No. 241 Beacon Street was a second home to my mother’s five grandsons, all of whom graduated from Harvard. Of Sam she was especially fond. His tastes, like hers, were those of a scholar, and there was a close bond of intellectual sympathy between her and her eldest grandson.
Football gave him so much pleasure that he continued to play with amateur associations after leaving college. Those were the days of the deadly flying tackle. One morning a short, powerful-looking young man called at our house for Sam’s football clothes. This same young man had accidentally killed another in a recent game. My feelings, on thus learning that my son was to play with him, can be imagined. Sam passed through these dreadful combats without lasting injury. He did, to be sure, bruise one of his legs so that it was black and blue from hip to ankle and the doctor looked serious. Fortunately youth and health pulled him through so that no amputation was necessary.
Harry took his athletics less violently. Through persistent exercise he became one of the strongest ten men in college. His mother felt much anxiety lest he should thus become muscle-bound, but my fears would appear to have been groundless. Tennis proved to be his forte, as various trophies testify.
In 1893 we moved into our new house in Plainfield. As often happens, however, our children began to leave home soon after we had established ourselves permanently, as we hoped. Caroline was suddenly invited to go to Paris with Mrs. George Richmond Fearing, there to study painting and French.
Mrs. Fearing took great pleasure in giving young girls the advantages of study in the French capital. She employed actresses from the Théâtre Français and the Odéon—the government theaters—to give lessons in diction. Caroline’s decidedly American accent changed, in the seven years of her foreign residence, into something closely resembling the French of the natives.
“Baby Hall,” as she was affectionately called, was the youngest girl at the Délécluse studio. Thaulow, the great Norwegian artist, criticized the work of the art students in the Bois de Boulogne. He was a very large man and wore a bottle-green coat. He viewed with alarm the idea of seating himself on one of the tiny folding camp-chairs of their kit, so they procured one warranted to support many kilos.
In due course of time Caroline’s pictures were exhibited and “hung on the line” at the new Salon in Paris. She was also invited to exhibit her landscapes in the French provinces, receiving letters beginning “Cher maître.”
For some years she lived at the American Girls’ Club, No. 4 rue de Chevreuse, a pleasant establishment where the charges were very moderate, Mrs. Whitelaw Reid contributing to its support.
When our youngest son, John Howe Hall, went to Harvard, it was necessary for him to assist materially in his own support. As he was the least robust of the three brothers, this was not so easy. He possessed, however, grit, executive ability, and a capacity for hard work. He won several scholarships, and also tutored in the courses he had himself thoroughly mastered.
To “coach” for examinations boys who have neglected their studies involves severe and exhausting mental labor for teacher and pupil alike. Jack did the best he could for his pupils, who usually passed. Although of slighter build than any of the other four grandsons, he determined to achieve the coveted “H.” He accordingly entered the track team and became a long-distance runner. The flutterings of the mother heart were now great. I was glad to have the boy distinguish himself, but two miles seemed a long-distance for one so slender to run. The perusal of a story by Wilkie Collins, representing the hero, a college runner, as a very brutal man, did not reassure me. At first the boy was indignant at his parent’s timidity and, as he thought, lack of sympathy. After I had attended, in company with his brothers, several races, where we showed great enthusiasm and cheered loudly, he understood my feelings better.