II
I have but to close my eyes to see the house in which I lived in my youth. It stood in the city of Penn, back from the low bluff of Dock Creek, near to Walnut street. The garden stretched down to the water, and before the door were still left on either side two great hemlock-spruces, which must have been part of the noble woods under which the first settlers found shelter. Behind the house was a separate building, long and low, in which all the cooking was done, and upstairs were the rooms where the slaves dwelt apart.
The great garden stretched westward as far as Third street, and was full of fine fruit-trees, and in the autumn of melons, first brought hither in one of my father’s ships. Herbs and simples were not wanting, nor berries, for all good housewives in those days were expected to be able to treat colds and the lesser maladies with simples, as they were called, and to provide abundantly jams and conserves of divers kinds.
There were many flowers too, and my mother loved to make a home here for the wildings she found in the governor’s woods. I have heard her regret that the most delicious of all the growths of spring, the ground-sweet, which I think they now call arbutus, would not prosper out of its forest shelter.
The house was of black and red brick, and double; that is, with two windows on each side of a white Doric doorway, having something portly about it. I use the word as Dr. Johnson defines it: a house of port, with a look of sufficiency, and, too, of ready hospitality, which was due, I think, to the upper half of the door being open a good part of the year. I recall also the bull’s-eye of thick glass in the upper half-door, and below it a great brass knocker. In the white shutters were cut crescentic openings, which looked at night like half-shut eyes when there were lights within the rooms. In the hall were hung on pegs leathern buckets. They were painted green, and bore, in yellow letters, “Fire” and “J.W.”
The day I went to school for the first time is very clear in my memory. I can see myself, a stout little fellow about eight years old, clad in gray homespun, with breeches, low shoes, and a low, flat beaver hat. I can hear my mother say, “Here are two big apples for thy master,” it being the custom so to propitiate pedagogues. Often afterward I took eggs in a little basket, or flowers, and others did the like.
“Now run! run!” she cried, “and be a good boy; run, or thou wilt be late.” And she clapped her hands as I sped away, now and then looking back over my shoulder.
I remember as well my return home to this solid house, this first day of my going to school. One is apt to associate events with persons, and my mother stood leaning on the half-door as I came running back. She was some little reassured to see me smiling, for, to tell the truth, I had been mightily scared at my new venture.
This sweet and most tender-hearted lady wore, as you may like to know, a gray gown, and a blue chintz apron fastened over the shoulders with wide bands. On her head was a very broad-brimmed white beaver hat, low in the crown, and tied by silk cords under her chin. She had a great quantity of brown hair, among which was one wide strand of gray. This she had from youth, I have been told. It was all very silken, and so curly that it was ever in rebellion against the custom of Friends, which would have had it flat on the temples. Indeed, I never saw it so, for, whether at the back or at the front, it was wont to escape in large curls. Nor do I think she disliked this worldly wilfulness, for which nature had provided an unanswerable excuse. She had serious blue eyes, very large and wide open, so that the clear white was seen all around the blue, and with a constant look as if of gentle surprise. In middle life she was still pliant and well rounded, with a certain compliment of fresh prettiness in whatever gesture she addressed to friend or guest. Some said it was a French way, and indeed she made more use of her hands in speech than was common among people of British race.
Her goodness seems to me to have been instinctive, and to have needed neither thought nor effort. Her faults, as I think of her, were mostly such as arise from excess of loving and of noble moods. She would be lavish where she had better have been merely generous, or rash where some would have lacked even the commoner qualities of courage. Indeed, as to this, she feared no one—neither my grave father nor the grimmest of inquisitive committees of Friends.