In the autumn of 1882 we left Oak Glen for a winter home of our own, Uncle Sam having given my mother Number 241 Beacon Street, a house where she lived for thirty years. The old furniture from Green Peace was furbished up. Uncle Sam, who never did things by halves, wrote several times a week, giving advice and announcing the shipment of some additional household effect, such as a rug for the library, or a set of afterdinner
THE DRAWING ROOM AT 241 BEACON STREET
coffee cups. My mother never saw the house till the day she drove up to the door and took possession, leaving every detail of installation to “Puss in Boots”, as she now called me. The next two years are among the happiest I remember. Part of the time my brother Harry and his wife were with us. The reception room on the ground floor was fitted up for Marion; here he wrote in rapid succession “Dr. Claudius” and “A Roman Singer.”
Crawford was by now in the full limelight. The success of his book brought him into great prominence: he had to defend his time from the lion hunters and interviewers. He enjoyed his sudden reputation simply and sweetly, and the family at Number 241 enjoyed it with him. Meanwhile “Big Man” Howe, who had chosen Science for his Mistress, was working quietly and steadily at his high calling. Everybody talked of Crawford. You saw his name constantly in the papers, heard it called by the newsboys on every train. My brother was unknown to the multitude who were familiar with my cousin’s name. The elect among his fellow workers spoke of him, and his mother, though always reticent about her children, knew him for what he was, but to the rest of the world his position was obscure compared to his cousin’s: there were few, beside his devoted wife, who foresaw the world-wide reputation, as one of the leading scientists of his time, that awaited him.
Uncle Sam made us flying visits, arriving by the night train, and carrying either Crawford or me off to Craigie House, to see Mr. Longfellow. One day we were so early that we found the poet in his library, making his coffee in one of those porcelain and glass machines then in fashion. Every morning, while the water was boiling—it took some minutes—Mr. Longfellow wrote out a verse of his translation of the “Divina Commedia.” That day he was dressed in a handsome flowered dressing gown; when we entered he was writing, standing at a high desk. The greeting between the two old college mates was characteristic. Uncle Sam, who never came empty-handed, produced from each of his coat pockets a long bottle of Hochheimer, the vintage they had preferred all those years ago, when boys together at Heidelberg.
“Sam, the ancients held that ‘whom the Gods love die young’, because, like you, they never grow old!” Longfellow exclaimed.
Throughout their lives, these two friends maintained a more or less desultory correspondence.
On the desk beside me lies a neatly folded and wafered letter in Longfellow’s exquisite hand, addressed to Samuel Ward, Jr.