Old Days at Beverly Farms

by Mary Larcom Dow

The striped grass is still growing in one corner of my garden—the very same roots that were there in my childhood, and up to a year or so ago, the old lilac bush that Uncle Ed. Larcom picked blossoms from when he was a small boy, was there too. Aunt Betsey's garden was a beautiful combination of use and loveliness. All along the stone wall grew red-blossomed barm and in the long beds were hyssop (she called it isop) and rue and marigolds and catnip and camomile and sage and sweet marjoram and martinoes. Martinoes were funny things with a beautiful, ill-smelling bloom which looked like an orchid, and when the blossoms dropped there succeeded an odd shaped fruit, with spines and a long tail, which was used for pickles. Then there were king cups, a glorified buttercup, and a lovely little blue flower called "Star of Bethlehem" and four o'clocks. Right here I want to say that Frank Gaudreau has more varieties of four o'clocks than I ever supposed were known to lovers of flowers and I think he deserves the thanks of the village for his pretty garden.

All the different herbs were carefully gathered by Aunt Betsey, and tied in bundles, and hung up to the rafters of the old attic. Sometimes I fancy I can smell them now on a damp day, and I like to recall the dear old lady in her tyer and cap, busy with her simples. I like to think of her as my tutelar divinity for I came to love her dearly, though I am sure that when I was first landed in her house, I was a big trial. Elsie Doane remembered another garden of that time, where, she says, they never picked a flower. I remember it too, but I had forgotten that they didn't pick the flowers. It flourished right where the engine house and those other buildings stand, and Elsie thinks the garden reached way out to the sign post. Uncle Asa Ober owned that garden—the ancestor of Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Hooper and Helen Campbell, and many others of our fast fading away villagers. His two stepdaughters were cousins to my mother, and they had a little shop in an ell that ran from the house to the street, where they did dressmaking and millinery.

Right in front of the shop was the garden all fenced in, but I had the right of way for I could sing! And whenever I learned a new music from Joe Low's Singing School, I used to be called in to act as prima donna to the two ladies.

There were cucumbers in the garden extension and artichokes by the old walls.

But my regrets are not for the gardens. We have gardens now, but nobody can bring back the beautiful fields, stretching from the woods to the sea, where cows and oxen grazed. Nobody can bring back the brooks, now polluted and turned into ditches. Nobody can bring back the roadsides bordered with wild roses, now tunneled and bean-poled out of all beauty. I do love some of our summer people, particularly those who have kept their hands off and have not removed the old landmarks, but I find it hard to forgive the bean-poling and the cementing. Look at the lovely old Sandy Hill Road (West Street). Over these happy summer fields of the olden days walked James Russell Lowell and his beautiful betrothed, Maria White. Later he came again,—but without her. Among those old first visitors to our Shore were John Glen King and Ellis Gray Loring. These two gentlemen married sisters, southern women I think; they took kindly to our New England cookery. Mrs. King, one day, asked my aunt, Mrs. Prince, if she could give them a salt fish dinner, with an Essex sauce. Mrs. Prince knew all about a salt fish dinner, but the Essex sauce floored her, and she humbly acknowledged her ignorance. "Oh," said Mrs. King, "it is very simple. You take thin slices of fat pork and fry them out." Mrs. Prince laughed and proceeded to her kitchen to make "pork dip." Mrs. King also liked a steamed huckleberry pudding and she said "And please, Mrs. Prince, make it all huckleberries, with just enough flour to hold them together." We got four or five cents a quart when we picked these same huckleberries. I did not have a very big bank account in that direction, owing to my short sight, and to my preference for making corn stalk fiddles with a jack-knife. I remember making one on a Sunday morning, uninterrupted by the "Sabbathday dog" which was supposed to lie in wait for Sabbath breakers.

Diagonally opposite my house lived Mr. Nathaniel Haskell, a little old gentleman, who wore a cut away blue coat, with buttons on the tail, over which, in cool weather, he put a green baize jacket. How funny he looked. He was interested in what he called the tar-iff, and he was awfully afraid of lightning. I remember the whole family filing into our dining room whenever a specially dark cloud appeared. I do not think a single descendant of "Uncle Nat" is left here, tho' there was a large family.

There was a cheese press in our back yard and "changing milk" was a great scheme. One week all the milk from four or five farms would be sent to us and my mother would make delicious sage cheese.

Then, the next week all the milk would go to "Uncle Nat's," and so on, till all the cow owners were supplied with cheeses, which were duly greased with butter and put on shelves to dry, a sight to make the prophet smile.