I dwell much on the recollections of the doings of the day, but the nights had also their joys, none greater than the rain on the roof and the exquisite, semi-conscious moments when sleep began to overtake body and soul, gently extinguishing them in a soothing, delicious languor. The low country attic is the true house of dreams, where the good, the strange or the fearful spirits play over the subjected and helpless will. Long time I remembered some of those dreams which visited my truckle bed, placed on rollers a foot from the floor and thrice as many from the ridge pole. In winter, tightly tucked in by a loving mother, the cold without only made me feel the more snug and warm within. The snow sifted through the chinks in the loose shingles, making little white hillocks on the floor, and often I found enough on my pillow in the morning to press into a snowball and pelt my sister, who slept at the other end of the attic.
I follow no order in my narrative: I wander; but how can one go far in the small and circumscribed region of earliest memories, bound each to each by some inwardly felt affinity, which neither time nor world wanderings can dissever? One thing suggests another and the connection must be found in the things themselves. Cranberry picking carried me forward into springtime; now I return to the autumn, the harvest season, when although not old enough to dig my mother's small patch of potatoes, I could pick them up in a basket. She herself handled the hoe uncovering the long reds and the white Chenangos. I liked better to shake down apples than to gather things from the ground; for to climb trees is as much a boy's as a monkey's instinct. That was my first thought when I happened to observe any kind of tree, could I climb it? The wild grapes which grew in profusion along the banks of our river clambering over the tall grey birches gave me glorious opportunities for climbing, as the sweetest and largest clusters were always at the very top of the trees. The limbs of the grey birch, although small, are very elastic and tough, making a sure footing for the climber. The danger was, that, as he approached the slender spire of the tree, it would suddenly bend or break and drop him into the water. This was all the more fun, if he could swim. When he reached home he was liable to have his jacket not only dried but "warmed," which was the colloquial for a thrashing. I usually sold grapes enough during the day of the Fall militia training to keep me in pocket money through the winter. This was my first effort at any kind of trading and, I think, spoilt me for a commercial career; for there was no cost, no capital, no loss; all was profit; and ever since that day it has seemed to me the only manner of doing business worth while. There are, or were, other compensations in a life of trade, which might fire the ambition of a strenuous youth. I remember three voyages made the merchant a Thane in ancient England.
When frost began to brown the grass and brighten the trees, the woods were full of boys, partridges and squirrels. The boys and squirrels, much alike in their appetites and ability to climb trees, were intent on gathering a store of nuts for winter. In early morning after a sharp frost, the chestnut burrs opened and the nuts dropped out, falling and hiding among the leaves. There we hunted for them; the squirrels did not appear to have to hunt, but put their intelligent paws under the leaves with an infallible instinct. They were always on the ground earlier than we, and filled their cheeks before we had filled our bags and pockets. What extraordinary care the chestnut takes of herself; a rough outer garment bristling with sharp needles, and within, the whitest, silkiest lining fit for the cradle of a baby queen. To prevent accidents and a more easy delivery from the burr, the nut is annointed with a slight exudation of oil, which gives a soft, agreeable feeling as you hold it in your hand. Doubtless it acts as a preservative also keeping the nut from becoming too soon dry and hard. Chestnuts were laid away for future use, to be brought out on winter evenings with cider and apples. Nobody thought of going to bed without first eating something. Sometimes the chestnuts were roasted in the ashes on the hearth, and less often boiled. Of all places to warm them, a boy's pocket was the best; there they were handiest to eat on the road, or at school, when the teacher was not looking. If caught in the act, you were called up to her desk and forfeited the contents of your pocket. It might be returned to you if you had behaved yourself meanwhile and had not whispered, thrown spit balls, or pinched the little girl who sat next to you. There were two kinds of walnut trees in the neighborhood; the common name of one was shagbark, of the other pignut. The shagbark was the walnut of the market, a nut with a rich, oily kernel; the pignut was smaller with a very thick shell and correspondingly small meat, hard to separate from the shell. They were of little worth, not salable and we gathered them only when the other kind was scarce. It took a hard frost, several times repeated, to loosen them from the tree. We often clubbed them down. It was a perilous undertaking to climb a walnut tree, for the limbs began to grow high up and the trunk was covered with a rough bark, hence the name shagbark; to shin up, and still more to descend, was apt to make patches or a new seat to your trousers your mother's evening work after you had gone to bed. Where grew anything good to eat and free to all, a boy was sure to have it, although it cost him subsequent patches, whippings and tears. Shall the squirrel hunt for nuts and the little sons of men be forbidden, just to save a new pair of breeches, or an old jacket? But the woes of country boyhood are naught in comparison to its joys, and a day in a berry field, or a morning among the chestnut trees, under the blue sky and a west wind, with merry companions, is a memory that outshines all the purchased pleasures of later life. Confess to me, ye humble and trivial things, confess what charms were yours, which never the flood of years submerges. Alas, they have no speech. I hear but a strain of imperishable music.
APPRENTICESHIPS
HOME AND HOMESICKNESS
It was thought best in New England country towns that boys, who were not needed on the farm and were not to be educated beyond the common school, should learn some trade. As my mother possessed no land nor any means to send me to academy and college, it was early decided to apprentice me to a trade with some good master. There was another reason; she did not feel able nor competent to manage me when I should be older. She had a presentiment that it would require a stronger hand than her own gentle one to guide me in a straight path. Always after the death of her husband, her only means of meeting her difficulties and perplexities was by prayer. Three times each day, after the morning, noon and evening meals she retired to her own chamber to pray. She read none but religious books and the Bible. Her Bible was the wedding gift of her husband—that and one silver spoon marked with his and her initials J. A. and E. T. intertwined after the manner of silversmiths. My father appears to have been the owner of but one book, Cotton Mather's, "Essays to do Good," which I still possess and, alas, could never read through. Of course the title of the volume at the date of its republication, 1808, had been greatly reduced. No Mather would be satisfied with a title much less expansive than the contents, nor wanting some Latin interlardings. The original title was "Benifacias," followed by ten lines of sub-titles. This was unusual reserve for one of Cotton Mather's productions. In its day it was as popular as is the worst novel of ours, and was continually being republished. Even Dr. Franklin read and praised it and professed that it had influenced his whole life. The preface is a fine specimen of the manner in which a popular Boston preacher at the beginning of the eighteenth century expressed himself when he appeared in print. It has all the airs and attudinizing of a full dress ball-room. He says that a passage in the speech of a British envoy suggested the book and declares of it, "Ink were too vile a liquor to write that passage. Letters of gold were too mean to be the preservers of it. Paper of Amyanthus would not be precious and perennous enough to perpetuate it."
A prayerful mother, the Bible and the Rev. Cotton Mather ought to have been sufficient to turn out good boys from any household. Then there was Sunday-school where we were much instructed about the nature and consequences of sin and the end that awaited bad boys. Notwithstanding, some closer and more practical guidance was needed for a growing lad; something to put him in the way of preparing to earn his living. Accordingly in my eighth year I was turned over to an uncle, my father's only brother, who lived in the next town. He was a boot maker with four sons of his own. At once I found myself cut off from all the objects and persons I had ever known, thrown into a strange world, my own lost as completely as if I had gone to another. I found myself introduced to a small room up a flight of stairs at the end of the shed of my uncle's house. The room was full of windows, all of which looked in the direction of my lost home; it had a number of low shoemaker's benches ranged along three of its sides. Here my uncle and two of his sons made boots. I was directed to one of the benches and began by being taught how to use a waxed end and stitch the counters of bootlegs. Never in my life before had I been pinned to one spot for any length of time save on a school bench; never before set at any work that was not or that could not be made half play. A deadly home-sickness at once seized upon me, of which I could not be cured by all the kindness and encouragement of my uncle and aunt. I was constantly looking out of the shop windows, expecting some one to come and rescue me. Constantly I wept and could not swallow my food for the lump in my throat; at last food was loathsome and my eyes became so swollen with continual tears that I could scarcely see to thread my needle. Thus I suffered for three weeks and my young heart was wounded and broken past all cure. My nature was changed from that time; a kind of depression and melancholy, took the place of my natural gaiety. I can readily believe, such were my misery and agony, that one might die of home-sickness. I recall it so well that I can diagnose its symptoms which are like those of a fever. It comes over one in paroxysms, followed by a great calm as from sudden cessation of acute pain, then by a choking sensation, a terrible sinking of the heart, down, down, all things swim in the convulsion of lost senses until tears once more relieve the overwrought soul. To add to my misery my two young cousins would have nothing to do with me. For the entire three weeks I never spoke a word; the moment I tried I choked and burst into tears. No wonder my cousins and other boys avoided me. Such a baby was past their comprehension or tolerance. In my own natural place I should have had no more mercy on such an one. It is remarkable how early boys begin to trim each other into manly character; they instantly discover and attack any little weakness, and with rough and ready hand or tongue make the weakling or the upstart ashamed of himself. But no treatment harsh or kind could cure a homesick child, and one day my uncle said he was going to see my mother, and that I was to go with him. Oh, how my spirits recovered themselves! I never thought of the return; only to go, to be once more in my own home, with my own river, fields and companions, filled me with ecstacy. I went and I did not return. I did not know what was said between my mother and uncle; I saw him drive away and leave me behind with unspeakable joy. For many subsequent days I observed my mother's sorrowful eyes when she spoke to me. Her first experiment, which promised so well, had failed. If she was disappointed, I was sobered and much easier to manage from that time forth: I tried to please my mother. Our old way of life went on its usual round. Again the little Red House was happy. I resumed my play under the garden apple tree or on the great rock in the corner of the orchard. That year I mastered the alphabet, and I was given a slate and pencil for the purpose of keeping me still when not saying my letters. The school days of that period are memorable to me, chiefly from the recesses and the noon intermission an hour long. It was in that hour I became intimate with some little girls, and found that I liked them as well as boy playmates. How we choose our favorite companions, no man is wise enough to know; yet choice there certainly was, with no formality or effort. How could it be otherwise? From the troop by the door or the roadside, eating their dinner from basket or pail or playing games, some predestined affinity drew away a boy and maid to the birchen bower, where with one mind they set up mimic housekeeping and forbade the entrance of strange children. There one cloak covered them both. Or they rambled hand in hand through the woods, or waded in the shallow water of Beaver brook down to the stone arch bridge where the confined streamlet gurgled softly over the slimy pebbles, and the arch echoed to the sound of their voices. What matter though pantalets and little breeches, pulled up as high as they could be, were wet with jumping and splashing; hot sun and warm blood would soon dry them. Wrinkles and limpness might betray them when they returned to the mother's fold at night, but her reproaches had no terror nor any restraint for happy children, who alone know the secrets of their own pleasures and have no remembrance of interference with them. With boy and boy there is a perfect equality; no pretentions are allowed, except those of age. With maid and boy it is different. With my companion, I wished to appear superior, to show her things, even to attempt to explain them; and thus I myself learned to observe natural objects and to love them. She was my teacher, although I believed myself hers. She listened, she looked up at me and asked another question, and so I see her to this day. How should I not become wise? If not, it is no fault of hers. My Launa, whom I led through the woods, along the water courses, and to whom I promised, that some day we would catch a cloud and ride around the sky visiting the moon and stars, yes, it was Launa to whom I promised everything, and promised because she wished it, and I felt it my business to seem able to gratify all her desires. She already led me captive; well she knew it, and loved to test me with impossible demands. She dared me to do a hundred things, which attempting and failing, I boldly declared I had done. Just as willing to be deceived as I to deceive, she never questioned my lie, but led me on to some fresh feat, some brook or fence to leap, or inaccessible flower or berry to bring her. Already I got out of difficulties by changing the subject, by evading the challenge and diverting her to some other object, play or plan to which she as readily listened. How proud, how important and superior I felt and with what trust the little siren permitted it. Among all my apprenticeships this to Launa Probana was that which taught me most and is most ineffaceable.