“Signora, è un honore di farla, la benvenuta!” Then turning to the two trembling children, he said:
“And these I shall call my leetle vite mice!”
One little white mouse was frightened as she rarely remembers having been.
If Papanti’s biography has not been written, it should be. He was the Czar of dancing masters, a stern but beneficent despot; the inventor of the classic Boston waltz, the best of all round dances. While he lived and ruled, Boston girls and boys had the name of being the best dancers in the country; he taught at least five generations of us, and is gratefully remembered by many elderly beaux and belles. With shy, heavy-footed, or awkward children, he was satirical to the verge of cruelty,—a cruelty that was really kindness, for he labored with that biting satire of his to make the children committed to his care little ladies and gentlemen with good manners, as well as twinkling feet. I cannot remember Mr. Papanti without the fiddle, on which he played for us beginners. I can feel the tip of his bow against my toes, as he tapped my feet into the “first position.” How he labored to teach Kitty and me to make a proper courtesy.
“’Eels together, slide ze right foot to ze right, left foot out be’ind, one, two, t’ree; one, two, t’ree; one, two, t’ree!”
We were taught the waltz, galop, polka, lancers, and quadrille. The best dancers learned the gavotte and shawl dance, to the secret envy of the others. The Burgess boys, Sydney and Edward (the famous yacht builder) and one or two more brothers, wonderfully turned out lads, with immaculate clothes and tightly curling hair, were the champion dancers among the boys; Annie Merwin, Susie Spring, and Fannie Bartlett among the girls. On the wonderful “last day”, the dancing class was transformed into a real party. The boys wore white kid gloves—on ordinary days only the girls sported them. The brown holland disappeared from benches and wall hangings, revealing a handsome dark-blue brocade. The crystal chandelier came out of its chrysalis and became a blaze of glory. There was a real orchestra in the “Minstrel’s Gallery”; the mysterious double doors leading to the supper room were thrown wide, the boys coerced into offering ice cream and cake to their partners before falling-to themselves. The benches were crowded with admiring parents; some, to encourage the youngsters, “took a turn” with the dancing master or his assistant, Miss Hunt, a correct lady in brown silk, gloves to match, and bronze slippers!
Most of the children came from the exclusive quarter known as “Beacon Street” and belonged to the conservative class called by the Young Whigs, “Hunkers.” On a certain afternoon, soon after my introduction to Papanti’s, I came running home, weeping bitterly, and threw myself into my mother’s arms, crying out:
“Mama, Mama! What is an abolitionist? Are we that sort of thing? The big girls at the dancing school wouldn’t speak to the Andrew children and me; they said we were nasty little abolitionists.”
This was the first, but not the last time that I have been made to suffer for holding a minority opinion. I connect this incident with General McClellan’s visit to Boston, in the year of emancipation, 1862. Feeling ran very high over the question of McClellan’s loyalty. My father, Governor Andrew, and Charles Sumner thought little of him, but the Hunkers made much of him, invited him to Boston, where they held a great reception for him and presented him with a sword, though he had but lately been relieved from his last command in the Union Army; and from a military point of view, at least, his career was over.
My last school was Miss Wilby’s, on Bowdoin Street. During my time, the old régime changed, Miss Wilby retiring, full of honors, after a long useful career, and Miss Hubbard taking over the school. The teacher I remember with the most affection here was Mr. Theodore Weld, with whom we read Shakespeare. We prepared for our lessons by marking in the text lines that, for us, contained passages of especial beauty, or references we did not understand. Among my fellow students were Effie Bird, later Mrs. Linzee Tilden, and Alice Kent Robertson-Quimby. Alice Kent became a professional reader and Effie an amateur of distinction. Often in after years, while enjoying the acting of these two friends, I have remembered our old master with gratitude.