When I was your age

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

I remember Edwin Booth, in the early days, when his brilliant genius and the splendor of his melancholy beauty were taking all hearts by storm. He was very shy, this all-powerful Richelieu, this conquering Richard, this princely Hamlet. He came to a party given in his honor by our mother, and instead of talking to all the fine people who were dying for a word with him, he spent nearly the whole evening in a corner with little Maud, who enjoyed herself immensely. What wonder, when he made dolls for her out of handkerchiefs, and danced them with dramatic fervor? She was very gracious to Mr. Booth, which was a good thing; for one never knew just what Maud would say or do. Truth compels me to add that she was the enfant terrible of the family, and that the elders always trembled when visitors noticed or caressed the beautiful child.

One day, I remember, a very wise and learned man came to Green Peace to see our mother,—a man of high reputation, and withal a valued friend. He was fond of children, and took Maud on his knee, meaning to have a pleasant chat with her. But Maud fixed her great gray eyes on him, and surveyed him with an air of keen and hostile criticism. “What makes all those little red lines in your nose?” she asked, after an ominous silence. Mr. H——, somewhat taken aback, explained as well as he could the nature of the veins, and our mother was about to send the child on some suddenly-bethought-of errand, when her clear, melodious voice broke out again, relentless, insistent: “Do you know, I think you are the ugliest man I ever saw in my life!” “That will do, Maud!” said Mr. H——, putting her down from his knee. “You are charming, but you may go now, my dear.” Then he and our mother both tried to become very much interested in metaphysics; and next day he went and asked a mutual friend if he were really the ugliest man that ever was seen, telling her what Maud had said.

Again, there was a certain acquaintance—long since dead—who was in the habit of making interminable calls at Green Peace, and who would talk by the hour together without pausing. Our parents were often wearied by this gentleman’s conversational powers, and one of them (let this be a warning to young and old) chanced one day to speak of him in Maud’s hearing as “a great bore.” This was enough! The next time the unlucky talker appeared, the child ran up to him, and greeted him cordially with, “How do you do, bore? Oh, you great bore!” A quick-witted friend who was in the room instantly asked Mr. S—— if he had seen the copy of Snyder’s “Boar Hunt” which our father had lately bought, thinking it better that he should fancy himself addressed as a beast of the forest than as Borus humanus; but he kept his own counsel, and we never knew what he really thought of Maud’s greeting.

But of all visitors at either house, there was one whom we loved more than all others put together. Marked with a white stone was the happy day which brought the wonderful uncle, the fairy godfather, the realization of all that is delightful in man, to Green Peace or the Valley. Uncle Sam Ward!—uncle by adoption to half the young people he knew, but our very own uncle, our mother’s beloved brother. We might have said to him, with Shelley,—

“Rarely, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of delight!”

for he was a busy man, and Washington was a long way off; but when he did come, as I said, it was a golden day. We fairly smothered him,—each child wanting to sit on his knee, to see his great watch, and the wonderful sapphire that he always wore on his little finger. Then he must sing for us; and he would sing the old Studenten Lieder in his full, joyous voice; but he must always wind up with “Balzoroschko Schnego” (at least that is what it sounded like), a certain Polish drinking-song, in which he sneezed and yodeled, and did all kinds of wonderful things.

Then would come an hour of quiet talk with our mother, when we knew enough to be silent and listen,—feeling, perhaps, rather than realizing that it was not a common privilege to listen to such talk.

“No matter how much I may differ from Sam Ward in principles or opinion,” said Charles Sumner once, “when I have been with him five minutes, I forget everything except that he is the most delightful man in the world.”

Again (but this was the least part of the pleasure), he never came empty-handed. Now it was a basket of wonderful peaches, which he thought might rival ours; now a gold bracelet for a niece’s wrist; now a beautiful book, or a pretty dress-pattern that had caught his eye in some shop-window. Now he came direct from South America, bringing for our mother a silver pitcher which he had won as a prize at a shooting-match in Paraguay. One of us will never forget being waked in the gray dawn of a summer morning at the Valley, by the sound of a voice singing outside,—will never forget creeping to the window and peeping out through the blinds. There on the door-step stood the fairy uncle, with a great basket of peaches beside him; and he was singing the lovely old French song, which has always since then seemed to me to belong to him:

“Noble Châtelaine,
Voyez notre peine,
Et dans vos domaines
Rendez charité!
Voyez le disgrace
Qui nous menace,
Et donnez, par grace,
L’hospitalité!
Toi que je révère,
Entends ma prière.
O Dieu tutelaire,
Viens dans ta bonte,
Pour sauver l’innocence,
Et que ta puissance
Un jour recompense
L’hospitalité!”