“Roxbury, July 26th, 1838.
“My dear Wife,—Your esteemed letter of the 20th is at hand, and it has relieved my mind to hear that you are all doing so well. I suppose you expect a history of my movements here. Well, on Saturday morning went to Boston; in the evening took mother and called on all my Dorchester friends—stayed with some five minutes, with others fifteen, etc. Sunday, went to church; very dry sermon in morning; evening attended Mr. Abbot’s church; was much pleased with the preaching—text—‘And there came one running and kneeling to Him, and said,’ etc. At night attended at same place what they call a ‘Conference Meeting’—quite an interesting time. Monday, went to Brookline—visited sisters. Tea at Mr. Davis’s; music of the best kind in abundance. Tuesday to Boston in morning, evening at home to receive company. Quite a pleasant afternoon; a good many Dorchester friends calling. Wednesday morning as usual in the city; evening held a grand levee: the street filled with chaises and carriages; some twenty or more to tea. Really, my visit has created quite a sensation among our good friends; some met yesterday afternoon who have not seen each other for ten or more years. Don’t you think I had better come here oftener to keep up the family acquaintance? for it seems to require some extraordinary event to set these good folks to using their powers of locomotion. By-the-by, you must not be jealous, but I had a lady kiss me yesterday, for the first time it was ever done here, and who do you think it was? My cousin Mary, of whom you have heard me speak. I have so much love given in charge for you, my own dear wife, that it will be necessary to send a part of it in this letter for fear that I should not be able to travel with it all. I am especially directed to bear from a lady two kisses to you from her, and they shall be faithfully delivered when we are permitted to meet. You don’t know how many inquiries have been made after you, and regrets expressed that you did not come on with me. Mother says, ‘Tell Anna I should like for Samuel to stay longer, but know that he is wanting at home, so will not say a word at his leaving.’ She sends much love to her daughter Anna. Father keeps coming in, and from his movements I judge he is waiting for me to finish. You know he is clock-work, so adieu once more. Give my love to the girls, and all at the parsonage. Kiss the children for father. I must now close my letter by commending you to the care and protection of Him who preserves, guides, and directs us in all things. May His choicest blessing rest on you, my dear wife, and on the children of our love! Adieu, my dear wife.
“Your husband,
“Samuel.”
Thus cheerily runs the old-fashioned family epistle. The writer, who never demitted the habit of going to church twice every Sunday, and sometimes thrice, does not comment upon the coincidence that he hears again a sermon from the text used and “improved” by a Virginia divine, two years ago. His mind was full of other things just now. This one of his annual visits to his mother was a glad holiday. The world was going smoothly with him, and the hearty congratulations of townspeople and kindred were a-bubble. His mother was happy in her second marriage. The good deacon was “father” to her son and his wife, and filled the rôle well.
My father’s namesake son, Samuel Horace, was born earlier in the summer.
Although the month was June, the weather must have been cold or damp, for a low wood fire burned upon the hearth one afternoon as I crept into the “chamber” to get a peep at the three-days-old baby, and perchance to have a talk with my mother. The nurse, before leaving the room on an errand, had laid the infant upon a pillow in a rocking-chair (I have it now!) There was no cradle in the house, and one had been ordered from Richmond. My mother was asleep, and, I supposed, had the baby beside her. Stealing noiselessly across the floor, I backed up to the Boston rocker, in childish fashion, put my hands upon the arms of the chair, and raised myself on tiptoe, when the child (aroused, I fancy, by his guardian angel, prescient of the good he would accomplish in the world he had just entered, and compassionate of the remorseful wight whose life would be blighted by the impending deed) stretched out his arms and yawned. I saw the movement under my lifted arm, and dropped flat upon the rug. I must have crouched there for half an hour, a prey to horrible imaginings of what might have been. My mother did not awaken, and the baby went to sleep again. The shock would have been terrific to any child. To a dreamer like myself, the visions that flitted between me and the red embers were as varied as they were fearful. Lucy Bragg’s tragic death had killed her mother and the baby-boy. If I had crushed our new baby, my own sweet mother would have died with him. I saw myself at their funeral, beside the coffin holding them both, and my father shrinking in abhorrence from the murderess. Forecasting long years to come, I pictured a stricken and solitary woman, shunned by innocent people who had never broken the sixth commandment, and cowering beside a brier-grown grave, crying as I had read somewhere, “Would to God I had died when I was born!”
I do not think I shed a tear. Tears were dried up by the voiceless misery. I know I could not sleep that night for hours and hours. I know, too, that I never told the shameful thing—the almost murder—to a living creature until it was ten years old.
I appreciate, most clearly of all, that my baby-brother became from that hour, in some sort, my especial property. The peculiar tenderness that has characterized our feeling for each other, the steadfast affection and perfect confidence in our mutual love that have known no variableness or shadow of turning, for all our united lives, may not have been rooted in the vigil of unutterable horror and unspeakable thankfulness. I look back upon it as a chrism.
Later in the year, another incident that might have been a tragedy, stirred the even flow of domestic life. We had finished prayers and breakfast, and my father was half-way down the avenue on his way to the village when we saw him stop suddenly, retrace his steps hurriedly, enter the yard, and shout to the colored butler who was at the dining-room window. The man ran out and came back shortly, dragging Argus and Rigo into the hall with him, shutting the front door. My father was taking down his gun from the hooks on the wall of the hall, and, without a word, began to load it.
One of the earliest of our nursery lessons was, “Never ask questions of busy people!” My mother set the example of obedience to this precept now by silence while her husband, with set lips and resolute eyes, rammed down a charge of buckshot into the barrel, and, saying, “Keep the children in the house!” ran down the steps and down the avenue at the top of his speed toward the big gate opening upon the village street a hundred yards away.