Memories grave and gay

by Florence Howe Hall

SOME one has said that it is hard to live under the shadow of a great name. It has been my great privilege and happiness to live, not under the shadow, but in the light of two honored names, those of my father and mother. They were honored and beloved because of their own love for and service to their fellow-men.

My father was nearly eighteen years older than my mother. He had had the responsibility and care of his young blind pupils for ten years before his marriage. Hence he was well fitted to take an active part in our training, especially as he dearly loved children. The absence in Europe, for more than a year, of my mother and the two younger children, Harry and Laura, brought Julia and myself under his care when we were respectively five and six years old. We thus early formed the habit of close companionship with him, to which, as the elder, we had special claim. Indeed, we all followed him about to such a degree that he once exclaimed jestingly, “Why, if I went and sat in the barn I believe you children would all follow me!”

The housekeeper who was with us in these early years would sometimes say, “You do not know what a good father you have.” Of course we did not. We knew that “Papa” made us his companions whenever he could possibly do so. We knew that as “a good physician” he bound up our small wounds and cared for us when we were sick. We knew that if we did wrong we must expect his firm yet gentle rebuke. Did he not tell me about a naughty little devil I had swallowed, bidding me open my mouth so that he could get hold of its tail and pull it out? Lessons of thrift and generosity he early inculcated. We received a penny for every horseshoe and for every pound of old iron we picked up about the place.

He constantly sent, by our hands, gifts of the delicious fruit of the garden to our schoolmates and to the blind children.

When our mother played the most delightful tunes for us to dance, Papa would join in the revels, occasionally pleading “a bone in his leg” as an excuse for stopping. Together they planned and carried out all sorts of schemes for our amusement and that of our little friends.

When, at a child’s party in midwinter, fireworks suddenly appeared outside the parlor window, the great kindness of our parents in doing so much for our amusement began to dawn upon my childish mind. Indeed, the Howe juvenile parties were thought very delightful by others besides ourselves.

Our parents told us stories of their youth, in which we were greatly interested. My father must have been a very small boy when he was alarmed by the Howe coat of arms—three bears with their tongues out. I fancy he came across this vision in the attic and that it was banished there by Grandfather Howe, who was a true Democrat.

Father also told us that the family was supposed to be related to that of Lord Howe. I find the same statement made in Farmer’s genealogy of the descendants of “John Howe of Watertown freeman 1640, son of John Howe of Hodinhull Warwickshire.”

Anecdotes of his school-days showed that my father, despite his feelings in the presence of the three bears, was a very courageous boy. At Latin School the master whipped him for some small fault, but could not succeed in his amiable intention of making the child cry, “though he whipped my hand almost to jelly.” His Federalist schoolmates were as brutal as their master. Because Sam Howe, almost the only Democrat in school, refused to abandon his principles, they threw him down-stairs.

Grandfather Howe lost a great deal of money by the failure of the United States government to pay him for the ropes and cordage which he, as a patriotic Democrat, supplied to them in large quantities during the War of 1812. Hence, when his son went to college, young Sam Howe helped to pay his way by teaching school in vacation. The country lads, some of whom were bigger than he, thought they could get the better of the new schoolmaster. He restored order by the simple but sometimes necessary process of knocking down the ringleader. The handsome young collegian found more difficulty in managing the girls!