Life of Stephen H. Branch.
From Louisville I went to Wheeling, and thence to Baltimore, where I visited a noble youth who had been my classmate, and during my illness at Columbian College, he was ever by my side, when young White was absent. He was now an invalid, and about to leave for the Mediterranean in a clipper vessel, owned by his father, and strongly urged me to accompany him without charge. In about a week we left Baltimore for Gibraltar, with the captain, first and second mate, and a choice crew. We had but one gale in the Atlantic, and, after a brief sojourn at Gibraltar, we passed on, touching at various ports, until we reached Alexandria. We visited the Pyramids, and passed a moonlight evening on the Nile, and went to Damascus, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Athens, and Rome, where we sailed on the Tiber, and reveled on the soil of the departed Romans. We left for Baltimore, and had terrific gales in the Mediterranean, and in the Atlantic. About ten days before our arrival in Baltimore, my friend died, which shook me to the soul with grief. On our arrival at Baltimore, his father and mother and sisters kissed the dust in agony, and treated me like a son or brother. The father gave me $100, and I departed for New York, in deep affliction at my irreparable loss of a generous youth who had been so kind to me. I became ill, and nearly died, and exhausted the $100, and wrote to father, who sent me money, and I recovered after a severe struggle with the arrows of death. I again saw Lewis Tappan, and began to teach colored persons, for which I received a miserable pittance. I now obtained board in Beekman street, with Mrs. Tripler, some of whose boarders were named Thompson, Woodbury, Chapman, and Cuniffe. A Mr. Bliss boarded there, who had been an eminent bookseller, and an early friend to William Cullen Bryant, and, as he was now very poor, Mr. Bryant obtained a situation for him in the Custom House. Mr. Bryant often came to Mrs. Tripler’s to see Mr. Bliss, and they weekly dined at the Spanish Hotel, in Fulton street. It was a pleasing and noble spectacle to behold Mr. Bryant’s fidelity to Mr. Bliss in his penury and old age. Henry J. Raymond (now editor of the New York Times) was in the employ of Horace Greeley, at $4 a week, with a promise of more, if he proved true to Greeley, and became an expert paragraphist. Raymond roomed and slept with my brother Thomas, at a boarding house in Beekman street, near mine, and they each paid $1 75 a week, for board and lodging, exclusive of washing, ironing, and mending. Their room was next to the roof, and their only window was the sky light. There was a large pillar in the centre of their funny little extra attic cubby-hole, which had recently been placed there, to prevent the dilapidated and shrunken and sunken roof from utterly caving in, and burying the entire inhabitants of the superannuated edifice, including the Lieutenant Governor in embryo of the Empire State. A man ninety-four years old lived over the way, who told me that he was born in the venerable building in question, and that his aged aunt often told him that she was born there, and that the building could not be less than one hundred and seventy years old. I closely examined the beams and chimneys, and formed the opinion that it had seen not less than two hundred winters, including summer tornadoes. I often visited brother Thomas, and always dreaded climbing the ladder that led to his and Raymond’s apartment. And when I entered their comic room, I had to take off my hat, and squat down, and often when I arose to depart, I bumped my head severely against the pigeon-house ceiling. But Tommy and the proud Governor and Editor in the invisible future were very short, and could walk erect as turkeys without bumping their heads, and they really seemed to enjoy their little oven amazingly. They had but one squeaking cot, (that Parson Brown, their host, bought at auction,) and only one stool, and a pine table with only three legs. The fourth leg was Raymond’s cane, which he placed under the table when he wrote his $4 a week articles for Greeley’s Tribune. And it was a funny spectacle for me to see Raymond seated on the stool, beside the three legged pine table, (with his hair shaved to the skull.) writing for his life, with Tom on the squealing cot, waiting for Raymond to close his last paragraph, so that he (Tom) could have a chance to write a letter in answer to an Advertiser in the New York Sun for a clerk. They had no wash bowl, nor pitcher, nor comb, nor looking glass, and washed their hands and face in the yard with cistern water. I bought a pocket comb for Tommy, which he often loaned to Raymond, and finally sold it to him for a free ticket to a concert, which Greeley gave Raymond. I at last obtained a situation for Tommy, and about daylight rushed into his boarding house, (the door was always open all night,) and up I flew the last flight of stairs and precarious ladder, and popped into their cosy room, and there they lay, reposing and dreaming of the past, and of better days in perspective. Tommy was on his side, and his face was partially eclipsed with his sheet, but Raymond was flat on his back, and he had a tooth-ache poultice on his cheek, covered with his handkerchief, which encircled his head around his ears, and he looked pale, and plaintive, and care worn, and I pitied him. I softly thrust my hand into the clothes, in pursuit of Tom’s feet, which I began to tickle, when Tom (who was always as nervous and ticklish as a very susceptible girl) suddenly popped over on the other side, and gave Raymond’s poultice n bang, when the latter gave a growl, and popped over on his other side, and, in doing so, dislocated his poultice, which came out in great profusion, and run all over his face and down into his neck, and the bed clothes, and yet the Governor and Editor in embryo snored on, as though nothing had transpired. I then made another lunge for Tommy’s feet, and grabbed one, and held it, and tickled it tremendously, which proved to be Raymond’s, who darted up from his pillow, and exclaimed: “Sir: What under Heaven are you doing with my feet? I demand you to let them alone. I despise your impertinence,” and, without waiting for my explanation or apology, he violently buried himself in the clothes, and off he went into a profound and noisy slumber. I seized Tom by his ear and hair and arm, and dragged him from the bed, and he unconsciously pulled all the bed clothes with him, as he was yet about half asleep. It always took about half an hour to thoroughly arouse Tom from his morning orisons. But when I told Tom I had got him a situation, he awoke mighty quick. Raymond was so mad to find himself stripped of all the bed clothes, that he threatened to tell Parson Brown, the host, but Tom told him if he did, that he would give him the worst thrashing he ever had, which made Raymond tremble. Although Tom was much shorter and weighed infinitely less than Raymond, yet he could strike a powerful blow, and Raymond knew it. Tom and Raymond slept together two nights after that, without saying a word to each other, but Sunday morning came, and as Raymond was a stiff Presbyterian, and attended Dr. Potts’ Church, he extended the hand of forgiveness and friendship to little Tommy, who accepted his apology, and they were sweeter friends than ever. I now get mournful intelligence from New Orleans and Providence. I receive news of the death of my dear brother Albert at New Orleans, and my father writes me that my wife’s father told him that he was about to induce his daughter to apply for a divorce from me. My father told him that I had been in delicate health for several years, which had kept me very poor,—that he was obliged, from humanity, to send me money occasionally, and that under these melancholy circumstances, and in view of all that had transpired in previous years, if he chose to induce his daughter to apply for a divorce, he could not help it, and that probably neither himself nor myself would oppose it. My father-in-law then said that there was no alternative, and his daughter would apply for a divorce immediately, and my father and father-in-law bade each other a cold farewell, and never recognised each other afterwards. The divorce soon followed, to which I made not the shadow of resistance. What rendered the divorce extremely painful was the almost daily visits of my wife to my father’s house ever since my disastrous crisis in 1837, when I was confined in the Providence jail. And even after the divorce, my faithful and unfortunate wife continued her visits to my father’s for a long period, without the knowledge of her father and mother, and wept, and wailed, (as my step mother has often told me,) like the disconsolate and ever-weeping Niobe. My father-in-law owned several ships, and not long after the divorce, the carrying trade was suddenly paralysed, and he failed for an immense sum, and he struggled, and tottered, and fell, and never recovered his commercial position. And the magnificent mansion in which I was married, was violently seized during his occupation, and his furniture thrown into the street, and himself and family ruthlessly ejected from its palacious halls. I lamented his downfall, but his fellow merchants did not, as they ever regarded him as a merciless miser. I brooded long on my wife’s calamities and my own, and with a melancholy heart I went to Saint Thomas’s Church on a cloudy summer day, and the Sexton politely escorted me to a pew. I had not long been seated, when a youth entered with beautiful eyes and hair and features of touching sadness, and took a seat beside me. He so strongly resembled a youth named Charles Manton, who early died, (and whom I loved as no other being not of my kindred blood,) that I could not withdraw my eyes from his fascinating form and expression. During the prayers and chaunts, we divided the sacred book between us, and at the close of the exercises, we left the pew together. As we were about to leave the church, I inquired his name, and residence, which he readily imparted, informing me that his name was Charles A. Jesup,—that he had recently lost his father,—that his mother resided in
(To be continued to our last dream.)