Chapter VIII

Story-telling--Mr. Greeley's Father--His Personal Appearance--His Education--A Fine Voice--Mr. Greeley's Mother--A Handsome Woman--How she is remembered in Vermont--Field Labor--Bankruptcy--A Journey to Vermont--School Days--The Boy Horace--How he entertained his Playmates--His First Ball--Separation from his Family.

_June 25_.

"What a delightful evening for story-telling!" said Gabrielle, as she listened to the heavy rain-drops falling upon the leaves of the old apple-tree; "will you not give us one, Aunt Esther?"

"Yes," said Ida and Marguerite, drawing their chairs closer to mamma's sofa. "Do tell us about yourself when you were a young girl, and about grandpapa and grandmamma!"

"Ah," said mamma, with a sigh, "you children have never known my dear parents!"

Marguerite was the only one of the young quartette who remembered having seen grandpapa, and her recollections of him were confused with memories of people in Europe, where our childhood was spent.

"How did he look when you were a little girl, mamma?" I inquired. "I think he is quite imposing in your little picture taken the year before he died, and he must have been very handsome when he was young."

"He was not only handsome: he was an unusual man," said mamma, decidedly. "No biographer, in speaking of our family, has ever estimated him correctly, and even dear brother himself does not give sufficient importance to father's fine character and mental qualities; but you know that he left home when a boy of fifteen, and after that time he only saw father at long intervals.

"You remember, Cecilia, that all the foreign sketches you have ever read of brother, announce that his parents were 'common peasants,' while many American writers, although they do not use the word 'peasant,' convey a similar impression. Father was by no means a common man, for to be 'common' one must be vulgar or ignorant, and father was neither. He was not uneducated, although his schooling was very slight; but he was a good reader, was very skilful in arithmetic, and wrote an excellent hand--an accomplishment for which our family are not celebrated--beside possessing a hoard of self-acquired information upon different subjects. During the long winter evenings in our lonely Pennsylvania home, he taught us younger children arithmetic, and was very fond of giving us long sums to puzzle out. I have often, heard him say to brother Barnes,

"'You must store your mind with useful knowledge, that when you go out into the world you will have something to talk about as well as other people.'

"A poor farmer in those days did not have much opportunity to acquire accomplishments, as you may well imagine; but father possessed one talent that, if properly directed, might have made his fortune and ours. I have never yet heard a natural voice that excelled your grandfather's; a high, clear, powerful tenor, with unsurpassed strength of lungs, which, added to his handsome presence, would have made him one of the finest singers that has yet trodden the boards. Of course his voice was uncultivated, with the exception of the slight training of country singing-classes, and the songs that he knew were simple ballads; but his memory was very retentive, and his singing was in great demand when company was present. At husking-parties and apple-bees, when supper was over and the young people wished to dance, if no fiddler was present, father would be petitioned to sing. I have often known him to sing country dances for hours, and he sung so heartily, and marked the time so well, that the young people enjoyed the dancing as much as if the music had been furnished by the most skilful violinist.

"I told you that father was a handsome man. He had large blue eyes, soft, silky, brown curls clustering around a magnificent brow, a set color in his cheeks, and a hand that the hardest field labor could not deprive of its beauty--long, tapering fingers, and pointed nails, such as novelists love to describe, but in real life are rarely seen outside of the most aristocratic families. His teeth were small, white and even, and at the time of his death, when eighty-seven years old, he had only lost one. His figure, though less than six feet, gave the impression of a much taller man; for he was slenderly built without being thin, and his carriage was almost military. To this fine presence was added an air of dignity and almost _hauteur_, that was very unusual in a poor farmer. But father was proud to an unparalleled degree. Indeed, it was his pride that caused him to plunge into the wild forests of Pennsylvania. His haughty nature could not bear the life of subordination that he led in Vermont, where he did not own an acre of land, and was obliged to work under the orders of others, often far inferior to him, and where he fancied the story of his flight from New Hampshire was known to every one. Smarting with mortification, he toiled until he could save a few hundred dollars to buy some acres in the wilderness, far from all his former associates, and there he buried himself with my dear mother and their five little children. But these morose feelings were somewhat subdued as the years rolled on.

"With his children he was affectionate, but, like an old-school father, very distant. He never struck one of us in his life--a glance being sufficient to enforce obedience, or subdue the wildest spirits. He was always as particular about the etiquette of the table as though we were served by footmen in livery; and in our poorest days, when cups and saucers were scant and spoons still more so, we were obliged to observe the utmost decorum till we were helped; and any laughing or chatter among the younger ones was immediately quelled by the emphatic descent of father's fork upon the coverless table, with the words, 'Children, silence!'

"Father was highly respected by our neighbors in Pennsylvania, and was often urged to accept some county office. However, he always declined."

"Do you think, mamma," said Marguerite, "that grandmamma was as handsome as grandpapa?"

A pause of a moment or two.

"They were very different," was her reply. "Mother had neither father's brilliant face, nor his imposing presence, but she was a very handsome woman. She had soft blue eyes, a perfectly straight nose, a mouth rather large, perhaps, for beauty, but full of character, brown hair tinged with red, and a transparent, though not pallid complexion. If you wish more minute details, look at your uncle's picture. No man ever resembled a woman more strikingly than he did our dear mother."

"In a recently published life of uncle," said I, "the author speaks of grandmamma as often working in the fields, and describes her as large and muscular, and possessing the strength of a man. Is not that an exaggeration?"

"Mother was above medium height," was mamma's reply, "but her figure was slender, with small and well-shaped hands and feet. It was her pride that water could flow under the arch of her instep; and her fingers, notwithstanding the hard toil of daily life, remained so flexible, that, when fifty years old, she could still bend them _backwards_ to form a drinking-cup."

"Let me tell you, Aunt Esther," interposed Ida, "how grandmamma is remembered in Vermont. When Gabrielle and I were quite small children, we went there on a visit, and papa took us to see some old lady (whose name I have forgotten) residing in Westhaven. This lady had known grandmamma very well, and, after contemplating Gabrielle and I for some time, remarked curtly, 'Neither of you children are as handsome as your grandmother was.'"

This uncomplimentary remark caused us all to laugh heartily. Mamma then resumed her story.

"As for field labor, your grandmother may, while we were in New Hampshire, have sometimes assisted father for a day or two during the pressure of haying or harvesting time; but never, since I was old enough to observe, can I recollect seeing her work in the fields. Certainly mother was not a woman to hesitate to do cheerfully whatever necessity required. But she had quite enough to occupy herself at home with the entire duties of a house, with the spinning, weaving, and making up of all the linen and woollen cloth that the household used; and the care and early instruction of her little ones--for it was her pride that all of her children learned to read before going to school. I remember that when I was first sent to school, at the age of four, the teacher, with a glance at my tiny figure (for I was a small, delicate child), called me up to read to her, and opened the book at the alphabet. Deeply injured, I informed her that I knew my letters, and could read over in 'An old man found a rude boy in one of his apple-trees,'--a fable that all familiar with Webster's Spelling-book will remember.

"My first distinct recollection of mother is in the dark days in New Hampshire. Father, as you know, had lost everything that he possessed, and was obliged to fly into the next State to escape imprisonment for debt. After he left, his furniture was attached and sold. I remember seeing strange, rough men in the house, who pulled open all the trunks and chests of drawers, and tossed about the beautiful bed and table linen that mother had wrought before her marriage. Another picture, too, is impressed indelibly upon my mind--how mother followed the sheriff and his men about from room to room with the tears rolling down her face, while brother Horace, then a little white-haired boy, nine years old, held her hand and tried to comfort her, telling her not to cry--he would take care of her.

"But mother, although humiliated and heart-sore at the poverty and disgrace that lay before her so early in her married life, was not a woman to fold her hands and think sadly of what

"'--might have been.'

She wiped away her tears, and her busy fingers were soon preparing warm hoods and dresses to protect her little ones from the bitter cold during the journey that lay before us, for in the course of two or three months father had by hard toil earned money sufficient to send for us. I remember very well that journey over the mountains covered with snow into the State of Vermont, and our establishment in what was called the 'small house by the ledge' in the little neighborhood of houses clustering on and about the old Minot estate.

"You children, accustomed as you have been from your infancy to the attractive text-books of the present day, would quite scorn the system of instruction at the school I attended in Westhaven. I went there three winters, but although I soon rose to the first class in reading and spelling, in which branches I was unusually precocious, my education was confined entirely to those two departments of learning. Few text-books were then used in the school, for the parents of the children were generally too poor to pay for many, and the musty old Grammar and Arithmetic were kept in reserve for the older scholars. On account of my youth the teacher did not advance me, and I went again and again through the old Spelling-book, and learnt by heart what was called the 'fore part of the book'--some dry rules of orthography, which never conveyed the slightest idea to my mind, although I repeated them, parrot-like, without missing a word, and which the teacher never thought of explaining to me. From the spelling-book I was in time promoted to the New Testament (not as easy reading as might have been selected, by the way). This was followed by the American Preceptor, and subsequently by Murray's 'English Reader,' a work reserved for the most advanced scholars.

"My brothers did not go to school during the summer months, for their services were then required to assist father in his work; and I, too, had to leave school every day at eleven o'clock to carry their dinner to them at the place, a mile and a half distant, where they were clearing a portion of the Minot estate.

"When brother Horace was thirteen years old he was taken out of school, as the teacher could instruct him no longer. I was kept at home also, and brother taught me, giving me lessons in arithmetic and penmanship, which studies had been prohibited me at school. Here commenced a most tender attachment and sympathy between brother and I. As there were two children--Barnes and sister Arminda--between us, our difference of years had hitherto kept us somewhat apart; but after brother had been for several months my instructor we were from that time the nearest in heart in our large household.

"I think that mother must have entirely regained her spirits during the four years that we lived in Vermont, for I remember that men, women, and children alike delighted in her society, and our house was the centre of the little neighborhood. We resided very near the school-house, and rarely did a morning pass without a visit from some of the girls, to have a few words of greeting from mother on their way to their lessons. When recess time came, they would arrive in numbers to spend the time with her, and beg for a song or a story from the inexhaustible supply with which her memory was stored, and there they would remain, fascinated by her sweet, low voice until she would be obliged to playfully chase them out of the house to compel them to return to school. From the teacher, for tardiness, punishment was a very frequent occurrence, but it made slight impression upon the girls in comparison with the enjoyment of listening to one of mother's thrilling or romantic stories, for the following day they would return to our house to again risk the penalty.

"I told you that brother taught me after we were taken out of school. He was the gentlest and kindest of instructors, and was always ready to lay down his own book to help me out of any difficulty that my lesson presented, although it was by no means easy to make him close his book under other circumstances; such as the solicitations of his young friends to join them in a game.

"I have described father to you as a stern man in his every-day intercourse with us, but although his motto was 'Work,' he was always willing to grant us a holiday or a play-hour, when he thought we had earned it. He would relax his dignity, too, somewhat when young people came to pass the evening with us; would encourage us to play games and dance, and would often join us; for, although he never played cards himself, nor would he allow them to be played in his house, he himself taught us how to dance.

"When our young friends came to see us, there was much rejoicing from brother Barnes, who was full of life and spirits, and always ready to play, and from Arminda and myself; but brother Horace, not at all allured by blind-man's-buff or a dance, would retire to a corner with a pine knot (for in those days candles were few), preferring the companionship of his book to our merry games. Coaxing was all in vain: the only means of inducing him to join us was to snatch away his book and hide it; but even then he preferred to gather us quietly about him and tell us stories. I remember that before he left home he had related to us, among other things, the thousand and one stories of the 'Arabian Nights,' and 'Robinson Crusoe.' This gift of story-telling he inherited from mother, whose talent in that line certainly equalled that of the beautiful Sultana Scheherazade herself. At this time, although I had never seen a copy of Shakespeare, I was familiar with the names and plots of all his imaginative, and many of his historical plays, which mother would relate to us in her own words, embellished now and then with bits of the original verse, as she sat at her spinning-wheel, or busied herself about the household work.

"It was, I think, at this same time--our last year in Vermont--that a large ball, for young people only, was given in our neighborhood. Much speculation was excited among our young friends as to whether Horace would dance at this ball, and especially if he would fetch a partner with him. It was the general opinion that he would not, as he did not bear a high reputation for gallantry. Great, then, was the astonishment of all present when Horace entered the ballroom with Anne Bush, the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, upon his arm. He opened the ball with her, and his deportment quite silenced those who had questioned his appearance.

"Before long, preparations for another journey were in progress. Father had earned money sufficient to buy some land, and I heard that we were going to Pennsylvania. I was, however, too young to be much impressed by this news, and it was not until I saw mother once more in tears that its importance was apparent to me. This time mother wept as bitterly as before, for not only was she to be separated by a greater distance from her family in New Hampshire, to whom she was fondly attached, and from the pleasant circle of friends she had made in Westhaven, but her darling among us children, her beautiful eldest boy, of whom she was so proud, was to be left in Vermont."