Harriet Beecher Stowe: a biography for girls

by Martha Foote Crow

“Nominative, he; possessive, his; objective, him.”

“Yes,” said the young teacher. “You see, his is possessive. Now you can say, his book, but you cannot say him book.”

“Yes, I do say hymn-book, too,” said the incorrigible scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of his sallies produced from the teacher a laugh, which was the victory he wanted.

“But now, Henry, seriously. Just attend to the active and passive voice. Now I strike is active, you see, because if you strike you do something. But I am struck is passive, because if you are struck you don’t do anything, do you?”

“Yes, I do; I strike back again.”

When Harriet was old enough to become the instructor of a frisky pupil like this she may well have found that the New England Catechism occasionally brought her to her wit’s end.

The church to which the Beecher children were regularly led was one of those square, bald structures of which but few have come down to us from the old times. It was wide, roomy, and of a desolate plainness. During the long hours of the sermon the youngsters, perched in a row on a low seat in front of the pulpit, attempted occasionally sundry small exercises of their own, such as making their handkerchiefs into rabbits, or exhibiting slyly the apples and gingerbread they had brought for the Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears of some discreet, meeting-going dog, who now and then soberly pit-a-patted through the broad aisle. But woe be to them, says Harriet, if during those contraband sports they should see the sleek head of the Deacon dodge up from behind the top of his seat. Instantly all the apples, gingerbread and handkerchiefs would vanish and the whole row of children would be seen sitting there with their hands folded looking as demure as if they understood every word of the sermon and more, too.

Mrs. Stowe says that her book, “Poganuc People,” consists of chapters taken right out of her own life, and so we may read the name “Harriet” in the place of “Dolly” all the way through. We may believe, then, that Harriet was disposed of in all those shorthand methods by which children were taught to be the least possible trouble. She was told to come when called, and to do as she was bid without question or argument, to be quiet in bed at the earliest possible hour of the night, and, in the presence of her elders, to speak only when spoken to. All this was a great repression to Harriet, who was by nature a lively, excitable little thing, bursting with questions that she longed to ask, and with comments and remarks that she burned to make. Perhaps it never distinctly occurred to her to murmur at her lot in life, yet at times she must have sighed over the dreadful insignificance of being only a little girl in a great family of grown-up people. For even the brothers nearest her own age were studying at the Academy and spouting scraps of superior Latin at her to make her stare and wonder at their learning. They were tearing, noisy, tempestuous boys, good-natured enough and willing to pet her at intervals, but prompt to suggest that it was time for her to go to bed when her questions or her gambols interfered with their evening pleasures.

Moreover, since Harriet was a robust, healthy little creature, she received none of the petting which a more delicate child might have claimed. The general course of her experience impressed her with the mournful conviction that she was always likely to be in the way. But if she was it was because of her childish curiosity, and of her burning desire to see and hear all that interested the grown people about her.

At that time there were no amusements especially provided for children, no children’s books, and no Sunday schools to teach bright little songs and to give children picnics and presents. It was a grown people’s world. The toys of the period were so poor and so few that, in comparison with our modern profusion, they could scarcely be said to exist. Harriet was, however, not without some home-made toys, and we are glad to believe that a doll baby, though perhaps only a rag one, was, in the course of providential events, assigned to little, human-hearted Harriet Beecher.