Chapter II: Part 2

I have, however, a very clear recollection of the indignation of my father (my mother had already expressed herself on the subject), on his return from town and hearing what had taken place. The hired men were lined up and arraigned for “cruel carelessness.” They had “the consideration to keep the cattle away,” he said, “but allowed that little girl to stand in full view.” Of course, each protested he had not seen me. I was altogether too friendly with the farm hands to hear them blamed, especially on my account, and came promptly to their side, assuring my father that they had not seen me, and that it was “no matter,” I was “all well now.” But, singularly, I lost all desire for meat, if I had ever had it—and all through life to the present, have only eaten it when I must for the sake of appearance, or as circumstances seemed to make it the more proper thing to do. The bountiful ground has always yielded enough for all my needs and wants.

I had been eleven years old the Christmas before. Great changes had taken place during the two or three preceding years. My energetic brothers had outgrown farming, sold their two farms on the hill, and come down and bought of my father all his water power on the French River, as well as all obtainable timber land in the vicinity. The staunch old up-and-down saw still stood in its majesty for the handling of the forest giants too massive for a lesser power, but it was surrounded by a cordon of belted “circulars,” whirling with a speed that quite obscured their motion, screaming, screeching and throwing out the product of their work in all directions; shingles, laths, thin boards, bolters and slitters. New dams had been thrown across the shifty, flighty stream, to be swept away in the torrents of the spring freshets and floating ice, but replaced at once with an obstinate manliness and enterprise that scarcely admitted of an interruption in the work.

In a new building along the side of the dam, the great burr-stones of that date ground out the wholesome grain of all the surrounding country, and where I had first seen it under the control of the one lone sawyer, now fifty of the strongest working men that could be procured, and great four-horse teams covered the once quiet mill-yard. The entire line of factories above had caught the inspiration, and the French River villages of North Oxford were models of growth and activity.

One sister had married and settled in her home near by, and a wife had come into my eldest brother’s home. Mrs. Larned, the widow to whose assistance my father had gone in her early desolation, had found her children now so well grown as to make it advisable to remove to one of the factory villages, where she became a popular boarding house keeper, and her children operatives in the mill.

Thus, I was again left to myself. The schools were not the best, but all that could be done for me, in or out of them, was done. I had been especially well taught to sew and liked it, but knitting was beyond me. I could not be held to it, and it was given up.

Through the confirmed invalidism of my elder sister, Dorothea, I lost her beautiful guidance, but the watchful care of my younger sister, now Mrs. Vassall, was truly pathetic. She never lost sight of my welfare, and her fine literary taste was a constant inspiration.

While thus in the midst of my various pursuits and vocations, an accidental turn in my wheel of fortune changed my entire course (for a time at least) and how much bearing, if any, it may have had on the future, I have never been able to determine. I have spoken of the younger of my two brothers, of the firm of S. & D. Barton, as a fine horseman. He was more than that. In these days he would have been an athlete. The two men were but two years apart in age, of fine disposition and excellent physical strength, integrity and courage; of fine disposition and equable temper; yet neither of them men with whom an opponent would carelessly or tauntingly covet an encounter. The younger, David, from his physical activity and daring, was always selected for any feat of danger to be performed.

These were days when even buildings were “raised by hand.” All the neighborhood was expected to participate in a “raising.” Upon one occasion, an uncommonly large barn, with what was then still more uncommon, a cellar beneath, was to be raised. The rafters must be affixed to the ridgepole, and David Barton was assigned to this duty. While in its performance, a timber on which he was standing, having been weakened by an unobserved knot, suddenly gave way, and he fell directly to the first floor, striking on his feet on another timber near the bottom of the cellar. Without falling he leaped to the ground, and after a few breathless minutes declared himself unhurt, but was not permitted to return aloft. It was spoken of as a “remarkable adventure,” “a wonderful escape,” etc., and for a few days all went well, with the exception of a slight and quite unaccustomed headache, which continued to increase as the July weather progressed. At length he showed symptoms of fever; the family physician was called, and here commenced a system of medical treatment quite unknown to our physicians of the present day, other than as results of historical research and milestones of scientific advancement.

He was pronounced in a “settled fever,” which must not be “broken up,” and could only be held in check by reducing the strength of the patient. He had “too much blood,” was “too vigorous,” “just the patient for a fever to ‘go hard with,’” it was said. Accordingly, the blood was taken from time to time, as long as it seemed safe to do so. The terrible pain in the head continued and blisters were applied to all possible places, in the hope of withdrawing the pain. Sleepless, restless, in agony both physical and mental, his case grew desperate. He had been my ideal from earliest memory. I was distressed beyond measure at his condition. I had been his little protégée, his companion, and in his nervous wretchedness he clung to me. Thus, from the first days and nights of illness, I remained near his side. The fever ran on and over all the traditional turning points, seven, fourteen, twenty-one days. I could not be taken away from him except by compulsion, and he was unhappy until my return. I learned to take all directions for his medicines from his physician (who had eminent counsel) and to administer them like a genuine nurse.

My little hands became schooled to the handling of the great, loathsome, crawling leeches which were at first so many snakes to me, and no fingers could so painlessly dress the angry blisters; and thus it came about, that I was the accepted and acknowledged nurse of a man almost too ill to recover.

Finally, as the summer passed, the fever gave way, and for a wonder the patient did not. No physician will doubt that I had given him poison enough to have killed him many times over, if suitably administered with that view. He will also understand the condition in which the patient was left. They had certainly succeeded in reducing his strength.

Late in the autumn he stood on his feet for the first time since July. Still sleepless, nervous, cold, dyspeptic—a mere wreck of his former self. None were so disturbed over his condition as his kind-hearted, and for those days, skillful physicians, who had exhausted their knowledge and poured out their sympathy and care like water, on the patient who, for his manliness and bravery, they had come to respect, and for his suffering learned to love with a parent’s tenderness.

It now became a matter of time. Councils of physicians for twenty miles around sat in judgment on the case. They could only recommend; and more blisters, setons and various methods of external irritation for the withdrawal of internal pain followed, from month to month and season to season. All these were my preferred care.

I realize now how carefully and apprehensively the whole family watched the little nurse, but I had no idea of it then. I thought my position the most natural thing in the world; I almost forgot that there was an outside to the house.

This state of things continued with little change—a trifling gain of strength in my patient at times—for two years, when, entirely unexpected, the most tabooed and little known of all medical treatments, restored him to health. It is to be remembered at that date there was no homeopathy, no hydropathy, no sanitariums, no Christian Science, nothing but the regular school of allopathic medicine. Medical practitioners, baffled by lack of science, surrounded by ignorance on all such subjects and more or less of superstition, struggled manfully on toward the blessed light of the scientific knowledge of to-day, which they have so richly attained.

It was not to be wondered at that the slightest departure from the beaten track, under these conditions, was held as unpardonable and punishable quackery; and that the first “ism” that broke through the defense fought the fight of a forlorn hope. There are young physicians of good historical knowledge to-day, who have never learned that “Thompsonianism” was that “ism”; that Dr. Samuel Thompson fought that fight, and that they are pursuing many excellent methods which are the result of his thought; that it was he who first advanced the theory (in this country at least,) that fever was not the foe, but the friend of the patient; that it was simply unequal animal warmth and vigor—that people did not have too much blood any more than they had too much bone, and could as ill afford to lose it; that if the blood were too thick, or too thin, or of a bad quality, taking away a portion of it would not rectify or purify the remainder. That a blister was not likely to soothe a nervous patient to sleep, or to extract a pain, save by creating a greater. But that a better way to treat disturbances was to open the pores generally, by a vapor bath—designated “Thompson’s Steam Box,” and greatly to be feared. He and his few followers were known as “Steam Doctors”—and the public warned against them.

It happened that one of his disciples, a “Steam Doctor,” residing in a neighboring town (I will write his name in grateful remembrance—Dr. Asa McCullum), had watched this remarkable case with interest and pity, convinced that the right remedies had not reached it.

He ventured at length to approach my father on the subject; then my brother, who was willing to attempt anything short of suicide. The result was the removal of the patient to the home asylum of the doctor for treatment. In three weeks he was so far restored as to return home and take his place in his business, like one come back from the dead. I remember the greetings—the tears of gladness on the blessed face of our family physician when he came to welcome him home: “And so, David, something good has come out of Nazareth.”

I was again free; my occupation gone. Life seemed very strange and idle to me. I wondered that my father took me to ride so much, and that my mother hoped she could make me some new clothes now, for in the two years I had not grown an inch, had been to school one-half day, and had gained one pound in weight.

This singular mode of life, at so young an age, could not have been without its characteristic effects. In some respects it had served to heighten serious defects. The seclusion had increased the troublesome bashfulness. I had grown even more timid, shrinking and sensitive in the presence of others; absurdly careful and methodical for a child; afraid of giving trouble by letting my wants be known, thereby giving the very pain I sought to avoid, and instead of feeling that my freedom gave me time for recreation or play, it seemed to me like time wasted, and I looked anxiously about for some useful occupation.

As usual, my blessed sister, Mrs. Vassall, came to the rescue. Taking advantage of an all-absorbing love of poetry (which I always had) she made a weapon of it by providing me with the poetical works of Walter Scott, which I had not read, and proposed that we read them together. We naturally commenced with “The Lady of the Lake.” I was immediately transported to the Highlands and the Bonny Braes, plucking the heather and broom and guiding the skiff across Loch Katrine, listening to the sweet warning song of poor crazed Blanche of Devon, thrilling with, “Saxon, I am Roderick Dhu,” and trudging along with the old minstrel and Ellen to Sterling tower and the Court of Fitz-James. “Marmion” followed, and then all the train of English poetry that a child could take in.

My second individual ownership was “Billy.” His personality (which I never questioned), was represented by a high stepping brown Morgan horse, with glossy coat, slim legs, pointed ears, long curly black mane and tail, and weighing nearly nine hundred pounds.

Although a good driver, his forte was the saddle. His gait (or rather, I should say, gaits) was first a delightful single-foot; but which he had the faculty of changing to a rack, or pace or trot, as occasion or haste seemed to call for; and as a last resort, he could cover them all by something one does not like to name; but we only used that gait on extraordinary occasions. My father had purchased and given Billy to me when about ten years old. The same figures will do for us both.

I had three or four neighboring girl associates who also had their own or family horses, and our riding parties were the events of the season. Anticipating the deep, forbidding snows of the winter in New England, we had the custom of celebrating Thanksgiving day by a final party for the season. Even this was cold and had often some traces of snow.

On the present occasion there were but three of us, Martha, Eveline and myself. Martha had a fine sorrel trotter, Eveline a spirited single-footer. The day was cold and threatening. Our ride was to Worcester, some ten miles. When about three miles from home, on our return, a blinding snowstorm set in, literally a gale. This either frightened or excited Eveline’s horse, which, mastering the situation by a quick toss of the head, and catch of the bit (a trick he evidently understood), dropped his single-foot as something adapted to ladies and little girls, and fell to using all the feet he had, the best he knew. Awed by her peril, but powerless to aid, we could only follow our fleeing comrade to be ready to help when she should fall, as we were sure she must. The gale mercilessly increased; so did our speed. We kept nearly alongside, every horse upon the “dead run.”

We must have presented a striking miniature picture of the veritable “Three Furies” on a rampage. A country road and no one passing. Martha and myself each rushing directly past our own homes unobserved in the storm, till at length we rounded the curve that brought the flying horse in sight of his own stable. They had sighted the coming cavalcade. The gates were thrown wide open, and a man stationed on either side to catch both horse and rider when they should enter.

Seeing the worn-out girl once safely in her father’s arms, we turned away, with an entirely new chapter added to our very limited stock of equestrian knowledge. We were all alive and unharmed, and I alone am here now to tell the little stories of childhood’s terrifying dangers and miraculous escapes.

We were midway between the two district schools, a long mile and a half from either, and it frequently chanced that a season or two of indifferent schools followed each other in train. The experiment of sending me away to school was not to be repeated, and accordingly I was undertaken at home. My mathematical brother, Stephen, took charge of that department, and Mrs. Vassall the other needful studies, while my former patient, brother David, the equestrian of early days, now grown strong and well, kept to his rule of practical teaching. I recall vividly the half impatient frown on his fine face when he would see me do an awkward thing, however trivial. He detested false motions; wanted the thing done rightly the first time. If I started to go somewhere, go, and not turn back; if to do something, do it. I must throw a ball or a stone with an under swing like a boy and not a girl, and must make it go where I sent it, and not fall at my feet and foolishly laugh at it. If I would drive a nail, strike it fairly on the head every time, and not split the board. If I would draw a screw, turn it right the first time. I must tie a square knot that would hold, and not tie my horse with a slip noose and leave him to choke himself. These were little things, still a part of the instructions not to be undervalued. In the rather practical life which has sometimes fallen to me, I have wondered if they were not among the most useful, and if that handsome frown were not one of my best lessons.

At length there came a school that could be utilized, and my family instructors were relieved. The school to the north of us was undertaken by Mr. Lucian Burleigh, a younger member of the noted Burleigh family, and brother of William H. Burleigh, the poet. It seemed very strange to me to be in school again. I had been so long accustomed to govern myself, in a manner, that I wondered how any one should need others to govern them. If scholars came there to learn, why should they try, or want, to do anything else? There is no doubt that I seemed equally unaccountable and prudish to them.

MR. JONATHAN DANA,

MY OXFORD TEACHER.
]

The quick perceptions of the teacher at once comprehended the conditions, and he treated me with the greatest consideration and kindness; advising such changes and additions as seemed suitable, and most in accord with the studies I had taken with me; even, as I could later see, forming some new classes in branches outside of the customary routine of the public school; as elementary astronomy, ancient history, and the “Science of Language”; his own literary and scholarly tastes pointing significantly to the latter. If Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and Pollok’s “Course of Time” were ever dissected, transposed, analyzed and “parsed” by any class of vigilant youths, it was then and there.

The winter passed all too soon. A mile and a half through the snow had been only a pleasure. Our faithful, brotherly teacher left us, never to return; but the still brotherly friendship between teacher and pupil remained unbroken until his summons came.

After a busy summer a similarly good fortune awaited me in the next winter term of school. Mr. Jonathan Dana, one of Oxford’s most scholarly men and a teacher of note, commenced the winter school to the south of us. I have no words to describe the value of his instruction, nor the pains he took with his eager pupil. I had been far too thoroughly drilled to require time for the customary classes of the public school, but did require instruction in branches forbidden in their lawful curriculum.

In spite of the labor of a school of sixty pupils of all ages, with no assistant, I was permitted to take philosophy, chemistry and elementary Latin—all to be taught outside of school hours. With no laboratory at hand, I have often marveled at the amount of experimental instruction he found it possible to give me. So generally appreciated was the excellence of the school that the term was continued beyond the customary three months. My grateful homage for my inestimable teacher and his interest in his early pupil, became memories of a lifetime, and the social acquaintance was never interrupted until the late summons came to him, white haired and venerable, to go up higher.

My family were all gratified by my progress and my deportment as a student, but I was still diffident, timid, non-committal, afraid of giving trouble and difficult to understand. My physical growth had not met their expectations nor their hopes. I grew slowly and was still a “little girl” in appearance. This went to show how positive the early check had been, and how slowly the repairs were made, for it was said that I gained an inch in height between the ages of twenty and twenty-one.

The firm of my brothers, S. & D. Barton, had added to their ever increasing business the manufacture of cloth. A factory had been erected and a partnership entered into with Messrs. Paul and Samuel Parsons, two elegant gentlemen among the earlier manufacturers of satinet in this country, and the new factory was known as “The Satinet Mill of North Oxford.” A very superior article of cloth was made, the operatives almost entirely American, and very largely from families of the neighborhood or surrounding country. Occupations for women were few in those days, and often the school and music teacher, weary of the monotonous life, sought change in the more remunerative loom of the factory. I name this as a matter of history, as the North Oxford Mills were the third, if not the second after Slater, who produced the first spindle and power looms in America, at the risk of his life.

I had been taken through the new factory by my brother; had seen these young persons at work; watched the shuttles fly under the deft fingers of the weavers, and felt that there was something I could do. There was no school, I was idle. After a little quiet reflection I astonished the family by announcing my desire to go into the mill. I wanted to weave cloth. At first they tried laughing at me. I was too sensitive to be dealt with in that way. Then reasoning. I was “too small”; it was not a proper thing for me to do. But I was not easily dissuaded. One day in the midst of a family council, my brother Stephen chanced to call. He listened attentively, saw that I was anxious and troubled, and was giving trouble to others as well. At length he spoke. Addressing my mother, he said: “I do not see anything so very much out of the way in the request. I wonder if we are not drawing the lines too tightly on our little sister? A few years ago she wanted to learn to dance; this was denied as frivolous and improper; now she asks to work. She took up a work by herself and did it two years, a work that no child would be expected to do, and did it well. She is certainly a properly behaved little girl, and I cannot understand why we should trouble ourselves or her so much concerning the proprieties of her life. For my part, I am very willing to arrange a pair of looms for her and let her try.” A hush fell on the group. My anxious mother seemed relieved. The big brother had spoken. I crept shyly up under his stalwart arm and kissed his bearded cheek.

The next day a low platform was run along in front of a pair of new, glossy looms, just by the desk of the overseer of the room. A good weaver was given charge to instruct me, and when I stepped upon that platform and looked down upon the evenly drawn warp and the swiftly flying shuttles, and felt that they were mine, I imagine the sensation was akin to that of a young queen whose foot first presses the throne. I was too carefully watched to permit a mistake, and too interested to be tired. Before the end of the week I was able to discharge my instructress, or it is more probable she discharged herself in view of my self-sufficiency. I could scarcely wait in the morning for the bell to call me, early as it would be, and I walked up that long, outside flight of black, greasy stairs and entered that whirring, clashing room with as much pride and satisfaction as I would have entered the finest and most highly embellished schoolroom. I observed that the help all looked at me as I went in, and McDonald, the overseer, always raised his Scotch cap a bit by the tassel, or touched his finger to the rim, fitting so closely to his high forehead. I thought I ought to make some acknowledgement of this, and always did so, but could not understand it. I told my mother about it and asked her what he did it for? She said that it was probably because I was “so little.” That perhaps if I were as large as the other girls he might not do it. I thought this a reasonable solution and was satisfied.

I finished my first week, commenced my second, and went through with no assistance. On Saturday my webs were cut from the looms, examined and pronounced of first quality, showing great care. I took my proud record home. The next day (Sunday), Mr. Samuel Parsons, with the prudent care that could not trust even the watchman too implicitly, went into the mill by himself, ascending to the picker room in the top story, where the light, oiled wool was piled in great quantities. He casually placed his hand upon it in passing, and observing that it felt warm, he plunged his arm in to lift it. The flames enveloped him. He ran at full speed the length of the building to the bell rope. The fire was there almost before him. He gave two strokes, when the flames drove him from the room; they licked down the air shafts and belt holes, lapping up the oil like so much food, as it was.

The perfection of the magnificent fire departments of the present day was far in the future then. In three hours it was all over, and the new North Oxford Satinet Mills were a smoking pile of rubbish, a thing of the past. No heart was heavier than mine. The strong, energetic brothers knew that rebuilding would commence at once, but I mourned without hope.

If ever there were lost or omitted a well-turned joke or a bit of humor by the various members of the Barton family it was clearly an accident, no such omission being ever intended; and thus it was suggested to me, that, as the fire was manifestly a case of spontaneous combustion, could it have been that I worked so fast that the friction set the mill on fire? That joke on me lasted many years. The mill was rebuilt, as well as several others, some to be burned, some to be sold; but I had found other occupations more congenial to the other members of the household, it is to be hoped, if not to me.

The recital of this incident by myself, or some one else, has given rise to the bit of romance cropping out occasionally, in the sketches one sees, that I was a factory girl and earned the money to pay off the mortgage on my father’s farm. I wish the first statement might have been true. Nothing to-day would gratify me more than to know that I had been one of those self-reliant, intelligent, American-born girls like our sweet poetess, Lucy Larcom, and like her had stood before the power looms in the early progress of the manufactories of our great and matchless country. I fear that my plain, simple facts will rob many a fancy sketch of its brightest tints, as in this instance. I am compelled to confess in regard to the second statement, that my father never had a mortgage that I knew of, and, therefore, had no need of my brave help. On the other hand, he had something to give to me.

I think it usually occurs in small communities that there is one family, or one house, to which all strangers or new comers naturally gravitate. Nothing was plainer than that ours was that house. All lecturers, upon any subject, clergymen on trial, whoever had a new idea to expound and was in need of an abiding place meanwhile, found one there. My father’s active and liberal mind inclined him to examination and toleration, and his cordial hospitality was seconded by my mother’s welcome to any one who could bring new thought or culture to herself or her family.

These were the very earliest days of phrenology. The famous brothers, O. S. and L. N. Fowler, worthy disciples of Spurzheim and Coombe, were commencing their lifelong work. Young men of advanced ideas, thought, energy and purpose.

The “Phrenological Journal,” if existing at all, was in its infancy. The Fowler brothers were among the most interesting and popular lecturers in the country. Two courses of lectures by L. N. Fowler were arranged for our town; one for North and the other for South Oxford, or “Oxford Plain,” as it is better known. He very naturally became the guest of my father and mother.

These two courses of lectures covered nearly a month of time. How can the value of the results of that month, extending through a lifetime, be put into words? How measure the worth of the ideas, the knowledge of one’s self, and of others, growing out of it? Aside from this was his aid and comfort to my mother in her perplexity concerning her incomprehensible child. I recall the long, earnest talks, in which it was evident that I was the prime subject, although not clearly realizing it at the time. Upon one occasion there was no question. I was ill (of mumps, I believe) and to avoid loneliness was permitted to lie on the lounge in the large sitting room through the day. Forgetting my presence, or believing me asleep, the conversation went on in my hearing, portions of which at this late day I recall. My mother remarked that none of her children had ever been so difficult to manage. “Was I disobedient, exacting or wayward?” asked Mr. Fowler. Oh no! she often wished I were, she would then know what to do, for I would make my wants known, and they could be supplied. But I was so timid and afraid of making trouble that they were in constant fear of neglecting me; I would do without the most needed article rather than ask for it, and my bashfulness increased rather than diminished as I grew older. As an illustration, she stated that only last Sunday the child appeared with bare hands when we were ready for church. Upon being asked where were her gloves, she reluctantly replied that she “had none. They were worn out.” Upon being asked why she had not said so and asked for others, the reply was a burst of tears and an attempt to leave the room. “We would not permit this unhappy day at home alone, and took her as she was,” said my mother. All this sounded very badly to me as I heard it rehearsed. It was all true, all wrong; would I, could I ever learn to do better?

Mr. Fowler replied that these characteristics were all indicated; that, however much her friends might suffer from them, she would always suffer more. “They may be apparently outgrown, but the sensitive nature will always remain. She will never assert herself for herself—she will suffer wrong first—but for others she will be perfectly fearless.” To my mother’s anxious question, “what shall I do?” he replied, “Throw responsibility upon her. She has all the qualities of a teacher. As soon as her age will permit, give her a school to teach.” I well remember how this suggestion shocked me. I should not have remembered all these advices, but years after they were found with much more among my mother’s carefully preserved papers; some correspondence must have followed. The depth and faithfulness of the interest felt, was shown in the fact that the great reader of human character, through his long life in foreign lands as well as his own, never forgot the troublesome child. Occasional correspondence and valued meetings across the sea marked the milestones of life, till one road came to an end. A great and true man and friend of humanity had gone, and the world was better for his having lived in it.

At the close of the second term of school, the advice was acted upon, and it was arranged that I teach the school in District No. 9. My sister resided within the district. How well I remember the preparations—the efforts to look larger and older, the examination by the learned committee of one clergyman, one lawyer and one justice of the peace; the certificate with “excellent” added at the close; the bright May morning over the dewy, grassy road to the schoolhouse, neither large nor new, and not a pupil in sight.

On entering, I found my little school of forty pupils all seated according to their own selection, quietly waiting with folded hands. Bright, rosy-cheeked boys and girls from four to thirteen, with the exception of four lads, as tall and nearly as old as myself. These four boys naturally looked a little curiously at me, as if forming an opinion of how best to dispose of me, as rumor had it that on the preceding summer, not being _en rapport_ with the young lady teacher, they had excluded her from the building and taken possession themselves. All arose as I entered, and remained standing until requested to sit. Never having observed how schools were opened, I was compelled, as one would say, to “blaze my own way.” I was too timid to address them, but holding my Bible, I said they might take their Testaments and turn to the Sermon on the Mount. All who could read, read a verse each, I reading with them in turn. This opened the way for remarks upon the meaning of what they had read. I found them more ready to express themselves than I had expected, which was helpful to me as well. I asked them what they supposed the Saviour meant by saying that they must love their enemies and do good to them that hated and misused them? This was a hard question, and they hesitated, until at length a little bright-eyed girl with great earnestness replied: “I think He meant that you must be good to everybody, and mustn’t quarrel nor make nobody feel bad, and I’m going to try.” An ominous smile crept over the rather hard faces of my four lads, but my response was so prompt, and my approval so hearty, that it disappeared and they listened attentively but ventured no remarks. With this moderate beginning the day progressed, and night found us social, friendly and classed for a school. Country schools did not admit of home dinners. I also remained. On the second or third day an accident on their outside field of rough play called me to them. They had been playing unfairly and dangerously and needed teaching, even to play well. I must have thought they required object lessons, for almost imperceptibly either to them or to myself, I joined in the game and was playing with them.

My four lads soon perceived that I was no stranger to their sports or their tricks; that my early education had not been neglected, and that they were not the first boys I had seen. When they found that I was as agile and as strong as themselves, that my throw was as sure and as straight as theirs, and that if they won a game it was because I permitted it, their respect knew no bounds. No courtesy within their knowledge was neglected. Their example was sufficient for the entire school. I have seen no finer type of boys. They were faithful to me in their boyhood, and in their manhood faithful to their country. Their blood crimsoned its hardest fields, and the little bright-eyed girl with the good resolve, has made her whole life a blessing to others, and still lives to follow the teaching given her. Little Emily has “made nobody feel bad.”

My school was continued beyond the customary length of time, and its only hard feature was our parting. In memory I see that pitiful group of children sobbing their way down the hill after the last good-bye was said, and I was little better. We had all been children together, and when, in accordance with the then custom at town meetings, the grades of the schools were named and No. 9 stood first for discipline, I thought it the greatest injustice, and remonstrated, affirming that there had been no discipline, that not one scholar had ever been disciplined. Child that I was, I did not know that the surest test of discipline is its absence.

If the published school report, so misunderstood by me, had given me displeasure, it had also given me a local reputation, quite as unexpected. I soon found myself the recipient of numerous invitations to teach in the nearby towns, especially such schools as required the “discipline” so largely accredited to, and so little deserved, by me.

Declination, on my part, was not to be thought of. All members of the family were only too grateful for the progress I had made towards proper self-assurance to permit any backsliding, and it was early settled that I accept the application of the honorable committee, to teach the next summer school at what was known as the “Mill-ward” in the adjoining town of Charlton, commencing on the first Monday in May of the following year—a “master” teaching the winter term.

One day, early in September, my brother David, now one of the active, popular business men of the town, nearly took my breath away by inviting me to accompany him on a journey to the state of Maine, to be present at his wedding and with him bring back the wife who was to grace his home and share his future life.

There was now more lengthening of skirts, and a rush of dressmaking such as I had never known before; and when, two weeks later, I found myself with my brother and a rather gay party of ladies and gentlemen, friends of his, at one of the most elegant hotels in Boston (where I had never been) waiting the arrival of a delayed steamer, I was so overcome by the dread of committing some impropriety or indiscretion which might embarrass my brother that I begged him to permit me to go back home. I was not distressed about what might be thought of _me_. I did not seem to care much about that; but how it might reflect upon my brother, and the mortification that my awkwardness could not fail to inflict on him.

I had never set foot on a vessel or seagoing craft of any kind, and when, in the glitter of that finely equipped steamer, I really crossed over a corner of the great Atlantic ocean, the very waves of which touched other continents as well, I felt that my world was miraculously widening.

It was another merry party, and magnificent spans of horses that met and galloped away with us over the country to our destination.

But the crowning astonishment came when I was informed that it was the desire and decision of all parties, that I act as bridesmaid. That I assist in introducing the younger of the guests, and stand beside the tall, handsome young bride who was to be my sister, while she pledged her troth to the brother dearer to me than my own life.

This responsibility seemed to throw the whole world wide open to me. How well I remember the tearful resolution with which I pledged myself to try to overcome my troublesome propensities and to strive only for the courage of the right, and for the fearlessness of true womanhood so much needed and earnestly desired, and so painfully lacking.

DAVID BARTON.

MY YOUNGER BROTHER AND RIDING MASTER.
]

November found us home again. Under the circumstances, there must naturally be a share of social gayeties during the winter, and some preparations for my new school duties; and I waited with more or less apprehension for what would be my first life among strangers, and the coming of my anticipated “First of May.” With slight variation I could have joined truthfully in the dear old child refrain:

“Then wake and call me early,
Call me early, mother dear,”
For that will be the veriest day
“Of all the glad New Year.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.