Memories grave and gay

by Florence Howe Hall

Somehow or other I learned to read, for I can remember being conversant with my Reader before I was five years old—according to the custom of that day.

In the early summer of 1850 our parents, with the younger children, Harry and Laura, sailed for Europe. As became a child of New England, I was extremely reserved, and it was thought a pleasant sign when, as the family were about to depart, I wept. Alas! Investigation revealed that my tears were really connected with the little Greek almonds—doubtless too few had been allotted to me. In justice to myself I must say that on the return, eighteen months later, of my mother, brother and sister, I found tears of joy in my eyes.

My eldest sister and I were left in the custody of our faithful nurse, Lizzie, and in the care of friends. We spent the summer happily at Concord, Massachusetts. Hearing the bells toll one day, we asked the reason, and were told that General Taylor (then President of the United States) was dead.

One happy autumn day there was a cry of, “Papa! Papa!” and we rushed down the street into his arms. He could not remain away longer from America, owing to his many cares. We were now installed in the delightful home “Green Peace,” with an efficient housekeeper, Mrs. Stanwood, to care for us.

A sad memory comes back to me out of this distant past. On a certain summer day the blind pupils and their teachers made an excursion to the seaside, sister Julia and I going with them. Nurse Lizzie allowed us to go in bathing, but cautioned us to hold tightly to a rock whose head rose above the water.

With childish bravado, I let go, calling on the others to look at me. Suddenly a great wave dashed over me, but not more quickly than Lizzie, who rushed in and dragged me out, all dressed as she was. She never recovered from the cold taken that day, dying of consumption not long afterward. I must have been five or six years old at the time of the funeral. I remember seeing the face of the devoted nurse lying white and still beneath the glass of the coffin. I remember, too, that all knelt on the earth around the grave, the service being according to the Roman Catholic ritual.

While “Green Peace” remained our home for many years, its situation on the southerly slope of a hill made it warm in summer. Accordingly, in 1852 my father and the poet Longfellow hired a house on the cliffs at Newport, with the understanding that no other boarders should be received except those of whom they approved. The company that assembled beneath the roof of this early “Cliff House” was of a literary turn of mind. Count Gurowski nicknamed it “Hôtel Rambouillet.” A daguerreotype is still in existence showing Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow, my mother, Mrs. Freeman (wife of the artist), and Mr. Thomas Gold Appleton, the noted wit. A broad smile pervades the group, doubtless due to the fact that in those early days of photography the victims were obliged to sit some twenty minutes before the camera.

George William Curtis was among the favored few who spent that summer at the “Cliff House.” He was then a handsome young bachelor who went to balls and parties. Alas! Near his room was the Howe nursery, and the children, who took no part in the social gaieties of Newport, arose at an early hour. Our noise and that of our portable tin bath-tub sadly disturbed the morning slumbers of the “Howadji.”

I was a little girl of an independent turn of mind and objected decidedly to being kissed. Some of the gentlemen thought this very amusing in a child of barely seven, and delighted in teasing me. To enter or leave the house was a feat of daring, for the enemy might be lurking in the shadow of the hall, ready to catch me. Once, at least, I was seized and held up in the air by a Mr. G——. “Now I’ve got you!” he exclaimed. He was soon glad to put down a very irate and struggling little girl. The foolish custom of kissing children indiscriminately has happily gone out of fashion.

Another sad memory of that summer rises before me. I see on the lawn of “Cliff House” my silver mug, with a deep wound in its side. One of the gentlemen, espying it in the grass, took it for a pewter vessel and obligingly discharged his pistol at it.