Mr. Clough made a visit at “Green Peace” which I shall never forget, since it produced one of the small tragedies of my childhood.
Our house was one of those rambling structures, built at different periods of time, wherein the space is not disposed of to the best advantage. Hence, as we were a large family and each of us had a separate room, some one had to be, turned out in order to accommodate Mr. Clough. He was accordingly established in the housekeeper’s room, and we children were duly warned not to go there, as was our custom. But I forgot this caution, and next morning turned with some difficulty the old-fashioned brass handle of the housekeeper’s door and peeped into the room.
Little Red Riding-Hood was not more surprised at the transformation of her grandmother into the wolf than I was at the sudden change which had come over our young and handsome housekeeper. As some one sat up in bed (after the fashion of the wolf in the story) to ask what I wanted, I said to myself, “Why, Mrs. S—— has grown bald and gray in one night!” Then the true state of the case flashed upon my infant consciousness and I went away suddenly and much abashed. It is to be feared that I left the door open.
When I came down to breakfast Mr. Clough looked up and said, as it seemed to me rather cruelly, “I think that I have seen this young lady before, this morning.”
Mr. Clough’s poem, “The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich,” was republished in this country, and was widely read both here and in England. He was present at one time where some thoughtless young men were amusing themselves with laughing at the new aspirant for poetical honors.
“Who is this old Clough?” says one.
“I should like to see him,” says another.
After listening to their remarks for some time, the grave, quiet man rose to leave the room, and as he passed the group who were making so merry at his expense he simply said, “The name is Clough” [Cluff].
Frederika Bremer, the Swedish authoress, visited us when I was a very little child. She traveled extensively in America and related her experiences in Homes of the New World. In this she described “the dark, energetic father and two charming little girls, all lilies and roses.” After it had been translated into English, people told us that we had been put into a printed book. Our young friends wished that they, too, could have the great happiness of being put into a book, like Julia and Flossy Howe.
Miss Bremer gave an account of Mr. George Sumner and his visit to the Czar of Russia, representing him as an awkward, ungainly youth and making fun of him. He did carry to the Czar of Russia, be it said in passing, an acorn from the grave of Washington. The Czar was much pleased and paid the young man a good deal of attention. When Charles Sumner learned what our young friends had said, he mischievously remarked to his brother, “Some people would prefer not to have been put in a book.”