Uncle Sam had the remains of a lovely tenor voice. He and Mama sang together the songs of many countries. We owe to him the Heidelberg lieder, the Polish drinking song, and the Russian chorus which still resound in the nurseries of my nieces and nephews.
On one of our visits to his rooms Mama took with us a pretty young friend, who sang for Uncle Sam. He applauded generously until she began the song,
“Si tu savais comme je t’aime.”
“That song again!” he cried. “I have heard it once too often.”
It must have been on this trip that I made my first visit to Bordentown, the home of my mother’s sister Annie Ward, married to the handsome Frenchman, Adolph Mailliard, called by us children “Uncle Do.” They lived on a large estate in Bordentown with their four children,—Louisa, Joseph, Cora, and John. Uncle Do raised thoroughbred colts and race horses and grew the finest peaches that could be raised outside of Green Peace. He was a man of great beauty and charm. His eyes were among the most remarkable I have seen, and I did not wonder that my aunt had a miniature painted of one of them which she always wore in a locket. I was afraid of Uncle Do, but from first to last Aunt Annie was a loving and loyal friend. She was a saint, but such a witty, gay, unconscious saint that nobody could hold her sainthood against her. We had family prayers at Bordentown, a new experience to me. I gave some offense by refusing to repeat part of the Lord’s Prayer. My aunt asked my reason for this.
“I do not forgive those who trespass against me, and I will not say that I do!” I exclaimed. My aunt somehow made my scruples disappear.
Bordentown is associated with some of our most cherished family possessions, the Gobelin carpet at Green Peace and the pair of bronze candelabra at Oak Glen. Some years before the time of which I am writing Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, lived here in such state as an ex-king could then find in the United States. When he returned to Europe the house was broken up, the furniture sold at auction, and these articles were secured for us by my aunt. Uncle Do’s father, Père Mailliard, had been attached to King Joseph’s suite at Madrid and followed him into exile; that is how the Mailliards came to settle in Bordentown.
At my aunt’s house were many Bonaparte relics,—Napoleon’s camp equipage with gold knives, forks, and spoons, a locket with some of his hair, and most precious of all, a manuscript diary kept by his physician at Elba, giving a minute account of the daily happenings. One of the members of the suite contrived a process by which ice cream could be made. Napoleon was very much interested in the experiment, and for many days the chronicler puts down what the emperor said on the subject. The pathos of this deeply impressed me, that the mind that had planned the subjugation of Europe should occupy itself with the petty contrivances of an ice-cream freezer!
Inextricably confused with my reminiscences of Bordentown and the Mailliards are memories of the Gilder family, their friends and neighbors. Did I really see Richard Watson Gilder there, a romantic looking boy in a short jacket with a round collar, or is the impression received from an old daguerreotype? I can’t quite recover this faintest impression, but it will not “down.” The Gilders, Richard, Joseph, and Jeanette, were the playmates of my cousins, and in the chance meetings of later years the word “Bordentown” opened for them and for me a long vista peopled by the same figures; my aunt with her white teeth and smoothly parted dark hair, Uncle Do, and the lovely Louisa, one of the most distinguished looking girls I ever saw. The atmosphere of my aunt’s house was unlike any other. The children were repressed and demure, the language was French, the point of view European. Slight as was my contact with Uncle Do, he gave me fresh ideas, and my experience under his roof threw out a new wing to my house of life. It is fortunate that aunts and uncles, especially “in laws”, rarely realize their influence upon nieces and nephews. It would be more than they could bear. It is bad enough to be responsible for your own children; to be responsible for other people’s is out of the question. And yet, next to our parents, some of us are influenced more by uncles and aunts than by any other people.
When I returned to Boston after this wonder trip, I had gained a deal of experience and had opened two accounts in the bank of family affection upon which I was henceforward to draw heavily. One stood in the name of my Uncle Sam Ward, the other of my Aunt Annie Mailliard.