UNITED STATES BATTLE-SHIP “ILLINOIS.”
One Sunday morning in June, Goody Brown gave to her consort, Singer Billy, the long-necked pitcher, and sent him to the neighbors for milk. Billy went from house to house, but was refused.
“Not to-day, Billy,” said every one; “we are saving our milk for the big cheese, you know.”
After Billy had wandered about amid the dews to the Masons’, the Waggoners’, and others, without success, although all the pantries were overflowing, he obtained a pint of milk at last from a Federalist, who was not in full sympathy even with the enterprises of the community.
It was now church time, and he was to sing bass to “The Lord descended from above” that day, in his view a stupendous performance. So he took his milk-pitcher along with him to the church, and up into the choir-loft.
A red curtain hung on rings ran before the singers in the choir. The music books were placed on racks, and the choir was directly over the high pulpit, the deacon’s seat, and the clerk’s pew. A huge sounding-board hung over the pulpit, which was a kind of mahogany pen, with stairs on each side, and doors. The top of the pulpit reached almost to the choir.
Singer Billy sang well that morning the sonorous music of William Billings of Stoughton, and touched the “foot-notes” with impressive clearness.
Then he felt that his work was over, and began to be oblivious to the truth that was being proclaimed under the sounding-board. The old deacons, too, after all the excitements of mowing, milkings, and the preparations for making of the new cheese, were not in the most receptive mood, but felt the world gliding away from them in various ways.
The clerk fell quite asleep, and wandered away in the far regions of air beyond the solid continents of all theologies. Even the tithing-man had dropped his rod.
In this hour, when watchfulness had ceased, disaster came, and brought a scandal upon the descendants of the heroic Samson Mason, and upon all.
A dog came trotting up the choir stairs. He, too, had found milk scarce that morning, and smelling Singer Billy’s pitcher near the red curtain, looked around and found that Billy and most of the singers were quite indifferent to current events. He ran his head down the long neck of the pitcher toward the pint of milk in the great hollow below.
But while the descent of his head into the pitcher was easy, the withdrawing of it was otherwise. His head would not come out. He put up his inefficient paws and rubbed the outside of the pitcher; he moved to and fro, backward and forward. At last, not knowing where he was going, he passed quite under the red curtain, and finally succeeded in pushing the pitcher over the balcony.
There was an alarming crash in the deacon’s pew. Was ever anything so extraordinary? It was not a centaur that had come down, half horse and half man, but a yet more marvellous beast, half dog and half pitcher. The pitcher was broken to fragments; the dog howled pitifully; the clerk and the deacons all awoke at once, and the tithing-man leaped to his feet.
Singer Brown, too, suddenly came down from the blissful clover-gardens of dreamland, and looking over the curtain on the scene of mystery and disaster below, comprehended at a glance all that had happened. He prophetically calculated the future, and quickly slipped down the stairs, and out of the church.
When questioned about the matter, he said, with unusual dignity,—
“What but humiliation could you have expected from a people whose hearts had turned to the worship of cheeses?”
I stood recently in the old Cheshire churchyard by the grave of good Elder Leland, and read with a tender reverence the following simple inscription, on his tombstone, which had been prepared by himself:—
“Here lies John Leland of Cheshire, who labored to promote piety and to vindicate the civil and religious rights of all men.”
His “Evening Hymn” is his true monument, but he will long be a figure in the history of that quaint past.
“TRIP-TRIP-TO-DEE-DEE.”
THE SCHOOLMASTER’S STORY.
A hand was raised in the reading-class.
“Well?” I asked.
“What became of that man?”
“I do not know, James. This reading lesson is a humorous story.”
I was a teacher when the unexpected question was asked me. The second class in reading used a book, long ago out of print, that was called the “Introduction to the American Common School Reader and Speaker.” Some of my readers may recall it. It contained a single humorous selection, entitled “A Melting Story.” It was this selection that had been read, when my honest pupil, James, asked the question,—
“What became of that man?”
“That man” was the unhappy subject of the reading-book story. One cold winter’s night he had slipped into a country store while the keeper had gone out to close the blinds, and had stolen a pound ball of butter, and put it into his hat, and replaced the hat, with the butter ball in the top of the crown, on his head. The storekeeper saw the act, and determined to punish the thief in as cunning a way as the theft had been committed. He rushed into the store, confronted the butter stealer, and compelled him to sit down by the stove. He filled the stove with wood, and began to talk in a lively manner, and, adding seasoned wood to the roaring fire, made the place so hot that the butter melted in the thief’s hat, and ran down over his face and shoulders.
The thief, thus detained, made many excuses to get away, but the storekeeper would not accept them, but held him in torture, his face and hair dripping with the butter. At last, when the butter had thoroughly oiled his woful guest, he rose and said: “I say, Seth, the fun that I have had out of you to-night will well pay me for that pound of butter. I shall not charge it,” or words with this meaning. This selection of reading was very popular in old schools forty years ago.
I well recall the class that read this selection. It stretched across the platform in a zigzag row. Some of the boys were tall, some short, and the girls who stood at the head read much better than the boys. The days usually began to grow long, and the snows to melt and drip from the icicles on the roof, when we reached this selection, which was near the end of the book. The windows looked out on the long snowscapes, broken by icy woods and green savin trees. At a little distance the simple church spire was seen gleaming under the blue sky, and the dark slate-stones in the churchyard were a constant reminder of the mortality of us all.
The pupils brought their dinners in tin dinner pails, and often shared their sweet-breads with each other. Some of the pupils were very poor, and could only bring corn bread for the noon lunch. James’s father was a prosperous farmer, and provided him with generous lunches, and he used to share them with the poor boys and girls. I had learned to love him for these acts of generosity. James was as honest as he was generous. He had a very sympathetic nature, and it was this that prompted him to ask with a serious face while the rest of the class were laughing,—
“What became of that man?”
The question haunted me for the half hour that the reading exercise continued, though I had regarded the story as a fiction. Just before I dismissed the class I said,—
“James, I should think from your tone of voice and serious look that you rather sympathized with the thief.”
“If we knew all things in people’s hearts, we should pity everybody,” he said. “The Bible says that if a man be overtaken in a fault, those that have spiritual strength should restore him. I would never have published a story like that. I would have given the man a chance to regain his self-respect. Wouldn’t you?”
I can see him now,—his manly, handsome face, clear blue eyes, high color, and intensity of expression. Five years afterwards he entered Andover Seminary, and the feathery palms of a missionary graveyard under a tropic sky wave over his dead body now.
The pupils dropped their slates, and the class lowered their books to hear what I would say. I hesitated. The schoolroom grew painfully still, the wood roared on the fire of the stove, and the evergreen, or creeping-jenny, that had been turned around the stove-pipe, crackled and fell.
“I should feel that it was a duty that I owe to the public safety to expose a thief,” I answered. “Wouldn’t you, James?”
“I had rather change an evil-doer into an honest man,” he replied. “In that case he might never steal again. I”—he hesitated. There was the same painful stillness in the room.
“What, James?”
“I have heard that that man is still living in Maine, and that after that joke he lost all regard for respectability, and became a beggar. I do not know that the report is true, but a man from Portland told my father so in my hearing.” The stillness continued. He added: “Governor Winthrop forgave a thief who robbed his woodpile, by sending for him and offering to give him the wood he needed.”
The term drew to its close. Washington’s Birthday passed, the bell ringing out in the little white steeple. The March days grew long and bright, with occasional flurries of snow; the bluebirds came fluting into the gray orchards; the woodpeckers tapped the hollow trees, and the wild geese passed over, honking like flying trumpets or mellow horns in the sky. Early April brought examination day. The grave committee came, making my little principality tremble; heard the classes recite, read, and spell, made a “few remarks,” and then the winter school was over.
I can see those old pupils now, as they stood in the yard about the door in the late April afternoon, their faces bright in the western sunlight. I never met them again as I saw them then.
I parted with James with peculiar reluctance, as he was one of the most high-minded boys that I had ever met, and had a heart to feel and a hand to help.
On examination day the “Melting Story” was read, which elicited from one of the members of the committee the rugged remark:—
“That’s a good one; served him right; it wouldn’t ha’ been improper for the boys to laugh after a story like that, would it, teacher?”
“No,” I answered. “I allow them to laugh in such a case.”
But the class did not laugh. James’s inquiries in regard to the narrative had changed the spirit of all the young readers.
The impression that James had made haunted me. It seemed to me that the story was incomplete, and I carried the sympathetic inquiry of my pupil in my mind: “What became of that man?”
One blue April day, a few years after the incident that had occurred in my dear old class, I was walking the streets of a great seaport city in Maine, when a very strange scene met my eye.
Two boys came, as it were, flying from a narrow street into a public square, each screaming at the top of his voice,—
“Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee! Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee! Who stole the butter?”
My eye followed them in lively curiosity, and at once the old story in the reading-book and James’s inquiry came rushing back to my mind. I had heard that there were two stories of this kind, and which one had given rise to the popular reading-book narrative could hardly be determined except by the author, of whom I knew nothing.
What followed caused me to stand still. A poor, wretched-looking old man, with a basket on his arm, came hobbling and jumping out of the same street, with a cobblestone in one hand. He was evidently chasing the boys. As he entered the square, the boys turned around and cried again,—
“Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee! Who stole the butter? Who stole the butter?”
The old man came to a halt, and, with wild eyes and a frantic movement, threw the stone at the boys. They dodged the revengeful missile, and skipped away, calling,—
“Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee! Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee!”
A well-dressed stranger stopped near to see the odd episode.
“Who is that old man?” I asked.
“Oh, that is Trip-Trip-to-Day-Day. He is a character here. The boys torment him. They like to have him chase them. There are few boys in this part of the city that he has not chased.”
“What is his occupation?” I continued.
“Oh, a common beggar. He is almost the only street beggar in this city. He lives, I think, in some old hut outside of the place, and comes here begging each morning, with his basket on his arm. Look at him.”
I looked. The running and the vengeful throwing of the stone had exhausted him, and he had just sunk down in a heap, as it were, on a seat in the square.
The old question that James had asked came to me again with irresistible force. I crossed the street to the square, and sat down on the long bench beside the half-animated bundle of rags.
The old man peered into my face.
“I—am—all exhausted,” he said; “’gin out—I can’t do as I used to do.”
“It’s a fine day,” I said.
“Yes—ha—a fine day for fine folks. Ha—all days are pretty much the same to me. Are you a stranger here?”
“Yes; what is your name?”
“Seth—ha—Seth. That is my name. What’s yourn?”
“Why do the people here allow the boys to trouble an old man like you? I thought people were civil here,—that this was a Christian city.”
“You did, did ye, stranger? Ha, you thought that the people were civiller, ha? Well, they be generally, as a rule, but not to old Seth. Well, never mind. I shall get through by and by. I shall have to throw rocks at ’em while I live, and can hobble about, ha. Stranger, I’ll tell you how it was. It may seem strange to you that one thing like that should ruin a man’s life, but it has mine. I’d been careless about living on the square for some time, when it happened—that joke that crippled me for life.”
He caught his breath convulsively with a halting “Ha,” and then continued:—
“It was a terrible cold night when I went into that store, and found that the store-keeper had gone out to shut up the blinds. I was all alone, and there came over me the impulse to profit by the chance. Somethin’ seemed to whisper to me: ‘Here is your luck, make the most of it.’ Stranger, there was once a time when I would have no such temptation if I’d gone into an empty shop with an open drawer of uncounted dollars.
“I saw the balls of butter in the cool corner of the store. I seized one. My conscience began to burn, and I threw water upon it by saying: ‘I’ll pay for it at some other time!’ Men cool conscience in that way.
“The storekeeper came back with a queer look on his face. He did not appear nat’ral. He was too friendly. He made me sit down close to the stove. I could feel my heart beat under my coat. When a person is dealing unfair with you, you feel it in the air. I could feel in the air that something was wrong.
COLUMBIAN FOUNTAIN, AND COURT OF HONOR.
“Well, the stove roared; it turned red. The place was close, and I was so nervous that I began to perspire. Then all at once—how the thing struck me like a death-shot!—the butter began to melt. I could feel it trickling down my hair, and dropping into my back. I thought of the old hymn about the holy oil and Aaron’s beard. I wished that the butter in my hat was like that. I hoped still that the storekeeper did not suspect me, but I felt that he did. The butter was shaping itself to my head. I dared not take off my hat. I wondered if the butter were soaking through it. I tried to move back, but there was no room. Then I felt the oil creeping down the back of my head. It would soon flow over my forehead. I leaped up; I said: ‘I must go—I ain’t well—let me out—I must go.’ But the storekeeper stood before me, and made me sit down again. Had I been right and strong within, I could not have done it. But a conscience-stung man will do anything,—he is a coward, and his heart is wax.
“I sat down, with a feeling as though I was stifled. The butter kept on melting; it ran down over my face, and I wiped it off with my mittens and comforter. I never before dreamed how much oil there was in a pound of butter. Would it ever cease to flow?
“Well, the storekeeper let me go at last, and told me of the fun that my punishment had given him. Stranger, I deserved the punishment; I acknowledge it was just. But I wished that he had taken some other way, and given me a chance. I was not wholly bad; I might not have been where I am now.
“The next day all the people in the town were laughing at me. Stranger, there is nothing that kills a man like ridicule, and since that time I’ve cared for nothing but to trip, trip about, and do chores, and beg, and throw stones at the boys. Stranger, I sometimes wish that I was young again when I hear the robins sing. But the spring stalk never blooms twice. Stranger, I was to blame. Ah, well, my glass is almost run; it can never be turned again.”
On one side of the square, across the street, was an orchard-yard, and some low, budding peach-trees. Into the boughs of this yard robins came chirping and singing while the old man was speaking, and when he became silent the birds sang again. The old man listened to the first song of the robin, and, turning to me, said:—
“Robins? It’s spring again. I’m glad the winter is over. I like to hear the robins when they first begin to sing. About the only friends I’ve got is the robins.”
“How is that, my friend?”
“Stranger—ha—you’ve read about old Bible times? They used to stone people who stole in those days. They don’t do so now, but it’s just as bad—wrongdoers throw stones at themselves. All my troubles began with stealing a pound of butter. I began to throw stones at myself, and the world only followed me.”
The sun grew warm. The purple sea rolled afar, here and there white with flying sails and with the long breakers that churned on rocks and ledges. A robin seemed to catch the inspiration of the day, and her voice quivered with thrilling joy and flute-like heraldings.
“Just hear that bird,” said the old man. “I’d like to have a robin sing over me after I am gone. No one cares for me, and I seem to have lost interest in everything. Well, I’m rested now, and I must travel on.”
He rose and hobbled away, his face turned upward toward the sun. When he had gone a little distance, he stopped to hear the spring robin sing again. He seemed to catch a moment of happiness; then his face fell, and he went on.
I inquired in regard to the history of this man at the hotel.
“He has no friends, and lives all alone,” said the clerk. “There’s a piece in the reading-book about him, or a man like him; you may have seen it.”
“Is it called ‘A Melting Story’?” I asked.
“Yes; I think that is the title of it.”
“A Melting Story!” The last scene of all was indeed a melting story, and one that left not only tears in my eyes, but a lesson in my experience!
Ten years had passed, and I was again in the same port city, and visited the same neighborhood. The memory of my old class came back to me, and with it the thought of “Trip-Trip-to-Dee-Dee.” I made inquiry of a friend about the old man.
“His journey is over at last,” was the answer. “He was very old when he died,—over an hundred, I think. He lived alone, and I have heard that he died alone. He used to think the robins came to sing to him.
“The joke of the pound of butter ruined him, and followed him to the end of his life.
“Wherever he used to go, the air was sure to ring with the shout: ‘Who stole the butter?’
“One day he went hobbling out of town. ‘I shall never come back again,’ he said. ‘They have stoned me to death with their cries. Old Seth is going where he will have peace, and the robins will sing over him, when the spring comes to the harbor. Old Seth is now going for good to the robins.’
“The prophecy was true. When we go out to ride I will show you where he used to live.”
That afternoon we rode in sight of the sea. My friend turned into a quiet way at last. We came to a hut, and near it was a heap of stones, and over the door was a robin’s nest.
“They say he used to live there. I do not know. But for a generation he was a wellnigh homeless wanderer in these roads and streets. The inhumanity shown to that poor old witless man is something more than a melting story. A single evil report may follow a man to the death of his self-respect, and much that is good in his heart and soul. I pity the lips that taunt a man like that.”
I thought of the old reading-class and of James, and I read in James’s question the lesson that it had intended to imply. My dear old pupil was right, at least, in the charity of his thought, and I shall always love his memory in association with the curious history of “Trip-Trip-to-Dee-Dee.”