals and Cæsars and Kaisers but the Shelleys, the Scotts, and the Fosses are our saviours. They will have a large part in the future of the world to heighten and brighten life and justify the ways of God to men.
These and such as these are our consolation in life's thorny pathway. They keep alive in us the memory of our youth and many a jaded traveller as he listens to their music, sees again the apple blossoms falling around him in the twilight of some unforgotten spring.
Peter MacQueen.
Peter MacQueen was brought to my house years ago by a friend when he happened to be stationary for an hour, and he is certainly a unique and interesting character, a marvellous talker, reciter of Scotch ballads, a maker of epigrams, and a most unpractical, now-you-see-him and now-he's-a-far-away-fellow. I remember his remark, "Breakfast is a fatal habit." It was not the breakfast to which he referred but to the gathering round a table at a stated hour, far too early, when not in a mood for society or for conversation. And again: "I have decided never to marry. A poor girl is a burden; a rich girl a boss." But you never can tell. He is now a Benedict.
I wrote to Mr. MacQueen lately for some of his press notices, and a few of the names which he called himself when I received his letters.
MY DEAR KATE SANBORN:—Yours here and I hasten to reply. Count Tolstoi remarked to me: "Your travels have been so vast and you have been with so many peoples and races, that an account of them would constitute a philosophy in itself."
Theodore Roosevelt said, "No other American has travelled over our new possessions more universally, nor observed the conditions in them so quickly and sanely."
Kennan was persona non grata to the Russians, especially after his visit to Siberia, but Mr. MacQueen was most cordially welcomed.
What an odd scene at Tolstoi's table! The countess and her daughter in full evening dress with the display of jewels, and at the other end Tolstoi in the roughest sort of peasant dress and with bare feet. At dinner Count Tolstoi said to Mr. MacQueen: "If I had travelled as much as you have, I should today have had a broader philosophy."
Mr. MacQueen says of Russia:
During the past one hundred years the empire of the Czar has made slow progress; but great bodies move slowly, and Russia is colossal. Two such republics as the United States with our great storm door called Alaska, could go into the Russian empire and yet leave room enough for Great Britain, Germany, and Austria.
Journeys taken by Mr. MacQueen:
1896—to Athens and Greece.
1897—to Constantinople and Asia Minor.
1898—in the Santiago Campaign with the Rough Riders, and in Porto Rico with General Miles.
1899—with General Henry W. Lawton to the Philippines, returning through Japan.
1900—with DeWet, Delarey, and Botha in the Boer Army; met Oom Paul, etc.
1901—to Russia and Siberia on pass from the Czar, visiting Tolstoi, etc.
1902—to Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, and Porto Rico.
1903—to Turkey, Macedonia, Servia, Hungary, Austria, etc.
In the meantime Mr. MacQueen has visited every country in Europe, completing 240,000 miles in ten years, a distance equal to that which separates this earth from the moon.
Last winter he was four months in the war zone, narrowly escaping arrest several times, and other serious dangers, as they thought him a spy with his camera and pictures. I gave a stag dinner for him just after his return from his war experiences, and the daily bulletins of war's horrors seemed dull reading after his stories.
Here is an extract from a paper sent by Peter MacQueen from Iowa, where he long ago was in great demand as a lecturer, which contained several of the best anecdotes told by this irresistible raconteur, which may be new to you, if not, read them again and then tell them yourself.
Mr. MacQueen, who is to lecture at the Chautauqua here, has many strange stories and quaint yarns that he picked up while travelling around the globe. While in the highlands of Scotland he met a canny old "Scot" who asked him, "Have you ever heard of Andrew Carnegie in America?" "Yes, indeed," replied the traveller. "Weel," said the Scot, pointing to a little stream near-by, "in that wee burn Andrew and I caught our first trout together. Andrew was a barefooted, bareheaded, ragged wee callen, no muckle guid at onything. But he gaed off to America, and they say he's doin' real weel."
While in the Philippines Mr. MacQueen was marching with some of the colored troops who have recently been dismissed by the President. A big coloured soldier walking beside Mr. MacQueen had his white officer's rations and ammunition and can-kit, carrying them in the hot tropical sun. The big fellow turned to the traveller and said: "Say, there, comrade, this yere White Man's Burden ain't all it's cracked up to be."
In the Boer war Mr. MacQueen, war correspondent and lecturer, tells of an Irish Brigade man from Chicago on Sani river. The correspondent was along with the Irish-Americans and saw them take a hill from a force of Yorkshire men very superior in numbers. Mr. MacQueen also saw a green flag of Ireland in the British lines. Turning to his Irish friend, he remarked: "Isn't it a shame to see Irishmen fighting for the Queen, and Irishmen fighting for the Boers at the same time?" "Sorra the bit," replied his companion, "it wouldn't be a proper fight if there wasn't Irishmen on both sides."
Here's hoping that during Mr. MacQueen's long vacation from sermons, lectures, and tedious conventionalities in the outdoors of the darkest and deepest Africa, the wild beasts, including the man-eating tiger, may prove the correctness of Mrs. Seton Thompson's good words for them and only approach him to have their photos taken or amiably allow themselves to be shot. The cannibals will decide he is too thin and wiry for a really tempting meal.
Doctor Edwin C. Bolles has been for fifteen years on the Faculty of Tufts College, Massachusetts, and still continues active service at the age of seventy-eight.
His history courses are among the popular ones in the curriculum, and his five minutes' daily talks in Chapel have won the admiration of the entire College.
He was for forty-five years in active pastoral service in the Universalist ministry; was Professor of Microscopy for three years at St. Lawrence University. Doctor Bolles was one of the pioneers in the lecture field and both prominent and popular in this line, and the first in the use of illustrations by the stereopticon in travel lectures.
The perfection of the use of microscopic projection which has done so much for the popularization of science was one of his exploits.
For several years his eyesight has been failing, an affliction which he has borne with Christian courage and cheerfulness and keeps right on at his beloved work.
He has been devoted to photography in which avocation he has been most successful. His wife told me they were glad to accept his call to New York as he had almost filled every room in their house with his various collections. One can appreciate this when he sees a card displayed on the door of Doctor Bolles's sanctum bearing this motto:
"A man is known by the Trumpery he keeps."
He has received many honorary degrees, but his present triumph over what would crush the ambition of most men is greater than all else.
Exquisite nonsense is a rare thing, but when found how delicious it is! I found a letter from a reverend friend who might be an American Sidney Smith if he chose, and I am going to let you enjoy it; it was written years ago.
Speaking of the "Purple and Gold," he says:
I should make also better acknowledgments than my thanks. But what can I do? My volume on The Millimetric Study of the Tail of the Greek Delta, in the MSS. of the Sixth Century, is entirely out of print; and until its re-issue by the Seaside Library I cannot forward a copy. Then my essay, "Infantile Diseases of the Earthworm" is in Berlin for translation, as it is to be issued at the same time in Germany and the United States. "The Moral Regeneration of the Rat," and "Intellectual Idiosyncracies of Twin Clams," are resting till I can get up my Sanscrit and Arabic, for I wish these researches to be exhaustive.
He added two poems which I am not selfish enough to keep to myself.
GOLDEN ROD
O! Golden Rod! Thou garish, gorgeous gush
Of passion that consumes hot summer's heart!
O! yellowest yolk of love! in yearly hush
I stand, awe sobered, at thy burning bush
Of Glory, glossed with lustrous and illustrious art,
And moan, why poor, so poor in purse and brain I am,
While thou into thy trusting treasury dost seem to cram
Australia, California, Sinai and Siam.
And the other such a capital burlesque of the modern English School with its unintelligible parentheses:
ASTER
I kissed her all day on her red, red mouth
(Cats, cradles and trilobites! Love is the master!)
Too utterly torrid, a sweet, spicy South
(Of compositæ, fairest the Aster.)
Stars shone on our kisses—the moon blushed warm
(Ursa major or minor, Pollux and Castor!)
How long the homeward! And where was my arm?
(Crushed, crushed at her waist was the Aster!)
No one kisses me now—my winter has come:
(To ice turns fortune when once you have passed her.)
I long for the angels to beckon me home (hum)
(For dead, deader, deadest, the Aster!)
PINES AND SILVER BIRCHES
Doctor Bolles has very kindly sent me one of his later humorous poems. A tragic forecast of suffragette rule which is too gloomy, as almost every woman will assure an agreeable smoker that she is "fond of the odour of a good cigar."
DESCENSUS AD INFERNUM
When the last cigar is smoked and the box is splintered and gone,
And only the faintest whiff of the dear old smell hangs on,
In the times when he's idle or thoughtful,
When he's lonesome, jolly or blue,
And he fingers his useless matches,
What is a poor fellow to do?
For the suffragettes have conquered, and their harvest is gathered in;
From Texas to Maine they've voted tobacco the deadliest sin;
A pipe sends you up for a year, a cigarette for two;
In this female republic of virtue,
What is a poor fellow to do?
He may train up his reason on bridge and riot on afternoon tea,
And at dinner, all wineless and proper, a dress-suited guest he may be;
But when the mild cheese has been passed, and the chocolate mint drops are few,
And the coffee comes in and he hankers,
What is a poor fellow to do?
It's all for his good, they say; for in heaven no nicotine grows,
And the angels need no cedar for moth-proofs to keep their clothes;
No ashes are dropped, no carpets are singed, by all the saintly crew;
If this is heaven, and he gets there,
is a poor fellow to do?
He'll sit on the golden benches and long for a chance to break jail,
With a shooting-star for a motor, or a flight on a comet's tail;
He'll see the smoke rise in the distance, and goaded by memory's spell,
He'll go back on the women who saved him,
And ask for a ticket to Hell!
An exact description of the usual happenings at "Breezy" in the beginning, by my only sister, Mrs. Babcock, who was devoted to me and did more than anyone to help to develop the Farm. I feel that this chapter must be the richer for two of her poems.
LIGHT AND SHADE AT "BREEZY MEADOWS" FARM
This charming May morning we'll walk to the grove!
And give the dear dogs all a run;
Over the meadows 'tis pleasant to rove
And bask in the light of the sun.
Last night a sly fox took off our best duck!
Run for a gun! there a hen hawk flies!
We always have the very worst of luck,
The anxious mistress of the chickens cries.
We stop to smell the lilacs at the gate,
And watch the bluebirds in the elm-tree's crest—
The finest farm it is in all the state,
Which corner of it do you like the best?
Just think! a rat has eaten ducklings two,
Now isn't that a shame! pray set a trap!
The downiest, dearest ones that ever grew,
I think this trouble will climax cap!
At "Sun Flower Rock," in joy we stand to gaze;
The distant orchard, flowering, show so fair:
Surely my dear, abandoned farming pays,
How heavenly the early morning air!
Now only see! those horrid hens are scratching!
They tear the Mountain Fringe so lately set!
Some kind of mischief they are always hatching,
Why did I ever try a hen to pet?
Here's "Mary's Circle," and the birches slender,
And Columbine which grows the rocks between,
Red blossoms showing in a regal splendour!
We must be happy in this peaceful scene.
The puppies chew the woodbine and destroy
The dainty branches sprouting on the wall!
How can the little wretches so annoy?
There's Solomon Alphonzo—worst of all!
Now we will go to breakfast—milk and cream,
Eggs from the farm, surely it is a treat!
How horrid city markets really seem
When one can have fresh things like these to eat!
What? Nickodee has taken all the hash?
And smashed the dish which lies upon the floor!
I thought just now I heard a sudden crash!
And it was he who slammed the kitchen door!
By "Scare Crow Road" we take our winding way,
Tiger and Jerry in the pasture feed.
See, Mary,—what a splendid crop of hay!
Now, don't you feel that this is joy indeed?
The incubator chickens all are dead!
Max fights with Shep, he scorns to follow me!
Some fresh disaster momently I dread;
Is that a skunk approaching?—try to see!
Come Snip and Snap and give us song and dance!
We'll have a fire and read the choicest books,
While the black horses waiting, paw and prance!
And see how calm and sweet all nature looks.
So goes the day; the peaceful landscape smiles;
At times the live stock seems to take a rest.
But fills our hearts with worry other whiles!
We think each separate creature is possessed!
Mary W. Babcock.
PADDLING IN CHICKEN BROOK
THE OLD WOMAN
The little old woman, who wove and who spun,
Who sewed and who baked, did she have any fun?
In housewifely arts with her neighbour she'd vie,
Her triumph a turkey, her pleasure a pie!
She milked and she churned, and the chickens she fed,
She made tallow dips, and she moulded the bread.
No club day annoyed her, no program perplext,
No themes for discussion her calm slumber vexed.
By birth D.A.R. or Colonial Dame,
She sought for no record to blazon her fame—
No Swamies she knew, she cherished no fad,
Of healing by science, no knowledge she had.
She anointed with goose grease, she gave castor oil,
Strong sons and fair daughters rewarded her toil.
She studied child nature direct from the child,
And she spared not the rod, though her manner was mild.
All honour be paid her, this heroine true,
She laid the foundation for things we call new!
Her hand was so strong, and her brain was so steady,
That for the New Woman she made the world ready.
Mary W. Babcock.
THE ISLAND WHICH WE MADE
Here is one of the several parodies written by my brother while interned in a log camp in the woods of New Brunswick, during a severe day's deluge of rain. It was at the time when Peary had recently reached the North Pole, and Dr. Cook had reported his remarkable observations of purple snows:
DON'T YOU HEAR THE NORTH A-CALLIN'?
Ship me somewhere north o' nowhere, where the worst is like the best;
Where there aren't no p'ints o' compass, an' a man can get a rest;
Where a breeze is like a blizzard, an' the weather at its best;
Dogs and Huskies does the workin' and the Devil does the rest.
On the way to Baffin's Bay,
Where the seal and walrus play,
And the day is slow a-comin', slower
Still to go away.
There I seen a walrus baskin'—bloomin' blubber to the good;
Could I 'it 'im for the askin'? Well—I missed 'im where he stood.
Ship me up there, north o' nowhere, where the best is like the worst;
Where there aren't no p'ints o' compass, and the last one gets there first.
Take me back to Baffin's Bay,
Where the seal and walrus play;
And the night is long a-comin', when it
Comes, it comes to stay.
TAKA'S TEA HOUSE AT LILY POND
THE WOMAN WITH THE BROOM
A Mate for "The Man With The Hoe."
(Written after seeing a farmer's wife cleaning house.)
Bowed by the cares of cleaning house she leans
Upon her broom and gazes through the dust.
A wilderness of wrinkles on her face,
And on her head a knob of wispy hair.
Who made her slave to sweeping and to soap,
A thing that smiles not and that never rests,
Stanchioned in stall, a sister to the cow?
Who loosened and made shrill this angled jaw?
Who dowered this narrowed chest for blowing up
Of sluggish men-folks and their morning fire?
Is this the thing you made a bride and brought
To have dominion over hearth and home,
To scour the stairs and search the bin for flour,
To bear the burden of maternity?
Is this the wife they wove who framed our law
And pillared a bright land on smiling homes?
Down all the stretch of street to the last house
There is no shape more angular than hers,
More tongued with gabble of her neighbours' deeds,
More filled with nerve-ache and rheumatic twinge,
More fraught with menace of the frying-pan.
O Lords and Masters in our happy land,
How with this woman will you make account,
How answer her shrill question in that hour
When whirlwinds of such women shake the polls,
Heedless of every precedent and creed,
Straight in hysteric haste to right all wrongs?
How will it be with cant of politics,
With king of trade and legislative boss,
With cobwebs of hypocrisy and greed,
When she shall take the ballot for her broom
And sweep away the dust of centuries?
Edward W. Sanborn.
NEW HAMPSHIRE DAUGHTERS
New Hampshire Daughters meet tonight
With joy each cup is brimmin';
We've heard for years about her men,
But why leave out her wimmin?
In early days they did their share
To git the state to goin',
And when their husbands went to war,
Could fight or take to hoein'.
They bore privations with a smile,
Raised families surprisin',
Six boys, nine gals, with twins thrown in,
O, they were enterprisin'.
Yet naught is found their deeds to praise
In any book of hist'ry,
The brothers wrote about themselves,
And—well, that solves the myst'ry.
But now our women take their place
In pulpit, court, and college,
As doctors, teachers, orators,
They equal men in knowledge.
And when another history's writ
Of what New Hampshire's done,
The women all will get their due,
But not a single son.
But no, on sober second thought,
We lead, not pose as martyrs,
We'll give fair credit to her sons,
But not forget her Darters.
Kate Sanborn.
THE LOOKOUT
A little of my (not doggerel) but pupperell to complete the family trio.
Answer to an artist friend who begged for a "Turkey dinner."
Delighted to welcome you dear;
But you can't have a Turkey dinner!
Those fowls are my friends—live here:
To eat, not be eat, you sinner!
I like their limping, primping mien,
I like their raucous gobble;
I like the lordly tail outspread,
I like their awkward hobble.
Yes, Turkey is my favourite meat,
Hot, cold, or réchauffée;
*But my own must stay, and eat and eat;
You may paint 'em, and so take away.
Kate Sanborn.
*Metre adapted to the peculiar feet of this bird.
SPRING IN WINTER
A Memory of "Breezy Meadows"
'Twas winter—and bleakly and bitterly came
The winds o'er the meads you so breezily name;
And what tho' the sun in the heavens was bright,
'Twas lacking in heat altho' lavish in light.
And cold were the guests who drew up to your door,
But lo, when they entered 'twas winter no more!
Without, it might freeze, and without, it might storm,
Within, there was welcome all glowing and warm.
And oh, but the warmth in the hostess's eyes
Made up for the lack of that same in the skies!
And fain is the poet such magic to sing:
Without, it was winter—within, it was spring!
Yea, spring—for the charm of the house and its cheer
Awoke in us dreams of the youth of the year;
And safe in your graciousness folded and furled,
How far seemed the cold and the care of the world!
So strong was the spell that your magic could fling,
We knew it was winter—we felt it was spring!
Yea, spring—in the glow of your hearth and your board
The springtime for us was revived and restored,
And everyone blossomed, from hostess to guest,
In story and sentiment, wisdom and jest;
And even the bard like a robin must sing—
And, sure, after that, who could doubt it was spring!
Denis A. McCarthy.
New Year's Day, 1909.
Mr. McCarthy is associate editor of The Sacred Heart, Boston, and a most popular poet and lecturer.
His dear little book, Voices from Erin, adorned with the Irish harp and the American shield fastened together by a series of true-love knots, is dedicated "To all who in their love for the new land have not forgotten the old." There is one of these poems which is always called for whenever the author attends any public function where recitations are in order, and I do not wonder at its popularity, for it has the genuine Irish lilt and fascination:
"Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring time of the year,
When the hawthorn's whiter than the snow,
When the feathered folk assemble and the air is all a-tremble
With their singing and their winging to and fro;
When queenly Slieve-na-mon puts her verdant vesture on,
And smiles to hear the news the breezes bring;
When the sun begins to glance on the rivulets that dance;
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!"
I have always wanted to write a poem about my own "Breezy" and the bunch of lilacs at the gate; but not being a poet I have had to keep wanting; but just repeating this gaily tripping tribute over and over, I suddenly seized my pencil and pad, and actually under the inspiration, imitated (at a distance) half of this first verse.
How sweet to be at Breezy in the springtime of the year,
With the lilacs all abloom at the gate,
And everything so new, so jubilant, so dear,
And every little bird is a-looking for his mate.
There, don't you dare laugh! Perhaps another time I may swing into the exact rhythm.
The Rev. William Rankin Duryea, late Professor at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, was before that appointment a clergyman in Jersey City. His wife told me that he once wrote some verses hoping to win a prize of several hundred dollars offered for the best poem on "Home." He dashed off one at a sitting, read it over, tore it up, and flung it in the waste basket. Then he proceeded to write something far more serious and impressive. This he sent to the committee of judges who were to choose the winner. It was never heard of. But his wife, who liked the rhythm of the despised jingle, took it from the waste basket, pieced it together, copied it, and sent it to the committee. It took the prize. And he showed me in his library, books he had long wanted to own, which he had purchased with this "prize money," writing in each "Bought for a Song."
1
Dark is the night, and fitful and drearily
Rushes the wind like the waves of the sea,
Little care I as here I sing cheerily,
Wife at my side and my baby on knee;
King, King, crown me the King!
Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King.
2
Flashes the firelight upon the dear faces
Dearer and dearer as onward we go,
Forces the shadow behind us and places
Brightness around us with warmth in the glow
King, King, crown me the King!
Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King.
3
Flashes the love-light increasing the glory,
Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of the soul,
Telling of trust and content the sweet story,
Lifting the shadows that over us roll;
King, King, crown me the King!
Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King.
4
Richer than miser with perishing treasure,
Served with a service no conquest could bring,
Happy with fortune that words cannot measure,
Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing,
King, King, crown me the King!
Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King.
Wm. Rankin Duryea, D.D.
THE SWITCH
Breezy Meadows, my heart's delight. I was so fortunate as to purchase it in a ten-minute interview with the homesick owner, who longed to return to Nebraska, and complained that there was not grass enough on the place to feed a donkey. I am sure this was not a personal allusion, as I saw the donkey and he did look forlorn.
I was captivated by the big elms, all worthy of Dr. Holmes's wedding-ring, and looked no further, never dreaming of the great surprises in store for me. As, a natural pond of water lilies, some tinted with pink. These lilies bloom earlier and later than any others about here.
An unusual variety of trees, hundreds of white birches greatly adding to the beauty of the place, growing in picturesque clumps of family groups and their white bark, especially white.
HOW VINES GROW AT BREEZY MEADOWS
Two granite quarries, the black and white, and an exquisite pink, and we drive daily over long stretches of solid rock, going down two or three hundred feet—But I shall never explore these for illusive wealth.
A large chestnut grove through which my foreman has made four excellent roads. Two fascinating brooks, with forget-me-nots, blue-eyed and smiling in the water, and the brilliant cardinal-flower on the banks in the late autumn.
From a profusion of wild flowers I especially remark the moccasin-flower or stemless lady's-slipper.
My Nature's Garden says—"Because most people cannot forbear picking this exquisite flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the picking of one in the deep forest where it must now hide, has become the event of a day's walk." Nearly 300 of this orchid were found in our wooded garden this season.
In the early spring, several deer are seen crossing the field just a little distance from the house. They like to drink at the brooks and nip off the buds of the lilac trees. Foxes, alas, abound.
Pheasants, quail, partridges are quite tame, perhaps because we feed them in winter.
I found untold bushes of the blueberry and huckleberry, also enough cranberries in the swamp to supply our own table and sell some. Wild grape-vines festoon trees by the brooks.
Barberries, a dozen bushes of these which are very decorative, and their fruit if skilfully mixed with raisins make a foreign-tasting and delicious conserve.
We have the otter and mink, and wild ducks winter in our brooks. Large birds like the heron and rail appear but rarely; ugly looking and fierce.
The hateful English sparrow has been so reduced in numbers by sparrow traps that now they keep away and the bluebirds take their own boxes again. The place is a safe and happy haven for hosts of birds.
I have a circle of houses for the martins and swallows and wires connecting them, where a deal of gossip goes on.
The pigeons coo-oo-o on the barn roof and are occasionally utilized in a pie, good too!
GRAND ELM
(OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS OLD)
"I wonder how my great trees are coming on this summer."
"Where are your trees, Sir?" said the divinity student.
"Oh, all around about New England. I call all trees mine that I have put my wedding ring on, and I have as many tree-wives as Brigham Young has human ones." "One set's as green as the other," exclaimed a boarder, who has never been identified. "They're all Bloomers,"—said the young fellow called John. (I should have rebuked this trifling with language, if our landlady's daughter had not asked me just then what I meant by putting my wedding-ring on a tree.) "Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot tape, my dear, said I.—I have worn a tape almost out on the rough barks of our old New England elms and other big trees. Don't you want to hear me talk trees a little now? That is one of my specialties."
"What makes a first-class elm?"
"Why, size, in the first place, and chiefly anything over twenty feet clear girth five feet above the ground and with a spread of branches a hundred feet across may claim that title, according to my scale. All of them, with the questionable exception of the Springfield tree above referred to, stop, so far as my experience goes, at about twenty-two or twenty-three feet of girth and a hundred and twenty of spread."
Three of my big elms easily stand the test Dr. Holmes prescribed, and seem to spread themselves since being assured that they are worthy of one of his wedding-rings if he were alive, and soon there will be other applicants in younger elms.
I am pleased that my memory has brought before me so unerringly the pleasant pictures of the past. But my agreeable task is completed.
The humming-birds have come on this fifteenth of July to sip at early morn the nectar from the blossoms of the trumpet-vine, now beginning its brilliant display. That is always a signal for me to drop all indoor engagements and from this time, the high noon of midsummer fascinations, to keep out of doors enjoying to the full the ever-changing glories of Nature, until the annual Miracle Play of the Transfiguration of the Trees.