THE OLD MANSE AT CONCORD
At the window—Edward Simmons’s mother; Under the umbrella—his sister Elizabeth; Standing—his first cousin, Sarah Alden (Thayer) Ames; Seated—one of his cousins of the Bradford branch.
My grandmother’s sitting room was the delight of my life. There was a broad chimney shelf, and low down on the left-hand side a framed bit of handwriting, an invitation to Lieutenant Bradford to dine with General Washington. Over that was a big hornet’s nest, a stuffed owl, and, strangest of all, a copy of the “Beatrice Cenci” and Titian’s “Tribute Money,” brought back from Italy by my father. I always thought, as a child, that the head of Christ was a family portrait and that the Jew with the tribute money was a tradesman. Why the tradesman was giving one of us money instead of vice versa, I did not know.
Here in this room I used to dream until most likely interrupted by some caller upon grandmother. Then I would retire to the corner and listen to their conversation about antislavery, human freedom, states’ rights, etc.—understanding not a word, but fascinated by the fervor of the speakers. I have seen gathered together in this parlor Emerson, Frank Sanborn, Charles Sumner, and John Brown, the last short and squat, his great beard upon his breast, and spreading his coat tails before the fire like a pouter pigeon.
Something that occurred years later, when I was a student at Harvard, made me appreciate my grandmother more than ever. Prof. Asa Gray, a man of seventy, and the first botanist of the world at that time, met me in the Yard one day and stopping me said:
“I understand that your name is Simmons and that you are the grandson of Mary Bradford Ripley?”
I replied that I was.
He took off his skull cap and bowed low to the ground, saying, “Allow me to do honor to the offspring of one of the ablest botanists I have ever known.”
I remember her looks well. Her features were very marked and her nose big and straight. Her hair was then white and she had blue-gray eyes. There is a photograph of her sitting under a grape arbor, looking very absent-minded, with the little finger of her left hand hooked in the corner of her mouth—a habit of my sister and both of my boys!
Grandfather’s salary as a Unitarian clergyman was the munificent sum of six hundred dollars a year, and on this my grandmother managed to bring up a large family of children—doing all the cooking and sewing herself—marry off three of the girls, and send the two boys through college. “As big as Sam Ripley” was the saying throughout the countryside, and, although he was lusty and hail, my grandfather died when he was in his prime—in fact, before I was born. The circumstances of his death, which I heard when a youngster, made a deep impression upon me.