They are that still, and they will be evermore! A finer, more loyal body of young men it would be hard to find in New England, or elsewhere. It has happened so often that I have come to look for it, that, on steamer or train, on the street or in hotel, I am accosted by a middle-aged man—invariably highly respectable in appearance—with—
“I beg your pardon. Let me recall myself to your memory. I belonged to your Bible-class in Springfield.”
If, as usually happens, he adds to his name, “One of your boys”—the ashes are blown away from the embers of long-past acquaintanceship. The talk that ensues invariably emphasizes the pleasing fact that, if there were a black sheep in our fold, he has, up to date, escaped detection.
God bless each and every one of them!
I cannot close the chapter that has to do with our Springfield days, without paying a brief tribute to two who played important parts in the drama of our family life. Both have passed from mortal vision, and I may, therefore, name them freely.
The house built for us by a parishioner in the pleasantest part of the city, was in the immediate neighborhood of the homestead of the late Samuel Bowles, the well-known proprietor of the Springfield Republican. The house was now occupied by his widow and family. To the warm friendship that grew up between Mrs. Bowles and myself I owe more than I can trust my pen to express here. From our earliest meeting, the “middle wall of partition” of strangerhood ceased to be to either of us. Hers, as I often reminded her, was the one and only house in the place into which I could drop, between the lights, unannounced, when the humor seized me, and without putting on hat or coat. The ascent of the half-block of space dividing our doors is ever associated in my mind with the gloaming and moonlight, and slipping away from duties to relax thought and tongue, for one calming and sweetening half-hour, in the society of one “who knew.” It was not alone that, as one who had been born, and had lived out her girlhood in the Middle States, her range of ideas and sympathies was not limited by the circle of hills binding Springfield into a close corporation. Her great, warm heart took in the homesick stranger that I was, for many a month after transplantation, and gave me a corner of my very own. She was a safe, as well as an appreciative listener, and gave me many a hint respecting my new environment that wrought out good to me. Her fine sense of humor was another bond that drew us together. The snug sitting-room, looking upon the quiet street, up which the shadows gathered slowly on summer evenings, and where the sleigh-bells jingled shrilly in the early winter twilight, echoed to bursts of laughter better befitting a pair of school-girls than two matrons who were both on the shady side of fifty. I was in the earthly Jerusalem, with my son, when the gates of the Celestial City opened to receive her faithful, loving spirit. I am sure that, as Bunyan affirmed when another travel-worn pilgrim entered into rest, “All the bells of the city rang for joy.”
In April, 1884, our eldest daughter became the wife of James Frederick Herrick, one of the Republican’s editorial staff. We left her in Springfield when, in the same year, we returned to the Middle States to take up our abode for the next twelve years in Brooklyn. We could not have left her in safer, tenderer keeping. A brother-editor said of him once that he “had a heart of fire in a case of ice.” The simile did not do justice to the gentle courtesy and dignity that lent a touch of old-school courtliness to manner and address. In all the intimate association of the next ten years, I never saw in him an act, or heard a word that approximated unkindness or incivility. I wrote him down then, as I do now, as in all respects, the thorough gentleman in what makes the much-abused word a badge of honor. His ideals were high and pure; his life, private and professional, above reproach.
“The stuff martyrs and heroes are made of,” said one who knew him well and long.
He would have died for the truth; he would have laid down his life with a smile for his wife and children. Such harmonious blending of strength and sweetness as were found in the life of this man—modest to a fault, and resolute to a proverb—I have never seen in another.