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 chose 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.
CHAPTER XVII
HOLIDAYS
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 mother 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 children 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 it 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 out, 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.