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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12193-0.txt b/12193-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc6192c --- /dev/null +++ b/12193-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6887 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12193 *** + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE + + +BY + +JAMES HENRY FOSS + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +1903 + + +TO + +MY BELOVED, ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN, + +THIS BOOK IS + +MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED + +IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT + +BY ITS PERUSAL + + Many sailing o'er life's solemn main, + Forlorn and shipwrecked brothers, may take heart again. + + + + +Contents + +CHAPTER + +I. Launching of My Life Boat +II. My First Voyage +III. Near to Nature's Heart +IV. Joys and Sorrows of School-Days +V. Career of a Dominie-Pedagogue +VI. Dreams of My Youth +VII. A Disenchanted Collegian-Preacher +VIII. In Shadow Land +IX. Sunlight and Darkness in Palace and Cottage +XI. Adventures in Mosquito Land +XI. In Arcadie +XII. From Philistine to Benedict and a Honeymoon +XIII. The Angels of Life and Death +XIV. Tribulations of a Widower +XV. Faith Sees a Star +XVI. On the Political Stump +XVII. That _Eddyfying_ Christian Science +XVIII. In the Land of Flowers +XIX. Sunbeam, The Seminole +XX. A Founder of Towns and Clubs +XXI. A Million Dollar Business with a One Dollar Capital +XXII. Pendulum 'twixt Smiles and Tears +XXIII. Monarch of all He Surveyed: Then Deposed, +XXIV. Foregleams of Immortality +XXV. A Practical Socialist and Colonizer +XXVI. Hand in Hand with Angels +XXVII. Among the Law-Sharks +XXVIII. Campaigning in Wonderland +XXIX. Among the Clouds +XXX. Disenchanted: Home Again +XXXI. The Florida Crackers +XXXII. Looking Forward + +[Illustration: [cursive] Your friend, the Author +James H. Foss] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +LAUNCHING OF MY LIFE-BOAT. + + Wild was the night, yet a wilder night + Hung around o'er the mother's pillow; + In her bosom there waged a fiercer fight + Than the fight on the wrathful billow. + + +Already there were more children than potatoes in her hut of logs, and +yet, another unwelcome guest was coming, to whom fate had ordained +that it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born. + +A sympathizing neighbor held over the suffering woman an umbrella to +shield her from the rain which poured through the dilapidated roof, +and when the dreary light of that Sunday morning dawned, my frail bark +was launched on the stormy, sullen sea of life. + +My father, a good man, but a ne'er-do-well financially, had loaned his +best clothes, watch and pocketbook to a friend to enable him to call +on his best girl in captivating style, and said friend expressed his +gratitude by eloping with the girl and all the borrowed finery. + +That same night the boom broke, and allowed all the savings of our +family invested in logs, cut by my father and his lumbermen, to float +down the river and be lost in the sea. + +Thus storm, flood, calamity and sorrow, far in advance heralded the +future of myself, the fourth son of a fourth son who, on that Sunday, +in the dog-days of 1841, reluctantly came into this world. + +The howling of the wolves in the surrounding wild-woods, the screaming +of the catamounts in the near-by tree-tops, the sterile dog-star +drying up the crops, the marching of my father to fight in the +threatened Aroostook war, all conspired for months before this fateful +night to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloomy forebodings in +the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the +mind of the baby yet unborn. + +All through that wretched summer, scorching drought alternating +with cloud-bursts vied with each other in blasting the hopes of the +farmers, and premature frost destroyed the few remaining stalks of +corn, so that when the winter snows came, gaunt famine stared our +family fiercely in the face. + +My father and three brothers faced the withering storms bravely, +unpacking their internal stores of sunshine, as the camel in the +desert draws refreshment from his inner tank when outward water fails. + +We were isolated from human companionship, except when occasionally +the doctor came on the tops of the fences and branches of the +pine-trees to soothe the pains of my sickly mother. At this time the +snow was so deep that a tunnel was cut to the neighboring hovel where +shivered our ancient horse and cow. + +My father and brothers tramped with snare and gun on snow-shoes +through the woods, securing occasionally a partridge or squirrel, and +semi-occasionally a deer, or pickerel from the lake. On one of these +occasions, two of my brothers and the dog met with an adventure which +nearly gave them deliverance from all earthly sorrows. As they faced +the terrible cold of a January morning, the wailing of the winds in +the tree-tops, and the few flying snowflakes foreboded a storm which +burst upon them in great fury while about two miles from home. +Bewildered and benumbed, they dug a hole in the snow down to the +earth, and were soon buried many feet deep, thus affording them some +relief from the cold; but they nearly famished with hunger and gave +themselves up for lost. Suddenly, the dog, who was huddled with them +for warmth, jumped away whining and scratching in great excitement. +He refused to obey their orders to be still and die in peace, but, +digging for some minutes, his claws struck a tree, then, rushing over +the boys and back again to the trees repeatedly, he roused them from +their lethargy to follow him; but nothing was visible but a hole in a +tree through which the dog jumped and barked furiously. + +Cutting the hole larger with their axe, they found the interior to be +dry punk, which at once suggested the exhilarating thought of a fire, +and soon a delightful heat from the burning drywood permeated their +snow cave, the smoke being more endurable than the previous cold. All +at once they heard a strange snorting and scratching above in the +tree with whines which drove the dog wild with excitement, then, +with burning embers and suffocating smoke, down came a huge animal, +well-nigh breaking the necks of frantic dog and "rubbering" boys. + +After this came the tug of war. Teeth, axe, gun, fire, dog, bear, and +boys all mixed up in a fight to the finish. Finally, as bruin was not +fully recovered from the comatose state of his winter hibernating, +after many scratches and thumps, cuts and shots, came the survival of +the fittest. + +Not even imperial Caesar, with the world at his feet, could have been +prouder than were boys and dog when they looked at their prostrate +foe, and reflected that this conquest meant the physical salvation +of our entire family. Soon the chips flew from the tree, and over a +cheerful fire they roasted and devoured bear steaks to repletion. + +Digging to the surface, they found that the storm had subsided, and +rigging a temporary sled from the boughs of the tree, they dragged +home this "meat in due season." + +All through the hours of the following night the wolves, attracted by +the scent of blood, howled and scratched frantically around the hut, +calling for their share in that "chain of destruction," by which the +laws of the universe have ordained that all creatures shall subsist. +The infant, of course, joined lustily in the chorus until the boys +almost wished themselves back in their shroud of snow. + +So, with alternate feasting and fasting we passed the long weeks of +that Arctic winter until the frogs in the neighboring swamp crying: +"Knee deep, knee deep," and "better go round, better go round," +proclaimed the season of freshets when the vast plain below us was +traversible only in boats. Then the birds returned from the far South, +but brought no seed-time or harvest, for that was the ever to be +remembered "Year without a summer," and but for the wild ducks and +geese shot on the lake, and the wary and uncertain fish caught with +the hook, all human lives in that region would have returned to the +invisible from whence they came. + +It seemed as if chaos and dark night had come back to those wild +woods. The migratory fever seized upon us all, and my parents +determined to seek some unknown far away, to sail to the beautiful +land of somewhere, for they felt sure that-- + + Somewhere the sun is shining, + Elsewhere the song-birds dwell; + And they hushed their sad repining + In the faith that somewhere all is well. + + Somewhere the load is lifted + Close by an open gate; + Out there the clouds are rifted, + Somewhere the angels wait. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MY FIRST VOYAGE. + + +My father and brothers constructed a "prairie schooner" from our +scanty belongings, and one forlorn morning in early autumn, with the +skeleton horse and cow harnessed tandem for motive power, we all set +sail for far-off Massachusetts. + +We slept beneath our canopy of canvas and blankets; those of our +number able to do so worked occasionally for any who would hire, +but employers were few, as this was one of the crazy seasons in the +history of our Republic when the people voted for semi-free trade, and +the mill wheels were nearly all silent for the benefit of the mills of +foreign nations. They shot squirrels and partridges when ammunition +could be obtained, forded rivers, narrowly escaping drowning in the +swift currents, and suffered from chills and fever. + +One dark night some gypsies stole our antediluvian horse and cow. The +barking of the faithful dog awakened father and brothers who rushed +to the rescue, leaving mother half dead with fear; but at length the +marauders were overtaken, shots were exchanged, heads were broken, and +after a fierce struggle and long wandering, lost in the woods, our +fiery steeds were once more chained to our chariot wheels. + +The next day we came to a wide river which it was impossible to ford, +but mercy, which sometimes "tempers the blast to the shorn lamb," sent +us relief in the shape of an antiquated gundalow floating on the tide. +Like Noah and family of old, we managed to embark on this ancient ark, +and paddled to the further shore. + +There we miraculously escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk. While +painfully making our way through the primeval forest, we were suddenly +saluted by the ferocious war-whoop, and a dozen Indians barred our +way, flourishing their primitive implements of warfare. A shot from +father's double-barreled gun sent them flying to cover, our steeds +rushed forward with a speed hitherto unknown, the prairie schooner +rocked like a boat in a cyclone, the mother shrieked, the _enfant +terrible_ howled like a bull of Bashan, and just as the "Red devils" +were closing in from the rear, the mouth of a cave loomed up in the +hillside into which dashed "pegasus and mooly cow" pell-mell. + +Our red admirers halted almost at the muzzle of the gun and the blades +of my brothers' axes. Luckily the Indians had neither firearms nor +bows and arrows. They made rushes occasionally, but the shotgun +wounded several, the axes intimidated, and they seemed about to settle +down to a siege when, with a tremendous shouting and singing of +"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," a band of picturesquely arrayed white men +came marching along the trail. The enemy took to their heels, and we +learned that our rescuers had been to a William Henry Harrison parade +and barbecue, for this was the time of the famous "hard cider" +campaign. + +The Indians had been there too and, filling up with "fire water," +their former war-path proclivities had returned to their "empty, +swept, and garnished" minds, to the extent that they yearned to +decorate their belts with our scalps. + +Our preservers scattered to their homes, and the would-be scalpers +were seen no more, leaving the world to darkness and to us in the +woods. The woods, where Adam and Eve lived and loved, where Pan +piped, and Satyrs danced, the opera house of birds; the woods, green, +imparadisaical, mystic, tranquillizing--to the poet perhaps when all +is well--but to us, they seemed haunted by spirits of evil, the yells +of the demons seemed to echo and reecho; but an indefinable something +seemed to sympathize with the infinite pathos of our lives, and at +last sleep, "the brother of death," folded us in his arms, and the +curtain fell. + + "There is a place called Pillow-land, + Where gales can never sweep + Across the pebbles on the strand + That girds the Sea of Sleep. + + 'Tis here where grief lets loose the rein, + And age forgets to weep, + For all are children once again, + Who cross the Sea of Sleep. + + The gates are ope'd at daylight close, + When weary ones may creep, + Lulled in the arms of sweet repose, + Across the Sea of Sleep. + + Oh weary heart, and toil-worn hand, + At eve comes rest to thee, + When ply the boats to Pillow-land, + Across the Sleepy sea. + + Thank God for this sweet Pillow-land, + Where weary ones may creep, + And breathe the perfume on the strand + That girds the Sea of Sleep." + +It is pleasant in this sunset of life, to recall the testimony of my +brothers that through all those troublous scenes, father and mother +were soothed and consoled by an unfaltering faith in the ultimate +triumph of the good and true, that their faces were often illumined as +they repeated to each other those priceless words of the sweet singer, + + "Drifting over a sunless sea, cold dreary mists encircling me, + Toiling over a dusty road with foes within and foes abroad, + Weary, I cast my soul on Thee, mighty to save even me, + Jesus Thou Son of God." + +At last the "perils by land and perils by sea, and perils from false +brethren," this long, long journey ended and we reached the promised +land. We halted in old Byfield, in the state of Massachusetts, with +worldly goods consisting of a bushel of barberries, threadbare +toilets, and the ancient equipage dilapidated as aforesaid. + +After much tribulation, father took a farm "on shares," which was +found to result in endless toil to us, and the lion's share of the +crops going to the owners, who toiled not, neither did they spin, but +reaped with gusto where we had sown. + +After a few years of this profitless drudgery, my father bought an old +run-down farm with dilapidated buildings in the neighboring town of +R----, mortgaging all, and our souls and bodies besides, for its +payment. We hoped we had rounded the cape of storms which sooner or +later looms up before every ship which sails the sea of life, for we +had fully realized the truth of the poem-- + + We may steer our boats by the compass, + Or may follow the northern star; + We may carry a chart on shipboard + As we sail o'er the seas afar; + But, whether by star or by compass + We may guide our boats on our way, + The grim cape of storms is before us, + And we'll see it ahead some day. + + How the prow may point is no matter, + Nor of what the cargo may be, + If we sail on the northern ocean, + Or away on the southern sea; + It matters not who is the pilot, + To what guidance our course conforms; + No vessel sails o'er the sea of life + But must pass the cape of storms. + + Sometimes we can first sight the headland + On the distant horizon's rim; + We enter the dangerous waters + With our vessels taut and trim; + But often the cape in its grimness + Will before us suddenly rise, + Because of the clouds that have hid it + Or the blinding sun in our eyes. + + Our souls will be caught in the waters + That are hurled at the storm cape's face; + Our pleasures and joys, our hopes and fears, + Will join in the maddening race. + Our prayers, desires, our penitent griefs, + Our longings and passionate pain, + Be dashed to spray on the stormy cape + And fly in our faces like rain. + + But there's always hope for the sailor, + There is ever a passage through; + No life goes down at the cape of storms, + If the life and the heart lie true. + If in purpose the soul is steadfast, + If faithful in mind and in will, + The boat will glide to the other side, + Where the ocean of life is still. + +[Illustration: "It was a Fair Scene of Tranquillity."] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +NEAR TO NATURE'S HEART. + + +It seems but yesterday, although more than a half century ago, that I, +a puny boy, stood on the hilltop and looked for the first time upon +this, the earliest home of which I have any vivid recollection. It +was a fair scene of rustic tranquillity, where a contented mind might +delight to spend a lifetime mid hum of bees and low of kine. + +Along the eastern horizon's rim loomed the blue sea beyond the sandy +dunes of old Plum Island; the lazy river born in babbling brooks and +bubbling springs flowing languidly mid wooded islands, and picturesque +stacks of salt hay, representing the arduous toil of farmers and +dry-as-dust fodder for reluctant cows. Nearer, the two church spires +of the little village, striving to lift the sordid minds of the +natives from earthly clods to the clouds, and where beckoning hands +strove vainly to inspire them with heavenly hopes; around them, +glistening in the sunlight, the marble slabs where sleep the rude +forefathers of the hamlet, some mute inglorious Miltons who came from +England in the early sixties, whose tombstones are pierced by rifle +bullets fired at the maraudering red skins. These are the cities of +the dead, far more populous than the town of the living. + +Nearer, the willowy brook that turns the mill; to the south the dense +pine woods, peopled in our imaginations, with fairy elves, owls, and +hobgoblins--now, alas, owing to the rapacity of the sawmills, naught +but a howling wilderness of stumps and underbrush. + +Directly below me, stands our half-century old house with its eaves +sloping to the ground, down which generations of boys had ruined their +pants in hilarious coasting; near by, the ancient well-swipe, and the +old oaken bucket which rose from the well; beyond this, of course, +as usual, the piggery and hennery to contaminate the water and breed +typhoid fever, and in the house cellar, the usual dampness from the +hillside to supply us all with rheumatism and chills. + +There existed apparently in the early dawn of the nineteenth century, +an unwritten law which required the farmers to violate all the laws of +sanitation, and then to ascribe all ills the flesh is heir to, to the +mysterious will of an inscrutable Providence whose desire it was to +make the heart better by the sorrows of the countenance, and to save +the soul from hell by the punishment of the body. Vegetables were +allowed to rot in the cellars, and to make everybody sick with +their noxious odors so that we might not be too much wedded to this +transitory existence. Pork, beans, and cabbage must be devoured in +enormous quantities just before going to bed for the purpose of +inspiring midnight groans and prayers to be delivered from the pangs +of the civil war in the inner man. + +This moralizing is inspired by the pessimism of disenchanted age; but +on that beautiful morning of the long ago, naught occurred to me +save the wedlock of earth and heaven: I was near to nature's heart, +listening to the ecstatic songs of the robins, the orioles and +sweetest of all the bobolink. + + "Oh, winged rapture, feathered soul of spring: + Blithe voice of woods, fields, waters, all in one, + Pipe blown through by the warm, mild breath of June, + Shepherding her white flocks of woolly clouds, + The bobolink has come, and climbs the wind + With rippling wings that quiver not for flight + But only joy, or yielding to its will + Runs down, a brook of laughter through the air." + +After the charm of the novelty of the scene had vanished, I descended +from my perch to explore this sleepy hollow: the barn door hung +suspended on a single hinge, like a bird with but one unbroken wing to +soar upon. The swallows twittered their love-songs under the eaves; +chipmunks scolded my intrusion and threw nuts at my head from the +beams; a lone, lorn hen proclaimed her triumph over a new laid egg, +and then, with fiery eyes, assaulted me with profanity as I filled +my hat with her choicest treasures. A litter of pigs scampered away, +wedging themselves into a hole in the wall, and hung there kicking and +squealing, while their indignant mother chased me up a ladder where +she hurled at me the vilest imprecations; a solitary Phoebe bird +wailed out her plaintive "pee wee, pee wee, pee whi itt," and a +newly-married pair of sandpipers chanted their song of the sea on the +edge of a mud puddle in the yard. + +At last the infuriated sow went to liberate her wedged-in offspring, +leaving me to flee to the house where I cooked my eggs and some +ancient potatoes in the ashes of a fire smoldering in the wide old +fireplace. I have since eaten royal dinners in palatial hotels, but +nothing has ever tasted half as good as this extemporized lunch of my +boyhood. + +Here the rest of the family found me later when they came bringing +their household goods; here I might have laid, broad and deep, the +foundations of a useful life, had I possessed even a modicum of the +stick-to-itiveness so essential to success. + +A limited amount of discontent is a powerful stimulus to more +strenuous endeavor; but when you have intensity without continuity of +mental action, beware of imitating my example of progressing along the +lines of the least resistance; for if you do you will never attain +to that persistency of effort which can come only from overcoming +obstacles. + +When my father gave me a moderate task of weeding onions, I soon +became tired of crawling on hands and knees under a scorching sun, +inundating the earth with perspiration and tears, so I substituted a +hoe for fingers, tearing up onions with the weeds that I might the +sooner secure unlimited rheumatism by bathing in the brook. Had +my father given me what he earnestly desired, and what I richly +deserved,--a sound spanking, and more weeding to do,--I might have +developed much needed perseverance, but spanking was never allowed by +my fond mother, and I became a shirk. + +I was set to picking berries to replenish the family larder; but +this soon became monotonous, and I appropriated the old grain-sieve, +placing it beside the bushes, and pounding the huckleberries into it +with a stick; the result was a heterogeneous conglomeration of worms, +leaves, bugs, and crushed berries; but I succeeded in eliminating the +refuse by throwing the whole mass into a tub of water, and skimming +off the risings. I would then descant to buyers upon the freshness +of the berries wet with the dews of heaven, but my ruse was soon +discovered, and people refused to purchase such mucilaginous pulp. + +Our widowed hired woman was possessed of a baby, and I was assigned +the task of rocking the cradle; but I soon sighed for the apple +blossoms and songs of birds,--we had no English sparrows then--so I +drove a nail into the cradle, tied to it the clothes-line, and went +out of doors and began pulling at the cord. Soon agonizing screams +were heard, and baby was found on the floor with the cradle pounding +on top of him. + +I was sent to drive home the cows from pasture, but left the task to +the dog, who chased them over the wall into the corn-field where they +devastated the crop, and ruined the milk by devouring green apples, +while I, skylarking in a neighbor's pasture, was treed by an angry +bull, who kept me in the branches until I caught a violent cold and +became for weeks a family burden. + +I was set to milking the cows, but I tied their tails to the beams, +applied a lemon-squeezer to their udders until everybody was aroused +by the bellowings of the infuriated beasts, and the milk and myself +were found carpeting the dirty floor. + +At last all patience was exhausted, and as I was born on Sunday, and +was good for nothing else my parents, good, pious church-members, +concluded I must become a minister, consequently they sent me to +school. School! What memories come back to us over the arid wastes of +life at the very mention of this magic word! There is the place where +immortal minds are filled with loathing at the very sight of books, +or where the torch of learning is kindled, which burns on with +ever-increasing brightness forever more, and when I think of some of +the teachers of my youth I am reminded of what the wise pastor said to +a "stupid lunk-head" who had conceived the preposterous idea that he +was called to be a preacher. "What, you be a minister?" + +"Yes," said the dunce, "are we not commanded in the holy book to +preach the gospel to every critter?" + +"Verily," was the reply; "but every critter is not commanded to preach +the gospel." + +So long as percentages obtained after "cramming" for examinations are +the criterions which decide the accepting or rejecting of candidates +for teaching positions, we must expect "critters" for the school +guides of our children, who, like some of my own tutors, will + + "Ram it in, cram it in-- + Children's heads are hollow; + Rap it in, tap it in-- + Bang it in, slam it in + Ancient archaeology, + Aryan philology, + Prosody, zoology, + Physics, climatology, + Calculus and mathematics, + Rhetoric and hydrostatics. + Stuff the school children, fill up the heads of them, + Send them all lesson-full home to the beds of them; + When they are through with the labor and show of it, + What do they care for it, what do they know of it?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +JOYS AND SORROWS OF SCHOOL-DAYS. + + +It was the custom in R----, and is now to quite an extent elsewhere, +to elect as school committee those especially noted for their +ignorance and unfitness for the duties, perhaps to keep them out of +the almshouse, or to educate them by the absorption process while +hearing pupils recite. These men were paid two dollars for each call +they made at schools, consequently they "called" early and often, +especially when the school ma'ams were young and pretty. + +Here, as elsewhere, there was always a great fight at town-meetings +for these school board positions, especially when the school-book +agents became numerous, for these committees could secure from said +agents unlimited free books, and get high prices for all their +spavined horses, dried up cows, and sick pigs in return for voting for +rival text-books. + +As the committees were often unequal to the task of making out a +course of study, pupils selected what studies they pleased, as +suicidal a policy as it would be if, when you were sick and went +to the physician for relief, he should point to a lot of different +medicines, and tell you to pay your money, and take your choice. + +As there was a cramming machine close by called an academy, whose sole +object was to push students into Harvard College, of course the common +schools must be "crammers" for the academy, and the result was, that +we had no educational institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia +was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of +nothing. As well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound +it down with a ramrod, and expect healthful physical growth. + +Hundreds of poor parents are working themselves to death to send their +children to such schools with a view to elevating them to "higher +positions" than they themselves occupy, and soon we will have none to +do the honest physical labor of life, but the world will be full of +kid-gloved hangers on for soft jobs, who regard working with the hands +to be a disgrace. + +Well do I remember going to a neighbor, whose farm was mortgaged for +all it was worth to buy finery and pay tuition bills in said academy, +and begging for the services of the daughter to help my sick mother. I +was refused with insult and scorn. "Do you think," shrieked the irate +virago, "that I will allow my daughter who is studying French, Latin, +Greek, and German to wash your dirty dishes?" I was driven from the +house at the point of the boot. That daughter is to-day shaking and +twitching with St. Vitus's dance, a physical and mental wreck from +overstudy, causing nervous exhaustion and despair. + +Hundreds of girls throughout our country who might have been good +housekeepers, are to-day useless invalids, made so by what is called +"higher education." Hundreds of boys, who might have become successful +farmers and mechanics, are now dissipating in beer shops while waiting +in vain for lily-fingered positions as bookkeepers or teachers. In +scores of New England towns, one man, employed to fill the heads of a +reluctant few with the dead languages, receives more salary than all +the other teachers combined. + +It seems to require a surgical operation to get the fact through our +thick heads, that our school system demands radical reform from top to +bottom to the end that hands as well as heads may receive technical +bread-and-butter, practical education. + +I was a victim of this elective-study craze, and with the usual +stupidity displayed by a child when left to decide what he shall do, +I chose Latin as my principal study in this common district school, +because I fancied it smacked of erudition. + +The teacher, knowing no more than myself of the language, set me to +committing to memory the whole of Andrews' Latin Grammar. I gained +the important information that "_sto, fido, confido, assuesco_, and +_preditus_" govern the ablative, and other valuable lore; but when I +asked the teacher where the Latin vernacular came in, she replied that +that would come to me later--that I must "open my mouth and shut my +eyes while she gave me something to make me wise." A solemn awe not +unmixed with envy pervaded the schoolroom as I, parrot-like, rattled +off this valueless jargon of a people dead for hundreds of years. + +As this study possessed no interest for me, I naturally dropped into +mischief, and being caught one day with a distorted picture of the +teacher on my slate with the following suggestive poem lines beneath +it:--"Savage by name and savage by nature, I hope the Lord will take +your breath before you lick us all to death,"--I was chased about the +room by the angry pedagoguess until I leaped through the back window, +and the hole made in the bank by my head is pointed out to this day as +a warning to recalcitrant pupils. + +[Illustration: "Floating 'Neath the Trees of Mill River."] + +I refused to return to this temple of wisdom, and digging a hole into +the haymow, secreted myself therein, pulling the hole in after me. +Here I would remain during school hours, watching through a crevice +cut in the side of the barn, my father who made the air resound +with threats of what he would do if I did not at once return to my +education mill. Here I was often joined by a congenial spirit, and +we played cards which were regarded as the emissaries of Satan by my +religious parents; then we would sally forth with masked faces and +wooden guns, and inspired by dime novels, overthrow the walls of +children's playhouses, throw rocks against the schoolhouse, bully the +small boys almost into fits, hook the neighbors' eggs, corn, melons +and apples, which we devoured at leisure in a hidden hut in the woods. + +When the spirit moved, we would "swipe" a neighbor's skiff and go +floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of Mill River, +lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting +in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the +fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling +victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; +then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across +a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing +on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes +for a mud-eel for its dinner. + +Then we would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some +fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. It was +delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy +of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon +the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the +flute-like melodies of the mockingbird of the north. + +We would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through +which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit +confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to +all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel +endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel, +everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him; +the turtles, snapping at everything in sight with impunity relying +upon the impregnable defense of their coats-of-mail. + +On one of these occasions we were aroused from our Arcadian dream by +a frightful roar, and the destruction of all things seemed at hand. A +young cyclone had struck the fire over which we had cooked our fish, +fanning it into a furious conflagration. We climbed a tall oak, and +soon, as far as the eye could reach, all the hills and woodlands +seemed wrapped in flames. Frantic farmers were seen flagellating the +excited oxen and horses, who, with tails in air, were dragging the +ploughs, making furrows around the houses and barns, which were nearly +all located in pastures rendered dry as tinder by that extraordinary +summer's heat. + +The cause of this disturbance was traced to us, and we barely escaped +coats of tar and feathers at the hands of the infuriated neighbors, +by the pleadings of our ever-loving mothers who promised we should go +every day to the academy and sin no more. + +We were thoroughly sobered by our dangers, and commenced our careers +at this ancient institution founded by the first Lieutenant-Governor +of Massachusetts. Here reigned supreme a fiery autocrat, a fervent +admirer of Greek and Latin, a cordial hater of mathematics--my weakest +point--a D.D., LL.D., who was determined to drive everybody into +college. He had heard of my escapades, and was fully prepared to lay +upon my devoted head all the pranks of a restless fun-loving crowd of +students. + +On the first day of my initiation, while the professor was invoking +the Divine blessing, the sight of a big dinner pail belonging to the +fat boy in front of me, proved too much of a temptation, and I hurled +it down the aisle, scattering pork, pickles, doughnuts, and so forth +in its wake, and ending with a loud bang against the platform. Of +course I was the suspect, and cutting off prayer abruptly, down he +rushed, and banged my head till I saw more stars than ever shone in +heaven. + +My academy "_alma mater_" has graduated but few who have-- + + "Climbed fame's ladder so high + From the round at the top they have stepped to the sky," + +and it is sad to recall that many of the most gifted, acquired +in college secret societies the alcohol habit, and now sleep in +drunkards' graves. + +Brilliant Charlie, my chum, who mastered languages and sciences as +easy as "rolling off a log." I saw him last summer, a wreck--wine and +bad women did it. The idolized son of pious parents, whose youth was +surrounded at home with the halo of Bible and prayer; but like Esau, +he "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage" and afterwards "found +no space for repentance, though he sought it earnestly and with many +tears." + +It seems but yesterday that he and I were enjoying a game of +"pickknife," lacerating the top of a new desk, when in rushed the +"D.D." with his feet encased in the thinnest of slippers and with +which he gave me a kick which broke his toe, then clasping it in his +hand, danced on one leg, whooping unconsciously cuss word ejaculations +till we shrieked with laughter; then he bumped our heads together +until my big brother shook the dominie-pedagogue as a dog would a rat, +and threatened that if he ever struck my head again he would drown him +in the horsepond. + +Dear, good brother, he always was, and is now my guardian angel, +although now he comes from heaven to shield me, for I am the last on +earth of my father's family. + +Alas, how many of those academy classmates, each of whom was then the +soul of honor and the heart of truth, drowned their intellects in the +flowing bowl. _Eheu, Eheu, fugaces anni labuntur!_ But surely it was +only this morning oh, beautiful, star-eyed Harry, that you and I, +wearied with the frantic vain attempts of the unmathematical professor +to elucidate by appalling triangles and hieroglyphics on the +blackboard the perplexities of cube root, ousted each other from the +seat, sprawling upon the floor, and were chased by the LL.D. out of +doors, never to return until we apologized and promised "to do so no +more." + +Although I had been as "prone to mischief" as the sparks to fly +upward--ringing the academy bell at midnight by means of a string tied +to the tongue, bringing the professor in his night shirt from his bed +to chase me, covering his chimney with a board till he was well-nigh +suffocated with smoke, hitching his horse to a boat in Mill River, +pillaging his coop and scattering his hens to the four winds of +heaven, crawling under his bed at night and nearly frightening him to +death with unearthly groans, catching him by the legs as he jumped out +and leaving him kicking on the floor as I leaped through the window +amid applauding students--I was appointed assistant teacher at the +beginning of my senior year. + +Then at once great dignity was assumed by me which, being resented by +my former cronies, I secured order by licking them at recess one by +one, though I suffered from many "nasal hemorrhages" while engaged +in fistic rough and tumbles to assert my authority; I conquered, but +secured many black eyes and bedewed the campus with much "claret" for +the good of the order. + +At length we were declared sufficiently crammed to enter college, +and on graduation day I discoursed in stentorian tones upon "True +Heroism," amid the applause of the fair sex, and convulsed the +audience with laughter by prancing, in my enthusiastic eloquence, upon +the sore toe of one of the reverend trustees on the stage who fairly +yelled with pain: "_Sic transit gloria mundi_." + +Among the sins of my youth, which I confess with "shame and confusion +of face" were the pranks played by me and some fellow-sinners upon our +nearest neighbors. These worthies consisted of an old man and what +appeared to be his much older daughter, the two most unaccountable +cranks that dame nature ever presented to my notice. + +The father was possessed of the insane hallucination that he was the +greatest poet that ever lived. Often I have seen him drop his hoe in +the potato field, and run for the house so that you could hardly see +his heels for dust, looking for all the world like an animated pair of +tongs. As he expressed it, "an idee had struck him," and all mankind +would die of intellectual starvation unless he at once embodied said +"idee" in a poem. + +His greatest delight was to gather about him of an evening a crowd +of young folks and read to us his preposterous "lines." On such +occasions, some of us would quietly steal away up into his garret, and +roll down over the stairs, with a thunderous uproar, a huge gilded +ball which had decorated a post outside a tavern where he formerly +dispensed much "fire water," to the impoverishment of his customers +and to the enrichment of himself. + +Then our host, with much profanity, would rush to the rescue armed +with an ancient bayonet and a fish trumpet which, like the bugle-horn +of Roderic Dhu, summoned all the neighbors to his assistance; but some +sympathizing friend would always upset the table holding the candle so +that they could never decide who were the guilty absentees. + +At other times while the great poet was singing his sweetest songs, we +would seize his ancient roosters by their tails, and while they were +making night hideous with their lamentations, the angry couple would +bombard the hen-roosts with shovels, hoes and other weapons in the +hope of slaughtering the marauders. These pleasantries made much fun +for us, and varied the monotony of the lives of our entertainers. + +The ancient daughter firmly believed that she possessed the fatal gift +of beauty, although her elongated face was of the thickness and color +of sole leather, and one eye was hideously closed, while the other was +of spotless green. It was wonderful to see her cork-screw curls and +languishing smirks when the young men took turns in pretending to +court her, while an admiring crowd gazed at their amours through the +window. + +I can recall but two of the greatest of the poems of this man who +delighted in the full belief that Shakespeare could not "hold a candle +to him." These I take pleasure in handing down through the ages. + +No. 1. + + "A youth of parts, a witty blade + To college went and progress made + Sounding round his logick; + The prince of hell wide spread his net, + And caught him by one lucky hit + And dragged him down to tophet." + +No. 2. + + "In the year 1801 + I, Enoch B----, was born + Without any shirt on." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CAREER OF A DOMINIE-PEDAGOGUE. + + +Dear old fathers and mothers! Of all the people in this world, they +look through the rubbish of our imperfections, and see in us the +divine ideal of our natures, love in us not perhaps the men we are, +but the angels we may be in the evolution of the "sweet by and by," +like the mother of St. Augustine, who, even while he was wild and +reckless, beheld him standing clothed in white a ministering priest at +the right hand of God. + +They see through us as Michel Angelo saw through the block of marble, +declaring that an angel was imprisoned within it. They are soul +artists. They can never acknowledge our faults, only our divine +possibilities; so, when I left the academy, my parents, with strong +yearning and with tears, entreated me to become a minister. I had +not the heart to disappoint them and as one hypnotized, on a Sabbath +morning during that summer, the clergyman immersed me in the river, +while a wondering crowd watched from the shore. The very waters seemed +to protest, for as I gasped for breath at the cold backward plunge, +I imbibed copious draughts of the briny deep, and was well-nigh +strangled. I survived the ordeal, and that afternoon preached in the +church to nearly the entire population of the town on the "Final state +of the impenitent dead." + +Oh, the terrors of this my first sermon, horrors to preacher as well +as to "preachees." As I sat in the pulpit beside our pastor, listening +to the tremulous tones of the organ which followed the prayer, and +gazing at the sea of upturned faces, they seemed taunting me with all +the wild pranks of my boyhood, and crying "Oh fool and hypocrite." + +All my schoolmates were there shaking with ill-concealed merriment. +Every pore poured forth perspiration, and my hair seemed to stand on +end like quills upon the back of the fretful porcupine. I thought of +the experience of the first sermon by a theological student which I +had recently read in a comic paper, and I trembled lest history was to +repeat itself. + +This theologue, like many of his cloth, was possessed of the insane +impression that he was gifted with the sublime inspiration of +eloquence, and being invited to preach on his return to the old home +for vacation, he selected the somewhat startling text "and the dumb +ass opened his mouth and spake." On this elevating theme he wrote a +sensational sermon and committed it to memory in order that he might +electrify his audience with eye power as well as by verbal flow of +soul. The awful day arrived, but when the young apostle arose to +preach, stage fright banished from his mind all but the thrilling +text. + +"My friends," said he, "we are informed by the holy book that this +dumb ass opened his mouth and spake." Then pulling his hair in +desperation, he repeated the text several times, when he was +interrupted by the disgusted pastor, who jumped to his feet and +shouted: + +"Well, friends, as the dumb ass has nothing to say, let us pray." + +This awful example well nigh converted me into another specimen of +this historic animal, but at last the pent up cave of the winds was +opened, and a gust of sound came forth which so stunned the listening +ears of my hearers that they dazedly mistook it for eloquence. + +I painted to them the picture of the incorrigible sinner "on flames of +burning brimstone tossed, forever, oh forever lost." I did not intend +to be a hypocrite; but drifted with the revival tide. + +I discoursed often that summer to audiences that crowded the church +to the doors. I was but fifteen years of age, and was called: "The +wonderful boy preacher." + +One Sunday the village crank came to hear me, honoring the occasion +by wearing a new stove-pipe hat of prodigious proportions, which he +deposited on the seat as he arose during prayer. When the amen was +pronounced, perhaps paralyzed by the fervor, he sat down upon said +stove-pipe, crushing it to a pie, then leaped from the wreck uttering +a blasphemous yell which convulsed the crowd with laughter, and thus +broke up the meeting without the benediction and passing of the +contribution-box, much to the delight of all who "steal their +preaching" on all possible occasions. + +I soon found that however anxious people were to save their souls, +they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through +tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being +impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the +"prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, +N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could +secure by going from house to house of my pupils. + +On arriving there I was ushered into the imposing presence of the +Free-will Baptist minister for examination; then I was made aware that +although I had plenty of Greek and Latin, I was woefully uninstructed +in the rudiments of our mother tongue, and was saved only by the fact +that my cousin was the largest contributor to the dominie's salary. + +The reverend superintendent had prepared an appalling array of +"posers" in accordance with the laws of the state, but my cousin at +my urgent request, assured him that I was an alumnus of one of the +greatest institutions in the world, that I was a clergyman of his own +denomination, that it was a waste of time to examine so distinguished +a scholar, that dinner was ready, and the hungry dominie was seduced +to the table where he partook of so much solid and liquid good cheer, +that he quite forgot his official duty, and gave me the required +certificate: thus I was saved from utter destruction. + +In this isolated country town the coming of the schoolmaster in his +tour of boarding around, was the great social event of the year to +each family in this Barrington, so called from the numerous children +which the mothers bear. The fatted pig was invariably killed in his +honor, and he was regaled with fried pork, roast pig, broiled hog, +sausages, and doughnuts reeking with swine fat _ad nauseam_, galore. +The teacher was thus made bilious, dyspeptic and so ugly, that he +tried to get even with his carnivorous tormentors by making it "as +hot" as possible for their offspring. + +At the opening of the school, this long and lank fifteen year old +pedagogue faced sixty pupils from the "a, b, c, tot" to the brawny +twenty-one-year-older, spoiling for a fight. When I assayed to take a +seat, the half-sawed-off hind legs of the chair gave way, and I fell +heels in air upon the dirty floor amid the yells and cat-calls of this +tumultuous army; then the stalwart ringleader came forward to throw me +into the snow bank, where my predecessor was nearly smothered with his +head under the snow and his feet uplifted to heaven. + +I quickly pulled a concealed ruler, and with a blow on the head, +knocked the young giant sprawling, then utilizing all my athletic +training, I tripped and banged his followers till they fled pell-mell +to their benches. Finally, I hypnotized my audience with great +eloquence, stating that I would give them teaching or clubbing as they +might prefer. My sweet sixteen, black-eyed girl cousin gave efficient +aid, winning the girls to my side; they secured the alliance of their +sweethearts, and the victory was complete. + +I soon found that some of the bright country lads and lasses knew +more than myself about the "three R's," but by getting a key to the +arithmetic, and trimming the midnight candle I managed to keep ahead +of the game. + +In this strictly agricultural town, I found every type of the genuine +unadulterated yankee stock. When I called on Mrs. Jones to furnish her +share of the perambulating schoolmaster's provisions, she remarked, "I +can eat you, but I can't sleep you, because I have no spare bedroom." +With feigned terror, I said that I feared I would not be a very +toothsome subject for a cannibal, thereupon she gave me the glad +hand, "come right in, my poor thing, and we will fat you up for our +Thanksgiving dinner." I entered, and ate my hog and doughnuts with +gladness of heart, for she was the most buxom, joyous, and hospitable +Betsy imaginable. + +It was she who cheered the house and the hearth more than all the +Christmas fires, an old-fashioned, thoroughly good woman, entirely +happy without the aid of diamonds, finery, or long-tailed gowns +to trail through the mud and sweep the streets. It was extremely +refreshing to see this really sensible, natural human being, as rare +in this age as an oasis in the desert. + +Her husband came in smiling, a veritable brother Jonathan, hale and +hearty, though tired, for he had arisen from bed at three o'clock +that morning, milked a dozen cows, done chores enough to kill a dozen +dapper city clerks, and then tramped beside his oxen through the deep +snow, taking a load of wood to sell in Dover nearly twenty miles away. + +This load he had labored hard for two days to cut on the mountainside, +and it brought him the munificent sum of three dollars, yet he was +happier than any multi-millionaire I ever saw. There were stumps he +had dug out, and rocks he had picked on his farm, enough to fence his +hundred acres almost sky-high; but even then he said he had to shoot +his corn and potatoes out of a gun to get them through the stones into +the ground. + +This family was the life of every husking-bee, where each red ear of +corn led to rollicking fun, resounding smacks on rosy cheeks, and of +paring-bees when even numbered apple-seeds were the match-makers for +bachelors and maids. They often took prizes in my spelling-matches, +when the bashful swains were allowed to clasp hands with their +sweethearts, which led to many lifelong hand and heart clasps in this +good old-fashioned town where there were no despairing old maids nor +lone, lorn, grouty unmated men. + +They went every Sunday to whittle sticks, swap jack-knives and +horses, and to listen to the white-haired parson who led them by the +resistless rhetoric of a blameless life, as well as by his heartfelt +prayers and exhortations in those "ways which are ways of pleasantness +and those paths which are paths of peace." + +"One hot summer's day," the farmer told me, "the elder was preaching +to a very drowsy crowd after a hard week's work in the hayfield, when +suddenly he stopped and shouted: 'Fire! Fire!' at the top of his +lungs. 'Where? where?' cried some ex-snorers jumping to their feet. +'In hell,' cried the indignant parson, 'for those who sleep under the +sound of the gospel.'" + +This model minister was dear to every heart, for it was he who had +blessed them when they first saw the light of day, had baptized them +when first his kindly teachings had awakened their aspirations to walk +in the straight and narrow way. It was he who married them when they +found each the _alter ego_, to whom they could say: + + "Thou art all to me love for which my heart did pine + A green isle in the sea love, a fountain and a shrine." + +It was he who had lifted their souls on the breath of prayer, when +their loved ones had "fallen asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, from +which none ever wake to weep." + +They loved him though they gave him from their scanty earnings but +$400 a year, and half the fish he could catch, yet they liberally +supplied his larder with their sweetest butter, freshest eggs, and the +choicest cuts from their flocks. When a city minister once said to +him: "You have a poor salary, brother," he at once replied: "Ah, but I +give them mighty poor preaching, you know." + +Grand old man, he followed closely in the footsteps of his Master, and +accomplished much more good than many famous ones who wander far from +the precepts of the lowly Nazarene, and deliver featureless sermons +to unresponsive, gaily-attired Dives under the arches of great +cathedrals. + +But the trail of the serpent is everywhere found, even in this +sequestered spot. There was, in the outskirts of the town, the +inevitable rumshop, fed, it was said, by an illicit still in the +woods, and there as usual Satan held high carnival among families +dead in trespasses and sins. There we assayed to hold temperance +prayer-meetings, but they loved darkness rather than light, and we +cast our pearls before swine, who turned and rent us. + +On one occasion we tried to hold services in the little old deserted +schoolhouse, and found it, much to our surprise, packed with the +inhabitants of Sodom; a more villainous looking crowd I never saw not +even in darkest New York. Beetle-browed, mop-haired men, whose faces, +if tapped, would apparently give forth as much fire-water as a rum +barrel. + +For a short time they listened to the singing: but when the aged +minister attempted with earnest words to inspire to a better life it +seemed as if all the fiends from heaven that fell, had pealed the +banner cry of hell. Then a decayed cabbage struck him full in the +face, ancient and unfragrant turnips and potatoes filled the air, our +little band crowded around to shield him, but unmercifully assailed, +we were obliged to wield the chairs vigorously over their heads to +fight our way to the door. + +One of our number left to guard the sleigh, luckily had it ready, in +we jumped and drove for our lives, pursued by invectives too horrible +to mention. + +This attack was inspired by the keeper of the den of iniquity as he +feared he would be deprived of his evil gains, and that night he +rewarded them with unlimited free drinks until they drowned their +consciences in a prolonged debauch. + +One of my patrons became my implacable enemy because I gave his +chip-of-the-old-block son some much merited discipline. This man, +Sampson by name, was the most malignant fellow I ever saw. One night +when with my pupils I was enjoying a skating party, he appeared with +some "sodomites" threatening to chuck me under the ice, and they might +have succeeded but for two of my friends who, when the enemy were +close upon my heels, suddenly stretched a rope across their path which +tripped them up, nearly breaking their heads in the concussion with +the ice. + +On another occasion, several of us crawled into a long hole to explore +a cave in the woods. While laboriously making our way on all fours, +carrying torches, we were suddenly horrified by fiendish hisses. +Visions of snakes danced before our minds, the girls shrieked, the +torches fell in our frantic scramble and we were left in Stygian +darkness. A mocking, demoniacal laugh was heard, winged creatures +dashed against our faces scratching and lacerating. + +After much confusion and terror, we succeeded in relighting our +torches, and found ourselves in a wizard-like cave. The bats, for such +were our assailants, fled away like lost spirits, grotesque shapes +were seen formed from the rocks by dripping waters during long ages, +fantastic icicles like the stalactites and stalagmites of the famous +Mammoth Cave hung suspended from the arching roof, but a resistless +longing to reach the air of heaven urged us on, and we crawled to +the opening through which we entered. I was in the advance, and on +reaching the entrance was horrified to find it nearly closed by a +large rock, and behind it appeared the malignant face of Sampson, who +danced in Satanic glee, laughing and shouting. + +"I've got you rats in a hole, and there you'll stay till you die!" he +shouted. + +We knew our enemy too well to expect any mercy, and painfully made our +way backwards to the main cavern. None had ever explored it further. +I at last saw a glimmer of light, and drawing nearer I discovered an +opening to the upper world through which, with great exertions, we +dragged ourselves back to the sweet air of heaven. The delight of the +reaction was exquisite like that of escaping from paradise lost to +paradise regained. + +When the ferocious Sampson heard of our deliverance, he fled, and was +never heard of again, yet this demon in human form had a twin brother +who was one of the best men in the town. + + "From the same cradle's side, from the same mother's knee, + One to long darkness and the frozen tide, and one to the peaceful sea." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DREAMS OF MY YOUTH. + + +In the early spring came the close of school term, and teacher, pupils +and parents parted with mutual regrets. My pecuniary reward was small; +but I shall always remember with pleasure the kind assurances received +that I left the intellectual status of that town much higher than I +found it. I have visited the place only once since, but my old friends +had all passed on to the higher life, and my young ones were scattered +to the four winds of heaven in search of that happiness and wealth +which is seldom found beneath the stars. + +I reached the old home under the hill, delighted to see once more the +eyes which looked love to eyes that spoke again, to hear the familiar +spring chorus from the river, the first robins and bluebirds rejoicing +over the resurrection of nature, to explore each sheltered nook for +the early cowslips, violets, pussy-willows, dandelions, and crocuses; +to gossip with my old friends the chipmunks, the muskrats, and the +woodchucks; to revisit each mossy hollow and sequestered retreat in my +much loved pine woods; to whittle again the willow whistles, to caress +the opening buds and tiny green growing blades of grass; to float once +more in my little boat under the embracing arms of my chums, the oaks, +birches, and hemlocks I loved so well; to watch the first flight of +Psyche, the butterfly, so emblematic of the soaring of the immortal +soul from the body dead. The wood duck seemed to smile upon me as of +old as she sailed gracefully into the little coves in my river, +the woodpeckers beat their drums in my honor, and the heron, the +"Shu-Shugah"--screamed welcome oh, my lover. + +The rapture of the returning life to nature thrilled my inmost being. +Blue waves are tossing, white wings are crossing, the earth springs +forth in the beauty of green, and the soul of the beautiful chanted to +all, the sweet refrain: + + Come to me, come to me, oh my God, oh, come to me everywhere, + Let the earth mean Thee, and the mountain sod, the ocean and the air, + For Thou art so far that I sometimes fear, + As on every side I stare + Searching within, and looking without, if Thou art anywhere. + +My mother brought out all her choicest treasures for her "long lost +baby"; my father and brothers "killed the fatted calf" for the +"prodigal returned," the wide old fireplace sent forth its cheering +warmth, the neighbors gathered round to swap stories, and the +apples, walnuts and home-brewed juice of the fruit contributed their +inspiration to the hearty good cheer. + +Within and without the genial spirit of springtime cheered the heart +of man and the heart of nature, and all things animate and inanimate +sang the words of the poet. + + "Doves on the sunny eaves are cooing, + The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree; + Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing, + And the crocus darts up the spring to see. + Spring has come with a smile of blessing, + Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath, + Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing, + And wakes from the winter's dream of death." + +That summer my services were frequently utilized as substitute +preacher by our good pastor, who was much afflicted with what Mrs. +Partington calls "brown creeturs." He had harped on one string of his +vocal apparatus so long that like Jeshuran of old "it waxed fat and +kicked." Exceedingly monotonous and soporific was his voice, and it +was necessary to strain every nerve to tell whether he was preaching, +praying or reading, the words were much the same in each case. + +The long cramming of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and all things dead had +driven out all the vim and enthusiasm of his youth; the dry-as-dust +drill of the theological institution had filled his mind with +arguments for the destruction of all other denominations to the entire +exclusion of all common sense. He forcibly reminded me of the Scotch +dominie who stopped at the stove to shake off the water one rainy +morning, and to rebuke the sexton for not having a fire. "Niver mind, +yer Riverince," replied the indignant serving man, "ye'll be dry +enough soon as ye begin praiching." + +One hot Sunday when our clergyman was droning away as usual, a +well-to-do fat brother, who once said he had such entire confidence in +our clergyman's orthodoxy that he didn't feel obliged to keep awake +to watch him, commenced to snore like a fog horn, nearly drowning the +speaker's voice. The reverend stopped, and thinking innocently, that +some animal was making the disturbance, said: "Will the sexton please +put that dog out." This aroused fatty, who left the church in a rage, +and his subscription was lost forever. + +Our pious pastor was a fair sample of the "wooden men" turned out by +the educational mills of the day; to an assembly of whom Edwin Booth +is reported to have said: "The difference between the theatre and the +church is this, you preach the gospel as if it were fiction, while +we speak fiction as if it were the gospel truth. When you give less +attention to dry theological disquisitions and much more to the graces +of elocution, you may expect to do some good in the world." + +His pastoral calls were appalling; arm extended like a pump handle to +shake hands, one up and down motion, a "how do you do?"--"fine day," +then a solemn pause, generally followed by his one story; "The day my +wife and I were married it rained, but it cleared off pleasant soon +after, and it has been pleasant ever since," then suspended animation, +finally, "let us pray," and when the same old prayer with few +variations was ended, once more the pump-handle operation and he +departed, wearing the same hopeless face. He was not a two-faced man, +for had he another face, he would surely have worn it. + +This sad-eyed man was much tormented by a brother minister in the +pews, who seemed to have a strong desire to secure our pastor's poor +little salary for his own private use and behoof. His plan evidently +was to throw the stigma of heresy upon the incumbent, and to this end, +when our preacher was one day laboring hard to show us exactly where +foreordination ends and free moral agency begins, the ex-minister +arose, excitedly declaring such talk to be rank Arminianism, and +denounced it as misleading sinners to the belief that they could be +saved even if they were not so predestinated in the eternal mind of an +all-wise, all-loving Jehovah, who had foredoomed some to heaven and +others to hell. The regular speaker was dumbfounded. An argumentative +duett followed, much to the scandal of the saints and the +hilariousness of the sinners, until the pitying organist struck up +with great force: "From whence doth this union arise?" when the +disgruntled disturber left the church vowing he would never pay +another cent for such heretical sermons. + +Later, a heated discussion arose among the church members as to +whether fermented wine should be used at the Sacrament of the Lord's +Supper, and when a vote was taken in favor of the unfermented, the +senior deacon withdrew in disgust and joined the "Pedo Baptist" church +where he could have alcohol in his. + +All this of course made the judicious grieve, and the cause of +religion to languish. This was the time, famous in church history, +when a great reaction set in against Cotton Mather theology, who +proclaimed that the pleasure of the elect would be greatly enhanced +by looking down from the sublime heights of heaven upon the non-elect +writhing in hell. + +Unitarianism grew apace, and Henry Ward Beecher immortalized himself +by saying: "Many preachers act like the foolish angler who goes to the +trout brook with a big pole, ugly line and naked hook, thrashes the +waters into a foam, shouting, bite or be damned, bite or be damned! +Result; they are not what their great Master commanded them to +be--successful fishers of men." + +Our pastor was a good man despite his peculiarities, and led a +blameless though colorless life; but his "hard shell" theology, his +long years of monkish seclusion in the training schools, engendering +gloomy views as to the final misery of the majority of human beings, +his poverty and lack of adaptation, banished all cheerfulness from his +demeanor, and when I recall his sad, solemn face, made so largely by +his views in regard to the horrors awaiting the most of us in the next +world, I find myself repeating the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe in +the "Minister's Wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted +by the old theology; "Oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? Brides +should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of +despair, and only one in a thousand escapes." + +When I semi-occasionally peruse one of the sermons I preached in those +days of my youth, I am strongly inclined to crawl into a den and pull +the hole in after me. I can fully believe the orator who said that a +stupid speech once saved his life. + +"I went back home," he said, "last year to spend Thanksgiving with the +old folks. While waiting for the turkey to cook, I went into the woods +gunning--it would amuse me, and wouldn't hurt the game, for I couldn't +hit the broadside of a barn at ten paces. While promenading, it +commenced to rain, and not wishing to wet my best Sunday-go-to-meetings, +I crawled into a hollow log for shelter; at last the clouds rolled by +and I attempted to pull out, but to my horror, the log had contracted so +that I was stuck fast in the hole, and I gave myself up for lost. I +remembered all the sins of my youth, and conscience assured me that I +richly deserved my fate; finally, I thought of a certain unspeakably +asinine speech which I once inflicted upon a suffering audience, and I +felt so small that I rattled round in that old log like a white bean in +a washtub, and slipped like an eel out of the little pipe-stem end of +that old tree. I was saved; but the audience had been ruined for life." + +Thus often in this cruel world do the innocent suffer, while the +guilty go unscathed to torture a confiding public with what the great +apostle calls the "foolishness of preaching." + +This summer brought our family few smiles but many tears, and the +death-angel passed close to our doors. My eldest brother, while +at work in the hayfield, was smitten by the sun, causing a mental +aberration which made him a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and +finally led him to cut the thread of life with his own hand; my second +brother was pulled by his coat entangled in a wheel, beneath a heavy +load which crushed his thigh. This left the rest of us to struggle as +best we could with multitudinous weeds striving to choke the crops, +and the many trials incidental to wresting sustenance from the +reluctant bosom of mother earth. + +My brother Mark, about this time took upon himself the joys and +sorrows of a family and home of his own, while I assumed the care of a +family of forty school children in the neighboring town of I----. + +I was but "unsweetened sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought +me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot +correctly." The usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the +war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary pranks were +resorted to by young America to settle the oft mooted question as to +who is master; the inevitable interference of parents followed, who as +usual, regarded their children as cherubs whose wings they seemed to +think would soon appear were it not for the tyrannical spanks of the +unworthy teacher. + +I survived the fiery ordeal after a fashion, and that winter entered a +college in the state of Maine. The same old unrest came to me there, +wearied with the dry-as-dust lectures by the faculty of superannuated +ministers, but I graduated after a two weeks' course, and vainly +endeavored for three weeks to catch the divine afflatus at the +Theological Institution, which was supposed to be necessary to enable +me to rescue the perishing as a preacher of the gospel. Then at +the suggestion of the president, who quickly discovered my mental +deficiencies, I was matriculated as a student at another university +founded by the brethren of the same "Hard-shell Persuasion." I was but +a dreamer, in the middle of my teens, dazed by conflicting opinions, +but anxious to walk "_quo dews vocat_." + + "Here I stood with reluctant feet, + Where the brook and the river meet, + Manhood and childhood sweet. + + "I saw shadows sailing by, + As the dove, with startled eye, + Sees the falcon downward fly. + + "To me, a child of many prayers, + Life had quicksands, and many snares, + Foes, and tempters came unawares. + + "Oh, let me bear through wrong and ruth, + In my heart the dew of youth, + On my lips the smile of truth." + +With this prayer of the poet upon our lips, many of us entered these +"classic halls," hoping to find there in communion with the good and +great of the past and the present, that mental and spiritual "manna" +from heaven which would inspire us to lead ourselves and others to the +sublime heights of heroic endeavor. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A DISENCHANTED COLLEGIAN-PREACHER. + + +Previous to my arrival at this ancient seat of learning, founded and +endowed for the perpetuation and propagation of the doctrines of our +denomination, I had never entertained the faintest shadow of doubt as +to the infallibility of our creed; but now all faith in it vanished +like the baseless fabric of a dream. Here at the fountain head of +wisdom, from which streams were supposed to flow for the healing of +the nations, my faith in the beliefs of my ancestors fled, nevermore +to return; here, where lived the great high priests of the sect, I had +expected to find the whole air roseate with divine love and grace, all +souls lifted to sublime heights on the breath of unceasing prayer and +praise. + +The disenchantment was appalling; my brothers in Christ, the grave and +reverend professors, were cold as icebergs, evidently caring nothing +for the souls or bodies of their Christian or pagan students; the +preacher at the college church was an ecclesiastical icicle, who, +in his manner at least, continually cried: "_Procul, procul_, oh, +_Profani_!" + +The prayer meetings were dead and formal, no enthusiasm; it was like +being in a spiritual refrigerator--with perhaps one exception, when, +through the cracks in the floor from the room of a frugal freshman who +boarded himself, came the overwhelming stench of cooking onions, and a +wag brother who was quoting scripture to the Lord in prayer, suddenly +opened his eyes, and sniffing the unctuous odors, shouted: "Brethren, +let us now sing 'From whence doth this onion (union) arise?'" and +roars of laughter would put an end to the solemn farce. + +Within the dismal college dormitories were herded a few hundred +youths, entirely free from all moral and social restraints, abandoned +to all orgies into which many characters in the formative state are +most likely to drift. I frequently saw a professing Christian teacher +torture with biting sarcasm his brother church-member, who had done +his best, though he failed to grasp some intricate mathematical +problem, until the poor fellow abandoned the college in despair. + +Is it strange that I and many others lost all faith in a religion that +brought forth such bitter fruit? When I strayed from the lifeless +dulness of the college church into the light and warmth of the +"liberal sanctuary," where the old man eloquently discoursed of +the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime +development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the +archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his +hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy +clothes when I delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is +it strange that I embrace his Darwinian theory instead of the +mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden +of Eden? + +I usually preached on Sundays, during my four years' course, in +the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total +depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my +thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted +from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would +walk in the footsteps of the only perfect One ever seen on earth. + +By trimming the midnight lamp and ruining my eyes, I won a scholarship +which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that I was released from +the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. The +usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from +upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who insisted upon wearing +stove-pipe hats and the forbidden canes; we tore each others' clothes +to the verge of nakedness, and broke each others' heads in frantic +football rushes; we indulged in ghost-like sheet and pillow-case +parades, during which we fought the police and made night hideous with +yells and scrimmages with the "townies"; we burned unsightly shanties, +and thus improved the appearance of the city. + +We tripped up unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the +icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the +long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with +dull thuds against the barber shop on South Main Street; we of course +stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or +recitations; we howled for hours under their respective windows: + + "Here's to old Harkness, for he is an imp of darkness! + Here's to old Cax., for his nose is made of wax! + Here's to old Prex--for he likes his double x!" + +until some of us were thrust by the police into the nauseating dens of +the stationhouse. + +Thus, like pendulums, we swung twixt studies and pranks till the boom +of the rebel cannon bombarding Fort Sumpter thundered upon our ears. +Suddenly our books were forgotten: the university cadets unanimously +tendered their services to the government; were at once accepted, +and it was the proudest day of my life when, as an officer in our +battalion, I marched with the rest to the drill camp on the historic +training ground. + +The citizens turned out en masse to do us honor, and frantically +cheered us on our way to do or die; every house was gay with old +glory; our best girls, inspired with patriotic fervor, applauded while +they bedewed the streets with their tears; the air resounded with +martial music and the boom of saluting cannon; the young war governor, +who went up like a rocket and down like a stick, led the way on +a prancing charger; the people vied with each other in tendering +hospitalities, and every corner afforded its liquid refreshments. We +thought it lemonade, but it "had a stick in it" and, presto!--we were +no longer seedy theologues, but young heroes all, resplendent with +brilliant uniforms and flashing bayonets, marching to defend our great +and glorious republic. + +We, unsuspecting, imbibed freely the seductive fluids, and soon our +heads were in a whirl. We wildly sang the war songs and gave the +college yells. It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. +That night, Jupiter Pluvius burst upon our frail tents in all his +fury, and I awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a +raging fever. I was taken to the hospital, and as I was a minor my +father took me from the service. + +For weeks I was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished, +alas,--like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart. +Before I regained the little strength I ever had, the war was over, +but I had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of +pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. The few remaining students +plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on +the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us. + +In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to +pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in +Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final +examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until, +as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little +of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong +sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private +examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him +about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned +for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in +copying the "_Pons Asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden +in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said: +"That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to +his walnuts and his wine. + +The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing +engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he +asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers +were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won. + +We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our +"mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_" +conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired +here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from +this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away +forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that +in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned +furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full +assurance that + + There lies in the centre of each man's heart + A longing and love for the good and pure, + And if but an atom, or larger part, + I know that this shall forever endure. + After the body has gone to decay-- + Yes, after the world has passed away. + + The longer I live and the more I see + Of the struggles of souls towards heights above, + The stronger this truth comes home to me, + That the universe rests on the shoulders of love-- + A love so limitless, deep and broad + That men have renamed it, and called it God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +IN SHADOW LAND. + + +I had cherished the delusive hope that my university diploma would be +the open sesame to any exalted position to which I might aspire; but +I found there was a multitude of competitors for every professional +emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to +secure any prize. My change in religious sentiments debarred me from +the pulpit, and I had no friends influential enough to give me a +profitable position as a teacher in New England. + +After making many applications, and enduring many hopes deferred which +make the heart sick, I struck out for New York one dark, rainy night, +with only $10 in my pocket to seek my fortune in that so-called +"Modern Sodom and Gomorrah." I knew no one in that great city, and on +my arrival before daylight in a dismal drenching storm, I entered the +nearest hotel to obtain some much needed sleep. + +A villainous looking servitor showed me to a cold barn-like room where +I found no way of locking the door, so I barricaded the entrance with +the bureau, placing the chair on top as a burglar alarm. The scant +bedclothes were so short that one extremity or the other must freeze, +so I compromised by protecting the "midway plaisance," and in my +cramped quarters, thought with envy of Dr. Root of Byfield, who was +said to stretch his long legs out the window to secure plenty of room +for himself, and a roost on his pedal extremities for his favorite +turkeys. + +I was on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus in the land of +Nod, when a stealthy attempt to open the door sent the chair with a +crash to the floor. Yelling at the top of my voice, "Get out of that, +or I'll put a bullet through you!" I heard a form tumble down the +steep stairs, and muffled curses which reminded me of the lines in the +Hohenlinden poem: "It is Iser (I sir) rolling rapidly." + +At the first dawn of a dismal day I crept down the dirty stairs, and +out of the door of what I learned to be one of the most dangerous +houses in that sin-cursed city. + +The days immediately following while seeking for employment were +forlorn and miserable; I was the fifth wheel of a coach which no one +wanted. Finally, when I had spent my last cent for a beggarly meal, I +saw an advertisement for a teacher in the reform school, and called on +a Mr. Atterbury, the trustee. He regarded me with a pitying eye; told +me two teachers had recently been driven from the prison by the kicks +and cuffs of the toughest boys that ever went unhung; but if I wished +to try it, he would pass me to that "den of thieves." I grasped at +the chance like a drowning man at a straw, and that very night found +myself facing nearly 1,000 hard looking specimens from the slums of +all nations. The schoolroom was a huge hall, in which, at a tap of the +bell, great doors were rolled on iron tracks to subdivide it into many +small class sections, each in charge of a lady assistant. The organ +pealed out the notes for the opening song which was given fairly well; +but when I attempted to read the Master's beginning of the responsive +ritual, a stalwart young giant hurled a book at my head, and bedlam +broke loose. I jumped from the platform, seized the ringleader by the +hair and collar, and with a strength hitherto undreamed of by me, +dragged him before he could collect his thoughts to a closet door, +hurled him headlong and turned the key. The boys said afterwards that +fire flashed from my eyes, and they thought the devil had come. + +I grasped a heavy stick, used for raising the windows, and told them +in stentorian tones of a desperate man, that I would break the heads +of all who were not instantly in their seats. The schoolma'ams +quivered with fear, but the boys slunk to their places and I harangued +them to the effect, that they could have peace or war; if peace, they +would be treated kindly and be taught to become successful men; if +war, they alone would suffer, for I had come there to stay. + +I tried to inspire these poor vicious boys, conceived in sin and born +in iniquity, with the thought that knowledge is power; that many +of the greatest and best of earth had risen from their ranks by +persistent endeavor into the light and liberty of the children of God; +that they could become happy and successful by being and doing good; +that if they would set their faces resolutely towards the better life, +I would gladly help to the utmost of my ability. + +One by one their eyes kindled with the light that is never seen on +sea or shore. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. They had +never been appealed to in that way before, and the spark of goodness +lying dormant in even the most depraved natures, responded to the +breath of kindly words. + +I touched the bell, the great subdividing doors were rolled, and my +assistants quietly proceeded to the work of instruction, confident +that the war was over. + +When I had marched my regiment to their cells that night, and retired +to my room, I reflected that every human existence has its moments of +fate, when the apples of the Hesperides hang ready upon the bough, +but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. The decision of +an hour may open to us the gates of the enchanted garden where are +flowers and sunshine, or it may condemn us, Tantalus-like, to reach +evermore after some far-off and unattainable good. I dreamed that the +clock of fate had struck the hour for me, that I had found my mission +on earth, and that henceforth the "Peace be still" of the Master would +calm life's troubled sea. + +In reconnoitring the island the next day, I found much to admire. +The great domes of the massive buildings towered aloft above the +encircling walls, like aerial sentinels warning us to lift our +thoughts to the blessings that come from on high. The great ships went +sailing by to lands beyond the sea; in front was a veritable bower of +paradise, apple and peach-trees fruited deep, green lawns, rippling +waters, fair as the garden of the Lord. Every prospect pleases and +naught but man is vile. + +The signal was given from the Harlem shore for the institution's boat. +I jumped on board, and the strong arms of the uniformed boys of our +boat's crew propelled us across the river, where two policemen stood +on the pier guarding a girl about eighteen years of age. Quick as a +flash she pushed one of them into the water, his head stuck in the +mud, his legs kicking in the air; then she shrieked with laughter and +ran like a deer up the street. The other policeman and myself +jumped into an express wagon, seized the reins from the astonished, +protesting black driver, plied the whip to his horse and gave chase. + +"What for you dune dar?" cried the darky. + +"Shut up!" was the only reply, and away we went, Gilpin-like, with the +horse on the run. We headed off the girl, and after a rough-and-tumble +scrimmage threw her into the wagon, kicking, screaming, and scratching +like a wild-cat. We took her by main force to the girls' wing of the +prison and put her into a cell. + +Scarcely was I seated at the table when the alarm-bell rang, and, +being officer of the day I ran over to inquire the cause, and found +the powerful young virago, our prisoner, enjoying herself hugely. When +the matron had been handing her some food through a hole in the cell, +the girl shot out her arm, grabbed her by the hair and with the other +hand was now pulling out the hairs by the roots, sometimes a few at +a time, sometimes by the handful, then she would bang the official's +nose against the wall, then knockout blows on the face. The matron was +in awful agony and faint from loss of blood. Entreaty availed nothing, +so I seized a dipper of hot water and dashed it on the girl's naked +arm; the matron fell heels over head on one side, and the prisoner +executed a somersault in the opposite direction, then jumped to her +feet, shook her fist at me and swore like a pirate. + +This young Amazon had been arrested in a vile den kept on a house-boat +in the harbor, and long made life a burden for our women officials. + +A careful study of the five hundred girls in this reform school as +compared with the one thousand boys, proved clearly that women, there +as elsewhere, are either the best or the worst of the human race. When +a girl cuts loose from the angel she was intended to be, she usually +descends to the lowest possible pit of degradation; as soon as this +girl in question found there was nothing to be gained by her fiendish +outbursts of fury, she cunningly changed her tactics with her pious +teacher, and pretended to "be born again." She ostensibly chose the +Bible for her favorite reading, prayed fervently, and became so +circumspect in her deportment that she was promoted to the position of +assistant cook in the good girls division. + +Here she contrived to bake into a cake a letter which she gave to a +visitor, who took it to one of her former companions in sin, and one +day, while walking with her confiding teacher in the garden, a boat +appeared rowed by four men. Into this the young hypocrite jumped, and +like a "sow that was washed, returned to wallowing in the mire." + +In contrast to her ungrateful depravity, the boy I had chucked into +the closet on my first night here became my firm friend, and the +stroke oar of my private boat crew. + +One day I was taking a boat ride in the harbor with two of my lady +assistants and six stalwart boy oarsmen, when a boat shot out at us +from Blackwell's Island with four villainous men and two degraded +women. Coming alongside, one of the women said to the boys: "Throw +that officer overboard, and come with us; we will get you $400 a piece +as bounty, then you can desert from the army, and have a jolly good +time." My teachers fainted with fear; my crew rested on their oars, +wild with desire to escape; it was a crisis. I looked them steadily in +the eyes. + +"Boys," I said, quietly, "when sinners entice thee, consent thou +not--row." + +"We won't hurt you," said my leader; "you have been good to us; let us +get into that boat." + +"Never," said I. "You shall not go to hell, pull!" The men grabbed at +me, my boys pounded them off with their oars, and one of the men +fired two shots which whistled close to my head, but the boys pulled +vigorously, and we sailed away amid the jeers and curses of our +enemies. + +"Sherman," said I, to my stroke oarsman, as we landed on our island, +"why didn't you throw me overboard?" + +"You have been kind to us," he replied, "and we never go back on our +friends." + +I had the pleasure before I left this school, to secure good positions +for all my crew, and they became useful men. I was soon after this +promoted to the vice-principalship of the institution, and an +ex-minister was appointed my first assistant, a good man, but quite +absent-minded. He recalled to my memory the story of a man who came +home in a pouring rain, put his wet umbrella into bed with his wife, +and stood himself up behind the door where he remained all night. + +One day, when I was off duty, I went sailing with two ladies through +"Little Hell Gate," which rushes with great fury by our island, to the +sea. All at once the alarm bell rang. In my haste to get ashore, I +ran the boat onto a partially submerged rock, and it would have been +capsized, had I not jumped out onto the rock and pushed it off. Down +I went under the rushing tide. When I came to the surface I saw the +white belly of a shark, as he turned to seize me in his jaws. I could +almost feel his sharp teeth. My head struck the side of the boat, just +as the ladies, with great presence of mind, grabbed me by the hair, +and pulled me on board. We landed and I rushed, puffing and dripping +like a porpoise, to the wall gate, unlocked it and entered. + +A frightful scene was before me. Williams, my assistant, was on the +ground, covered with blood, and around him was a crowd of the worst +boys in the prison, pounding, kicking, and trying to snatch his keys +so as to escape by unlocking the gate. Luckily my bat with which I had +played baseball with the boys stood in the corner, and grabbing this +I struck out with all my strength, knocking down the boys right and +left. Just then the guard came up on the run, the wounded man was +carried to the hospital, and his assailants locked up. + +Williams, it appeared, had, in his absent-mindedness, unlocked the +jail instead of the wall gates, and let out upon him this horde of +ruffians who had been put in there for safe-keeping. He finally +recovered, but left the island through fear of his life. + +The discipline of the school was much benefited by forming a school +regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of +the boys themselves. They were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder +straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of Napoleon, and their +ambition was stimulated by merited promotions from the ranks. + +For more than a year I thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting +those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the +influence of kindly words and acts, even as the Aeolian harp yields +its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven. It was an +inspiration to watch the blossoming of purer thoughts and higher +aspirations, and to feel that we were cooperating with the invisible +spirits in developing the hidden angels in this youthful army. + +All at once the shadows fell, the baneful greed of that organized +appetite called "Tammany Hall," reached out its devil-fish tentaculae, +which neither fear God, nor have any mercy on men, to seek our blood. +Evil looking Shylock-faced trustees began to supplant those noble men +who had made this refuge a veritable gate of heaven to so many more +sinned against than sinning,--children of the vile. These avaricious, +beastly emissaries of "Tammany," soon snarled at us poor teachers that +we must divide our small salaries with them or give place to those +that would. Not a school book, or a shin-bone for soup, could be +bought unless these leeches had a commission from it; they brought +enormous baskets and filled them with fruit practically stolen from +our children, and carted them home for their own cubs. + +Our superintendent and chaplain were strong sectarians, but very +weak Christians, and they readily made friends of the "Mammon of +unrighteousness." One hot Sunday, when I was in command at chapel, the +somnolent tones of the chaplain, who, as usual, was pouring forth a +stream of mere words--words almost devoid of thought, lulled a large +number of my fifteen hundred boys and girls into the land of dreams. + +As soon as the services were over and I had surrendered my flock to +the yard master, I was summoned before the superintendent where the +pious chaplain accused me of insulting him by not keeping the children +awake. I quietly asked him how this could be done. "Go among them with +a rattan," said he. I told him I thought the preacher deserved the +rattan much more than the children, that they would listen gladly if +he would give them anything worth hearing. From that moment he was my +malicious foe. + +One day while returning from a row in the harbor, I treated my +boat's crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the +superintendent's whistle sounded, and I was called before the trustees +then in session. + +"Are you aware," said he, savagely, "that the rules direct that all +fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?" + +"Yes," was my reply. + +"Well, then, you were stealing, just now." + +"I was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a +thief." The trustees roared with laughter. The president of the board +then asked if I had seen others stealing the fruit. + +"Yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees." + +"Well," said he, "this is a den of thieves." + +"All except the convicts, sir," I replied. + +These incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose +petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power +for good that I reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative +position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the +romantic county of Berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the +stars. + +Among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many "wharf +rats"--so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like +Topsy, they had simply "growed," and slept under the wharves of the +city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to +assuage the pangs of hunger. They were vicious to a degree, and at +first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an +abundant meal obtained honestly. They would rather fight than eat, and +prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling +the truth. Some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of +surprising acuteness. I once asked one of these why he was sent to the +reform school. + +"Oh," was the reply, "I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after +the water dam the copper scooped me in." + +Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him +the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he +called out: "How do you know that is A?" + +"Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A." + +"Well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller +lied?" + +At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a +speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the +boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes. The orator was +annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced +by saying: "I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his +maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass--" At this point, quick as a +flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "Well, if you +ain't Professor Holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?" + +Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering +pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect +imitation of Holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into +the coon song:-- + + "De bigger dat you see de smoke + De less de fire will be, + And de leastest kind ob possum + Climbs de biggest kind ob tree. + + "De nigger at de camp-groun' + Dat kin loudest sing an' shout, + Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos' + Befo' de week am out." + +Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would +unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and +unprecedented attractiveness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SUNLIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PALACE AND COTTAGE. + + +My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the +Bowery, while those at S---- were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue; +but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally +and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I +was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the +millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as +much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the +poor. + +On my arrival in Berkshire County, I found both of my employers were +off on a spree, and that I was ordered to do the work of receiving and +organizing. One day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and +outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondholder" and his +wife, arrayed in purple, fine linen, and diamonds, pulled a flashily +appareled, humpbacked boy up to me, every lineament of whose face +showed depravity and cunning. "There," said the father, "is my d---- +d son, he drinks, swears, and breaks all the commandments every day. +Take him, and send the bill to me." He handed me his card and away +they went. + +This was not an isolated case. I did my best for them; but they were +satiated with luxury, hated books, and seemed to care for nothing +but debauchery. The very next day several of these scamps obtained +permission to visit the cave in "Bear Mountain," where ice could be +found throughout the year. As they did not return on time, I went +in search and found them all drunk. They had no appreciation of the +sun-kissed mountains, waving forests, or verdure-clad valleys; the +grand scenery awakened no responsive smiles, no ennobling aspirations; +they were intent upon nothing but drowning their ignoble souls in the +noxious fumes of tobacco and alcohol. I tumbled them into the wagon, +drove them to their dormitory and put them to bed, lower than the +beasts they seemed to be in their depravity; not all to be sure, for +there were a few choice spirits like Julian Hawthorn, who followed to +some extent the example of his illustrious father, and has won his +spurs in literature. + +I found to my disgust that bad eggs would ruin the good ones; but that +many good ones could not take the rottenness from even one of the bad. +It seemed a hopeless task to endeavor to inspire such impoverished +souls, and I retired in despair, to accept the principalship of the +ancient academy in the village. + +Here I met the children of the so-called middle class, the very bone +and sinew of the Republic; here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and +untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I +pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. E and duco is the +etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of +the mind. I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to +perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all +were intent upon acquiring thorough, practical education. + +When I saw their enthusiasm lagging from want of physical exercise, at +the tap of the bell, we would all rush out upon the beautiful campus +and kick football, or run races until, with glowing faces and +invigorated energies, they would follow me back to our studies, +sometimes into the cheerful academy hall, sometimes under the shade of +the noble oaks, where we would study botany close to nature's heart +amid the songs of birds and the sublime chanting of the tree-tops. + +We gave musical and dramatic entertainments, securing ample funds to +decorate the walls of our hall with works of art; we went on rides +together in barges, drank in long draughts of inspiration from the +glorious scenery, and studied geology, practically, like, if not equal +to Hugh Miller, among the rocks and boulders. I was doing good, and +here I should have remained; but the old unrest came back to me, and I +unwisely accepted a much larger salary in teaching in my native county +of Essex. + +As soon as I took command of my two hundred boys and girls in B----, +I realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted +educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of +the public school system. + +Many children are so crammed with everything that they really +know nothing. In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of +definitions, written by public school children that very year in +another school of this town. + + "Stability is the taking care of a stable." + + "A mosquito is the child of black and white parents." + + "Monastery is the place for monsters." + + "Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk." + + "Expostulation is to have the smallpox." + + "Cannible is two brothers who killed each other in the + Bible." + + "Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, + the head, the chist and the stummick. The head contains the + eyes and brains, if any; the chist contains the lungs and a + piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of + which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w, and y." + +Every teacher was rated according to his ability to secure from his +pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion. + +I grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of +incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board, +considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious +life of the young. I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and +accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic +Lloyd Ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in +a Kort by the wimmun o' Marrble ed." + +Here I had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in +summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. They had +been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my +school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the +first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard +as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking +down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound +cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was +busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful +instrument. + +These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile, +saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then +stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once +suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the +window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly +objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it +fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained +for, and the uproar pro tem subsided. + +This was the winter famed in the history of Massachusetts, as +producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week I was +snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced +cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils. + +One day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who +had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor, +himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was +drowned. The loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his +followers, and _vi et armis_, I managed to survive the fourteen weeks' +term. At the close of the first session of the last day, I threw a +football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off, +kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to +take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, I was in +the "hub of the universe." I afterwards learned that my discretion +was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the +determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to Davy +Jones' locker. + +I had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until I met in +the city, the veritable Judas Iscariot, ready and anxious to sell +anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper, +or any old thing he could pick up. This Jew pretended to wish to sell +one-half interest in his commercial school for $2,000. I had some +negotiations with him, but found out, by careful investigation, that +he had already sold several confiding teachers, who ascertained too +late to save their money, that this fraud was collector and treasurer +of all funds of the company, that he required his partner to do all +the drudgery, and that his report always claimed that all collections +had been paid out for expenses. + +He reminded me of the legend, that when the devil took Christ to the +top of a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth, and +said: "All these things will I give you to fall down and worship +me." Suddenly, the face of a Shylock appeared, saying: "Shentlemen, +peeshness ish peeshness, and if you can't trade, I will take dat +offer." + +I mention this little incident hoping it may prove a warning to the +unwary who, like myself, may fall among the sharpers of the Modern +Athens. Disgusted with this business experience, and wishing to do +good and get good, I advertised, offering $50 for an acceptable +position as teacher, and I at once received many responses from +thrifty committeemen, and retiring teachers. + +I interviewed a clergyman who wanted the reward in advance; but when +the time came for him to deliver the goods, he had suddenly decamped +in the night to avoid a coat of tar and feathers from indignant +parents whose children's morals had been basely ruined by this wolf +in sheep's clothing. Others extended itching palms for the money, but +failed to secure for me the "_sine qua non_." + +At last, an impecunious teacher in W----, who was retiring to accept +a "louder" call in Boston, introduced me to his Board as a particular +friend whom he had known for many years, (he had never seen me +before), and vouched for me as one of the greatest of living +instructors. + +When the three doctors, constituting the school board, were about to +give me a searching examination, which doubtless would have floored +me, prearranged calls summoned them to see pretended patients, and on +the mercenary pedagogue's assurance that I was a university graduate, +they hastily signed my commission and I was saved. + +I shall always remember my two years' experience in this beautiful +town, with much pleasure and pride. On the opening of the school I +found myself looking upon over one hundred of the finest appearing +boys and girls I had ever beheld, seated in a noble new hall well +equipped with organ and all the apparatus which wealth could procure. + +Soon after the opening exercises, the usual trial of the new master +commenced, and a stifling, choking odor threw all into convulsions +of coughing, almost to strangulation. Some one had thrown a large +quantity of cayenne pepper down the register. I quietly opened the +windows, and when the noxious fumes had passed away, the new principal +said: + +"I feel sure that the pleasant outward appearance of my family here is +an expression of the inward goodness and honor of you all, and I am +confident that the perpetrator of this disagreeable mischief will take +pride in removing suspicion from his companions by rising in his seat +and apologizing for his thoughtless rudeness." + +A fine, manly looking boy at once arose. "Come up here, my friend, and +let us talk it over," I said, and he came and stood by my side. "We +are all brothers and sisters here, and I have no doubt you, Arthur, +will now express your regrets for what you have done." He did so, the +audience applauded, and the incident was closed. + +The new master's manner was such a decided contrast to that of his +"knock down and drag out" predecessor, that it captivated his +protégés at the start, and this was the only unpleasant episode in my +delightful intercourse with these charming children. + +I established a society called the "Class of Honor," which soon +comprised my entire family. Every pupil who had no marks against him +or her for failures in scholarship or deportment, was decorated with +a blue ribbon, and when he had earned and worn this for one month, he +was presented with a handsome diamond shaped pin on which was engraved +the words "class of honor." They were prouder of this decoration than +ever were the imperial guard of Napoleon of the Cross of the Legion. + +If a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve +himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the +point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved +from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was +stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public +libraries. Each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to +the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. The +high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a +successful career. + +We had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave +grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, +the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, +declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all +went merry as a marriage bell. + +My salary was raised voluntarily every six months; I enjoyed their +games with them in our ample playgrounds. We often, on holidays, +roamed the woods and seashore together; I often dined with them in +their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions I was one of the +principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save +one. For some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated +with moisture from the sluggish Abajona, kept my throat in an almost +chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, +I could hardly speak above a whisper. Had it not been for this one +serious handicap, I think I would gladly have remained there for life. + +I kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's +house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for +myself and pupils. + +One incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my +efforts in their behalf. During the first campaign of General Grant +for the presidency, many of my pupils and I joined the W--Battalion of +uniformed and torch bearing "Tanners." We marched to the city as an +escort for speakers at a Republican rally. When the hoodlums smashed +our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished +statesman, retreated; but I lost my head and charged the rioters, +using my torch handle vigorously; I was cut off from my company of +which I was lieutenant, and captured by the Democrats. As soon as my +men realized this, they rushed upon my captors _en masse_; many +heads were broken, but I was rescued and carried to the train on the +shoulders of my heroic defenders. + +If my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, I would never +have left W----, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a +much larger salary from N----, and I foolishly accepted. + +The change from W--to N----, was like that from breezy, sunny green +fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild +flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the +suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and +where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and +unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural +and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they +were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank +account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the +teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their +own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out +the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board. + +In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and +loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury +and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to +bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all +social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your +own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you +attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial +orthodox church. + +I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the +little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and +would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. +Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the +fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth +because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of +one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one +day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful +poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name: + + "Old Aunt Dunk + Is a mean old skunk." + +She flew into a furious rage, declared that some Unitarian must have +perpetrated this insult, and that I must find the culprit. + +She never forgave me because I failed to do so, and at her urgent +solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few +signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed +tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. +As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons +presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was +unanimously refused by the school board. + +It would have been laughable had it not been so serious and pitiful, +to see the frantic attempts of the poor in this town to keep up +appearances, and counterfeit the style of those who had grown rich by +cheating widows and orphans in bucket shops and stock gambling. The +little minnows put on all the snobbish airs of the whales who had +grown so large by devouring all the small fish in their business seas. + +One pillar of the church, who was a cashier, ruined his bank by +stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house +and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time +he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered +his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a +tower upon it to look down in contempt upon all the lesser shrines. + +He barely escaped the sheriff at night-time, and fled beyond the seas, +leaving his showy family to poverty and the ill-concealed derision of +those who worshipped them while they were supposed to be rich. + +Such as these made life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of +my year, I left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in +which I had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. +My life seemed a failure; I reflected long upon the question of the +Psalmist, "What is man?" and here are the answers which I culled from +many thoughtful poets, whose names are appended to their several +replies. + + In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made all;-- + (_Brome_.) + + He who climbs high, endangers many a fall;--(_Chaucer_.) + + A passing gleam called life is o'er us thrown,--(_Story_.) + + It glimmers, like a meteor, and is gone.--(_Rogers_.) + + To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise--(_Congreve_.) + + The flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow dies--(_Shelly_.) + + And what do we, by all our bustle gain?--(_Pomfret_.) + + A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain.--(_Tupper_.) + + Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without;--(_Holmes_.) + + Yet who knows most, the more he knows to doubt.--(_Daniel_.) + + Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.--(_Burns_.) + + And trifles make the sum of human things.--(_More_.) + + If troubles overtake thee, do not wail;--(_Herbert_.) + + Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are + frail.--(_Percival_.) + + The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;--(_Bryant_.) + + Great sorrows have no leisure to complain.--(_Gaffe_.) + + One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--(_Shakespeare_.) + + For we the same are that our sires have been;--(_Knox_.) + + Nor is a true soul ever born for naught,--(_Lowell_.) + + Yet millions never think a noble thought.--(_Bailey_.) + + Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays,--(_Heath_.) + + And God fulfils Himself in many ways.--(_Tennyson_.) + + The world's a wood in which all lose their way--(_Buckingham_.) + + A fair where thousands meet, but none can stay;--(_Fawkes_.) + + To sport their season, and be seen no more,--(_Cowper_.) + + Till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.--(_Pope_.) + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ADVENTURES IN MOSQUITO-LAND. + + +At the close of the school in July, 1870, a friend of mine, Doctor +B----, of Boston, and I, attracted by the alluring prospectus of a +new town near Plymouth, North Carolina, visited that place via the +Merchant's and Miner's steamship line. + +I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied +by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as +the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly +Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable +excursion. + +"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and +professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a +contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. + +"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them, +black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed +with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity +and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed +to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not +venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling +bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes +on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling +limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog +and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would +starve though we were slain. + +"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor. +'The shoo-fly--the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that? +and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking +bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely +covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies +stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies +with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for +all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth +to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' +cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from +our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors. + +"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everything save life, the +professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables +flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant +girls, for the bath-house--here at length plunged beneath the flood he +found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his +friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved +there to starve rather than again to face his foes. + +"After much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame +all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. Here two servant +girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints, +while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the +flies of the season. At length our appetites or rather we ourselves, +were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their +dead and divide the spoils of war. + +"Our host, who is a true gentleman from Pennsylvania, then ordered the +darkies to harness the span. After the inevitable delays which always +attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, +we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves +that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. +Our host had a lame hand, and the professor volunteered to drive; +our friends, the varmints, now confined their kind attentions almost +exclusively to the horses, which they butchered unmercifully. Oh, such +roads! Boys of New England, if you sigh for 'sunny' North Carolina, +go; go by all means, and you will return satisfied that old +Massachusetts, with all its east winds is a paradise compared with +what we saw in the 'old North State,' or in the 'Old Dominion.' + +"But to our journey. The horses floundered through quagmires covered +in some places with logs, which toss and tumble you till every bone +aches, floundered and swam through streams reeking with scum from +the cypress swamps; the roads are about six inches wider than your +carriage, and the professor found himself obliged to avoid the sharp +corners of fences, on either side the deep ditches on whose very edge +ran the wheels; to urge his horses over stumps and fallen trees; to +whip them over long snouts of prostrate pigs who refused to budge an +inch; to jump them over chasms running dark and deep across his path +and to spur them down sharp, perpendicular pitches which threatened to +break every bone in his body. + +"Here and there we saw a few logs piled up together, flanked by mud +and sticks, and dignified by the name of house; the naked piccaninnies +rolled in the dust, and the poor-white scowled as he lifted his hat, +while we worried our miserable way along. + +"Now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the +doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for +enjoyment. After shooting at the wild pigs for a while, finding there +was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they +threw off their clothes, and regardless of moccasins, regardless of +spiders and the whole race of poisonous vermin, they plunged to their +necks into the ditch by the roadside. For long weary hours we wallowed +till the welcome form of our host appeared, and we recommenced the +pitching and stumbling of the dangerous return voyage of this, our +pleasure trip. + +"For miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with +moss and enormous Scuppernong grape-vines, were unbroken by a single +clearing or a single shanty. The Scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a +great luxury; from these are made a wine equal to anything that can be +found (we believe) in the world. One vine is found on Roanoke Island, +which is two miles in length, covers several acres of land, and was +planted by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, centuries ago. For miles +that afternoon, we wandered up and down the country seeking for water +fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking +darkies, making collections of souvenirs, gazing at the good-looking +crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the +aborigines, the flies. + +"We have seen some toothsome things in the South, some beautiful +scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and +mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times +defiled the feast of the wandering Trojans. + +"The great gala-day of Jamesville has dawned, to-day the great Norfolk +steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more) +comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. Here are groups of +'F.F.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd--n +nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing +and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, +mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F., +looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A +scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the +howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that +is. + +"The _Astoria_, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate +of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the +wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth +for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New +England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day--all +night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer +groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty +Roanoke. + +"Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long +trailing mosses, looking like the pale sickly shrouds enveloping a +dead and ruined world. Here and there we saw huge nests of the +size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a +lightning-struck tree, perched on its topmost bough, the great bald +eagle of the South, keeping his sleepless watch and ward, while the +wife-bird tended the household gods below. Deadly moccasins and +huge turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of +blackberries were wasting their sweetness on the desert air. Now and +then there came to us like an inspiration from heaven the ecstatic +music of the mockingbird, carrying shame and despair to the breasts of +all the other warblers of the aerial choir. + +"Nothing could be more inspiring than the notes of this charming +singer, as we listened to them here amid these melancholy swamps +exhaling the sickly miasma beneath this blighting sun, with not a +breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trumpet creepers, +or to cool the fevered brow. Melancholy waitings are heard from the +swamps, and the waves in parting, look like fields of fire. The winds +come to us, but with them no refreshing, for they came over mile after +mile of suffocating, reeking lagoons, stifling with the hot breath of +the miasma. + +"Every now and then the Rip Van Winkle machinery breaks down, and for +hours we are motionless, listening per force to the terrific cursing +and pounding in the Vulcanic realms below. At length the sun, not like +the rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red +monster intent on devouring the world, shoots at us his blighting, +withering lances of scorching heat. We touch once more at Plymouth, +which greets us with its usual entertainment of murderous fleas, +death-dealing watermelons and chain-lightning whiskey. Our ten minute +touch here lengthened into three horrid sweltering hours owing to +the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for +'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at +length we enter the great canal leading to the North River of Norfolk. + +"With chat and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, +when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering +in the mud. 'No moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' +and so for three mortal hours we lay stuck in the mud at the edge of +the great dismal swamp of Virginia. 'Ah,' said the mate, 'there is the +scene of many a horror, there the nigger was torn limb from limb by +the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation +and death amid deadly snakes and miasma rather than comfort in +bondage; there I myself saw crowds of black men swinging from limb to +limb like monkeys over reeking scums to their fever-haunted dens to +escape the lash.' + +"Thus was the story of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe verified by one of +Virginia's own sons. All the fearful word paintings of Dred floated +again before our mental vision, and we thanked God that the old horror +of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er +the land of the free and the home of the brave.' + +"But these hours of waiting, like all things earthly, at length had +their end, and just as the moon gilded the cypress-trees with golden +glory, the wheels began to move and we again worried our tortuous way +up the North River. 'Ah,' said the melancholy-looking man who had +been long gazing in silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here I am, +friendless and alone in this wretched country, peddling beeswax +and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but I was once a +schoolmaster with $1,200 a year, down in Connecticut; wine and women +did it. But,' said he, 'I'll be rich yet--I've got it--I've discovered +perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet.' + +"'Wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the +professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions +of coming glory. Just then we were electrified by a cheer from the +doctor, as the lights of Norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, +yet to float the commerce of a great city. + +"We bade farewell without a single regret to the old tub _Astoria_, +and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand +and one stenches, stumbling over the prostrate forms of sleeping +negroes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a +bath, which the nasty water of North Carolina had forbidden for many +weary days. Suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of drums and the +shouts of hundreds, calling to a mass meeting in Court House Square. +Thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant +Southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'Mother of +Presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a +white man's government amidst the shouts of the great unwashed; while +the sons of Ham looked silently and sullenly on. + +"We gladly responded to the steamer's shrill call and sailed away to +our home in the great and glorious North." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +IN ARCADIE. + + +I gladly returned, like a tired child, to the kindly faces and hearty +greetings of my loving and much loved father, mother, brothers, green +fields, and all the beautiful children of summer. + + "Born where the night owl hooted to the stars, + Cradled where sunshine crept through leafy bars; + Reared where wild roses bloomed most fair, + And songs of meadow larks made glad the summer air, + + "Each dainty zephyr whispers follow me, + Ten thousand leaflets beckon from each tree; + All say, 'why give a life to longings vain? + Leave fame and gold: come home: come home again.' + + "I hear the forest murmuring 'he has come' + A feathered chorus' joyous welcome home; + Each flower that nods a greeting seems a part + Of nature's welcome back to nature's heart." + +The old home was much changed, and for the better. With much patient +toil, the unsightly rocks and stumps had been removed from the fields +which sloped gracefully to the little river and were covered with +tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and +daisies. The dilapidated house and barn had given place to modern +buildings; apple, pear, and peach-trees, covered with fragrant +blossoms were substituted for their decayed and skeleton prototypes; +the narrow, crooked, muddy lane, where horses and wagons had struggled +through the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had become a +firm and fairly straight highway. + +My house in the tree on the hilltop, where I had often rehearsed my +orations and sermons in such stentorian tones that the amazed cows +lifted their tails on high and took to their heels, welcomed me back +embowered in leafy new-grown branches. + +My second brother, realizing that as "unto the bow the cord is, as +unto the child the mother, so unto man the woman is--useless one +without the other," had taken unto himself a good wife, the daughter +of the deacon, our next neighbor. My mother thus had a much needed +helper, as their farms, like their owners, were joined in wedlock. + +[Illustration: I Rehearsed My Orations with Startling Effect.] + +The worthy deacon and my deeply religious father alternately led the +family devotions, and peace and comfort prevailed. The mowing machine, +horse-hoe, corn-planter and power-rake dispensed with the drudgery of +the scythe and back-breaking hand tools. A protective tariff had set +the mill wheels rolling in the neighboring cities, thus furnishing +excellent markets for all the products of the farm. The sky-scraping +shoe manufactories, where men, like automatons, delved night and day +for a few weeks and then leaving them to semi-starvation for the rest +of the year, had not yet arrived. + +One of my brothers had, like most of the farmers of that day, his +little shop where in winter he coined a few hundred dollars +making boots and shoes, and where I earned many precious pennies, +blackballing the edges and occasionally pegging by hand, all of which +is now done by machinery. + +We could now afford occasional holidays, when we all gaily sailed down +the river, dug clams, caught lobsters in nets, regaled ourselves with +toothsome chowders, broils and stews in the open air, and had many +rollicking good times swimming in the breakers, frolicking, old and +young, like children. We pitched our tents on old Bar Island, slept on +the fragrant hay at night, played ball, and renewed our youth inhaling +deep draughts of the salty wind which bloweth in from the sea. + +When sailing home one day with a wet sheet, a flowing main, and a +breeze following far abaft, we espied a boat submerged to the gunwhale +floating out to sea. Throwing our yacht up into the wind, we took the +craft in tow to the landing, and were surprised and delighted beyond +measure to find it nearly half full of fine large lobsters, held +there by a wire netting. For weeks we and all the neighbors held high +carnival boiling and eating the luscious crustaceans. + +We had much merriment one day on a fishing excursion at the expense +of a parsimonious member of our crew. At first he alone pulled in the +much prized tomcods and flounders. "Well," said he, "I think we better +go in, each one for himself." "All right," was the reply, but soon +stingy ceased to catch any, while the rest of us pulled in the fish as +fast as we could throw the hooks. Mr. Greedy looked very solemn, and +at last, unable to repress his selfishness longer, shouted: "I think +we better share all alike!" "Too late," was the chorus, and while he +carried home but a beggarly string, the rest rejoiced in our great +abundance. + +These seem like little incidents, light as airy nothings, but they +come back to memory in the twilight of life when other and greater +events are all forgotten. + +When the crops were all harvested, and the winds and snows of winter +shut me out from my woodland, river, and seashore haunts, I grew weary +of the monotony of the indoor country life, and once more went to the +city of Boston in the endless quest of the unattainable. + +Restless as the sea, we are never satisfied this side the stars; but +we are all looking forward to that sweet by and by, "as the hart +panteth for the water brook." + + I shall be satisfied, not here, not here + Not where the sparkling waters fade into mocking + sands as we draw near, + Where in the wilderness each footstep falters, + I shall be satisfied; but, oh, not here. + + Not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us, + Where the worn spirit never finds its goal, + But haunted ever by thoughts that grieve us, + Across our souls floods of bitter memories roll. + + Satisfied, satisfied, the soul's vague longing, + The aching void, which nothing earthly fills, + Oh, what desires upon my mind are thronging, + As my eyes turn upward to the heavenly hills! + + Shall they be satisfied, the spirit's yearning, + For sweet communion with kindred minds? + The silent love that here meets no returning, + The inspiration, which no language finds? + + There is a land, where every pulse is thrilling, + With rapture, earth's sojourners may not know, + Where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, + And peacefully earth's storm-tossed currents flow. + + Far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us, + Lies that fair country, where our hearts abide, + And, of its bliss, naught more wondrous is told us, + Than these few words, I shall be satisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +FROM PHILISTINE TO BENEDICT AND A HONEYMOON. + + +The fates, who lead the willing-and drive the unwilling, guided me to +the old time firm of B. & T. publishers. They were overwhelmed with +applications from the great army of the impecunious, and did not wish +to pay any more salaries; but "mercy tempers the blast to the shorn +lamb," and they persuaded me, by a tender of large profits on their +Worcester's Dictionaries, to strike out on my own hook and endeavor +to induce a reluctant public to buy these instead of the popular +dictionaries written by "Noah Webster who came over in the ark." + +The special prices granted by the publishers enabled me to undersell +the wholesalers, and by securing their adoption as regular text-books +by school boards, I made more money than ever before in my life, +sometimes from $25 to $100 per day, consequently the firm finding I +was filling the markets and my own pockets so that they had no sales +at regular prices, hired me at a liberal salary as representative of +all their publications. + +In this business I won my "double stars," although the competition was +intense. I often found as many as twenty agents at the same time and +in the same town, log-rolling with school committees for the adoption +of their books, the merits of the publications "cut but little ice." +Nearly every school official "had his price," wanting to know what +there was in his vote for him, and the agent who best concealed the +bribery hook by dining and wining teachers and committeemen, filling +their libraries with complimentary books and their pockets with secret +commissions, "caught the most fish." + +When among Romans, I was, much to my disgust, obliged to do as +Romans did. I would often go to cities where my opponent's readers or +arithmetics had been adopted the night before, point out the defects +of rival publications, give an unabridged dictionary to each official, +offer a ten per cent. commission to the "king pin," take the board in +a hack to their headquarters, secure a reconsideration, telegraph for +my books, and the next day with express wagons and helpers, put our +readers into every school in the town. + +This was sharp practice, prices were cut, until finally, we gave new +books in even exchange for old ones, trusting to future sales to +reimburse us, but when they needed another supply, they would swap +even with another publisher, so that our bread cast upon the waters +never returned. + +We often secured "louder calls" for influential teachers and clergymen +in reciprocation for their votes, bought anything they had to sell at +their own prices until many publishers became bankrupt; the big fish +swallowing the little ones, and then came the survival of the longest +purse. + +One evening, after my day's work in the city of G--was ended, being +lonesome in my hotel, I thought of a family residing there who had a +summer residence in R----, and concluded to renew my acquaintance with +the eldest daughter with whom I had enjoyed many rides and sails, and +to whom I had quoted many romantic poems the previous season. + +With fear and trembling, for I was always a bashful youth, I rang the +door bell, and was ushered into the parlor where I caught my first +glimpse of a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked, graceful younger sister to +whom, at a glance, I knew I was married in heaven. + +Whence came that vital spark blending our souls in one? Had we lived +and loved on some fairer shore? Who can tell? Had our spirits been +wandering through the universe millions of years seeking each the +other, nor finding rest until we met? Only the angels know. + +All we knew and all we seemed to care to know was that at last each +had found the "alter ego" for which it pined. There were no others +on earth--father, mother, sister, brothers, came and went almost +unheeded. Strange as it may seem, on this evening of our first +meeting, we told each other the old, old story, first told in Eden, +reiterated by millions since, and will continue to be rehearsed until +Gabriel through his trumpet sounds the final love song to the world. + + With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, + We sailed for the Hesperides, + The land where golden apples grow; + But that, ah that was long ago. + + How far, since then, the ocean streams + Have swept us from that land of dreams, + That land of fiction and of truth, + The lost Atlantis of our youth. + + Ultima Thule, utmost isle, + Here in thy harbors for a while, + We lower our sails; awhile we rest + From the unceasing, endless quest. + +For a long time I had divided homes and a divided heart, one at the +old home with the old folks, the other in the city by the sea. + +In our new-born and first-born enthusiasm, we applied to Mary's +parents for an early union of hands as well as hearts; but they wisely +insisted upon a year's interim, promising that, if at the end of this +trial time our ardor had not cooled, they and the minister would +"bless you my children," and our hearts should beat as one +forevermore. + +The course of true love never did run smooth, and when the claiming +day arrived, Mary's mother told me that she had been credibly informed +that another girl had a prior claim to my promised hand. I protested +in vain, and, as the daughter was invisible, I left the house in a +rage. + +A week, which seemed like a century, passed by on leaden wings in +which I strove to drown my sorrows in the "flowing bowl" of hard work, +and foolish declarations that "I didn't care"; then came a kind letter +from Alderman B----, gracefully apologizing for his wife's mistaken +assertions, stating that "Mary was giving them no peace day or night," +and inviting me to call at my earliest convenience. + +The very next train took me to the old familiar trysting-place, once +more the white-winged dove of peace brooded over the B--mansion, +and we all, especially the parents, fully realized that in order to +appreciate heaven we must have at least seven days of hell. + +Shortly after, at the home of the bride's parents, we twain were made +one in the presence of numerous friends and presents; the old shoes +and rice were duly showered, and we were off for a month's tour, and a +lifelong honeymoon. + +During this wedding tour, at the request of my employers, I combined +business with pleasure, the firm generously paying all our expenses, +and continuing my salary. + +We visited many cities, greatly enjoying their varied attractions; but +the business part of our journey, which was collecting large sums of +money due for books, was not particularly delightful, as the banks had +all suspended specie payments as a result of the "green back craze," +and I was often obliged to resort to legal measures and attachments of +property, to secure from reluctant book sellers the sums long overdue. + +At one hotel we met with an adventure which well-nigh proved serious. +I was awakened at night by the flash from a bull's eye lantern, a +sense of suffocation and a scream from my wife. A masked burglar +was before me, pressing to my face a handkerchief saturated with +chloroform, and endeavoring to take from under the mattress a large +sum of money which I had collected the day before. + +"No noise," said he, "your money or your life." + +"All right," said I quietly, "I'll get it for you." He stepped back a +pace, I quickly pulled from under the pillow my self-cocking revolver, +and fired in rapid succession. + +His pistol exploded at nearly the same time, he dropped to the floor, +his light vanished, and for a time all was darkness and suspense. I +expected another bullet any moment, and seeing nothing to fire at +myself, feared to jump from the bed lest I be seized by invisible +hands of the desperate villain. Then came shouts and pounding upon +the door by neighbors aroused by the uproar. Encouraged by the +reinforcements, I struck a light but the ruffian had escaped through +the open window on to a piazza roof, thence by a pillar to the ground. + +Then we were besieged by excited inquirers, and the rosy-fingered +Aurora, daughter of the dawn, appeared before the calm which succeeded +the storm. + +Shortly after our return from this journey, a great light went out on +earth to shine in heaven. My wife's father suddenly left the body,--he +did not die, for + + There is no death, what seems so is transition, + This life of mortal breath + Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, + Whose portal we call death. + +Alderman B---- was a gentleman of the old school, a loving father, a +very successful business man, managing marine railways, ship-building +and repairing, as well as grain mills. We missed him sadly; but were +consoled by the reflection that our great loss was his eternal gain. + +My eldest brother, and two of my brother Mark's children, at about +this time crossed the same bright river and rested under the shade of +the celestial trees. + +Myself and wife had intended to live in G----, but as her father was +gone, and as she had formed a strong mutual attachment for my family, +my wife the following summer took much pleasure in building a handsome +cottage nearly opposite my father's house, and on a beautiful lot of +land given us by my brother. We formed a literary and musical club, +which met weekly at our house, making it the social centre of the +entire town. + +I was elected chairman of the school committee, and proceeded +vigorously in a crusade against ignorance; but soon found that +the life of a reformer is crowned with more thorns than roses, a +thousandfold! I removed incompetent teachers who, by their silly +question and answer methods, were producing parrots--not scholars. + +On one occasion, when I substituted a trained normal school graduate +for a useless dancing doll who had made herself popular by flattering +parents and coddling their children, all pupils were withdrawn from +the school. I told the new teacher to ring the bell, take in sewing +if she wished, and draw her salary even if she was left alone in her +glory; then I notified the parents that unless they at once sent their +children to the school, I should have the pupils arrested for truancy, +and themselves fined for violating the laws of the state. Moral +suasion had failed; but the strong arm of the law prevailed, and they +soon acknowledged that the new instruction was the best they had ever +had in the district. + +Much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds +with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains, +descriptions of all the frog ponds in Ethiopia, and other useless +trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete +rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic; +long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc. + +I issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study, +substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles, +and in this, also, I met with opposition from the "moss-backs," who +insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough +for their children; they wanted no "new-fangled" notions. + +They reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book +had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser +sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, +read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing +together the one thousand three hundred and forty 'leventh hime." + + "'All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the + weasel--'" + +He was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded. Taking off his +spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again, +gazed at the book in consternation: "Well," said he, "I never seed +that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the Lord put it in, and +we'll sing it whir or no," and proceeded: + + "'The preacher kissed the cobbler's wife, pop goes the weasel.'" + +As I have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get +progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used +freely by me, and I had the satisfaction as well as the odium of +infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my +two years' service as school superintendent in this town. + +A few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to +the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the +people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the +"little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump" of the ancient +hell fire theology. + +It is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous +and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and +reviled by your neighbors whose feeble intellects fail to appreciate +your strenuous efforts to push forward the car of progress in their +midst; but the consolations expressed in this poem bring balm to every +wounded spirit. + + "I know as my life grows older, + And mine eyes have clearer sight, + That under each rank wrong, somewhere, + There lies the root of right. + That each sorrow has its purpose + By the suffering oft unguessed; + But as sure as the sun brings morning, + Whatever is, is best. + + "I know that each sinful action, + As sure as the night brings shade, + Is some time, somewhere punished, + Though the hour be long delayed. + I know that the soul is aided + Sometimes, by the heart's unrest, + And to grow, means often to suffer; + But whatever is, is best. + + "I know there are no errors + In the great eternal plan, + And all things work together + For the final good of man. + And I know when my soul speeds onward + In the grand eternal quest, + I shall say, as I look earthward, + Whatever is, is best." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE ANGELS OF LIFE AND DEATH. + + +By and by unwonted silence and anxiety reigned in our house. The +family doctor remained all night, then a faint cry was heard, and +little baby May came into this world of ours, + + "The gates of heaven were left ajar; + With clasping hands and dreamy eyes, + Wandering out of paradise, + She saw this planet, like a star; + We felt we had a link between + This real world and that unseen." + +These beautiful lines of one of the sweetest of earth's singers, came +to us like a new revelation at the advent of our first-born, as also +those other immortal words-- + + "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, + The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting, + And cometh from afar. + Not in entire forgetfulness + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory do we come + From heaven, which is our home." + +Our little vocalist commenced rehearsing for her chosen profession the +very minute that she first saw the light, and she certainly continued +the development of her lungs with marvelous persistency. Then her +numerous grandparents, uncles, and aunts all vied with each other in +petting and spoiling the one pet lamb of the several families, and she +basked in the sunshine of unlimited affection. + +A few bright years sped by, all roseate with love, prosperity and +contentment in this happy valley. Then two little cherubs, just alike +as "two peas in a pod" came to us at dawn of day, like twin rays +from the rising sun, their blue eyes beaming with smiles which have +continued ever since. + +We named them Ada and Ida: but were obliged to label them to tell +"which was which," and said label is essential for distinguishment to +this very day, though twenty-four bright summers have passed since the +sight of them first gladdened our hearts. + +But almost with the sunbeams came the terrible cloud overspreading all +our lives. The mother had scarcely welcomed the twin buds of promise, +when she faded away like a flower and was + + "Gone beyond the darksome river, + Only left us by the way; + Gone beyond the night forever, + Only gone to endless day; + + Gone to meet the angel faces, + Where our lovely treasures are; + Gone awhile from our embraces, + Gone within the gates ajar." + +There seemed to be no light left on earth; the sun was blotted out +forever, + + Oh glory of our youth that so suddenly decays! + Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze! + Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air + Scatters a moment's sweetness, and flies we know not where! + + "A boat at midnight sent alone + To drift upon the moonless sea; + A lute whose leading chord is gone; + A wounded bird that hath but one + Imperfect wing to soar upon, + Are like me + Oh loved one, without thee;" + +but the pitiful wailings of the twin girl babies called me back to +earth again, and I took up the cares of existence, though they seemed +greater than I could bear. + +The largest church in the village was filled to overflowing with +sincere mourners, for the sweet face of the departed had brought +good cheer into many darkened households in our town. All sectarian +barriers were for the time burned away by the flame of sympathy, and +wonderful to tell, the Universalist clergyman who married us was +allowed to pronounce the eulogy in an orthodox Congregational church. + +When the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear +words of the hymn-- + + "Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown," + +and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it +required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through +the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir +from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way +thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied +spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore. + +"Faith sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing." +Infinitely sad was the passing of our beloved, to those left in the +earth-life; but soothingly comes to us the song chanted by the choir +invisible whenever a soul escapes the mortal coil: + + "Passing out of the shadow, + Into a purer light; + Stepping behind the curtain, + Getting a clearer sight. + + "Laying aside a burden, + This weary mortal coil; + Done with the world's vexations-- + Done with its tears and toil. + + "Tired of all earth's playthings, + Heartsick and ready to sleep-- + Ready to bid our friends farewell, + Wondering why they weep. + + "Passing out of the shadow + Into eternal day-- + Why do we call it dying, + This sweet going away?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +TRIBULATIONS OF A WIDOWER. + + +But we must descend from the sublime to the stern realities of this +workaday world. Of all the people on this earth, a lone, lorn widower +with three babies on his hands, is the most forlorn and miserable. +Take care of them himself he cannot, and if he hires the ordinary +woman to do so, she immediately sets her cap for him, and leaves +no stone unturned to secure him for a husband, especially if he is +possessed of some of this world's goods which she covets with all her +mind and soul. + +Words are inadequate to describe the annoyances I endured for two +weary years from this class of women, who seemed to be the only +ones who would come to a lonely country home to assume such +responsibilities and endless labors. The world seemed full of these +anxious but not aimless women, who claimed to adore little children; +but who really cared for nothing except to capture a "widower with +means." + +One nurse carelessly slipped on the stairs, and the twins went flying +from her arms through the air down the long passageway, apparently +to their death; only a miracle saved them. I picked up the little +wingless cherubs, scarcely bigger than my fist, and their blue eyes +smiled at me, as if they had really enjoyed their aerial flight. + +They seemed to have a charmed and charming existence; they were the +admiration of all the people far and wide who flocked to our house to +see and fondle the really "heavenly twins." My business kept me +from home nearly all the time; but my father, mother, brother, and +sister-in-law kindly watched my caretakers with argus eyes, and the +so-called triplets throve wonderfully day by day. + +Whenever in my absence, my good childless brother and his wife found +one of my hired women unworthy, he would tell her to pack her trunk, +then he would drive her to the depot, banish her from the town +over which he long reigned as chairman of the selectmen and State +representative, telegraph me to hunt up another one, and thus the road +to the station was nearly worn out, and the railroad receipts were +greatly augmented. + +One of these women, while I was far away, greatly scandalized the +whole town by leaving the "light infantry" to their fate one Sunday, +and indulging in the pious delights of shooting wood-chucks. My +indignant brother and his father-in-law deacon disarmed the jezabel, +made her sleep in the barn that night, sent her off flying the next +morning, and personally, tenderly as mothers, watched over the +children until I arrived with another nurse. + +One woman whipped little May secretly with a stick; but the victim's +wonderful lungs aroused my mother who, reinforced by the entire +family, overpowered the virago, and sent her off on the next train. +It is evident from these thrilling recitals that I was not a good +mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when +I was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus +appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight. + +I vowed in my wrath that I would never again speak to a woman outside +my own immediate family. I tried in vain to hire men nurses, and I +sympathized with Paolo Orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck +of Isabella di Medici, and strangled her; I almost envied Curzon of +Simopetra who had never seen a woman. But I soon found that this +misanthropy was unjust, that I misjudged the pure depths of life's +river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface. + +Women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can +be. There is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between +the extremes marked by Miriam beating her timbrels, and Cleopatra +applying the asp; Cornelia, caring for nothing but her Roman jewels; +Guyon, rapt in God; Lucrezia Borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and +Florence Nightingale sweetening the memory of the Crimean war with +philanthropic deeds. + +What group of men can be brought together more distinct in +individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny, +than such women as Eve in the garden of Eden, Mary at the foot of the +cross, Rebecca by the well, Semiramis on her throne, Ruth among the +corn, Jezabel in her chariot, Lais at a banquet, Joan of Arc in +battle, Tomyris striding over the field with the head of Cyrus in +a bag of blood, Perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre, +Martha cumbered with many cares, Pocahontas under the shadow of the +woods, Saint Theresa in the Convent, Madame Roland on the scaffold, +Mother Agnes at Port Royal, exiled DeStael wielding her pen as a +sceptre, and Mrs. Fry lavishing her existence on outcasts? + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +FAITH SEES A STAR. + + +One day I was introduced by a friend to a very attractive lady +school-teacher, who combined with superior domestic training, +elocutionary and musical accomplishments. She was so sincere and +sympathetic that I found myself almost unconsciously expressing the +same sentiments that I had spoken to another long ago in the city by +the sea. + +The love which I supposed had passed on forever to the other world, +seemed to be sent back to me through the opening clouds of evening by +my self-sacrificing spirit bride, to give to another who would love +and cherish the helpless little ones who so needed a mother's care. + +I poured forth all my sorrows, troubles, perplexities and needs to a +congenial, sympathetic spirit, and she consented to go to my home and +take up the burdens which the ascended mother had been required by the +angel-world to lay down. + +On the arrival of the new housekeeper, order was evolved out of chaos; +the children received the best of care, and the horse a much needed +rest after his arduous labors in carting to and from the depot the +numerous hired women who had been "weighed in the balance and found +wanting." In the following month of roses, Lillian concluded that my +"first glance" attachment was reciprocated; we were married in her +father's house at Allston; we enjoyed a brief tour of the White +Mountains, and then settled down in our cottage to our life work. The +peace of God, which always comes, sooner or later to those who strive +to do their duty, was ours, and the inspiration of Whittier's sweet +poem "My Psalm" brought infinite consolation to our blended lives. + + "I mourn no more my vanished years; + Beneath a tender rain, + An April rain of smiles and tears, + My heart is young again. + + "All as God wills, who wisely heeds + To give or to withhold, + And knoweth more of all my needs + Than all my prayers have told. + + "All the jarring notes of life + Seem blending in a psalm, + And all the angles of its strife + Slow rounding into calm. + + "And so the shadows fall apart, + And so the sunbeams play; + And all the windows of my heart + I open to the day." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ON THE POLITICAL STUMP. + + +I had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being President of +the Republican Club in our town, and that autumn I was hired by +Dr. George B. Loring to conduct his campaign for the position of +Representative in Congress; this I accomplished so successfully that +Judge Thayer, the chairman of the State Committee, hired me to stump +the Commonwealth against General Butler and in favor of the Hon. +George D. Robinson as candidate for Governor. This campaign will long +be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the +political history of Massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as +a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the +endurance. One will suffice by way of illustration. + +Free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and +stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican +orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to +combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. At a meeting +of our state committee in Boston, Judge Thayer announced that General +Hall of Maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach +Rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that +evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours. +Rockport was almost solid for Butler, and his friends had declared +that no Republican should speak there, consequently no one +volunteered. At last, the Judge, in despair, said: + +"Foss, will you go?" + +"I shall obey orders," was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved +shirkers, and I bolted for the train. + +On arriving at my destination, I found the station crowded with a +howling mob, and the Republican town committee were frantically +shouting: "General Hall, General Hall!" "Here," said I, and only by +the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the +embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on +the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which +I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost +physical and mental collapse. + +The "hail to the chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: +"Put him out!"--"Duck him!"--"Ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., Yells +of the Butlerites who had packed the hall. At last I got my "mad up," +and rising, I lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon +my uproarious foes. This astonished the "great unwashed," and a big +Irishman jumped on the stage, shouting: + +"Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a +cool un." + +There was silence. Taking out my cigar, I laughed long and loud. + +"What you laughing at?" howled the mob. + +"This reminds me," said I, very slowly, "of a little story." + +"Out with it," was the response. + +"When I was a teacher in Marblehead," drawled I, "I had occasion +to wallop a boy with a cowhide. I made him touch his toes with his +fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the +more I whaled him the more he laughed. I laid on Macduff with a +'damned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet +he laughed. 'What you laughing at?' cried I. 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're +licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. It's just that +way here. You gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; I am not General +Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant." The crowd +roared: "He's a good un, let's hear him--ha, ha, ha, he's a good un," +and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw. + +"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound +money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, +brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to +have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and +nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to +door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. Do you want that kind +of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and +everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your +money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you +bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?" + +"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it +well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is." + +"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in +the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his +bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog +who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt +him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his +knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've +gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to +death.' + +"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll +freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have +plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you +for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and +drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the +bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that +soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the +world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me +of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in +his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they +actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had +stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by +such windy effigies?" + +Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave +them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest +political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers, +as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief +authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next +election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this +I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, +having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to +trade money for fame. + +Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry +winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over +the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often +hazardous. + +I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides +for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous +colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer +to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and +fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N----. + +We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, +letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other +diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for +new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and +so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. + +Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the +agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the +hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me +about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness +and much hard-earned cash. We made the old place to bud and blossom +like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an +ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon +the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when +ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, +came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good +salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped +resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers. I +gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for-- + + Somewhere the sun is shining, + I thought as I toiled along + In the freezing cold of the winter, + Yes, somewhere the sun is shining + Though here I shiver and sigh, + Not a breath of warmth is stirring + Not a beam in the arctic sky. + + Somewhere the thing we long for + Exists on earth's wide bound, + Somewhere the heat is cheering + While here winter nips the ground. + Somewhere the flowers are springing, + Somewhere the corn is brown, + And is ready unto the harvest + To feed the hungry town. + + Somewhere the twilight gathers, + And weary men lay by + The burdens of the daytime, + And wrapped in slumber lie. + + Somewhere the day is breaking, + And gloom and darkness flee; + Though storms our bark are tossing, + There's somewhere a placid sea. + + And thus, I thought, 'tis always + In this mysterious life, + There's always gladness somewhere + In spite of its pain and strife; + And somewhere the sin and sorrow + Of earth are known no more; + Somewhere our weary spirits + Shall find a peaceful shore. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THAT _EDDYFYING_ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. + + +This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has +always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty +creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more +appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its +Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career +of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every +principle of modern science. + +This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied +"Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon +became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, +posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble +intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a +lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their +eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey +upon the weak minded. + +Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a +regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving +benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion +that said mummery affected a miraculous cure. + +As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted +the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science" +doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her +soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady +was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a +copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the +opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make +me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever. + +I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and +prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a +heterogeneous conglomeration of words--mere words, a hodge podge of +all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of +the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to +find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their +comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being +called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great. + +One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the +sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million +dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew +Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. +Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or +obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal +mind in solution." + +Like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems +to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of +folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess +the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired +with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling +in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the +thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure. +Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the +anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it +is a sin." + +I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have +been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith +required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure +all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give +my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong +contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and +health" is _multum in parvo_. Here it is: + +Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old +world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin, +means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so +discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G--noa; +but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the gods saw her with the +olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall +receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from +unrest and from war forevermore." + +Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian +Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its +many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but +sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient +for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new +gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Selah_. + +[Illustration: We Steamed up the Lordly St. John's River of Florida.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +IN THE LAND OF FLOWERS. + + +After these scientific investigations, my wife and I left New England +covered with snow and swept by fierce, freezing winds to find this +far-famed peninsular basking in delicious sunshine, the air full of +the exquisite perfume of orange blossoms and the songs of rejoicing +birds. It was an enchanted land, the balsamic odors from the beautiful +evergreen pine forests starred by the fragrant magnolia blossoms of +spotless white, exorcised the ulceratic demons from throat and lungs. + +We feasted upon the delicious fruits and vegetables fresh from the +trees and earth, and the returning healthy appetite was refreshed by +tender venison, wild turkeys and quails from the woods, nutritious and +abundant fish and ducks from the lakes and rivers. It was a new heaven +and a new earth, full of gladness and semi-tropical luxuries. + +As soon as the hospitable people learned that I represented our +beloved Uncle Sam, I was overwhelmed with free passes and free hotels, +anywhere and everywhere. + +The Count De Barry, who had amassed a vast fortune as the American +representative of "Mum's Extra Dry," and who had received numerous +valuable seeds and shrubs from our generous department, took us on his +palatial steamer for hundreds of miles up the lordly St. John's River, +where we feasted our eyes upon acres of wild ducks, pelicans, cranes +and many huge, lazy alligators floating on the waves, rejoicing in the +life-giving beams of the sun. + +The stately trees along the banks, old when Adam was a baby, were +covered with flowering vines of wondrous beauty and fragrance; then +vast orange groves appeared covered with blossoms, small and ripe +fruit all at the same time; numerous herds of cattle standing knee +deep in the water, leisurely browsing upon the river plants both on +the surface and under the shallow river. + +We would anchor, and throwing a clasp-net which spread out on the +bottom and then closed like a purse, we pulled in excellent fish by +the hundreds; sitting on the canopied deck we shot ducks which the +negroes captured in small boats, and soon served cooked for our +delectation; pineapples and berries were brought from the shore, in +fact, it was a lotus-eater's dream of paradise, and seemed to be a +land and a river "flowing with milk and honey." + +The words from Willis' confessional came floating to our minds. + + "On ocean many a gladsome night, + When heaved the long and sullen sea, + With only waves and stars in sight, + We stole along by isles of balm; + We furled before the coming gale, + We slept amid the breathless calm, + We flew beneath the straining sail. + + Oh, softly on these banks of haze + Her rosy face the summer lays, + Becalmed along the azure sky + The argosies of cloudland lie; + The holy silence is God's voice + We look, and listen, and rejoice." + +When the night fell, and one by one, in the infinite meadows of +heaven, blossomed out the beautiful stars, the forget-me-nots of the +angels, they seemed so near that you almost expected to touch them +with the hand, and the silver moon arising, set the clouds on fire +with gladness and "left upon the level water one long track and trail +of splendor, down whose stream we sailed into the purple vapors, to +the islands of the blessed, to the kingdom of Ponemah to the land of +the hereafter." + +While thus we dreamed, the balmy zephyr brings from the forecastle to +our delighted hearing, the tinkling music of the banjo and guitar, the +melody of the singing voices and dancing feet of our freedmen boat's +crew. The lines of Whittier were resurrected in our thoughts. + + "Dear, the black man holds his gifts + Of music and of song, + The gold that kindly nature sifts + Among his sands of wrong, + The power to make his toiling days + And poor home comforts please; + The quaint relief of mirth that plays + With sorrow's minor keys." + +For they sang among others the identical words of the poet's +expressive song, + + "Ole massa on he trabbels gone, + He leaf de land behind: + De Lord's breff blow him furder on, + Like corn-shuck in de wind: + We own de hoe, we own de plow, + We own de hans dat hold, + We sell de pig, we sell de cow, + But nebber chile be sold. + + De norf wind tell it to de pines, + De wild-duck to de sea, + We tink it when de church-bell ring, + We dream it in de dream, + De rice-bird mean it when he sing, + De eagle when he scream, + De yam will grow, de cotton blow, + We'll hab de rice and corn; + Nebber you fear, if nebber you hear + De driber blow his horn." + +And so all too quickly passed that ideal night, without thought of +sleep, till the rising sun shot his radiant beams over the great +river, when we steamed slowly up to the long pier, and walked under +an arch of stately palms to our host's beautiful home, embowered in +orange trees and luxuriant trumpet creepers in this summer land of +perpetual bloom. + +Close by the Count's residence was a lake of sulphur water, gushing +from deep down in the earth. Into this we plunged and swam until we +seemed to be born again into immortal youth, then on the broad piazza +we enjoyed a feast which would have delighted Jupiter and all his +gods, every course of which was taken from the adjoining trees, +grounds and waters. + +We then inspected the great plantation, where was found growing in +profusion, everything essential to the wants of the most fastidious +of mortals, while the surrounding woods and river teemed with a great +variety of fish and game. + + I roam as in a waking dream + The garden of the Hesperides, + And see the golden fruitage gleam + Amid the stately orange-trees. + + Unfading green is on the hill, + The vales are decked with countless flowers, + While hums the bee, the song birds trill + Sweet music through the sunny hours. + + The moss is waving in the gale + From live oak, hickory, and pine, + And draping like a bridal-veil + The beauteous yellow jessamine. + + Through countless vistas in the wood + I see the windows of the morn + Ope to the world a glowing flood + Of glory when the day is born. + + And when, with robes of Tyrian dye, + The evening comes when day is done, + I see around the radiant sky + A hundred sunsets blent in one. + +We parted from our genial entertainer with much reluctance when the +superintendent of the railroad claimed us as his guests, and with +him, we inspected the famous orange groves along his line, resting on +Sunday at a palatial hotel where the St. John's River broadens into +the great Lake Munroe. + +While at church we were much entertained by the lively, frolicsome +manoeuvres of the numerous beautiful chameleons of rapidly changing +colors, who greatly distracted the attention of the congregation from +the service by their pranks on the walls and decorations. + +Directly in front of us was a sleepy, bald-headed man upon whose +shining, nodding, snoring pate several flies were resting in quiet +enjoyment of the sermon. All at once, this toothsome collection +attracted the attention of a very large bright-eyed chameleon admirer +who launched himself through the air upon said bald head in pursuit of +his dinner. With a yell of fear, the sleeper struck the animal with +his huge hand, sending the long tailed frolicsome creature heels +over head directly upon the clergyman's manuscript, and the alarmed +preacher, in turn, with a smothered imprecation and a sweeping blow, +hurled the sprawling legs and elongated tail down upon some frightened +children who screamed and tumbled over each other upon the floor in a +struggling heap. + +This was too much for the pent-up risibilities of the audience who +laughed long and loud, greatly to the disturbance of the solemnity of +the occasion. The witty minister remarked that this addition to his +flock, like some church members, seemed to care more for the carnal +than the spiritual, and proceeded to the thirteenthly division of his +discourse. + +From here we traveled for hundreds of miles over the flat, monotonous, +arid sands of south Florida, where green grass and fresh garden +vegetables were unknown, frequently remarking that if we owned these +localities and hades, we would give away the former and live in the +latter place. But when we retraced our steps, and reached the rich +highlands of the northern counties of Marion, Bradford, and Clay, +found the earth covered with green grass in winter, the trees +beautiful with blossoms and luscious oranges, the air fragrant with +rare flowers, and resonant with songs of birds, saw the planters +shipping thousands of crates of fruit and vegetables, and finally +arrived at the far-famed Silver Springs, it seemed as if we had found +Ponce de Leon's fountain of immortal youth. + +The crystal clear waters of this wonderful spring, or more properly +called lake, gush in immense volumes seemingly from the very centre of +the earth, spreading out until wide and deep enough to float a great +navy, and are so transparent that multitudes of fishes are seen +disporting among marine plants and shells plainly discernible hundreds +of feet below. + +Here we embarked on a comfortable steamer, and sailed nearly +twenty-four hours down the incomparable Ocklawaha River, through +scenes that are indescribably picturesque; under arches of gigantic +trees covered with sombrely beautiful Spanish mosses and trumpet +creeper vines, where all day long are heard the ecstatic songs of +mockingbirds, and where flutter the plumages of all the colors of the +rainbow. + +[Illustration: The Indiscribably Picturesque Ocklawaha River of +Florida.] + +Swiftly the golden hours fly, as we float over this marvelous river; +softly the dusky boatmen chant their love songs, the fires from their +"fatwood" cauldron on the upper deck illuminates the stately trees, +and the strains of the poet, Butterworth, come plaintively to our +mental hearing. + + "We have passed funereal glooms, + Cypress caverns, haunted rooms, + Halls of gray moss starred with blooms-- + Slowly, slowly, in these straits, + Drifting towards the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "In the towers of green o'erhead + Watch the vultures for the dead, + And below the egrets red + Eye the mossy pools like fates, + In the shadowy cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Clouds of palm crowns lie behind, + Clouds of gray moss in the wind, + Crumbling oaks with jessamines twined, + Where the ring-doves meet their mates, + Cooing in the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "High the silver ibis flies-- + Silver wings in silver skies; + In the sun the Saurian lies: + Comes the mockingbird and prates + To the boatman at the gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Now the broader waters gleam-- + Seems my voyage upon the stream + Like a semblance of a dream, + And the dream my Soul elates; + Life flows through the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Ibis, thou wilt fly again, + Ring-dove, thou wilt sigh again, + Jessamines bloom in golden rain; + And a loving song-bird waits + Me beyond the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +SUNBEAM, THE SEMINOLE. + + +When I had concluded the recitation of the poem which closes the +preceding chapter, a fine-looking gentleman sitting near us arose, and +lifting his hat very gracefully, said: + +"Pardon me. As a native Floridian, I have much enjoyed hearing you +repeat that poem relating to my State." + +This led to a pleasant conversation, during which he introduced us to +his wife as being one of the aborigines. We expressed much interest in +this statement, and finally persuaded him to give us an account of +his courtship, which, with some amplifications, was substantially as +follows: + +It is midnight in the vast everglades of Florida. The mammoth forest +trees seem to support the arch of heaven as the pillars uphold the +great dome of the nation's capitol. Here and there the century-old +orange trees are resplendent with the golden globes of the luscious +fruit, and millions of flowering vines beautify even the dead monarchs +of the woods. + +All these tropical splendors are illumined by the rays of the full +hunter's moon, which transforms the trailing streamers of dewy Spanish +moss into long-drawn chains of sparkling silver. From swamp and +foliage the voices of the night fill the balmy air with quavering +wailings, punctured by the occasional screams of wild-cats and +hootings of the melancholy owls. Here in this forest primeval, mid +the murmuring pines and star-eyed magnolias, nature rules supreme, +uncontaminated by the trammels of civilization. + +But what is that? Surely human forms swinging noiselessly from limb +to limb over dark pools where the deadly moccasins and ferocious +alligators slumber, over stagnant lagoons beautified by great lilies, +and densely populated with rainbow colored fishes, and gaily decorated +by water-fowl now all motionless in the embrace of sleep, the brother +of death. + +The moonbeams reveal a band of broad-shouldered, copper-colored +aborigines, who once ruled over the whole of this fair peninsular. +They are returning, with packs of supplies strapped upon their backs, +from a trading journey to the city of Kissimmee, where they have +exchanged the fruits of their hunting for many-colored calicos, +ammunition, and alas for the once-noble red men! fire-water. They had +left their canoes when they could no longer be floated, and are now +returning in this, the only possible manner, to their fertile oasis, +protected from the white men by many miles of bogs into which all foot +travelers would sink to unknown slimy depths and death. + +On they come in single file, hand over hand from tree to tree, their +long legs dangling in the air, led by Tiger-tail, the chief of the +survivors of the most intelligent and powerful of all the Indian +tribes. Suddenly the leader stops, gives the low cry of the Ring-dove, +which halts his followers, and suspended in air, gazes at the sleeping +form of a young white man, reclining, with his rifle beside him, on +a hammock which rises dry and grass-covered above the surrounding +morasses. + +Motioning his band to follow, the chief drops noiselessly beside the +sleeper, stealthily seizes the gun, revolver, and bowie-knife of the +helpless victim, hands them to others, and shouts "Humph, wake up!" +The pale-face reaches for his weapons, and finding them gone, jumps to +his feet, gazing without flinching at his stalwart captors. + +"Who you be?" grunted the chief. "What for you here?" + +"I am Henry Lee of Lawtey," was the calm reply, "and I am hunting." + +"Humph, you white man hunt Seminole from earth. You no right here. You +my prisoner; follow me, my slave." + +As resistance was useless, the youth silently obeys, climbing hour +after hour until his arms seemed about to be wrenched from their +sockets. At last, just as the rising sun shot his lances of light +through the forest's gloom, the chief drops to solid earth, followed +by all. + +A romantically beautiful scene lies before them. No longer the +styx-like waters; the funereal realms of Pluto have vanished, and an +elevated plateau appears, partially cleared. Here and there graceful +palms, tall, slender cocoanut and orange trees laden with fruit; +sparkling springs; abundant harvests of varied crops; picturesque +wigwams and huts, fair as the garden of the Lord. A pack of dogs +started to yelp, but at once slunk away at a word from the chieftain, +who points to a hut, quietly saying: "Go in there till I call you." + +Henry obeyed, and exhausted with his journey, sank quickly to sleep +upon the straw-covered floor. At length, when the sun was high in the +heavens, he was awakened by a black man, who placed before him some +venison and corn bread, then silently withdrew. After satisfying his +hunger, he went out to explore. + +It was an ideal scene of tropical luxuriance; cattle and sheep were +feeding upon the abundant grasses; but they suddenly took to their +heels, with uplifted tails and terrified eyes, at the sight of his +white face, a spectacle never before seen on this oasis, peopled +hitherto exclusively by "Copperheads." Swarms of children were +shooting their arrows at deer-skin targets; groups of braves, +fantastically attired, lounged under the shade of the wide-spreading +umbrella trees, smoking fragrant tobacco in long-stemmed pipes, but +they did not deign to give the visitor even an inquiring glance. + +Henry interviewed a number of negroes hoeing corn and sweet potatoes, +who informed him in broken English that they were the slaves of the +Indians; that they had never heard of the civil war, nor of Abraham +Lincoln. They claimed to be well treated, and were contented, having +plenty to eat and no very severe labor. They cast anxious glances +towards the village, and seemed glad when he walked away, saying +they had never before seen a white man and thought he must be "big +medicine." + +The birds were singing gaily, all nature smiled complacently, and he +strolled over the flower-bedecked fields into the recesses of the +forest, where he seated himself under a blossom-covered magnolia +around which twined the fragrant jessamine. He gave himself up to +day-dreams. All at once a light, moccasined footfall is heard, and +there stepped from the woods an Indian girl, graceful as a fawn, with +her head crowned with flowers, and softly singing a strange, sweet +song in an unknown tongue. When the stranger was seen she started to +flee, but with a smile he beckoned her to stop, which she did, as +though hypnotized. + +"Oh," she whispered, "you are the pale-face my father has captured; +but if Tiger-tail should see me speaking to you, he would kill us +both. Such is the law of the Seminoles. No Indian maiden must speak to +a white man; but I never saw such as you before." + +"But, how happens it," said he, in astonishment, "that you speak my +language?" + +"My father taught me," was the reply, "he is a scholar; we all speak +some American." + +"May I know your name?" asked our hero. + +"I am Sunbeam, daughter of the Seminole chief." + +"And mine is Henry Lee," he replied to her inquiring look. "You +are well named," he continued. "I have seen many daughters of the +pale-faces; but none so fair and bright as you. Sunbeam, at this my +first glance, I love you; can you sometime love me?" + +"I do love you now," replied the artless girl; "the Great Spirit tells +me to do so; but we must not be seen together; they will kill us, we +must part at once." + +"Dearest," cried Henry, "when can we meet again?" + +"To-morrow at noon," came the impulsive reply. "In my cave there back +of that cypress; no one is allowed to enter but me; there I say my +prayers, and my father says it is sacred to me alone. Good-bye, +Henry," and she sped like a deer into the shades of the forest. + +The youth was sincere, for it had flashed upon him like an inspiration +when their eyes first met, that she was born for him, and he for her. +They were married in heaven, ages ago. It came like a word from the +Infinite to these kindred souls. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness +which surrounds us manifests things unseen. Such visions sometimes +effect a transformation in those whom they visit, converting a poor +camel driver into a Mohammed, a peasant girl tending goats, into a +Joan of Arc. + +This love-flash from the invisible blent these two hitherto widely +separated souls into one, even as the positive electricity leaps +through the spaces to find the negative, and when met, dissolves the +separateness into a harmonious oneness which can never be sundered. +The unsophisticated Indian maiden went her way, thrilling with the +thought that her heart is in his bosom, and his in hers, useless one +without the other. + +The white youth was suddenly changed from an idle, wandering, +purposeless dreamer, into a fearless lover, ready to face death itself +to secure the object of his worship, and he sauntered back to his hut +with no flinching from the many dangers which surrounded him. + +There a black slave met him, bearing an abundant feast. "Eat," said +the negro, "and then go to the lodge of Tiger-tail, the largest in the +village, with the skin of a tiger stretched on the door." + +As soon as Henry had assuaged his hunger, he hastened to obey the +summons. As before, no human being noticed him, and he walked to +the wigwam, knocked on the door-post, and answering the "come" from +within, entered. To his astonishment, the giant leader was evidently +trying to read a newspaper, but took no notice of his entrance for +some minutes, when he suddenly said: + +"What is this?" pointing to a line of what Henry saw was the message +to Congress of the President of the United States. The chief watched +closely as his captive slowly read: + +"The Seminole Indians have been driven by our troops to their +fastnesses in the swamps of the Everglades, and it is for Congress to +decide whether they shall be further punished for their outbreak." + +The chief slowly rose to his frill height, and walked in silence for a +long time, when he turned to our hero, and fastened upon him his eagle +eyes. "Humph," at length he muttered, "the pale-face rob Seminole of +everything else, now he follow us here:--no, the great father must +know the truth, you teach me to write him, no white man ever come here +and go away to tell, you stay here always; you no speak to any one +here but me, you set down, teach me." + +For a long time Henry labored hard to show this remarkable savage how +to read and write. No teacher ever had a more attentive pupil; but it +was very difficult for his untutored mind to master these, to him, +puzzling hieroglyphics. At length, Tiger-tail arose, and saying in an +exasperated tone: + +"Humph! Damn! Me kill something, me mad! You come here every day when +I send for you," and seizing his rifle, and pointing the youth to go, +he strode savagely away into the woods. + +The youth returned to his hut, and wearied with his unusual labors, +was soon asleep, dreaming all night of the loved Sunbeam, whom he +hoped would soon irradiate the darkness of his life. The hours of the +next day dragged away on leaden wings, and the trysting hour drew +near; but to his utter disgust, just as he was on the point of going +to his beloved, the negro appeared summoning him once more to the +chief, and his heart sank with fear that their secret was discovered. + +Tiger-tail betrayed no emotion, and for a long time teacher and pupil +struggled with their tasks as before, until the Indian, unable to +restrain his pent-up restlessness longer, strode away to seek relief +in the chase, leaving Henry to wend his way with many watchful glances +to the shrine of his worship. + +While walking slowly and circuitously to avoid suspicion, and closely +scrutinizing the trunks and tops of trees for any spy who might be +watching, he noticed a slight movement of the tall grass around a +fallen cypress, and rushing to reconnoitre, a warrior leaped to his +feet and dashed into the underbrush. Then the youth realized that +suspicious eyes were following him, and that he was risking his life +to meet the daughter of the chief. + +He dared not enter the mouth of the cave; but walked through the thick +bushes above it much depressed in spirit, when suddenly he heard his +name softly called, and looking downward, saw an opening into the +earth large enough to admit his body. "Drop down this way," was +whispered, and after assuring himself that no spy was in sight, he +obeyed, falling into the arms of the waiting girl. + +"Henry," said she, "I was followed; but no one knows of this entrance +but myself; close it with this shrub. We are watched, and must never +meet here again." + +"But, dearest," sobbed the youth, "life is not worth living without +you; we must escape together this very night." + +"I will go with you to the ends of the earth," was the reply. "I loved +you long before you came here; I have the gift of second sight. Months +ago I saw you coming to me. I have explored the way to the great +river. At midnight, meet me under the great cypress, throw this +perfume to the dogs and they will not bark;" she handed him a small +vial. "I must go; you follow when you hear the King-dove coo; go to +your hut." She embraced him, and was gone. + +Soon, he heard the signal, and he cautiously raised himself to the +upper air, returned to his wigwam, and was soon enjoying rapturous +dreams with his head resting where he knew the rays of the moon would +shine into his face to awaken him at the appointed time for flight. +When he peered anxiously through the entrance of his wigwam at a +little before midnight, he was appalled at the sight. A multitude of +dogs surrounded the hut, ready, evidently by their yelpings, to bring +down upon him the whole tribe of Indians, should he try to escape. + +"Alas," thought he, "there are battles with fate which can never be +won," and for a moment he seemed paralyzed at his doom. Then came +to mind a recollection of the perfume given him by his thoughtful +Sunbeam, and he resolved to do or die. + +Noiselessly as a shadow, he stepped out, hoping to escape the +attention of his canine guards; but in a moment, every cur was on his +feet and were about to make the welkin ring, when he threw at the +leader the contents of his vial. Instantly, all fawned at his feet, +and he hastened to his rendezvous. + +Not a sound was heard save an occasional snore from some sleeper, and +soon he found his faithful sweetheart in the shadow of the century-old +cypress. She quickly slung his rifle across his back, fastened about +him the revolver and bowie-knife, bound over her own shoulder a bag of +provisions; "follow me," she whispered, and away they sped into the +vast primeval forest. + +For hours they hastened in silence, then the maiden halted at the edge +of a dark morass, and whispered: "Here we leave the earth; I know +the way," and they launched themselves into the limbs of the trees, +clambered hand over hand for a long, long time; when well-nigh +exhausted, they dropped down into a little brook, carefully avoiding +any contact with the tell-tale earth. + +"Quick," said Sunbeam; "we must hasten up this stream which will +conceal our footsteps, to the great river, where we can hide and rest +in a great hollow tree which I found there," and on they went with +their feeble remnant of strength. + +At last, just as the rising sun was dispersing the vapors of night, +our elopers swung themselves from the brook into the branches of an +overarching hollow tree, helped each other to the bottom of this house +not made with hands, and soon slept the slumber of utter exhaustion. +It was many hours before tired nature's sweet restorer released these +two loving children from its embraces, and then it seemed as if all +the fiends from heaven that fell had pealed the banner-cry of hell. + +The howls of dogs, and the savage war-whoops announced that their +enemies were upon them; but undismayed by the terrible dangers, they +resolved to die together rather than endure separation. + +"My father never loved me," whispered Sunbeam, "because I am a girl, +while he hoped for a warrior child; if they find us, kill me; I cannot +live without you." + +"We will go to the Great Spirit together, beloved," was the calm +reply. + +Soon they heard the voice of Tiger-tail close to them, talking to his +braves. "They no cross river," he said; "all canoes here, dogs no get +scent, all back to swamp, we find um there, you, War-Eagle, watch +canoes." Again the air resounds with the yells of dogs and warriors, +then all was silent. + +"War-Eagle hate me," whispered the maiden, "cos I no be his squaw; but +we must go before they return." Slowly the lovers pulled themselves +upward by the ingrown stumps of limbs, and, concealed in the thick +branches, looked around; no one was in sight except the Indian left +to guard the canoes, and he was reclining on the bank of the river, +evidently exhausted. + +Noiselessly they lowered themselves to the ground and approached the +recumbent brave, when a loud snore showed that their enemy was in the +land of nod. "Take my revolver," said Henry, "and shoot--if we must," +then, making a slip-noose of the stout thongs which had bound the +provision bag, he deftly slipped it around the arms of the Indian, and +with a quick jerk he was firmly bound. + +The savage tried to grasp his gun, but, unable, was about to give the +whoop of alarm, when the youth clapped his hand over the vast mouth; +the red man subsided, was quickly gagged and tied to a tree. + +"Now, darling, to our boat," and into it they jumped, and Henry bent +to his oars with all his might. On they sped in their light canoe, +these two hearts beating as one, towards liberty and the loved ones +waiting to welcome them in the white man's home. "Dearest Sunbeam," +said Henry, resting for a moment on his oars, "soon you will be the +fairest flower in my garden of home." + +"Oh, Henry," was the faint reply, "I am but a simple Indian girl, and +I know so little." + +"But it will be our delight to live and learn together," said Henry, +"for-- + + "'Thou art all to me, love, for which my heart did pine, + A green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine.'" + +On they glided, out of that paradise of nature, where every prospect +pleases, and naught but man is vile. Sunbeam left the place of her +nativity without a lingering glance behind, for there she had been +nothing but an unwelcome girl. + +In a pretty cottage in Lawtey, you may now see Sunbeam, the Seminole, +wife of a successful planter, Henry Lee, beloved by all who know her, +surrounded by orange groves and fragrant flowers in that land of +perpetual bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +A FOUNDER OF TOWNS AND CLUBS. + + +My ship of life was laden to the water's edge with labors of +varying utility. We founded the Apollo Club, a musical and literary +organization including in its membership the most prominent men and +women of the city; we gave entertainments with our orchestra, singing +society, and costumed dramatic stars, which gave us ample funds to +pay for numerous delightful steamboat excursions, sleigh-rides and +picnics, while developing our latent talents, and greatly enhancing +the social life of our community. + +I refer to this with much pleasure, as it led to the formation of +similar societies in many surrounding towns, much to the benefit of +all concerned. I made an elaborate report of my Florida observations +which was printed entire by the United States Department of +Agriculture, widely distributed, and stimulated many to benefit their +condition by securing comfortable homes in that land of fruits, +flowers and delightful climate. + +That year the angel world sent us our bright-eyed, smiling little +Elizabeth, thus making our trio of sweet singers a quartette to share +our joys and lessen our sorrows, coming like the dews from that heaven +to which we all return when our mission to refresh and inspire the +earth life is ended. It is interesting to note the varying definitions +of the word, baby, which have floated down to us in the literature of +all nations. Here are some of them which I have culled from various +authors: + + "A tiny feather from the wing of love, dropped into the sacred lap + of motherhood." + + "The bachelor's horror, the mother's treasure, and the despotic + tyrant of the most republican household." + + "A human flower untouched by the finger of care." + + "The morning caller, noonday crawler, midnight brawler." + + "The magic spell by which the gods transform a house into a home." + + "A bursting bud on the tree of life." + + "A bold asserter of the rights of free speech." + + "A tiny, useless mortal, but without which the world would soon be + at a standstill." + + "A native of all countries who speaks the language of none." + + "A mite of a thing that requires a mighty lot of attention." + + "A daylight charmer and a midnight alarmer." + + "A wee little specimen of humanity, whose winsome smile makes a + good man think of the angels." + + "A curious bud of uncertain blossom." + + "The most extensive employer of female labor." + + "That which increases the mother's toil, decreases the father's + cash, and serves as an alarm clock to the neighbors." + + "It's a sweet and tiny treasure." + + "A torment and a tease," + + "It's an autocrat and anarchist," + + "Two awful things to please." + + "It's a rest and peace disturber," + + "With little laughing ways," + + "It's a wailing human night alarm," + + "A terror of your days." + +And this final definition which exactly describes each of our +quartette, + + "The sweetest thing God ever made + And forgot to give wings to." + +To crown the honors which this year were thrust upon me, my political +party tendered me the nomination for mayor of the city; but when I +ascertained the fact that I would be obliged to bribe the 300 roosters +on the fence who held the balance of power, and who must be paid two +dollars each to persuade them to come off their perch and vote, I +preferred the $600 to the empty honor, and declined. + +It is said that dame fortune knocks once at every man's door, but +the old woman sent to mine later, her ugly-faced unmarried daughter, +mis-fortune. At the request of some of the Boston newspapers, I wrote +an account for the press of my Florida journey and observations, which +attracted much attention and many callers, among whom were the F---- +brothers, of Boston, who painted the attractions of a town of Orange +County in such glowing colors, that I was induced to visit said place +in summer accompanied by my friend, lawyer S---- of Newburyport. + +We found even the summer climate very agreeable the location very +attractive, and the general prospects for a northern colony there +quite promising. We wandered through the woods far and wide, shooting +quail, an occasional wild turkey, caught fish from the numerous +beautiful lakes, sleeping sometimes under the pines, then in houses, +whose owners were away visiting with no thought of locking their doors +in this land where thieving was unknown. We led a real Bohemian life +in Arcady, quietly bonding hundreds of acres of land, and having +located a hotel and townsite between two charming lakes, leaving a +Mr. G---- W---- a friend of the F---- brothers, as superintendent, to +secure more lands and to cut avenues, we went home, where we formed a +syndicate stock company of which I was elected general manager, with +full powers to sell $50,000 of stock with which to pay for the bonded +lands and the building of a hotel. + +I sold the stock at $100 per share, giving one acre of land with each +share of said stock. This would have been a very successful +enterprise had it not been for the cunning duplicity and greed of our +superintendent, who proceeded diligently to "feather his own nest" +at our expense. I accomplished my task of raising funds very +successfully, and the next winter moved with my family to A----, +taking with us a competent engineer, a Mr. H----, to survey and stake +the lands. + +Here I unearthed the rascality of the superintendent, who, beside +taking our salary and commission for buying lands, had extorted large +commissions and bonuses from the sellers, which came out of our funds +in increasing the prices for which the lands were charged to our +company. In addition to this he had hired a large force of negroes +at high wages, on which he drew a secret commission, opened a store, +selling so called canned peaches,--which really contained much whiskey +and few peaches--to his workmen, and thus getting all their wages. + +I at once discharged all the superfluous negroes, built a fine hotel +which was soon filled with a superior class of people from the north, +set out orange groves for non-resident stockholders, and all would +have been well, had it not been for the extraordinary action at the +annual meeting of the stockholders. + +While I was engrossed with my many duties, the superintendent +cunningly went north and secured proxies in his name, and returning, +beat me by two votes, secured for himself my position as general +manager, and then proceeded to wreck the whole enterprise, much to +his own pecuniary benefit, while my friends who had invested on my +representations, blamed me for their losses though I was entirely +innocent of any wrong whatever. + +To cap the climax, this superintendent refused to make an accounting +for several thousand dollars with which I had entrusted him to make +purchases of lands on my personal account. I secured a warrant for his +arrest, chased him half over the county with a sheriff, and brought +him to the city for trial. On our way to the hotel, I was set upon by +a crowd of roughs who had been dined and wined by said W----, and who +threatened to lynch me. I backed up into a corner of the hotel piazza, +laid my hand on an imaginary revolver, threatening to shoot, and was +defending myself with a whirling chair, when the sheriff's posse +rushed to my deliverance in the nick of time, and W---- was forced to +hand over my money. + +He then made life unbearable by sending negroes at night in my absence +to annoy my family, who escaped injury only by the vigorous use of a +revolver by my wife who defended the little ones by numerous shots +which sent the tormentors flying to the woods. This unscrupulous +superintendent secured by his cunning a large amount of our funds; but +it was a curse to him for he squandered it in riotous living. + +When he married he chartered a large steamer and brass band, took on +board a crowd of guests, champagne flowed like water, every luxury was +furnished liberally, and the excursion was a prolonged debauch. + +To-day this fellow is a fugitive from justice, forsaken by wife and +fair weather friends, and thus really, if not literally, is fulfilled +the prophecy of the poet, + + "Her dark wing shall the raven flap + O'er the false-hearted, + His warm blood the wolf shall lap + E'er life be parted, + Shame and dishonor sit + O'er his grave ever, + Blessing shall hallow it + Never, no never." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +A MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS WITH A ONE DOLLAR CAPITAL. + + +Soon after my encounter at S---- with the unspeakable W----, I met +Major St. A----, who gave a cordial invitation to myself and family to +become his guests in his new town of T----, with a view to securing +our cooperation in the development of his multitudinous schemes. This +invitation we accepted, and very early one beautiful morning in March, +my wife, four children and myself, with driver and guide, embarked on +a "prairie schooner," drawn by three horses, for the promised land. + +It was an ideal drive through many miles of fragrant, towering pine +trees, fording beautiful lakes, catching fish, shooting game, camping +for refreshment on the banks of crystal clear brooks. The oldest girls +would ride on the horses' backs, chase quails, pluck the wayside +flowers, occasionally watching the flight of paroquettes flashing like +diamonds through the air, listening to the mockingbirds filling the +woods with their exquisite songs, and inhaling as it were the ether of +the immortal Gods, the matchless, perfumed, life-giving Florida air. + +All at once, with little warning, as is usual in semi-tropical lands, +the night fell, and our learned guide suddenly found that he had lost +the trail. The owls hooted, the wild-cats screamed, likewise the +"kids," with overpowering fear. We plunged ahead at random, when we +suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner." +The horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near +approach of some water snake or alligator. + +We might have been all drowned, had we not discovered a lantern hung +in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our +course to dry land. By the aid of the light we found the trail, and at +length reached the Major's hotel, hungry and tired. Here we found our +embarrassed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who +refused to leave the goods until he received his payment therefor. + +Our landlord appeared to be "dead broke," but finally persuaded the +reluctant provision-dealer to go away with his pockets filled with +"I.O.U.'s" instead of cash, and about midnight on the verge of +starvation we fully appreciated an abundant feast. We soon found that +our, enthusiastic friend was trying to do a million dollar business +on a one dollar capital. He was building two railroads, running a +steamboat line, a hotel, a sawmill, building a town and a fifty +thousand dollar opera house for a one hundred population town, with +not a dollar in his pocket. + +[Illustration: Flight of the Governor and Staff.] + +The next day we sailed on his steamer to meet the governor of the +state, and his staff who were invited to attend a ball in his honor. +The crew was mutinous on account of receiving no pay, the antiquated +machinery broke down every few minutes, and the Major had a fierce +quarrel with a negro minister who had paid first-class fare and +refused to take second-class quarters, to which all colored folks were +forced at the muzzle of the revolver, and a bloody race battle was +only avoided by the fact that the negroes were entirely unarmed. + +At length, loading the deck with wild ducks, and fish that fairly +jumped into the little boat to avoid their enemies, the ferocious +gar-fish, we took the governor and staff on board, and floundered back +at a snail's pace to T----. At the landing, we boarded a dilapidated +street car drawn by mules, for the hotel. + +Soon--crash! bang, a rail gave way, sending the dignified +governor,--stove-pipe hat flying in the air, coat-tails covering his +head,--into a ditch, his long legs kicking frantically to extricate +his head from the mud. We rescued him and staff with difficulty from +the filth, looking like a bedraggled pack of half-drowned rats. + +Finally we reached the hotel, when the colored orchestra from +Jacksonville rushed upon our host demanding their pay in advance, +with furious oaths and unclassical imprecations. In some way, the +embarrassed diplomat silenced their clamors; then the colored waiters +struck for their pay, and "razors were flying in the air." The furious +landlord at last quieted their clamor with a shotgun, and at about +midnight the grand march was sounded, and a nearly famished crowd made +desperate efforts to look cheerful and "trip the light fantastic toe." +All earthly horrors have an end, and in the wee small hours a starving +multitude was treated to a barbacue by our half-crazed host. + +Almost every white man in this town sold chain-lightning whiskey, and +in our short walk from dance hall to hotel we were obliged to jump +over the prostrate forms of drunken darkies. + +As in the lowlands, bordering upon large bodies of water, in all +tropical and semi-tropical countries, we found, to our horror and +dismay, the mosquitoes in ferocious, bloodthirsty swarms which +rendered life not worth the living; so, as soon as we could, without +seriously offending our host, we took our flight, at least what little +there was left of us, to the delightful highlands of Marion County. + +Here, free from the horrors of mosquitoes, we recruited our attenuated +bodies at the elegant Ocala House, thence by rail to Jacksonville +where we took the steamer for home. Off Hatteras we encountered a wild +storm which sent our great boat well-nigh to the stars, then with an +almost perpendicular plunge, almost to Davy Jones' locker, until, with +the nauseating sea-sickness, we were afraid, first that we should die +and later we only feared lest we should not die. + +At last the young cyclone subsided, and we sailed over a tranquil +sea into Boston harbor, thence by rail to our Bay state home. At +Jacksonville, by the way, we had an experience quite characteristic of +those ante-free-delivery days of old. I went to the post-office for +our mail, having but a few minutes to spare before the departure of +the north-bound train. To my disgust, I found a line of negroes nearly +half a mile in length waiting their turns for calling for letters. One +would step to the window and in an exasperatingly in-no-hurry way, +say: "Anything for Andrew Jackson, sah?" After a long delay--"no!" + +"Do yer 'spect dere may be soon, sah?" + +"Did you expect any?" came the reply. + +"No sah, but sumbudy might write, sah." + +"Gwan, next!" Then some white man in a hurry would step up to +next--"here's a quarter for your place, git aout!" The darky would +pocket his money with a broad grin, and but for his ears, the top of +his head would be an island. + +I could not wait, and would not bribe, so went to the door of the +office, and kicked and banged furiously. "G'way fum de doo'! What de +hell you do on de doo'?" came from the inside. + +"I'm a government officer from Washington," I shouted. "Open the door +or I'll knock it down." Out popped the "cullud pusson" profuse in +apologies. I grabbed my mail and rushed for the train in the very nick +of time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +PENDULUM 'TWIXT SMILES AND TEARS. + + +In many particulars this year of our Lord, 1883, was a sad one for us +all. The pecuniary loss, resultant upon the town-building disaster, +was severe; but the revelation which came to me of the innate meanness +of human nature in matters of money, was the more depressing by far. + +It was amazing to hear wealthy people, who had bought of me a few +hundred dollars' worth of stock, and who really felt the loss of it +much less than they would suffer from a fly bite, whine as if this had +reduced them to the direst poverty, and insinuate that I, who had lost +manifold more than they, should refund, though the loss was entirely +the result of their own stupidity in failing to send me the proxies I +had asked for by mail. + +We consoled ourselves, as usual, with the knowledge that we had acted +honestly and conscientiously towards all, and that the miseries of +this short life are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which +shall be revealed in us in the near future of the life eternal." + +The blue arch above us, ever changing like the sea, has always +possessed a peculiar fascination for me, and I never let slip a +convenient opportunity to feast my eyes upon it. I was pursuing this +favorite occupation one day this year, when an unusually beautiful +cloud attracted my attention, and as I watched its rapidly changing +forms, there was slowly evolved from it the kindly loving face of my +mother. It was no fancy, no distorted figment of a dream. The dear +face smiled upon me with angelic sweetness, glanced upward, and was +gone; then I knew that I had another guardian angel in heaven. + +In a short time, news came from R---- that she who had gladly devoted +her life to self-sacrifice for her children, had been relieved from +the always weak and suffering body. + +Dear, good mother! Her highest and only ambition was to do good; not +a selfish thought ever even flitted across her horizon. Frank as the +day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew; like our Lord himself, she +sacrificed herself for the good of others. Her sons, Richard and Mark, +welcomed her at the gates ajar, and she was at rest. + + What is death but a journey home? + A perfect rest when the work is done, + A gentle sleep for earth-weary eyes, + And the soul ascends to the azure skies. + +We in the earth life went on as best we could. My only brother Joshua +sold the old homestead with its burdens, too heavy for him to bear +alone, bought our former home for one-half it had cost us, which was +much more than any other would pay for it; while we sold our castle +and farm which had become a mountain on our shoulders, and went to +live with my wife's parents in Boston, where I continued my work of +introducing the school text-books which had been sold, and myself with +them, to a New York publishing firm. + +When the winter winds and snows began to blow, I longed for the balmy +zephyrs of fair Florida, and like the summer birds, I once more +journeyed southward; there, after a long search for the best +throughout the land of flowers, journeying in steam yachts, row-boats, +on horseback, and sometimes hand over hand on the branches of trees, +over tracks inaccessible in any other manner, I formed another stock +company consisting of several financiers who had spent all their lives +in Florida, and secured many thousands of acres of excellent lands +in the highlands of Marion County, hoping to do good and get good by +inducing the surplus population of our cities to go back to the bosom +of Mother Earth, where a moderate amount of labor will give them an +independent livelihood free from the snow and cold which infest the +wintry north, free from the heart-breaking demoralization of +begging for work in our overcrowded cities where scores of the +poverty-stricken are tumbling over each other in the frantic grabbing +for every job of work and every crumb of charity. + +Were a mere modicum of the vast sums now worse than wasted in +pauperizing the unemployed; a tithe of the money squandered on +building palaces for our numberless, ever-begging colleges, devoted to +settling the poor upon the unimproved lands in Florida, the dangerous +flood of ever-increasing crime, and physical and mental suffering +which now threatens the very existence of our republic, would soon +vanish from our cities, and thousands of the dangerous classes would +become self-supporting, self-respecting, independent men and women. + +Were a tithe of the vast sums lavished by our millionaires upon the +pictured walls, gorgeously embellished ceilings, overcrowded book +shelves of our numerous libraries, and upon the unchristlike towers +of unfrequented cathedrals, be even loaned to those who would gladly +cultivate the thousands of acres of untilled soil in fair Florida, +all the suffering hangers-on for jobs would become successful +agriculturists, owning their own farms, buying their own books, and +sufficiently educating their own children. + +If the money spent every winter in pauperizing the unemployed by +giving them free soup, could be devoted to settling colonies upon our +uncultivated lands, the vexing problems and contests between labor and +capital would be easily solved and obliterated; the unskilled poor +would be at once enabled to respond to the call of the poet-- + + "Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame, + Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! + With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, + She calls you to feast from her beautiful lap. + + Come out from your alleys, your courts and your lanes, + And breathe like your eagles, the air of our plains! + Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives + Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYED: THEN DEPOSED. + + +Here on elevated lands around a pretty clearwater lake, directly on +the Florida Central and Peninsula Railroad, and near a famous grotto +extending deep into the earth, at the bottom of which, like a well, +was an abundance of water containing peculiar fish, near the noted +Eichelburger cave, and vast forests of gigantic trees with sloping +hills around, we founded the town of B----. + +I was elected general manager, and went north to sell the $100,000 of +capital stock, convertible at the option of the holder into our lands +at schedule price, leaving a Mr. B---- as superintendent to cut +avenues, build a hotel, and conduct the general affairs in my absence. + +For several years I devoted all my energies very successfully to +selling the stock and organizing colonies of settlers. I paid ten per +cent. dividend on the stock while I was manager, besides furnishing +thousands of dollars to defray expenses of building a handsome railway +station, a fine commodious schoolhouse and town hall, a good hotel, +and providing good roads. + +I went to Tallahassee, and log rolled through the state legislature a +bill enabling us to form a city government, and statutory prohibition +of all liquor selling in our new town by incorporating said +prohibition into all our deeds. After securing these funds and many +settlers, also Ex-Governor Chamberlain of Maine as president of our +board of directors, I moved to the new town with my family, there to +reside permanently. + +Here our duties were in many respects agreeable, because useful, for +quite a long time. My wife was mother of the town, going from house to +house ministering to the wants of the newcomers who had become sick +by their carelessness in exposing themselves by night and day while +intoxicated with the delights of this incomparable climate. She formed +a union church, sang in the choir, and sometimes played the organ. I +was the father of the town in many senses of the word, being the only +person having any legal authority, and was expected to settle all +disputes whether between man and man or between man and wife. + +Our town was overrun by hungry clergymen of many denominations and +from nearly every state, all clamoring for the lucre to be obtained by +preaching in our union church. I might have obtained the friendship of +one by appointing him as pastor; but I made malicious enemies of all +by insisting upon each one officiating in turn and taking therefor the +contents of the contribution box on his day. + +The air resounded with the prayer-meeting shouts of these +ecclesiastics who all secretly worked against me, because I would not +allow them to found as many churches as there were inhabitants. + +Many of the impecunious newcomers schemed against me because I could +not furnish them all with light work and heavy pay. Some would persist +in drinking surface water, ignoring all sanitary laws, became unwell +and then cursed the climate and my so-called misrepresentations; +others would ignore all instructions as to the agricultural methods +essential to success in this climate, and then denounce me on the sly +because their crops were not satisfactory. + +Many wished to act as real estate agents on commission, and when +one succeeded, the rest, fired with jealousy, would accuse me of +favoritism because their own incompetency did not secure for them +these prizes. Our house was besieged by day and night, so that we +had to cut a hole in the outside door to talk with them when we were +seeking a little sleep. + +We formed a temperance, literary and musical club which every one in +the town attended, and at this, at least, we spent many pleasant and +useful hours. I was president of this club, and performed all the +drudgery necessary to its success. I established a general store at +which goods were sold at about cost, but many complained because they +could not have unlimited credit. + +One oasis in this fault-finding desert, was the outside colony of +freedmen. I employed many of them to do the heavy work of clearing +avenues, and the air resounded with their cheerful songs, and I had +the pleasure, with much labor, to save from the rapacious white +robbers, the farms which these colored men had received from generous +Uncle Sam. One case will illustrate the many instances in which I +appeared as umpire. + +Uncle and Aunty Peter Gooden owned a fertile farm, and made a good +living and more by diligent labor thereon. A white "cracker" coveted +this property, and told the ignorant aunty that he would let her have +$300 on mortgage at two per cent. per week, so that she could buy +a new yellow wagon, silver-mounted harness and prancing mules, a +gorgeous red silk dress with much finery, with which she could +outshine all her neighbors. These unsophisticated, honest "coons," +thinking it meant that they would have to pay only two cents per week, +accepted the offer, affixed their X marks to his unknown papers, and +not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like this simple couple. + +In a short time they came to me broken-hearted, sobbing, and wailing, +telling me that the "cracker shylock" had foreclosed, ordering them +out of their house and home. I at once notified the avaricious shark +that he was guilty of violating the laws of the state by defrauding +and by false pretenses, tendered him the principal with legal +interest, and threatened punishment by law if he did not accept. He +said, like the fabled raccoon in the tree, "Don't shoot, I'll come +down." I paid the money for which, in due time, Uncle Peter reimbursed +me. + +I secured the hatred of the "crackers," but the undying gratitude +of the negroes, who vied with each other in bringing us game in +profusion, the first fruits of their crops, and shedding tears if +we offered payment therefor, begging to be allowed to show their +thankfulness by these free gifts. If one of them heard a threat +against us he would guard our house all night with a shotgun, and +would shadow me as I went about in the night, ready to spring upon any +of my assailants. + +[Illustration: Ups and Downs in the Wild Woods.] + +I provided a school and church for these loving, dusky children, +and it was pathetic and cheering to see them all, from the tiny +pickaninnies to the tottering gray heads, going regularly with their +primers and Bibles, trying to learn to read and write. + +Many pleasant evenings in midwinter we sat on our vine-clad piazza, +enjoying the balmy breezes, perfumed with the delicious orange +blossoms, looking at the stately pines glorified by moonlight and +starlight; listening to the songs of these dark-faced but white-souled +serenaders, the whites of whose eyes and perfect teeth could be seen +beaming upon us through the dusky shades of the forest. + +On the evening of the day when news arrived of the first election of +Grover Cleveland to the Presidency, we were sitting as usual on our +piazza, when, suddenly, I saw a flash of fire in the woods, followed +by the report of a rifle, then others in quick succession. Rushing to +the scene I found a few Southern whites armed with repeating rifles, +facing a large band of negroes carrying a motley array of pitchforks, +scythes, razors, clubs, and a few ancient shotguns. Yelling: "Hold +up!" I sprang between the embattled hosts, and demanded to know what +was the row. + +"Get out of the way, you damned Yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or +we'll riddle you with bullets." Then they gave the far-reaching, +fiendish, rebel yell. + +"Shoot," I replied, "if you want to be hung." + +--"Boys," I said, turning to the darkies, "what's the matter?" + +"Oh, boss, massa Linkum's dead, de Dimikrat am Presidunt, und we poo' +niggers be slabes agin. We fight, we die, but we won't be slabes agin, +neber." + +Again came the roar of rifles behind me and the minnie balls went +shrieking over our heads. "Boys," I shouted, "you are mistaken. A +million Northern soldiers will march down here if necessary to prevent +that; go at once to your homes; I will take care of you." Slowly the +colored men, who trusted me implicitly, melted away in the darkness. +Again the rebel yell, again the rifle shots high in the air. +"Gentlemen," said I, to the menacing whites, "come with me to the +Hall, I want to talk with you." + +"To hell with you!" they yelled, but followed me into the building. + +When they had sullenly taken seats, with guns threateningly at the +ready, they glared at me like tigers ready to spring. Soon a man, I +had, on my way, sent to the store, arrived with a box of good Florida +cigars, and I quietly passed them around to my "lions couchant," +took a seat on the platform facing them, lit up, and commenced the +enjoyment of a silent smoke, they following suit. + +The tender of a cigar in the South is a recognition of comradeship +which is a most potent mollifier. At last they brought their guns +to the ground arms, parade rest, and the leader, an ex-Confederate +officer, drawled out, "Wall, Yank, what do you want of we uns?" + +"Just as you please, gentlemen, peace or war?" + +"We are smoking the pipe, or cigar, of peace, Yank." + +"So mote it be, brothers," said I, knowing that they were all members +of the mystic tie. "We meet on the level, let us part on the square." + +"So mote it be," was the response in a regular lodge room chorus. + +A few quick signs were exchanged between chair and settees, the ice +was broken, the "lodge was opened in due form;" there was no longer +any restraint, for we were all members of the most ancient fraternal +order on earth, of which the wisest man who ever lived was founder. +They had not known this before. The white dove descended, and they +promised on the sacred oath which makes all men brothers, to molest +the negroes no more. We had a jolly good time, gave each other the +Grand Masonic grip and departed to our homes. + +As I walked, I saw several dark figures dodging from tree to tree, +and all that night my dusky-hued friends kept vigilant watch and ward +about our cottage. The next morning many valiant war-men in time of +peace, but peace-men in time of war, told me what brave fighting they +would have done for my protection had I but called upon them to do so. + +I stocked the lake with excellent food fish obtained from the National +Fish Commissioner, built good sidewalks, arched by beautiful shade +trees; and many prominent men bought lands in our town. We passed an +ordinance forbidding the use of our public thoroughfares to cattle +and hogs, and for a while the air quivered with the squealings of +infuriated razor backs. + +Our valiant city marshal would pounce upon each one of these +long-snouted swine; then came the tug-of-war, amid clouds of dust; +down went marshal and razor-back, the nose as long and sharp as a +ploughshare cleaving the earth near the sidewalks lined with laughing +people. Our great Floridian always triumphed, and his pig-ship was +incarcerated in the town "pound" until owner paid charges and penned +his property outside city limits. + +Once I saw a terrific contest between one of these long-legged, +long-nosed porkers and the lone, pet alligator of our lake. His +pig-ship was enjoying a drink when Mr. 'Gator seized him by the snout, +the porcine braced and yelled; the 'gator let go in amazement; the pig +turned to run; 'gator seized him by the leg, then Greek met Greek, +teeth met teeth, till' the saurian struck him with his mighty tail, +and all was over; the alligator and the porker lay down in peace +together with the pig inside the 'gator. + +One day, one of our fishermen brought in a string of trout which far +overshadowed the miraculous draught of fishes in the Sea of Galilee. +On being questioned as to how he did it, he said he got one bite and +pulled for three hours. The fish kept catching hold of each others' +tails in their eagerness to be caught, until he had landed four +barrels of the toothsome fat trout. + +Our champion brought from a few hours' hunt, enough quail for the +entire town; and when asked how he did it, he replied: "Oh, I saw +three thousand quail roosting on the limb of a tree. I had only my +rifle with one ball; I shot at the limb, cracked it, their legs fell +through the crack which closed when the bullet went through, and +chained them all hard and fast. All I had to do was to cut off the +limb with my jack-knife and bag the whole lot." + +One day this mighty Nimrod brought home three bears and four deer. +"How did you do it?" asked the envious multitude. "I was asleep in my +wigwam, was waked up by a rumpus outside, rushed out with my gun, and +chased the crowd around the hut till I was dead beat, then I bent my +rifle across my knee into the exact circumference shape of my house, +and fired. The bullet whistled by me for half an hour, chasing the +varmints who were chasing each other; bum by, the bullet caught up, +went through the whole crowd, and by gum; that 'ere bullet is chasing +round that wigwam naouw." + +On another occasion, this same man brought in a lot of wild turkeys +all ready for the table. As usual we expressed our wonderment. "Wall, +by gum," said he, "'twas the beatemest thing you ever heered on. I +was waked up by these critters squawkin' over my haouse; I fired up +chimbly, and daown tumbled the whole gang; the fire burnt off the +feathers and roasted um up braown afore I could get at um." + +"But how about the stuffing?" + +"Oh, that's nothin'; they'd stuffed themselves afore I shot um." + +We had often congratulated ourselves upon our immunity from snakes, +never having seen even one in our Bailiwick; but our sweet dreams of +peace were rudely disturbed by this Baron Munchausen who horrified our +ladies one day, by saying that he went into our church to make some +repairs, and there met a rattle-snake which swallowed him whole at one +full swoop; at once he recalled the Sunday-school lesson of Jonah in +the whale's belly, took courage, struck a match, made a bonfire of his +hat, and by its light cut his way out with his hatchet, ran to his +house, got his gun and shot the snake, which was so large that he had +not noticed the man's cutting, nor his escape, but was vastly enjoying +his after dinner nap. This man long bore the honors of being the +champion liar and champion hunter of the universe. + +Thus, rapidly, sped away our days replete with alternating smiles and +tears until arrived the time for our annual stockholders' election. On +our way to Ocala to attend this important event, I conversed at length +with the Rev. W----, upon whom I had conferred many and profitable +favors. This ostentatiously pious individual expressed much gratitude +for my kindness to him, assured me that my administration of affairs +had been a grand success, that I had gained the merited respect and +confidence of all the people in the town and that he would urge my +reelection as general manager, with all his strength. + +The conference progressed very harmoniously for awhile, when I was +called out to see a man on some important business, and on reentering +the room, I noticed some excitement among the members, when General +Chamberlain, the president, called me to his chair and frankly told +me, in the hearing of all, that the Rev. W---- had, as soon as I left, +denounced me fiercely as a fraud and a liar, stating that I had the +respect of no one in B----; that the town would be ruined were I +reelected; that he himself would take my position without any salary, +relying solely upon commission from land sales, as compensation, and +that he made this statement at the unanimous request of the citizens +of the town. + +All eyes were turned to me for an explanation. I looked for awhile +at the hypocritical clergyman very steadily, until he cringed like a +viper, and turned pale as a ghost. I then narrated the statements made +to me scarcely an hour before, called upon him for some proof of his +accusations, and closed by saying that I would not accept a reelection +unless it came to me unanimously. The craven reverend left the room +without a word; I was reelected without a dissenting vote, and thus +closed one of the most revolting revelations of depravity that I ever +witnessed. + +This "wolf in sheep's clothing," after an extraordinary career in +endeavoring to "fleece" others, finally lost every dollar of his +property, fled from the town with his family, and I have never been +able to hear from him since. I wish for the sake of faith in human +nature that this had been the only case of "fall from grace," but +alas, there were others! + +But let the curtain fall. Moral--have no confidence in the man who +wears his religion on his coat sleeve or necktie; but try the spirits +whether they are of Christ. + +At this time, a party of prominent people arrived at B----, from +the North, to consider the feasibility of investing quite largely +somewhere in Florida. As they wished to visit the southern part of the +state before deciding, I procured free passes for all, and escorted +them via steamer, down the entire Gulf coast, touching at all +attractive points, exploring coral islands where myriads of sea birds +nested, encircling us with wild screams till the clouds of them +well-nigh shut out the sun; then we collected rare shells and flotsam +and jetsam from far away lands; one hour, floating over the calm Gulf +of Mexico, as smooth as a mirror, then tossed by a sudden tempest +far towards the stars, and tumbling down to Davy Jones' locker; now +enjoying the lotos-eaters' paradise, then, as we reached the lowlands, +well-nigh devoured by millions of mosquitoes and sand flies. + +Then we crossed the peninsular, traveling under hammock-woods and +century-old wild-orange trees, whose "twilight dim hallowed the +noonday," regaled with unlimited fish and game to the far-famed Indian +River,--delightful recreation-spots for a few weeks in winter, but too +hot, damp, and mosquitoey for colonies. Then we were guests of the +millionaires' club at Cape Canaveral, where were acres of wild ducks, +droves of screaming catamounts, and huge-billed, fish-devouring +pelicans. We drove over many miles of hard, firm sea-beaches--delightful +brief winter homes for the rich, then back to our fertile piny woods +highlands, convinced that the "backbone" of the peninsular was the only +desirable locality for permanent settlers who must get a living from the +bosom of mother earth. + +Soon after, leaving Mr. B----, the superintendent, in charge of the +company's interests in our new town, which now contained over one +hundred houses, and had elected a Mayor and Alderman, I returned with +my family to Boston, devoting my time to lecturing on Florida in +general, and B---- in particular, in nearly all the cities of New +England, distributing illustrated books which I had prepared, and +which were approved as true, by many prominent people who had lived +for many years among the scenes which were therein described. + +My labors were very successful, and a great success for our enterprise +seemed assured, when I received a letter from our directors, stating +that a Dr. K---- had offered to accept my position as general manager, +without salary; pay his own expenses, relying on his commissions on +land sales, and that as I had declined to serve on this basis they +had felt compelled to accept his services. As I was obliged to have +a regular income for the support of my family, I acquiesced in the +directors' decision, and soon, under the new incompetent management, +the company failed; so another of my business enterprises, on the very +verge of a grand success, became a defeat, and again the innocent were +blamed for the acts of the guilty. I converted my stock in the M.L.&I. +Co., into lands of the company at a great loss to me, as I took the +lands at company's schedule values instead of at the cost prices, +while the stock cost me--the full price of $100 per share. Blessed is +he who expecteth nothing, for he alone shall not be disappointed. + + Our varying days pass on and on, + Our hopes fade unfulfilled away, + And things which seem the life of life + Are taken from us day by day. + + Our little dramas all may fail, + And naught may issue as we planned, + Our costliest ships refuse to sail, + Our firmest castles fall to sand. + + But God lives on, and with our woe + Weaves golden threads of joy and peace, + And somewhere we will surely know + From sorrow and pain the glad release. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. + + +This year of our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow +than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in +connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while +alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper: +"James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the +news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding me +farewell. + +My father was an honest man, the noblest work of God; he had gained +none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what +was better far, a conscience void of offense towards God and man. In +the words of Thoreau--"If a man does not keep pace with his fellows, +perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step +to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." This my +father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from +earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a +deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life. + +The winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to his arctic +home, and when the first harbingers of spring appeared, singing the +memorial songs of the Resurrection, the old country fever, inherited +from many generations of farmer ancestors, seized me, and we bought a +small plantation for $4,200, in N----, Mass., to which we moved April +28, 1887. Here, as usual, much money was expended on improvements and +for horse, carriages, cow, pigs, hens, also for scanty harvests of +vegetables, and our only returns therefor consisted of large crops +of backaches, nasal hemorrhages, and rheumatism incurred in frantic +attempts to coax from the reluctant soil, some slight compensation for +excessive labor. + +Here, as usual, I was busied with many cares, lecturing in various +places on the subject of Florida and selling our private lands in that +state. Like Mr. Pickwick, I was founder of many societies, notably the +N---- club, which, with a fine orchestra and much dramatic talent +soon became the social and literary attraction of the town; also the +Republican club, which conducted a vigorous campaign for protective +tariff and sound money, attracting large audiences by political +debates. I was president of both these flourishing organizations, was +chairman of the parish committee of the Unitarian Church, leading +to its enlargement and extended usefulness, was a member of the +congressional committee of the district which wrested a congressman +from the Democrats, electing, after a desperate struggle, John W. +Candler, to the National Legislature in place of Russell, "the +sheepless Shepherd." + +On the 16th of June of this year, Rebecca, the wife of my only +surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen +shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, +my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had +long gone before. She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet +to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the +best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she +found it. + + One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear, + One by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear. + +On the evening of the 16th of August in this year, an experience +came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious +thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called +death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence. + +My brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a +week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the +gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw +a notice posted on a tree stating that the B---- sisters would give +a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. We were all +skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the +contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded +to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity. +Here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of +intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed +figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly +elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called +to meet them. + +This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form +whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the +platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. On responding to the +invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor, +kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister," +informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in +loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had +exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her +to help. Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one +dazed. + +"James," she said, "I am Mary, your wife." She embraced me with many +kisses as in the long ago, and continued: "I am so glad to see you +and Lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her +goodness to our children; my time here is so short." Then turning; +"Jot," she whispered to my brother, "come here;" she kissed him, said: +"Rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak +to come out. We give you all our love and blessing; good-bye," and +disappeared through the floor at our feet. + +There was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the +unseen world. We had "felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had +heard the sound of the voice that is still," and henceforth we knew +that we walked hand in hand with angels. We realized unmistakably the +truth of the words of the poet Longfellow: + + "The forms of the departed enter at the open door, + The beloved, the true hearted come to visit us once more, + And with them the being beauteous, who unto my youth was given + More than all things else to love me, and is now a saint in Heaven. + Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside, + If I but remember only such as these have lived and died." + +The pages of the Bible, the testimony of all the sweet singers of all +the ages, confirm indisputably our certain knowledge of spirit return, +and _we know_ the truth of what the saints and sages of all time have +dreamed, and by faith have believed, all religions have taught, it is +now demonstrated beyond all doubt and we can say most joyfully-- + + "Oh land, oh land + For all the broken-hearted, + The mildest herald by our fate allotted + Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand + To lead us with a gentle hand + Into the land of the great departed, + Into the silent land." + +We turned to our duties, inspired by the knowledge that we were guided +and assisted by the loved ones gone before. After living on the +flat-as-pan-cake plain of N---- for three years, again was I +disenchanted; all the poetic illusions of farm life vanished, all the +oxygen seemed to be exhausted from the air, the romance of raising +potatoes at a cost of five dollars a peck disappeared, the old farm +hung like a millstone round my neck, we sold it and hired a pretty +cottage in the lucre-worshipping town of B----, on the 29th of March, +1890, where we led uneventful lives for one year, until my fickle +fancy was captivated by a fine new house on the hilltop overlooking +the sea, in the town of W----, Mass. This we bought and entered on the +14th of May, 1891. + +Here at last we thought we had found the Mecca towards which, all our +lives we had been drifting. Once more came the passion for beautifying +our own, and we made our lawns to bud and blossom like the roses; +worshipping at the shrine of the majestic ocean, + + "Its waves were kneeling on the strand, + As kneels the human knee, + Their white locks bowing to the sand + The priesthood of the sea." + +Here we passed four very pleasant and useful years; consciously near +to us, though unseen, were all our loved ones of the spirit world. +Almost every night our angel friends communicated with us unmistakably +through the ouija, and planchette; they would draw caricature pictures +of us all, and give us conundrums and jokes that we had never known +before. One evening in particular, Mary wrote us to give her children +the best possible musical instruction, stating that May would become a +great singer and flute player, and that Ada would be a fine organist +and pianist, as well as singer; that Ida would do well with violin and +voice. + +We were incredulous, as they had inherited no musical talent, neither +had they manifested any inclination in these directions; but Mary was +so persistent and strenuous in her appeals, that we heeded the advice, +gave the girls good teachers along these lines, and soon, their +spirit-mother's predictions were fulfilled to the very letter, and the +so-called "Foss triplets" became a veritable inspiration to thousands +of delighted listeners to their rendition of instrumental and vocal +strains of music. + +The dews of heaven descend upon all the flowers of the field, some +open their petals, welcome the refreshment and are blessed thereby; +while others close their buds, refusing the blessing, and as a result, +wither and die. Even so come to all souls the spirits of the departed, +and they inspire or fail in their mission of love according to whether +we open or close to them the doors of our inner sanctuaries. + + The departed, the departed, + They visit us in dreams, + They glide above our memories + Like sunlight over streams. + + The melody of summer waves, + The thrilling notes of birds + Can never be so dear to me + As their softly-whispered words. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +A PRACTICAL SOCIALIST AND COLONIZER. + + +We found in this town of W----, a moribund Unitarian Church, with +scarcely a handful of attendants, listening once a week to a lifeless +minister and an asthmatic harmonium accompanied by a few feeble, +inharmonious voices. + +Our sympathies were aroused for this expiring infant, and we resolved +to rescue it if possible from its open grave. My wife and I, +accompanied by the "Triplets," on the front seat of our carriage +as drivers, canvassed the entire town, asking all we met to lay up +treasures in heaven by "rescuing the perishing," and we soon secured +money to buy a fine toned organ and to hire a wideawake pastor. Ada +played the new organ; May formed a quartette with herself as soprano, +Ida often accompanying with her violin; my wife teaching in the +Sunday-school, myself serving as chairman of the Parish Committee, and +soon our church was filled with attentive and much edified listeners +and helpers. I organized the Channing Club, which soon included in its +membership all the leading musical and dramatic talent of the town. We +met weekly in the church vestry which was soon decorated by handsome +pictures, scenery and bric-a-brac, the gifts of our members, making a +very spacious and attractive resort. + +This club over which I presided, developed to a remarkable degree the +latent talents of many who had never before thought themselves capable +of entertaining and instructing the public. We had an orchestra of +stringed and brass instruments, in which May played the flute, Ada +the piano and organ, Ida second violin, while all our four girls sang +solos, duets, trios, and quartettes. Many elderly people paid generous +fees for honorary membership, while the large, active membership, +responded regularly when called upon with musical, literary, or +dramatic renditions individually or in combination as they might +prefer. It was a delightful and instructive symposium which ought to +be found in every town. + +The Channing Club soon became famous, and gave first-class +entertainments to very large audiences at high admission fees in our +own and surrounding towns as well as in Boston, thus replenishing the +church treasury and greatly promoting sociability and friendship by +regular dances and suppers which made hundreds seem like one large +family, bound together by many friendly ties, each one readily +responding to the call of the president to render his or her full +share of entertainment and good cheer for the good of all. + +It was an ideal socialistic order, and we truly "sat together in +heavenly places." All gladly contributed to the needs of the poor +or the sick; we chartered steamers and went on picnic excursions to +attractive island resorts in our beautiful harbor; class distinctions +were banished, envy and jealousy disappeared like snow before the sun, +and good fellowship reigned supreme. Our rich and poor met together as +brothers and sisters. + +Such an organization in churches would soon banish class hatreds, and +do much to make this world a paradise like to that above. + +The winter of 1892 was a red-letter season in the history of us all. +We rented our house in W----, to a friend, and lived in Florida, +our four girls attending Rollins College at Winter Park, where they +enjoyed life immensely in the incomparable climate which, with their +studies in this excellent school, was of great benefit to them, +physically and mentally. I was favored with free passes all over the +state, and devoted my time to a careful examination of large tracts +of land in various counties, but found none to my liking until on +our return trip, we spent several weeks at Lawtey, in the county of +Bradford. + +Florida, within its vast area, contains a great variety of land and +climates, and the person who has traversed only the beaten track +of the tourist knows nothing of the fertile tracts and delightful +temperatures of these green-grassed and Piny-woods Highlands. Here, as +nowhere else in the world, nature has provided all the essentials to +agricultural success; there was but one mortgaged homestead in the +entire township; it is the greatest strawberry mart in the world; the +abundance of nutritious wild grasses render cattle and sheep raising +throughout the year a source of great revenue, and the maximum of crop +returns is secured with a minimum of labor. + +At last, after years of search throughout the state, we found our +ideal location for a colony, and I bonded over 6,000 acres of fertile, +well-wooded lands, returned home, formed a syndicate, and paid for our +tract, to which we gave the appropriate suggestive name of "Woodlawn." +I successfully pursued my avocation of advertising and selling our +lands, having an office in Boston and cooperating agents in several +states. + +On June 11th, 1894, my brother Joshua, the last of my father's family +except myself, was suddenly called to join our many loved ones in the +spirit world. All our lives we had been as David and Jonathan, and not +a cloud had swept across the azure of our sky of mutual affection, +until the advent of his second wife. He was one of the best men that +ever lived, and nearly everyone in his town had been benefited by his +well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and he found awaiting him, +many treasures in the grand bank of heaven. + + "I cannot say, and I will not say + That he is dead--he is just away, + With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, + He has wandered into an unknown land, + And left us dreaming how very fair + It needs must be, since he lingers there; + We think of him faring on, as dear + In the love of there as the love of here, + Think of him still as the same, I say, + He is not dead--he is just away." + +Soon after the departure of my brother to the better land, our +spirit-band informed us very plainly through "Ouija," that it was our +duty to remove to Boston in order that our children might have better +educational facilities, and be admitted to the "musical swim" of the +"Hub of the Universe." We obeyed their mandate, and the predictions of +our angel friends were fully verified. In our new home the older girls +met those to whom they were married in Heaven, and to whom they +gave their hands and hearts. I now look back over a half century of +existence on this earth, and my muse inspires me to record that: + + I have ships that went to sea + More than fifty years ago. + None have yet come back to me, + But keep sailing to and fro, + Plunging through the shoreless deep, + With tattered sails and battered hulls + While around them scream the gulls. + + I have wondered why they stayed + From me, sailing round the world + And I've said, "I'm half afraid + That their sails will ne'er be furled." + Great the treasures that they hold, + Silks, and plumes, and bars of gold, + While the spices which they bear + Fill with fragrance all the air. + + I have waited on the piers + Gazing for them down the bay, + Days and nights, for many years, + Till I turned heart-sick away. + But the pilots, when they land, + Kindly take me by the hand, + Saying, "Surely they will come to thee, + Thy proud vessels from the sea." + + So I never quite despair, + Nor let hope or courage fail, + And some day, when skies are fair, + Up the bay my ships will sail. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +HAND IN HAND WITH ANGELS. + + +In our Boston home, there came to us one of the most wonderful and +inspiring experiences ever vouchsafed to mortals beneath the stars; +an experience which solved forever for us the problem of immortality, +which all the religious teachings of all the ages had been powerless +to accomplish. It confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt, our knowledge +of the future life obtained previously at Onset Bay, as the following +named events transpired in our own house in the presence of witnesses +under test circumstances which precluded all possibility of deception. + +Mrs. B----, of Boston, came to our house alone, gratuitously, on her +own volition, sat within a few feet of our entire family and two of +our neighbors, having no cabinet or any paraphernalia which are always +required by those charlatans who have associated the fair name of +spiritualism with fraud and chicanery. In about one hour there +appeared in our parlor, in full view of us all, more than thirty +forms; some tall as were ever seen on earth, others little children, +the forms of our offspring who were "still born"; my brother Joshua, +who had been in spirit life a little over one year came fully +materialized and was clearly recognized by my entire family. + +He gave me, while I was standing within two feet of the medium, the +firm grip of a Master Mason; his hand was like that of a living human +being; he whispered a few intelligible words, saying that we should +have no fear if trouble came, that all would turn out for our ultimate +good, and disappeared at my feet; then a tall, finely-formed young man +with dark moustache came, beating his breast with his hand. "You see, +I am all here," he said; "I am John Mansfield, formerly of New Jersey. +I was attracted to your house by the music. I am guardian of your +girls; I am going to try to help in your father and mother." He +vanished; then returned, trying to bring the half-materialized but +recognizable forms as he had promised; but they were weak, and seen +but dimly. + +Then came the clearly defined form of the children's aunt, and the +girls, who were somewhat timid, recognized her at once. She kissed +each one several times in rapid succession just as she used to do when +she met them in the long ago; called them and my wife by name, and +disappeared, apparently through the floor. Then appeared Mary, my +spirit-wife, and many others whom we could not recognize. + +Little Blue Bell, one of the medium's cabinet spirits, them came, +pointing to the door, saying: "See that little fat snoozer?" we looked +around and saw the wondering eyes of our Bessie, who we supposed was +"snoozing" in bed; she had come down in her night-dress. Finally, +Nellie, our hired girl, who, being a Catholic, had been warned by the +priest never to countenance spiritualism, and had locked herself in +her room, came into the parlor, wild-eyed and with her hair streaming +over her shoulders, saying she was compelled to come in. At once the +form of a young Irish girl clad in peasant costume, with hair to her +waist, appeared, and clasped Nellie in her arms; they talked a few +minutes, and the form vanished in air. Nellie told us that it was a +schoolmate of hers who died in Ireland fifteen years before, that they +had been great friends, and vied with each other in growing the longer +hair. + +These facts may seem incredible to those who have never received +visitations from the other world; but we know that we saw and felt the +forms of our spirit friends on that occasion, as surely as we know +that we ever saw them when they were with us daily in the body on +earth. + +When alone that night, I "dropped into poetry," and here is what my +spirit-guided hand wrote, February 4th, 1895. + + Out of the darkness cometh a light, + Out of the silence cometh a voice, + The pathway of life grows suddenly bright, + And as never before we all rejoice. + + The dearly beloved who have gone before + Come back to bless from the beautiful shore; + They speak to us words of lofty cheer, + That banish the clouds of darksome fear. + + How sweet to _know_ that there is no death, + That the soul outlives the fleeting breath; + That guardian angels surround us ever + With a deathless love no power can sever. + + We mourn no more the vanished youth, + We are nearing the heaven of eternal truth; + We lament no more the earthly ills, + For their power will cease on the heavenly hills. + + We grieve no more for the wrinkled brow, + Nor for withering locks as white as snow, + For soon will we greet what is unseen now, + Soon to the sunlit heights will we go. + + For many years doubt's saddening shade + On our hearts its pall has laid: + But a gleam comes from the bright forever, + And gloom and fear shall haunt us never. + + We have felt the touch of the vanished hand, + We have heard the sound of the voice that is still; + They have come to us from the better land, + Their cheering words our spirits thrill. + + "We will know the loved who have gone before, + And joyfully sweet will the meeting be + When over the river, the beautiful river, + The angel of death shall carry me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +AMONG THE LAW-SHARKS. + + +It seems to be an unwritten law of human life that every great joy +shall be quickly followed by a great sorrow. The materialized forms +of our spirit loved-ones had scarcely vanished from sight, when the +trouble of which my brother had forewarned us fell like a thunderbolt +from a cloudless sky. + +We had, without a thought of deception, and at prices which then +prevailed, sold to many persons, lands in Florida, some for +settlement, some as investments. Phosphate had been discovered in +the immediate vicinity of some of our tracts, and this fact had led +speculators to buy our lands, hoping that these deposits might greatly +enhance values; but the usual competition to sell this valuable +fertilizer had for the time reduced prices to a non-paying basis; +then, too, an unprecedented freeze, which once in about a hundred +years visits all semi-tropical countries, had destroyed many orange +groves in the State, and so frightened short-sighted, timid people, +that Florida lands were at a great discount, and, as when a panic +sweeps over Wall Street, many frantically hastened to sell, and there +were but few buyers. + +This led several of my customers to conspire to frighten me into +paying them large sums as hush money, pretending that I had secured +their purchases under false pretenses; but the Yankee spirit of +our fathers, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," +prompted me to defy their infamous demands. + +Under the lead of a fiendishly "smart" lawyer, they declared that I +told them their lands were full of phosphate, and within city limits, +although my published circulars and maps stated nothing of the kind. +They denounced me as a fraud in the newspapers, brought lawsuits +against me, attached property, and proceeded in a most brutal manner +to compel payment of their unjust claims. + +My word for half a century had everywhere been as good as my bond, +and my bond as good as gold. I had never before had a lawsuit or any +trouble with any one, and so in my inexperience I employed a lawyer +friend, who was no match for my enemies' human tiger. They testified +unfairly in court, and after many crushing annoyances from the law's +delays, my lawyer, putting in no defense, in order, as he said, +to save his ammunition for use in the Superior Court, to which he +appealed, they secured judgment. + +All these slanders broke my never firm health; I was soon on the verge +of nervous prostration, and was ordered by my physician to at once +secure a change of climate to save my life. My innocent lawyer +supposed that a court of justice would postpone my trial until my +return; but we have now some "courts of injustice." + +Some lawyers are worse than highway robbers; they make the laws as +legislators to suit their own iniquitous, selfish purposes, so worded +that they are susceptible of almost any interpretation, thus +leading to endless litigations by which these cannibal devourers of +reputations are robbing the public of their possessions. They employ +spies to stir up strife, and some lawyers and judges seem to be banded +together to fleece the confiding lambs of the public. The judge not +only refused to postpone the trial until I was able to attend, but +refused to have the jury informed that I was absent on account of +serious sickness. + +We are bound hand and foot, the slaves of these law-sharks, and it +seems as if nothing but revolution and the banishing of these tyrants, +will ever deliver the public from the worse than African slavery to +which some lawyers subject us. We have seen innocent, modest lady +witnesses subjected to bull-dozing and abuse by barbarous lawyers, +until they suffered tortures to which those of the Spanish Inquisition +were merciful. + +As I was obliged to go or die, I accepted the offer of my wife's +brother, a member of the publishing firm of Webster's Dictionaries, +and went to California to fight their battles against the new Standard +Dictionary which was rapidly driving the Webster books out of the +markets of the entire Pacific slope. + +The trial took place during my enforced absence; my enemies' crafty +attorney told the jury that my failure to appear was a sure evidence +of guilt; my doctor's affidavit that he sent me away to save my life +was not allowed to be presented in court; each plaintiff claimed to +have heard the statements imputed to have been made by me to the +others, one of them making love to, and afterwards marrying one of my +most important witnesses, and so the verdict was against me. + +But curses often "come home to roost," and my enemies were ultimately +not benefited at all, as the lawyer-sharks devoured all they received +from me. + +In the meanwhile, during their worrying and falsifying, I was speeding +away in a palace-car, confident that my spirit brother's declaration +would prove true that truth is mighty and will prevail, if not in the +brief here, yet surely in the eternal hereafter. It is very saddening +to see how many, who claim to be your friends while you are +prosperous, are the first to assail with poisoned arrows when you are +attacked in the courts or in the public prints; but my conscience is +clear, and + + Serene, I fold my hands and wait, + Nor care for wind, or tide or sea. + I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, + For soon my own shall come to me. + + Asleep, awake, by night or day, + The friends I seek are seeking me; + No wind can drive my bark astray, + Nor change the tide of destiny. + + The stars come nightly to the sky; + The tidal wave into the sea; + Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, + Can keep my own away from me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +CAMPAIGNING IN WONDERLAND. + + +This delightful journey was a wonderful revelation of the greatness, +power, and grandeur of this glorious republic in which we live. I +gazed with amazement for many hours as we flew over the marvelously +fertile and beautiful prairies of Kansas; here miles upon miles of +wheat, corn, and alfalfa waving like vast seas, irrigated by means of +numberless windmills; there, herds of cattle, numerous as the leaves +of autumn; here, long lines of steam plows breaking thousands of acres +of virgin soil; there mammoth steam reapers devouring vast areas of +gold mines of grain; the food of the nations pouring into bags at one +end, while the stalks were bound midway ready for the fattening of +cattle. The chaff flew in clouds, and quickly, from these machines, +millions of bushels of wheat were soon on their way to the markets of +the world. What wonder that our country now has in Washington over +five hundred millions of gold dollars; the richest treasury ever known +on earth? + +Now we catch glimpses of vast mines of coal and salt; then of great +cities which have sprung up as by magic; and soon my eyes were greeted +with a vision of heavenly splendor in Colorado. Three hundred miles +of the Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak towering 14,000 feet towards the +stars; great clouds of snow blowing from the summit into the valleys; +there cascades of mighty rivers flowing to irrigate lovely valleys; +here the great city of Denver, having 125,000 population, and one mile +higher up in the air than Boston. + +In this city I met my former college professor, now the +multi-millionaire United States senator, burdened with many crushing +cares, knowing about as much peace and quietness as a toad under a +two-forty-gait harrow. + +Then on went the mighty train; here a glimpse at Manitou of the +"Garden of the Gods," with cathedral spires of old red sandstone +towering hundreds of feet towards the clouds which capped their +summits with halos; on through the grand canyon of the Arkansas River, +in places two miles nearer heaven than Boston; here we see gigantic +natural castles with battlements, bastions and fortresses whose +leveled cannon you almost instinctively dodge to escape their +imaginary bomb-shells. Now we climb almost perpendicular heights, +thousands of feet; now we slide down into chasms barely escaping the +rushing waters; then we shoot through a tunnel two miles long under +1,500 feet of solid rock; now we rush over vast plateaus 10,000 feet +above the sea; then we catch glimpses of herds of cattle, now of great +caves, lone trees with not a bit of earth visible about their roots; +now we rush into Leadville, a mining camp of 10,000 people. At +midnight a huge stone rolled down the mountainside onto the track, +delaying us for two hours. Had it fallen a minute later we would have +been crushed into nothingness. + +In the morning I awoke in Utah, rode all the forenoon over arid +plains; gaunt, hungry wolves scud away, cayotes ran yelping, and jack +rabbits hopped out of sight for dear life; then we arrive at Salt Lake +City, which the Mormons have transformed from a howling wilderness +into a fine city, with a surrounding country budding and blossoming +with bounteous harvests. The peak towers aloft where the United States +Regulars halted after their terrible march over the mountains, near +where the famous Nauvoo Legion of the Mormons surrendered, after their +rebellion to make Brigham Young their king, though he said that by a +wave of his hand he could hurl back the balls of the national cannon +to annihilate the soldiers of the republic. + +I drank in with delight the music of the grand organ and the four +hundred trained singers of the Mormon choir in the vast tabernacle. + +Then on thundered the train by the great Salt Lake, one hundred miles +long and forty miles wide, so salt that it buoys you up on its surface +like a feather; then on over the sage-brush desert to Reno, Nevada, +where is the world-renowned Comstock mine, from which over one hundred +millions of dollars' worth of silver has already been taken. + +Then we climbed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, around and around in a +circle, shot through a snow shed forty miles long; then lumber chutes +appear many miles in length, through which enormous logs are shot down +by water power from the mountain lake. Four billion feet of lumber are +cut here in a year. + +Then on we go past Lake Tahoe, twenty-two miles long, surrounded by +mountains two miles in height; then past Cape Horn, along precipices +down which I threw a stone which fell 2,500 feet into the American +River. + +We slide down the mountains to Auburn, California, and find fruit +trees in blossom, grass green, and crops several inches high. A sudden +change in a few minutes from deep snow and severe cold to blossoms and +roses. On we go to Sacramento, surrounded by great ranches with vast +herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the wild grasses; then on to San +Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the unpacified Pacific. + +The principal occupation of the street cars in 'Frisco, is climbing +almost perpendicular heights, and then sliding down hill. All very +pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part +and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all passengers tumbling over and +on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the +bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, +and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit +slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the +crowd. + +Here you can get a good meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for +"two bits" (twenty-five cents), you can buy three different kinds of +newspapers for the same price as one, as they have no coins smaller +than a nickel. For a nickel you can ride for miles to the Cliff House +which is at the Golden Gate, where are acres of giant flowers of every +conceivable variety, all beautiful, but odorless; you watch the sea +lions nearly the size of oxen, and who roar and fight on the boulders. +Then we enter a bath-house, acres in extent, covered with glass, where +you can swim in sea water warmed by steam-pipes, listen to the band, +examine the multitude of wild animals and curiosities collected from +all parts of the world. + +[Illustration: The Golden Gate of the Unpacified Pacific.] + +Then we visit the city park of twelve hundred acres, once nothing but +flying sand. At first they planted on these dunes, grass roots from +South America; these fastened themselves to the sand and formed a +little soil; then were planted shrubs to stop the sand storms, then +trees, and now the real estate is not all in the air. + +This little nickel will take you to a mountaintop overlooking city and +ocean, where you can sit under the Eucalyptus trees which shed +their bark instead of their leaves, and enjoy the music and the not +overmodest dramas, without extra charge. + +The saloons, stores and theatres are open seven days and nights in +the week, and multitudes of all nationalities, clad in their peculiar +costumes, hobnob with each other in the most free and easy manner +imaginable, without waiting for introductions, in this the most +cosmopolitan city on earth. + +Sometimes you will see the harbor literally covered with the most +delicious fruits and vegetables, dumped into the water, because the +transportation charges to market would more than eat up the proceeds +of their sale. I visited at San Jose, the large flourishing fruit +orchard of a college classmate who had spent years of hard labor and +the earnings of a lifetime, to bring his trees into bearing; but I +found he had deserted his ranch because he could not make a living +thereon, and had gone to preach for a little church far away, at five +hundred dollars per annum. + +I saw at Riverside large crops of oranges frozen upon the trees; +but the real estate sharks never allow these facts to be published, +because they fatten on the profits made by selling lands to the +gullible "tender feet" from the east, who, when they have bought these +farms at enormous prices, find to their utter discouragement, that +they must also buy water for irrigation from monopolists, at ruinous +rates, else the soil is worthless. Here as nowhere else is illustrated +the truth of the Scriptural adage: "To him that hath shall be given, +but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he +hath." + +When you go to a place scarcely thirty miles distant, which, in New +England, you would reach in an hour, you are obliged to travel all +night, as you must climb cloud-touching mountains, going many miles to +cover what would be only one mile in a straight line; now you glide +along close to the long, lazy waves of the great Pacific Ocean, where +the grass kisses the salt lips of the sea; now from the tops of the +Santa Cruz mountains, you survey the world at your feet; now you rush +through the red-wood primeval forests, giants touching the clouds with +their tops, while in the hollow trunk of one of these trees a family +of twelve can live quite comfortably; then on to Los Angeles,--"City +of the angels," they call it--a beautiful city for those possessed of +means or who are dispossessed of bodies which must be clothed and fed. + +[Illustration: The Dome of Mount Shasta Gleams like "the Great White +Throne."] + +Some have "struck oil" here, and the stench and grime from the +spouting wells have ruined the houses of hundreds who have reaped no +profit from the petroleum, because they did not own the adjoining lots +where it was found; then on we go to lovely Passadena on a table-land +surrounded by snow-capped mountains; but the winds from the cold +summits come suddenly when you are melting with the heat, bringing +plenty of catarrh for all; then on to San Diego on the hill by the +sea, where the fog is sometimes so thick you can cut it into blocks +with an axe; then on to the far-famed Coronado Hotel, close by the +sea. + +In the boom-time, this was claimed to be the veritable "Garden of +Eden," and soil was considered worth its weight in gold, but now my +guide offered me six house lots which cost him three thousand dollars, +for two hundred dollars; the bubble had burst, a few had become rich, +while hundreds of speculators had lost their all. + +I swam in the spacious warmed-water sea-baths, communed with the wild +ducks, cormorants and pelicans, looked with amazement at the giant +ostriches, and sympathized with their seeming wonderment as to why we +were all sent into this sad, bewildering maze of life. + +At National City the refluent wave of the boom had left many of the +houses and business blocks dilapidated and unoccupied save by bats, +spiders and flies. You could occupy free of rent many buildings with +none to molest or make you afraid. + +Thence on dashes the train to the celebrated Hotel Delmonte, at +Monterey, the show place of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, by +its extortionate transportation charges, has ruined many struggling +fruit raisers in this state where monopoly holds such mighty sway. + +There are many hotels in Florida which far surpass this as far as +the buildings are concerned; but the grounds are extensive and very +beautiful, and the wide piazzas are embowered in a profusion of +all kinds of climbing vines covered with the loveliest blossoms. +Stretching away until earth and sky meet, is an imperial domain, +covered with noble trees which were giants when Adam was a baby, many +festooned with English ivy and flowering trumpet creepers almost to +the stars. Then we walked under long Gothic arches, cool and fragrant. + +Here is every arrangement conceivable for entertainment; on one side +the Pacific ocean; on the other the Coast Range Mountains, a very +pleasant resort for the very rich; but we found there at this time +more servants than guests. + +The town of Monterey is interesting only for its ruins of ancient +monasteries and convents, where a few lazy half-breeds alone remain +to tell the tale of multitudes over whom the Catholic priests reigned +supreme, reducing their dupes to beggary by their extortions. Once +these mountains were covered with vast flocks of sheep, but the +foolish reduction of the tariff on wool by the Wilson bill, destroyed +all profits, and the flocks disappeared into the hungry mouths of the +people. + +Thence the iron horse took us back to 'Frisco, and we sailed all day +and all night to Sacramento. The scenery was grand, but the cold +weather chilled us to the very bones. Islands of old red sandstone +loom like sentinels along the coast, covered with lighthouses to warn +the mariners. The twin peaks of Montepueblo covered with perpetual +snow, seemed to support the heavens as do the pillars the dome of the +capitol. + +Swarms of screaming sea gulls fill the air, some of which, benumbed by +cold alighted on the steamer's deck. Lonely ranches are seen, hemmed +in by the everlasting hills. + +Our great, lazy boat, propelled by a stern wheel as big as a barn, +paddled slowly over the muddy waters of the great Sacramento River, +made yellow by the turbid waters sent to it from scores of hydraulic +mines on the mountains. On one island is an immense smelting furnace, +the tall chimneys of which send forth volumes of poisonous smoke, +dangerous to breathe, and covering everything with a coating black as +soot. Inhaling this, some of the operators die of lead poisoning. Many +islands are here scarcely above the water's edge, having little houses +built on stilts occupied by the salmon fishers who are seen pulling +their nets, and around whose heads whirl and scream flocks of fish +hawks, ravenous for their prey. + +After a successful book fight at the capital city, I went to Red Bluff +where I was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a +hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. I survived only by keeping +my head wrapped in ice water; I could neither eat nor sleep, and like +Dickens, I longed to "take off my flesh, and sit in my bones." It was +a veritable hell on earth. + +The county superintendent of schools here, told me he sold his prune +crop that year for five thousand dollars, and went away leaving the +purchaser to pick the fruit. On his return, he found that the red +spiders had anticipated the pickers, and destroyed the entire crop, so +that his work of years came to naught, as the buyers of course refused +to pay to feed the spiders. + +Thence I went to San Luis Obispo, and on the way we struck the Coast +Range Mountains. The tortuous upclimbing and downsliding of the train +disclosed scenery imposing and grand. You looked down the precipitous +rock-ribbed sides thousands of feet to the narrow, beautiful valleys, +made productive by the irrigation from many foaming waterfalls. We +circle the mountains many times before reaching the valleys, traveling +many hours to gain a straight-line mile. + +These valleys are lovely to look down upon; but the fogs much of the +time hang over them like a pall, and catarrh and rheumatism render +life one of misery to many of the people. + +[Illustration: Above the Clouds.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +AMONG THE CLOUDS. + + +In the following May, 1896, I took a sky-scraping journey to the great +states of Washington and Oregon. The climbing of Mt. Shasta and the +Siskyo range by train presented sublime views that no language can +even feebly describe. At the summits we were at least two miles in +the air higher than the dome of the Massachusetts State House. As +we climbed, I could see from the window of the palace car, the two +engines of our train puffing for all they were worth around the +curves, far ahead. + +We looked down from the narrow rim of the railroad, thousands of feet +perpendicular upon foaming rivers dashing themselves into rainbows +and cataracts against the everlasting boulders in their courses. +Here cascades, miles in length, came rushing down the mountainsides, +shooting hundreds of feet into the air as they struck the giant rocks, +and at one place we stopped for half an hour to drink from the soda +springs pure, delicious soda water, huge geysers of it effervescing, +scintillating, silvery in the sunbeams, caught in a rocky basin from +which it is sent all over the world. + +Above, the mighty Sacramento River has its source in a little spring, +almost touching the stars--so emblematical of our human life, which +begins in the infinite on high; is enveloped in a dust of earth; +expands in its evolution into the angel back into the eternity from +whence it came; for science reveals that the springs come from the +clouds as dew and rain, run their courses, and by evaporation are +taken back into their first home in the vapors of the heavens. + +There are enormous log-shoots seeming like Jacob's ladder to reach +from earth to heaven, and in which, the giants of the vast mountain +forests are carried by water with almost lightning speed to the mills +on the river; there the splendid snow-covered dome of Shasta gleams +above the clouds like the great white throne described by St. John in +Revelation. + +Now come glimpses of little green valleys; here and there, a few small +houses and flocks of sheep show that these cases are peopled "far from +the maddening crowd's ignoble strife." + +These vast solitudes of forests are very impressive and solemn as +the day of judgment; giant fir-trees, pines and spruces, beautifully +clothed in perpetual green even to the lower dead limbs which nature +has covered with a verdure of moss--like our dead hopes, blasted +by the fires of adversity but made radiant by the fore-gleams of +immortality. There the bright mistletoe is suspended from dead +tree-tops, like beauteous crowns adorning the heads of those who have +died rather than surrender to the low and base; there deep canyons, +brilliant with the diamonds made by the sun from the scintillating +drops from dashing torrents--so from the unseen heights come the dews +of heaven to refresh those who walk by faith and not by sight "looking +not at the things seen which are temporal, but at the things not seen +which are eternal." + +Here comes a dense white cloud of snow through the air, covering our +train with a pearly shroud, through the rifts of which, far below, we +have glimpses of lovely vales and white ranch-houses, smiling up at +us, above the clouds. + +Dearly beloved--all seems to say it becometh us, not to sorrow for the +dead hopes, broken promises, and bitter disappointments of this mortal +life, remembering that this is not our home, that we tarry here for +a few fleeting days, that our true home is with the good beyond the +infinite azure of the heavens, where dear ones are Waiting to welcome +us to the endless rest and peace awaiting all who fight the good +fight, and who keep themselves unspotted from the world. + +At times, while the train was dashing along over the seemingly +interminable plains, green and productive during the rainy season, but +now parched and arid by the terrible heat, we were almost suffocated +by the dense dust clouds, and well-nigh withered by the winds which +seem to come from the very jaws of Dante's Inferno; then the shifting +young cyclone would suddenly envelop us with chilling snows from +Shasta, and so we oscillated like pendulums 'twixt torrid heats and +arctic colds. + +At last, almost dazed by the unspeakable, lightning-like, climatic +transformations, the great iron steeds brought us to Portland, the +metropolis of the great state of Oregon. Here, as in many places on +the Pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season +to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape +the merciless peltings of the clouds of shot-like dust. The dampness +in this valley, hemmed in by the now dripping, then brook covered +mountains, is far from pleasant, and covers many of the buildings +with unsightly mosses. In Washington and Oregon those who survive the +climatic trials are a strong, energetic race, rapidly building up +powerful empires in the great aggregation of states of our grandest +nation the world has ever known. + +The broad-minded, generous-hearted people of this great far west, make +no distinctions as to sex in apportioning their salaries for +school work, and this, coupled with their numerous co-educational +universities and normal schools, has given them an army of lady +teachers and superintendents unequaled elsewhere in the world. + +The county superintendents of schools are elected by the popular vote, +and the women take to the stump-speaking and the usual kissing of +voters' babies as naturally as ducks take to the water. Result,--the +ladies secure the political plums, and the men are rapidly being +driven to manual labor, their natural sphere of action, though +not without vigorous kicking against the inevitable. These +ex-men-superintendents buttonhole you at every turn, reciting the +outrages perpetrated upon them by their successful women competitors. + +At an election in a California town, one of these men sufferers, +mistaking me for a voter, took me by a button of my coat, and poured +forth a tale of woe so long that, unable to endure it longer, I cut +off the button and fled. He did not notice my departure, and two hours +later, there he was holding on to the button, all alone, gesticulating +frantically, and beseeching me to vote for him to save his wife and +ten children from starvation. For aught I know, he has not missed me +to this day; but is still sounding forth his wild appeals. + +Should I describe fully all the wonderful scenes beheld by me in this +wonderland, I should exhaust time and trench upon eternity. Suffice it +to state that I returned to 'Frisco, fought a successful dictionary +battle there, formed the acquaintance of many distinguished men, among +them the great Irving Scott, who built the famous battleship Oregon. +He was president of the city school-board, head of the vast Union Iron +Works, and besides performing many herculean labors, was stumping the +state nightly in favor of the election of William McKinley to the +presidency of the United States. + +I was fairly driven from this city by the ferocious fleas, which +seemed to render life almost unendurable in hovel and palace. I could +get no rest day or night in many parts of the state, on account of the +savage attacks of these unspeakable, insatiate biters, more terrible +than an army with Gatling guns. + +Crossing the beautiful bay in the floating palace ferry-boat, I was +for a time enchanted with Highland Park, Oakland. In front, through a +vista of Eucalyptus, oak and elm trees, appear the glistening waters +of the famed inland sea; on the right are seen the domes and spires +of Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco; across the valley loom the +mountains, in the rainy season green to their summits, on which rest +the serene blue of the heavens, except when, the frequent fogs bury +everything from sight. On one side of the house, at the same time, +the trade winds from the Pacific chill you to your very bones, on the +other side the burning heat is unbearable. Afar off the humble home of +Joaquin Miller, poet of the Sierras, clearly appears. + +There are many beautiful homes on this lofty hilltop, but they were +all for sale at bargains, for their occupants have grown weary of the +cloud bursts of the long dreary rainy season, then of the parching +heats of the equally dreary dry season, when a pickaxe and crowbar are +required to dig a potato unless you keep water running from the hose +day and night. These people long to return to their old homes in New +England where the varying seasons are not so monotonous. + +I was invited to accompany a religious society on a week's camp in +a romantic canyon; but I was glad I did not when they returned in a +couple of days, narrating an adventure which daunted the stoutest +hearts. On the second night of their camping, the men were aroused +from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing +out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten +the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes, +hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. The men fought +desperately all night with shotguns and clubs. Life is scarcely worth +the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the +horrible tarantulas. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +DISENCHANTED.--HOME AGAIN. + + +I had secured the adoption of our dictionaries in every county visited +by me, and now the publishers desired me to remain on the Pacific +coast permanently, without salary, relying on commissions on sales of +their books made by me and my sub-agents by canvassing, from house to +house. This financial proposition was far from being alluring, for the +laws enacted by a national democratic rule of four years had ruined +many of the principal industries of this section, and the larger +cities required a license fee of twenty dollars per week from all +canvassing agents. Many houses displayed large signs, "No book agents +allowed here," and they kept ferocious dogs to enforce the rule. The +majority of the people were poor; the rich were already supplied with +dictionaries; and the schools would have no funds available with which +to buy reference books for nearly a year. Competing agents had visited +every house before my arrival on the coast, and I therefore resigned +my worthless position, and took the Eastern agency for a Tonic Port +which had, by its wonderful efficacy, delivered many from the horrors +of nervous prostration, anaemia, and kindred diseases which afflict so +many of the human race. + +Another disenchantment,--another Eden becomes a Sahara. I had reached +the Pacific coast just when the departing rainy season had left all +nature fair as a poet's dream of love, and, vainly dreaming that this +was perpetual, it seemed as if I would sigh for no other heaven. But +the scorching heat and Siroccoes from the Mohave Desert followed close +upon the rear-guard of the retreating, life-giving rain-clouds, and +soon the lovely flowers died; the enchanting green grass withered; the +soul of the beautiful vanished, and the suffocating dust storms buried +the earth in a ghostly shroud, save where wealth was sufficient to +bring the mountain streams for irrigation. + +I had for a time reveled in the dreams which fleetingly haunt all +mortals, that there I had found the lost Arcadia, where balmy zephyrs +fan the brow into ecstasy forever; but, alas! After a brief respite +I had, in that land which the real estate sharks called "Paradise," +suffered more from alternating chilling winds and withering heat than +ever before; one day sweltering in the thinnest of seersuckers, and +perhaps the very next shivering in all the woolens I could command. + +Without a shadow of regret or even a backward look, I bade farewell to +the Pacific and returned to the Atlantic of my youth, until the day +dawns and the shadows flee away. + +I sojourned for some months in the cities of Richmond, Baltimore, +Providence, and Philadelphia, endeavoring to impress upon the minds of +the physicians the importance of prescribing my remedy, but with no +glittering financial success, lingering for weeks in the last named +city, on the very verge of the grave to which I was brought by the +filthy water of that grotesquely misnamed "City of Brotherly Love." + +I had been, in former years, the champion school-book agent of New +England, and publishers had often told me that if I ever returned to +this vocation, they would gladly employ me. I applied to one of these +for a position, requesting a man who owed his success in business +entirely to my friendly aid and instructions, to speak a good word for +me, but he at once showed his gratitude by securing the appointment +for himself, being aided and abetted by an influential bald-headed +man who hated me, simply because I had sent to him a friend who +represented a hair restorer. Said bald-headed man had many reasons +to, and had often claimed to be, a friend of mine; but was foolishly +sensitive about his lack of hirsute adornment, and said I insulted him +by referring to his billiard-ball caput. Truly, gratitude is a lost +art, and some friends immediately become enemies when they can secure +from you no more plunder. + +It is exceedingly difficult for a man who has passed the "death line" +of the half century, to find a place where he can do good and get +good; the hustling crowd of younger and stronger competitors push +him to the wall or trample him beneath their feet, in the terrific +scramble for the bare necessities of life. He drifts into the +depressing occupation of book or life insurance agency, and at once +every so-called friend, who pretended to worship him when he was +prosperous, gives him the cold shoulder, and "poor devil" is the most +complimentary epithet with which he is greeted. + +Analogous with that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth, still a +mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all +of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny +childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the +temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as +the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, +snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble +the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren +beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under equatorial +heats, some to perish by polar perils; a few to take root and +flourish, building imperishable landmarks; and many to stagnate in the +long inglorious rest of the Sargasso Sea. + +But really to the faithful soul nothing is lost; though the great +prizes of earth are denied us, every heroic endeavor, every struggle +to benefit the world sends treasures on high to our credit in the +grand bank of heaven. + + There are the thoughts that one by one died 'ere we gave them birth, + The songs we tried in vain to sing, too sweet, too beautiful for earth. + No endeavor is in vain; + Its reward is in the doing, + And the rapture of pursuing, + Is the prize the vanquished gain. + +We are all conscious of these songs we have tried in vain to sing, and +we are confident we will yet sing them when the bodily impediments are +swept away, and, as the earthly shadows lengthen, as the chill winds +of old age strengthen, we more and more appreciate the wonderful +expression of this thought, in that sweetest of all poems of the minor +key, called "The voiceless." + + "We count the broken lyres that rest + Where the sweet wailing singers slumber; + But o'er the silent brother's breast, + The wild flowers who will stoop to number. + + "A few can touch the magic string, + And noisy fame is proud to win them; + Alas for those who never sing, + But die with all their music in them. + + "Not where Leucadian breezes sweep + O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow; + But where the glistening night dews weep + O'er nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + + "If singing breath or echoing chord + To every hidden pang were given, + What endless melodies were poured, + As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven." + +We have done our best according to the light that has been given; we +will continue to do so until the end, and we are soothed and sustained +by the inspiring thought so sweetly expressed by one of our greatest +poets. + + "I know not where God's islands lift + Their fronded palms in air, + I only know I cannot drift + Beyond His love and care. + + "And so beside the silent sea, + I wait the muffled oar: + No harm from Him can come to me + On ocean or on shore." + + Only waiting till the angels + Open wide the mystic gate, + At whose feet I long have lingered, + Weary, sad, and desolate; + Even now I hear their footsteps, + And their voices far away-- + When they call me, I am waiting, + Only waiting to obey. + + + + +AFTERMATH + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +THE FLORIDA CRACKERS. + + +When the previous thirty chapters were in press, the conviction was +forced upon me that any book which touched upon Florida without a +description of its poor whites called "Crackers," would be like the +play of "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out, and I gladly pay +this tribute of grateful remembrance to the most unique, and the only +truly contented people that I have ever met on earth. + +So far forth as history enlightens us, the ancestors of these peculiar +specimens of the human race were never born anywhere in particular, +but like Topsy, they "simply growed." + +Why these usually long, lean, lank, saffron-hued, erst-while +clay-eaters have received such an unromantic name has been variously +accounted for. Some say the name was suggested by the fact that when +not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which +swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent +cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their +game or drive their cattle. An ex-slave of one of them tells me that +they are called "Crackers," because they are all "cracked as to their +cocoanuts." + +Although the faces of many of these children of nature are usually as +expressionless as a cast-iron cook-stove, they are far from being as +stupid as they look; for even General Jackson, "the man of blood +and iron," would have won but few, if any, laurels in his campaigns +against the Seminoles, had it not been for his advanced guard of the +warlike "Crackers." + +"Out there in history" we see him and his army, while recklessly +rushing the redskins, become lost and bewildered in the vast primeval +forest. Day after day, they marched, but always in a circle; and +each nightfall found them near where they broke camp in the morning. +Provisions failed, and hunger and thirst drove the soldiers frantic. +Every night they were pelted by bullets from unseen foes; stabbed and +stung by innumerable insects; death for all stared them in the face; +myriads of buzzards whirled above them, anxious for their prey. + +While Jackson and his men, prostrated by heat, fruitless marching and +discouragement, were praying for succor, suddenly the air seemed to +be filled with human forms, which to their dazed minds appeared to be +angels sent in answer to their fervent petitions. Grotesque looking +angels were these, swinging from limb to limb of the forest trees; but +heavenly in their beneficence were the solemn-faced "Crackers," as +hundreds of them dropped to the ground and fed the exhausted warriors +with "hog, hominy," and water from packs strapped with their rifles to +their dirty, sturdy shoulders--"'nough sight better work for angels +to do than loafin' around the throne." While the feasting was in +full swing, suddenly the haggard and careworn face of "Old Hickory" +appeared in their midst. "Boys," said he, in his quick, incisive +tones, "don't eat any more, 'twill make you sick, stow it away in your +haversacks." Then, turning to the Floridians, he quietly remarked, +"Gentlemen, you saved our lives; many thanks! Now we will do as +much for you. Where are the Injuns?" All the tree-climbers arose +respectfully, saluted, and a tall, cadaverous-looking, long-haired, +coon-skin-capped leader advanced, took the general by the hand, and +slowly drawled,-- + +"Ginrul, the red niggers air skulkin' yender to the river, waitin' to +chaw up you uns tonight. + +"Colonel Tompkins," came the quick command, "_climb_ your forces to +the river, pour a volley into the red-skins at sundown, yell for all +you're worth, we'll do the rest." + +"All right, Ginrul, we uns will be thar," and away went the "flying +Crackers," facing unspeakable dangers as calmly as a child looks into +the loving eyes of its mother. + +Sometimes they glided noiselessly as the autumn leaves cleave the +air over the pine-needle carpet of the forest, and when this was +impossible on account of the bogs and morasses, which would swallow +them down to unknown depths, they swung through the tops of the +sighing pines until they had flanked their unsuspecting foes; then, +just as the sun was setting, they struck terror to the hearts of the +Seminoles by an unexpected volley from their rifles and by frightful +yells, + + "As if all the fiends from heaven that fell, + Had pealed the banner-cry of hell." + +The red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps +and river straight upon the ambushed army of Jackson, who mowed them +down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes. The spirits +of the Indians were crushed, and the remnant of a once powerful tribe +fled into the vast, to the whites, inaccessible everglades, where +their descendants now live on their fertile oasis, which is cultivated +by their negro slaves, who never heard of Abraham Lincoln, or his +proclamation of emancipation. "Old Hickory" and his gallant soldiers +have all the glory; but their heroic allies returned quietly to their +huts, their "hog and hominy," as unconcernedly as if they had done +nothing more important than catching a trout or shooting a quail. + +The stolidity and patience of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that +of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for +twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being +encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of +a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in +scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable composure as before. + +Although almost invariably poor so far as money is concerned, owing +to their love of ease, these children of nature are proverbially +hospitable, and you are welcome as his guest until you eat his last +bit of food unless you offer him compensation therefor; if you do that +his wrath knows no bounds, as I once found to my sorrow. + +I had been wandering with three other horseback riders for a day and +night lost in the woods; we were hungry and tired to the verge of +collapse, when suddenly up went the heads and tails of our quadruped +friends, who neighed with delight, and dashed pell mell toward a huge +building or rather connected aggregation of buildings which loomed +up on a hill in the pines. We made the welkin ring with our saluting +shouts, but there was no response, the settlement was deserted; we +stabled and fed our horses in the near-by barn, and led by a Floridian +friend entered the largest house. Had manna fallen to us from heaven +our surprise could not have been greater; a huge table was before us +covered with enormous quantities of roasted meats,--venison, quail, +wild turkey, hoe-cakes and fruits galore. We fell upon the provisions +like famished wolves, and when at last our "aching voids" were filled, +we were appalled at the havoc we had wrought; still no hosts appeared +to welcome or rebuke. + +On the wide mantel was a quantity of homemade cigars from which those +of us who were "slaves to the filthy weed" made selections, and on the +broad piazza were illustrating the wise man's definition of a cigar, +"a roll of nausea with fire on one end and a fool on the other," when +the air resounded with loud reports like pistol-shots and shouts of +"whoa, whe, gee," rebel yells and barking of dogs; then a multitude +of cattle dashed into view urged on by a cavalcade of men, women and +children. The drivers gave us only casual glances until the round-up +was completed and the enclosing gates shut, when the rollicking crowd +came trooping toward us, and our guilty consciences made us fearful +of dire punishment for our peculations. Then a tall, long-haired +patriarch saluted us with "Howdy, strangers, howdy," shook hands with +us heartily, and with a wave of his hand, "my wife and children, +gents," glanced at the impoverished table, when he shouted "glad you +had good appetites, strangers, mother, guess you'll have to tune up +some more cooking." + +The whole crowd gave us a marching salute, and made the water fly in +a big tub where they performed much-needed ablutions, and soon, +hoe-cakes were smoking, pork and sausages sizzling, doughnuts +swelling, manipulated by the many willing hands: then the whole army +"fell to" the abundant feast. It was wonderful and laughable to see +that crowd of sons, daughters, grand-sons, grand-daughters--fifty in +number--all one family, "stow away the prog." + +Each one reminded you of the Irishman's pig who was said to devour a +half-bushel of boiled potatoes, and when he was outside of all that, +he, himself, would not fill a two quart measure. What a clatter of +dishes as the buxom girls helped mother "clear up"! Then we had fun at +the milking; it required a dozen strong men to hold one kicking cow +while a woman, squeezed out a little milk from the reluctant udders, +though she gave down freely later when the ravenous calf took hold. If +the men relaxed for a minute, up goes the irate cow's heels, away goes +the pail "dowsing" the maid with the foaming milk from head to foot, +anon the wild-eyed brute would down horns and charge, the milkeress +takes to her heels, then a flight of lassoos, over goes the frantic +animal onto her back, the ropes tighten until she was conquered and +forced to "give down some of her juice." One dose of this medicine +was usually sufficient for any wild cow, and forever after she would +"stand and deliver in peace." + +Shall we ever forget the feeding of the pigs? Oh, the wild charge they +made when they saw the feed troughs filled! "Everyone for himself, and +the devil take the hindermost;" one huge razor-back stretches himself +at full length on the "dough" in his generous attempt to prevent the +rest from "making hogs of themselves"; an indignant young Cracker +lassoos the hind legs, and by a dextrous pull sends his swine-ship +whirling and rending high heaven with his lamentations. + +At last all are stuffed as full as our "grandmother's sassingers," and +then reclining in the sun, they express by their contented grunts and +snores, ecstatic rapture as they pile on flesh for the stuffing of +their carniverous owners. Then we watched a giant Crackeress feeding +what she called her "feathered hogs." With frenzied eyes, whirring +wings and waring beaks, all rushed to cheat the others and to secure +the whole earth, each for himself, very like many "two-legged hogs +without feathers"; a hen seizes a hoe-cake of her own size and +frantically rushes away in the vain hope of devouring it in peace in +some sequestered nook; but argus, envious eyes are watching, and her +uncles and her aunts pursue, striking with beaks and claws to rob her +of her big all. It was a minature Wall Street and stock-exchange, +where human hogs and foul birds of prey fight to the death to plunder +their own brothers. + +And now gently the night stole o'er us-- + + "Night, so holy and so calm, + That the moonbeams hushed the spirit, + Like the voice of prayer or psalm" + +and until the "wee sma hours," while three generations listened +intently, we swapped stories with our generous "Crackers." + +Our patriarch host had been a captain in the rebel army until he had +his "belly full of fight," as he quaintly termed it. His wife had +blest him with an even score of boys and girls, all now living in this +delightful climate, where he said, "no one ever died; they simply +dried up and blowed away into the happy hunting-grounds beyond the +stars." When a baby was born or a child married, this chief of the +tribe "hitched on" another house, until now the one-story dwellings +covered an acre of his vast lands. + +He and his tribe raised on his great farm here in Bradford County +everything he needed to eat, drink, or to wear: his wife and daughters +spun and wove their clothing from the cotton grown and ginned on his +own fields; the delicious syrup and sugar which adorned and sweetened +the mountains of rye pancakes and floods of home-raised coffee, was +made from the cane which was grown, and ground on his own soil. +He grew his own tobacco, tea, peanuts, oranges, figs, pineapples, +bananas; he fattened his cattle and hogs on his own cassava and the +abundant wild grasses; his flocks of sheep "cut their own fodder," and +the wool and mutton was all clear profit. This "Cracker" family was +the happiest and most independent I ever saw on earth. + +All around this plantation are millions of uncultivated acres where +the wretches of our city slums could be equally happy if our Carnegies +and Rockefellers would only loan the funds to colonize them there. +The millions of dollars, now worse than wasted by our selfish +millionaires? could thus soon make this earth a paradise like to that +above. After enjoying this free delightful life for several days, and +we were on the point of departing, I said to our host, "Captain, we +have enjoyed your hospitality immensely, and I hope you will allow me +to reciprocate," holding toward him a bank-note. + +Instantly his eyes flashed angry fire, he shot out his fist to strike +me, when a neighbor said, "Don't hit him Cap, he don't know no better, +he's a Yank." "Wall Yank," drawled this six feet of fighting man, +"seein' ye don't know no better, I'll let ye off this time; but I +don't keep no tarvern, and when me and my family come yure way, we'll +all stop with yew, that'll even it up." As I looked at the fifty +yawning caverns of chewing mouths, and reflected upon the cost of +feeding them in Boston for even one day, I thanked God that I had not +given him my card, and we rode away amid ear-splitting cheers and +waving of hands, each one of which resembled in size the tail-board of +a coal-cart. + +On another occasion while scouring the Florida country for lands for +colonizing purposes in company with a native, the night caught us in +the dense forest; our horses stumbled over immense fallen trees, the +owls hooted, the wild cats screamed, the thunder roared, occasionally +a pine fell splintered by the lightning, the rain fell in torrents, +and we seemed destined to shiver all the long black hours supperless +and comfortless, when our eyes were greeted by the cheerful light +shining through the open door of a log hut; a dozen curs gave tongue +and went for our legs till a sharp yell from within sent them yelping +away. A genuine Cracker appeared, and seeing our dripping forms in the +electric flash, he quietly said, "Lite strangers, lite, jest in time, +plenty of hog and hominy." He led our tired steeds into the leanto, +fed them, and ushered us into his one-room shanty, where his lank wife +and a dozen children silently made room for us around a rough board +table. "Mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and +the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of +a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it +browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking +skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in +a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering +appetite. Then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to +satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the +wild wood. "Come, chilluns, to bed," said our host, and they were all +stacked one over the other on the one corn-shuck couch where a chorus +of snores proved they were in the land of dreams. + +Our host relapsed into silence and seemed to be pondering some +profound problem in his mind; but suddenly blurted out, "Strangers, +reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice +pison nor nuthin'? reckon I was born dry!" My guide in reply produced +a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that +Kunnel." There was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out, +but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his +cavernlike mouth with a joyous "Ah, that's the rale stuff, have some +mother? The woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to +drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns. + +"Strangers," ejaculated this typical Cracker, "this is the dog-gondest +place ter git er drink yer ever seed. Aour caounty went dry last +'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum +fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't +let me hev it 'thout Doc's 'scripshun--went to Doc, wouldn't give me +'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed +on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke +for three weeks ahed. Dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum +erlong. Naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo." + +Then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs +to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his +den by declining, obeyed. The next morning we found ourselves set up +alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife +were snoring on the bed. Verily, "For ways that are dark and tricks +that are vain, the heathen 'Cracker' is peculiar." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +LOOKING FORWARD. + + +When I was writing the last words of the preceding chapter of this +book, and was about to + + "Heed my tired pen's entreaty, + And say, oh, friends, _valete_," + +I seemed to be trying to awake from a trance in which I had been the +unwilling instrument, compelled by an intelligence extraneous to +myself to expose to an incredulous public the most sacred scenes and +thoughts of a lifetime. + +I had decided to relieve the patience of my readers with the +thirty-first chapter; but when the retrospective kaleidoscope closed, +a vision rose before me so vivid, so real, that I am constrained to +describe it in the hope that the warning may prevent the tragic part +of the dream from becoming a reality. + +It is Christmas day in the year of our Lord, 1910; the thunder-cloud, +which for many years had been increasing in blackness, now surcharged +with pent-up lightnings, and overspreading our entire national +horizon, bursts with the fury of a cyclone. + +The great masses of the people had for a long time watched with +ever-increasing rage the seeming conspiracy of the employing and +professional classes to bind to their chariot-wheels those who labored +with their hands. Gigantic trusts had "cornered" all the necessaries +of life, and a few lily-fingered plutocrats in their marble palaces +dictated to the horny-handed sons of toil the amount of their beggarly +wages, and the prices they must pay for every needed article, until +every job of work and every bone of charity was fought for by +multitudes who mercilessly stabbed each other in their mad fury to +assuage the pangs of hunger. + +When the people rallied at the polls, and elected to the high offices +members of their own unions, the millionaires bribed these officials +to obey their every command, and these mercenary law-makers, as often +as chosen, joined the ever-growing ranks of the oppressors. + +Even the almost innumerable colleges throughout the Republic, whose +treasuries had absorbed countless millions of dollars, had proved +a measureless curse, as they had become mere cramming machines and +nurseries of lawlessness and brutality. The great universities had +long idolized plug-ugly football kickers and baseball sluggers to +the utter ignoring of scholarship, until the hordes of eleemosinary +prize-fighters among the so-called students created a reign of terror +where they were located, and far surpassed in ferocity even the +gladiators of ancient Rome. The annual "athletic contest" between the +two greatest universities was fought out with almost inconceivable +fury on "Soldiers' Field." + +Irresistible bodies met the immovable, cheered on by yelling legions, +each phalanx would conquer or die, and die they did by scores; they +kicked and slugged like maniacs until separated by the combined +police-forces of the surrounding cities, and more were killed and +wounded than in the entire Spanish War. When night fell, thousands of +collegians invaded the capitol of the State, and with savage yells and +wedge-rushes drove all citizens from the streets; they closed every +theatre, pelting the actors with whiskey bottles stolen from the +saloons in which they had smashed thousands of dollars' worth of +costly furniture; they stole every sign from stores, which caught +their fancy; no woman was respected, until their orgies were stopped +by the bayonets of the national guard. + +Such "scholars" as these had for many years been ground through these +educational mills by thousands, crowding the ranks of the professional +classes to suffocation. Legions of unscrupulous lawyers, more +heartless than pirates or brigands in Bulgaria, infested every city +and town, busy as demons stirring up strife, drilling witnesses to +perjury, bull-dozing the innocent even unto death with the full +connivance of the plunder-sharing judges, until the jails were crowded +with victims who could not pay their outrageous fees. + +These lawyer-sharks packed caucuses, stuffed ballot-boxes, and thereby +elected themselves to legislatures where they enacted unjust laws to +subserve their own iniquitous depredations. + +But this nefarious pillaging was not confined to the courts alone: +armies of patientless doctors must be fed at the expense of the +long-suffering public, and as all the people were not _naturally_ sick +all the time for the benefit of the quacks, these so-called doctors +prevailed upon their legislative college-chums to pass laws compelling +all to be innoculated with virus, ostensibly to render them immune to +various contagions, but really to furnish unlimited plunder to their +"family physicians." + +Even the women caught the craze for "higher education" to fit +themselves for "kid-glove" professional emoluments; they, too, tore +each other's hair, scratched each other's faces in frantic football +rushes, tumbling over each other in the wild scrimmage for fees, +leaving the kitchens to the ignorant foreigners, who ruined digestions +with preposterous cookery, which would have killed a nation of +ostriches. + +The great Republic might have survived even such horrors as these had +it not been for the out-breaking of another craze more terrible far +than an army with gattling guns, I refer to the most destructive of +all scourges, the mania for stock-gambling. The crafty, unscrupulous +managers of bucket-shops, stock-exchanges, and brokerages filled the +columns of the press with manufactured accounts of vast fortunes +made in an hour by imaginary investors of small sums, and at once +multitudes of farmers, mechanics, and even teachers abandoned their +honest pursuits to squander their hard earnings in the vain attempts +to "buck the tiger," and "beard the lion in his den." + +The inevitable result followed: the lion and the lamb lay down +together, with the lamb inside the lion, thousands of formerly +well-to-do people were pauperized. Thousands of farms were abandoned, +hundreds of factories were deserted, while the fiendish, cheating +boss-gambler sharks were gorged to repletion with their infamous +plunder; then followed a frenzy of hatred on the part of the masses +against the classes: city treasuries were depleted to feed the +starving with free soup, the cities were crowded with the desperate, +hungry multitudes who had lost their all, and bloody riots capped the +climax of a hell on earth. + +From the cupola of the State House in Boston, a little group of +citizens gazed upon a scene which would daunt the stoutest heart; +these five men standing motionless and speechless under the gilded +dome are of widely differing stations in life, as far apart as the +poles in culture, education, and creed, but their faces wore the same +expressions of profound sadness mingled with stern determination. + +The tall man on the right is the Governor of the State of +Massachusetts, a millionaire, a classic face showing his aristocratic +lineage in every feature, a scholarly, furrowed brow, dressed with +scrupulous care, and looking at the frightful scenes with the +dauntless eye of an eagle. He is the chosen leader of the Republican +party which for many years has controlled the destinies of the "Old +Bay State." Next stands a man in every way in strong contrast to his +refined companion, a short, stout, ruddy-faced son of Ireland, but +now Mayor of the city of Boston, a Democrat of Democrats, carelessly +dressed, a political boss, who under ordinary circumstances would +never have affiliated with his lordly neighbor. + +Next in the line is a smooth-faced portly man, clad in fine +broadcloth, unmistakably a Catholic Priest; next is a man of soldierly +bearing whose uniform and shoulder-straps proclaim him to be the +commander of the national guard of the State; close beside the +guardsman is the stalwart superintendent of the city police. For a few +minutes only, these men were spell-bound by the terrible scenes before +them. A mob of ragged wild-eyed men and women are straggling along the +street, some wearing the red caps of Anarchy, firing revolvers at the +windows of the houses and at every well-dressed person in sight, some +waved strange banners labelled "Bread or blood," "Down with the rich," +"Shoot the soldiers"; many blood-red flags are waved with demoniacal +yells. + +Directly in front of this howling mob is massed the First Corps of +Cadets, and the 9th Regiment of Irish militia; soldiers are seen +falling in the ranks, and blood crimsoned the snow, alarm bells are +clanging, flames are bursting from the elegant buildings, tremendous +explosions are heard which seemed to shake the foundations of the +city. Ferocious men and women are seen looting the stores, drinking +plundered liquors; the off-scouring of all nations are pillaging, +burning, murdering; the spirit of hell seems in full control on this +natal day of the Prince of Peace. Still the national guard did not +fire. + +"Father," cried the Governor, "will the 9th Regiment kill their own +brothers if ordered to shoot?" + +"My children will obey orders, sir," quietly replied the priest. + +"Then in heaven's name, General, Marconi the order; if we wait longer +everything is ruined." + +The Mayor's eyes flashed fire; he seemed about to countermand--the +priest lifted his hand, "Brother, we must," he said--the Mayor +hesitated; he saw many of his own constituents among the rioters; his +face was like that of a corpse, then, "Order," he gasped. + +The General touched the keys before him, the Colonel of the 9th +flinched as if struck by a bullet, then a quick command, the clear +notes of the bugle sounded, the Irish soldiers hesitated, glanced at +the cupola; the priest with outstretched arms confirmed the mandate; +the repeating rifles were levelled, and crash upon crash went the +volleys of bullets into the bosoms of the mob. Again pealed the bugle +note, and quick as a flash forward rushed the dandy Cadets and the +Irish soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in a wild bayonet charge. + +Screams, groans and curses rend the air, scores of the rioters are +weltering in their gore, the rest broke, fled, leaving the streets +strewn with the dead and wounded. + +"Marconi the hospitals," said the Governor; and in a trice the +ambulances are bearing away the sufferers to be tenderly cared for, as +if they were the best, instead of the worst of the human race. + +"Brothers," said the Governor, "shall we order the troops and police +in every city to fire? It will be merciful to end this horrible +suspense." "Amen," came the response from the bowed heads of his +companions; instantly the command was Marconied to every place which +was in a state of anarchy. + +Suddenly came the crash of musketry from many parts of the city, +accompanied by the grumbling bass of the gattling guns, then the +defiant yells ceased, and all was quiet. + +"Your Excellency," calmly spoke the General, "here are Marconis from +every city that the fight is over, the mobs have dispersed. + +"Thank God," came the chorus from each in this remarkable quintette +who had co-operated in the carefully-considered plans which had so +quickly brought peace to the distracted city and State. + +"Brothers," said the Governor, "we must feed the hungry, and give +work to the people of our overcrowded cities: there is but one way to +accomplish this, we must colonize the unemployed upon the Southern and +Western lands, the people must go back to the bosom of mother earth +where they can have independent homes of their own; there are no +public funds for this purpose, and the rich must furnish the necessary +money for transportation, or the Republic is dead. I will personally +guarantee the funds necessary to furnish homes for all who will go +from Massachusetts to cultivate the unimproved lands in Florida and +Colorado, which, with others, I purchased years ago to provide for +this crisis which many prophesied was sure to come. I will at once +telegraph to secure the co-operation of the Governors of all the +States in our Union; the evening papers will announce our plans to the +world." + +In a few minutes the lightnings were flashing full accounts of this, +the most important meeting ever held, throughout the length and +breadth of the nation; the responses were the most enthusiastic and +thrilling ever known in the history of mankind. Money in vast sums was +wired by the rich to every Governor, for the purpose of transforming +the poverty-stricken of the slums into self-supporting self-respecting +farmers; railroad presidents tendered free transportation; one touch +of nature made the whole world kin. + +In an uncompleted tunnel under the harbor of Boston was gathered a +vast crowd of wild-eyed Anarchists, and desperate hungry wretches from +the vilest dens, who had just sworn with unspeakable oaths to burn and +plunder the city that very night, to murder all the rich, to commit +outrages no fiend had ever dared to dream before. When they were about +to rush out and let loose the dogs of carnage and unspeakable horrors, +suddenly in the glare of their torches appeared the priest who an hour +before, had played such an important part in the State House cupola +conference. A hush fell upon the rabble as they recognized their +spiritual adviser; with a voice of almost super-human power, he +shouted, + +"Brothers, there is no excuse for murder, no cause for lawlessness, +money is flowing in like water to furnish homes for us all away from +these stifling factories out in God's pure air of the prairies and +fields of the great West and the sunny South. For the sake of your +wives and children do no violence; assemble all to-morrow morning in +the amphitheatre, where you will find food in abundance, until we are +located upon our own portion of God's green earth." + +The effect of these sympathetic words was wonderful; malice and frenzy +were driven from the minds of these children of the slums, even as the +devils were exorcised from the Magdalen of old, and inspired with new +hopes and holier aspirations they vanished into the shades of evening. + +All night long the Salvation Army, the Volunteers of America, hundreds +of every nationality and creed, labored strenuously in making +preparations to feed the hungry, clothe the shivering, and care for +the sick. When the morning dawned fair and balmy beyond all precedent +for this season of the year, the scene in the vast amphitheatre +baffled description, over which the heavenly host rejoiced as never +before. The united bands of the city discoursed sweet music from the +balcony, from steaming cauldrons the multitudes were fed to repletion +with nourishing delicious food; the sick, the weak, the women and +children were abundantly supplied in their homes, all seemed like one +great family, the rich and the poor clasped hands like brothers, and +the spirit of peace on earth good will toward men reigned supreme. +When all had been refreshed, while the bands played "Hail to the +Chief," the Governor, with a great number of the most prominent in +church, state, and philanthropy, filed in upon the rostrum, welcomed +by enthusiastic cheers. As the applause died away His Excellency said, + +"In the city hives are clustered far too many human bees, we must +swarm out into the country where there is honey enough and to spare, + + "'Go back to your mother, ye children, for shame, + Who have wandered like truants, for riches and fame! + With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, + She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + + Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, + And breathe, like your eagles, the air of our plains; + Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives + Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives.' + +"You, who are strong, and who delight in buffetting the cold and snows, +should go to the deserted New England farms or to the broad prairies +of the West, the graneries of the world; but you who shrivel in the +wintry blasts, and who are subject to rheumatism and coughs, should go +to the sunny southlands where you can work and rejoice in a climate of +perpetual summer. + +"We have funds in abundance to secure lands for all, build houses, +furnish essentials for tilling the soil, and provisions, until crops +can be raised; this money you can repay in easy installments to be +used to equip future applicants. All wishing to secure these homes +without money and without price can apply at the State House +to-morrow." + +A glad shout which reached the stars and gladdened the angelic hosts +was the immediate response to these tidings, and poverty was banished +forever from the Great Republic. + +The scene changes--from stygian darkness, desolation and gloom of +dingy, malodorous factories and streets, where ragged, hopeless +beggars-for-work delve and curse, to the glorious sunlight and balmy +air of the "Land of Flowers." Here we see pretty vine-clad cottages +embowered in orange groves, and surrounded by luxuriant harvests of +everything to make life worth the living. Here we see the murderous +villains of the Boston Christmas-day mobs, no longer blood-thirsty, +but smiling and happy as they listen to the songs of birds, the +bleating of their own flocks, the laughter of their delighted +children, while the prosperous fathers "tickle the bosom of their own +mother earth with the hoe to make it laugh with abundant crops for man +and beast." The grateful citizens have named their towns in honor of +their generous benefactors, thus establishing for Carneiges, Morgans +and Rockefellers monuments to their memories which will endure +forever. + +Thus was removed for all time the antagonism between labor and +capital; thus were envy and class hatreds banished from society, and +thus was our glorious Republic secured upon firm foundations, which +will endure "until the final day breaks and all earthly shadows flee +away." + +Thus at last the prophetic vision of the poet seemed to be realized in +"the land of the free and the home of the brave." + + "One dream through all the ages + Has led the world along: + The wise words of the sages, + The poet in his song, + The prophet in his vision,-- + All these have caught the gleam, + Have caught the light elysian, + Have told the haunting dream. + + This dream is that the story + The ages have unrolled + Shall blossom in the glory + Of one long age of gold; + That every man and woman + Shall find life glad and free, + That in whate'er is human + Is hid Divinity. + + The rod of old oppression + One day shall broken be; + Those held in night's possession + The light of hope shall see; + For tears there shall be laughing, + And peace shall be for strife, + And thirsty lips be quaffing + The wine of glorious life. + + The rage and noise of battle + Shall sink, and fall to peace, + The lowing of the cattle, + The fruit and corn increase; + No more the wide sky under + The rattle of the drum, + No more the cannon's thunder,-- + God's kingdom shall have come. + + Some day, dearest, where skies are bright, + We'll dwell in the beauty of love and light; + And sorrow will seem + Like a far-off dream, + And life shall be morning, that knows no night! + + Some day, dearest--that perfect day + For which we knelt in the dark to pray + We'll reap the rest + That God deems best-- + In the beautiful vales of the far-away!" + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman from Everywhere, by James Henry Foss + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12193 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04f1fc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12193 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12193) diff --git a/old/12193-8.txt b/old/12193-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cb2794 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12193-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7310 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman from Everywhere, by James Henry Foss + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gentleman from Everywhere + +Author: James Henry Foss + +Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12193] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE + + +BY + +JAMES HENRY FOSS + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +1903 + + +TO + +MY BELOVED, ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN, + +THIS BOOK IS + +MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED + +IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT + +BY ITS PERUSAL + + Many sailing o'er life's solemn main, + Forlorn and shipwrecked brothers, may take heart again. + + + + +Contents + +CHAPTER + +I. Launching of My Life Boat +II. My First Voyage +III. Near to Nature's Heart +IV. Joys and Sorrows of School-Days +V. Career of a Dominie-Pedagogue +VI. Dreams of My Youth +VII. A Disenchanted Collegian-Preacher +VIII. In Shadow Land +IX. Sunlight and Darkness in Palace and Cottage +XI. Adventures in Mosquito Land +XI. In Arcadie +XII. From Philistine to Benedict and a Honeymoon +XIII. The Angels of Life and Death +XIV. Tribulations of a Widower +XV. Faith Sees a Star +XVI. On the Political Stump +XVII. That _Eddyfying_ Christian Science +XVIII. In the Land of Flowers +XIX. Sunbeam, The Seminole +XX. A Founder of Towns and Clubs +XXI. A Million Dollar Business with a One Dollar Capital +XXII. Pendulum 'twixt Smiles and Tears +XXIII. Monarch of all He Surveyed: Then Deposed, +XXIV. Foregleams of Immortality +XXV. A Practical Socialist and Colonizer +XXVI. Hand in Hand with Angels +XXVII. Among the Law-Sharks +XXVIII. Campaigning in Wonderland +XXIX. Among the Clouds +XXX. Disenchanted: Home Again +XXXI. The Florida Crackers +XXXII. Looking Forward + +[Illustration: [cursive] Your friend, the Author +James H. Foss] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +LAUNCHING OF MY LIFE-BOAT. + + Wild was the night, yet a wilder night + Hung around o'er the mother's pillow; + In her bosom there waged a fiercer fight + Than the fight on the wrathful billow. + + +Already there were more children than potatoes in her hut of logs, and +yet, another unwelcome guest was coming, to whom fate had ordained +that it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born. + +A sympathizing neighbor held over the suffering woman an umbrella to +shield her from the rain which poured through the dilapidated roof, +and when the dreary light of that Sunday morning dawned, my frail bark +was launched on the stormy, sullen sea of life. + +My father, a good man, but a ne'er-do-well financially, had loaned his +best clothes, watch and pocketbook to a friend to enable him to call +on his best girl in captivating style, and said friend expressed his +gratitude by eloping with the girl and all the borrowed finery. + +That same night the boom broke, and allowed all the savings of our +family invested in logs, cut by my father and his lumbermen, to float +down the river and be lost in the sea. + +Thus storm, flood, calamity and sorrow, far in advance heralded the +future of myself, the fourth son of a fourth son who, on that Sunday, +in the dog-days of 1841, reluctantly came into this world. + +The howling of the wolves in the surrounding wild-woods, the screaming +of the catamounts in the near-by tree-tops, the sterile dog-star +drying up the crops, the marching of my father to fight in the +threatened Aroostook war, all conspired for months before this fateful +night to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloomy forebodings in +the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the +mind of the baby yet unborn. + +All through that wretched summer, scorching drought alternating +with cloud-bursts vied with each other in blasting the hopes of the +farmers, and premature frost destroyed the few remaining stalks of +corn, so that when the winter snows came, gaunt famine stared our +family fiercely in the face. + +My father and three brothers faced the withering storms bravely, +unpacking their internal stores of sunshine, as the camel in the +desert draws refreshment from his inner tank when outward water fails. + +We were isolated from human companionship, except when occasionally +the doctor came on the tops of the fences and branches of the +pine-trees to soothe the pains of my sickly mother. At this time the +snow was so deep that a tunnel was cut to the neighboring hovel where +shivered our ancient horse and cow. + +My father and brothers tramped with snare and gun on snow-shoes +through the woods, securing occasionally a partridge or squirrel, and +semi-occasionally a deer, or pickerel from the lake. On one of these +occasions, two of my brothers and the dog met with an adventure which +nearly gave them deliverance from all earthly sorrows. As they faced +the terrible cold of a January morning, the wailing of the winds in +the tree-tops, and the few flying snowflakes foreboded a storm which +burst upon them in great fury while about two miles from home. +Bewildered and benumbed, they dug a hole in the snow down to the +earth, and were soon buried many feet deep, thus affording them some +relief from the cold; but they nearly famished with hunger and gave +themselves up for lost. Suddenly, the dog, who was huddled with them +for warmth, jumped away whining and scratching in great excitement. +He refused to obey their orders to be still and die in peace, but, +digging for some minutes, his claws struck a tree, then, rushing over +the boys and back again to the trees repeatedly, he roused them from +their lethargy to follow him; but nothing was visible but a hole in a +tree through which the dog jumped and barked furiously. + +Cutting the hole larger with their axe, they found the interior to be +dry punk, which at once suggested the exhilarating thought of a fire, +and soon a delightful heat from the burning drywood permeated their +snow cave, the smoke being more endurable than the previous cold. All +at once they heard a strange snorting and scratching above in the +tree with whines which drove the dog wild with excitement, then, +with burning embers and suffocating smoke, down came a huge animal, +well-nigh breaking the necks of frantic dog and "rubbering" boys. + +After this came the tug of war. Teeth, axe, gun, fire, dog, bear, and +boys all mixed up in a fight to the finish. Finally, as bruin was not +fully recovered from the comatose state of his winter hibernating, +after many scratches and thumps, cuts and shots, came the survival of +the fittest. + +Not even imperial Caesar, with the world at his feet, could have been +prouder than were boys and dog when they looked at their prostrate +foe, and reflected that this conquest meant the physical salvation +of our entire family. Soon the chips flew from the tree, and over a +cheerful fire they roasted and devoured bear steaks to repletion. + +Digging to the surface, they found that the storm had subsided, and +rigging a temporary sled from the boughs of the tree, they dragged +home this "meat in due season." + +All through the hours of the following night the wolves, attracted by +the scent of blood, howled and scratched frantically around the hut, +calling for their share in that "chain of destruction," by which the +laws of the universe have ordained that all creatures shall subsist. +The infant, of course, joined lustily in the chorus until the boys +almost wished themselves back in their shroud of snow. + +So, with alternate feasting and fasting we passed the long weeks of +that Arctic winter until the frogs in the neighboring swamp crying: +"Knee deep, knee deep," and "better go round, better go round," +proclaimed the season of freshets when the vast plain below us was +traversible only in boats. Then the birds returned from the far South, +but brought no seed-time or harvest, for that was the ever to be +remembered "Year without a summer," and but for the wild ducks and +geese shot on the lake, and the wary and uncertain fish caught with +the hook, all human lives in that region would have returned to the +invisible from whence they came. + +It seemed as if chaos and dark night had come back to those wild +woods. The migratory fever seized upon us all, and my parents +determined to seek some unknown far away, to sail to the beautiful +land of somewhere, for they felt sure that-- + + Somewhere the sun is shining, + Elsewhere the song-birds dwell; + And they hushed their sad repining + In the faith that somewhere all is well. + + Somewhere the load is lifted + Close by an open gate; + Out there the clouds are rifted, + Somewhere the angels wait. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MY FIRST VOYAGE. + + +My father and brothers constructed a "prairie schooner" from our +scanty belongings, and one forlorn morning in early autumn, with the +skeleton horse and cow harnessed tandem for motive power, we all set +sail for far-off Massachusetts. + +We slept beneath our canopy of canvas and blankets; those of our +number able to do so worked occasionally for any who would hire, +but employers were few, as this was one of the crazy seasons in the +history of our Republic when the people voted for semi-free trade, and +the mill wheels were nearly all silent for the benefit of the mills of +foreign nations. They shot squirrels and partridges when ammunition +could be obtained, forded rivers, narrowly escaping drowning in the +swift currents, and suffered from chills and fever. + +One dark night some gypsies stole our antediluvian horse and cow. The +barking of the faithful dog awakened father and brothers who rushed +to the rescue, leaving mother half dead with fear; but at length the +marauders were overtaken, shots were exchanged, heads were broken, and +after a fierce struggle and long wandering, lost in the woods, our +fiery steeds were once more chained to our chariot wheels. + +The next day we came to a wide river which it was impossible to ford, +but mercy, which sometimes "tempers the blast to the shorn lamb," sent +us relief in the shape of an antiquated gundalow floating on the tide. +Like Noah and family of old, we managed to embark on this ancient ark, +and paddled to the further shore. + +There we miraculously escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk. While +painfully making our way through the primeval forest, we were suddenly +saluted by the ferocious war-whoop, and a dozen Indians barred our +way, flourishing their primitive implements of warfare. A shot from +father's double-barreled gun sent them flying to cover, our steeds +rushed forward with a speed hitherto unknown, the prairie schooner +rocked like a boat in a cyclone, the mother shrieked, the _enfant +terrible_ howled like a bull of Bashan, and just as the "Red devils" +were closing in from the rear, the mouth of a cave loomed up in the +hillside into which dashed "pegasus and mooly cow" pell-mell. + +Our red admirers halted almost at the muzzle of the gun and the blades +of my brothers' axes. Luckily the Indians had neither firearms nor +bows and arrows. They made rushes occasionally, but the shotgun +wounded several, the axes intimidated, and they seemed about to settle +down to a siege when, with a tremendous shouting and singing of +"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," a band of picturesquely arrayed white men +came marching along the trail. The enemy took to their heels, and we +learned that our rescuers had been to a William Henry Harrison parade +and barbecue, for this was the time of the famous "hard cider" +campaign. + +The Indians had been there too and, filling up with "fire water," +their former war-path proclivities had returned to their "empty, +swept, and garnished" minds, to the extent that they yearned to +decorate their belts with our scalps. + +Our preservers scattered to their homes, and the would-be scalpers +were seen no more, leaving the world to darkness and to us in the +woods. The woods, where Adam and Eve lived and loved, where Pan +piped, and Satyrs danced, the opera house of birds; the woods, green, +imparadisaical, mystic, tranquillizing--to the poet perhaps when all +is well--but to us, they seemed haunted by spirits of evil, the yells +of the demons seemed to echo and reecho; but an indefinable something +seemed to sympathize with the infinite pathos of our lives, and at +last sleep, "the brother of death," folded us in his arms, and the +curtain fell. + + "There is a place called Pillow-land, + Where gales can never sweep + Across the pebbles on the strand + That girds the Sea of Sleep. + + 'Tis here where grief lets loose the rein, + And age forgets to weep, + For all are children once again, + Who cross the Sea of Sleep. + + The gates are ope'd at daylight close, + When weary ones may creep, + Lulled in the arms of sweet repose, + Across the Sea of Sleep. + + Oh weary heart, and toil-worn hand, + At eve comes rest to thee, + When ply the boats to Pillow-land, + Across the Sleepy sea. + + Thank God for this sweet Pillow-land, + Where weary ones may creep, + And breathe the perfume on the strand + That girds the Sea of Sleep." + +It is pleasant in this sunset of life, to recall the testimony of my +brothers that through all those troublous scenes, father and mother +were soothed and consoled by an unfaltering faith in the ultimate +triumph of the good and true, that their faces were often illumined as +they repeated to each other those priceless words of the sweet singer, + + "Drifting over a sunless sea, cold dreary mists encircling me, + Toiling over a dusty road with foes within and foes abroad, + Weary, I cast my soul on Thee, mighty to save even me, + Jesus Thou Son of God." + +At last the "perils by land and perils by sea, and perils from false +brethren," this long, long journey ended and we reached the promised +land. We halted in old Byfield, in the state of Massachusetts, with +worldly goods consisting of a bushel of barberries, threadbare +toilets, and the ancient equipage dilapidated as aforesaid. + +After much tribulation, father took a farm "on shares," which was +found to result in endless toil to us, and the lion's share of the +crops going to the owners, who toiled not, neither did they spin, but +reaped with gusto where we had sown. + +After a few years of this profitless drudgery, my father bought an old +run-down farm with dilapidated buildings in the neighboring town of +R----, mortgaging all, and our souls and bodies besides, for its +payment. We hoped we had rounded the cape of storms which sooner or +later looms up before every ship which sails the sea of life, for we +had fully realized the truth of the poem-- + + We may steer our boats by the compass, + Or may follow the northern star; + We may carry a chart on shipboard + As we sail o'er the seas afar; + But, whether by star or by compass + We may guide our boats on our way, + The grim cape of storms is before us, + And we'll see it ahead some day. + + How the prow may point is no matter, + Nor of what the cargo may be, + If we sail on the northern ocean, + Or away on the southern sea; + It matters not who is the pilot, + To what guidance our course conforms; + No vessel sails o'er the sea of life + But must pass the cape of storms. + + Sometimes we can first sight the headland + On the distant horizon's rim; + We enter the dangerous waters + With our vessels taut and trim; + But often the cape in its grimness + Will before us suddenly rise, + Because of the clouds that have hid it + Or the blinding sun in our eyes. + + Our souls will be caught in the waters + That are hurled at the storm cape's face; + Our pleasures and joys, our hopes and fears, + Will join in the maddening race. + Our prayers, desires, our penitent griefs, + Our longings and passionate pain, + Be dashed to spray on the stormy cape + And fly in our faces like rain. + + But there's always hope for the sailor, + There is ever a passage through; + No life goes down at the cape of storms, + If the life and the heart lie true. + If in purpose the soul is steadfast, + If faithful in mind and in will, + The boat will glide to the other side, + Where the ocean of life is still. + +[Illustration: "It was a Fair Scene of Tranquillity."] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +NEAR TO NATURE'S HEART. + + +It seems but yesterday, although more than a half century ago, that I, +a puny boy, stood on the hilltop and looked for the first time upon +this, the earliest home of which I have any vivid recollection. It +was a fair scene of rustic tranquillity, where a contented mind might +delight to spend a lifetime mid hum of bees and low of kine. + +Along the eastern horizon's rim loomed the blue sea beyond the sandy +dunes of old Plum Island; the lazy river born in babbling brooks and +bubbling springs flowing languidly mid wooded islands, and picturesque +stacks of salt hay, representing the arduous toil of farmers and +dry-as-dust fodder for reluctant cows. Nearer, the two church spires +of the little village, striving to lift the sordid minds of the +natives from earthly clods to the clouds, and where beckoning hands +strove vainly to inspire them with heavenly hopes; around them, +glistening in the sunlight, the marble slabs where sleep the rude +forefathers of the hamlet, some mute inglorious Miltons who came from +England in the early sixties, whose tombstones are pierced by rifle +bullets fired at the maraudering red skins. These are the cities of +the dead, far more populous than the town of the living. + +Nearer, the willowy brook that turns the mill; to the south the dense +pine woods, peopled in our imaginations, with fairy elves, owls, and +hobgoblins--now, alas, owing to the rapacity of the sawmills, naught +but a howling wilderness of stumps and underbrush. + +Directly below me, stands our half-century old house with its eaves +sloping to the ground, down which generations of boys had ruined their +pants in hilarious coasting; near by, the ancient well-swipe, and the +old oaken bucket which rose from the well; beyond this, of course, +as usual, the piggery and hennery to contaminate the water and breed +typhoid fever, and in the house cellar, the usual dampness from the +hillside to supply us all with rheumatism and chills. + +There existed apparently in the early dawn of the nineteenth century, +an unwritten law which required the farmers to violate all the laws of +sanitation, and then to ascribe all ills the flesh is heir to, to the +mysterious will of an inscrutable Providence whose desire it was to +make the heart better by the sorrows of the countenance, and to save +the soul from hell by the punishment of the body. Vegetables were +allowed to rot in the cellars, and to make everybody sick with +their noxious odors so that we might not be too much wedded to this +transitory existence. Pork, beans, and cabbage must be devoured in +enormous quantities just before going to bed for the purpose of +inspiring midnight groans and prayers to be delivered from the pangs +of the civil war in the inner man. + +This moralizing is inspired by the pessimism of disenchanted age; but +on that beautiful morning of the long ago, naught occurred to me +save the wedlock of earth and heaven: I was near to nature's heart, +listening to the ecstatic songs of the robins, the orioles and +sweetest of all the bobolink. + + "Oh, winged rapture, feathered soul of spring: + Blithe voice of woods, fields, waters, all in one, + Pipe blown through by the warm, mild breath of June, + Shepherding her white flocks of woolly clouds, + The bobolink has come, and climbs the wind + With rippling wings that quiver not for flight + But only joy, or yielding to its will + Runs down, a brook of laughter through the air." + +After the charm of the novelty of the scene had vanished, I descended +from my perch to explore this sleepy hollow: the barn door hung +suspended on a single hinge, like a bird with but one unbroken wing to +soar upon. The swallows twittered their love-songs under the eaves; +chipmunks scolded my intrusion and threw nuts at my head from the +beams; a lone, lorn hen proclaimed her triumph over a new laid egg, +and then, with fiery eyes, assaulted me with profanity as I filled +my hat with her choicest treasures. A litter of pigs scampered away, +wedging themselves into a hole in the wall, and hung there kicking and +squealing, while their indignant mother chased me up a ladder where +she hurled at me the vilest imprecations; a solitary Phoebe bird +wailed out her plaintive "pee wee, pee wee, pee whi itt," and a +newly-married pair of sandpipers chanted their song of the sea on the +edge of a mud puddle in the yard. + +At last the infuriated sow went to liberate her wedged-in offspring, +leaving me to flee to the house where I cooked my eggs and some +ancient potatoes in the ashes of a fire smoldering in the wide old +fireplace. I have since eaten royal dinners in palatial hotels, but +nothing has ever tasted half as good as this extemporized lunch of my +boyhood. + +Here the rest of the family found me later when they came bringing +their household goods; here I might have laid, broad and deep, the +foundations of a useful life, had I possessed even a modicum of the +stick-to-itiveness so essential to success. + +A limited amount of discontent is a powerful stimulus to more +strenuous endeavor; but when you have intensity without continuity of +mental action, beware of imitating my example of progressing along the +lines of the least resistance; for if you do you will never attain +to that persistency of effort which can come only from overcoming +obstacles. + +When my father gave me a moderate task of weeding onions, I soon +became tired of crawling on hands and knees under a scorching sun, +inundating the earth with perspiration and tears, so I substituted a +hoe for fingers, tearing up onions with the weeds that I might the +sooner secure unlimited rheumatism by bathing in the brook. Had +my father given me what he earnestly desired, and what I richly +deserved,--a sound spanking, and more weeding to do,--I might have +developed much needed perseverance, but spanking was never allowed by +my fond mother, and I became a shirk. + +I was set to picking berries to replenish the family larder; but +this soon became monotonous, and I appropriated the old grain-sieve, +placing it beside the bushes, and pounding the huckleberries into it +with a stick; the result was a heterogeneous conglomeration of worms, +leaves, bugs, and crushed berries; but I succeeded in eliminating the +refuse by throwing the whole mass into a tub of water, and skimming +off the risings. I would then descant to buyers upon the freshness +of the berries wet with the dews of heaven, but my ruse was soon +discovered, and people refused to purchase such mucilaginous pulp. + +Our widowed hired woman was possessed of a baby, and I was assigned +the task of rocking the cradle; but I soon sighed for the apple +blossoms and songs of birds,--we had no English sparrows then--so I +drove a nail into the cradle, tied to it the clothes-line, and went +out of doors and began pulling at the cord. Soon agonizing screams +were heard, and baby was found on the floor with the cradle pounding +on top of him. + +I was sent to drive home the cows from pasture, but left the task to +the dog, who chased them over the wall into the corn-field where they +devastated the crop, and ruined the milk by devouring green apples, +while I, skylarking in a neighbor's pasture, was treed by an angry +bull, who kept me in the branches until I caught a violent cold and +became for weeks a family burden. + +I was set to milking the cows, but I tied their tails to the beams, +applied a lemon-squeezer to their udders until everybody was aroused +by the bellowings of the infuriated beasts, and the milk and myself +were found carpeting the dirty floor. + +At last all patience was exhausted, and as I was born on Sunday, and +was good for nothing else my parents, good, pious church-members, +concluded I must become a minister, consequently they sent me to +school. School! What memories come back to us over the arid wastes of +life at the very mention of this magic word! There is the place where +immortal minds are filled with loathing at the very sight of books, +or where the torch of learning is kindled, which burns on with +ever-increasing brightness forever more, and when I think of some of +the teachers of my youth I am reminded of what the wise pastor said to +a "stupid lunk-head" who had conceived the preposterous idea that he +was called to be a preacher. "What, you be a minister?" + +"Yes," said the dunce, "are we not commanded in the holy book to +preach the gospel to every critter?" + +"Verily," was the reply; "but every critter is not commanded to preach +the gospel." + +So long as percentages obtained after "cramming" for examinations are +the criterions which decide the accepting or rejecting of candidates +for teaching positions, we must expect "critters" for the school +guides of our children, who, like some of my own tutors, will + + "Ram it in, cram it in-- + Children's heads are hollow; + Rap it in, tap it in-- + Bang it in, slam it in + Ancient archaeology, + Aryan philology, + Prosody, zoology, + Physics, climatology, + Calculus and mathematics, + Rhetoric and hydrostatics. + Stuff the school children, fill up the heads of them, + Send them all lesson-full home to the beds of them; + When they are through with the labor and show of it, + What do they care for it, what do they know of it?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +JOYS AND SORROWS OF SCHOOL-DAYS. + + +It was the custom in R----, and is now to quite an extent elsewhere, +to elect as school committee those especially noted for their +ignorance and unfitness for the duties, perhaps to keep them out of +the almshouse, or to educate them by the absorption process while +hearing pupils recite. These men were paid two dollars for each call +they made at schools, consequently they "called" early and often, +especially when the school ma'ams were young and pretty. + +Here, as elsewhere, there was always a great fight at town-meetings +for these school board positions, especially when the school-book +agents became numerous, for these committees could secure from said +agents unlimited free books, and get high prices for all their +spavined horses, dried up cows, and sick pigs in return for voting for +rival text-books. + +As the committees were often unequal to the task of making out a +course of study, pupils selected what studies they pleased, as +suicidal a policy as it would be if, when you were sick and went +to the physician for relief, he should point to a lot of different +medicines, and tell you to pay your money, and take your choice. + +As there was a cramming machine close by called an academy, whose sole +object was to push students into Harvard College, of course the common +schools must be "crammers" for the academy, and the result was, that +we had no educational institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia +was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of +nothing. As well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound +it down with a ramrod, and expect healthful physical growth. + +Hundreds of poor parents are working themselves to death to send their +children to such schools with a view to elevating them to "higher +positions" than they themselves occupy, and soon we will have none to +do the honest physical labor of life, but the world will be full of +kid-gloved hangers on for soft jobs, who regard working with the hands +to be a disgrace. + +Well do I remember going to a neighbor, whose farm was mortgaged for +all it was worth to buy finery and pay tuition bills in said academy, +and begging for the services of the daughter to help my sick mother. I +was refused with insult and scorn. "Do you think," shrieked the irate +virago, "that I will allow my daughter who is studying French, Latin, +Greek, and German to wash your dirty dishes?" I was driven from the +house at the point of the boot. That daughter is to-day shaking and +twitching with St. Vitus's dance, a physical and mental wreck from +overstudy, causing nervous exhaustion and despair. + +Hundreds of girls throughout our country who might have been good +housekeepers, are to-day useless invalids, made so by what is called +"higher education." Hundreds of boys, who might have become successful +farmers and mechanics, are now dissipating in beer shops while waiting +in vain for lily-fingered positions as bookkeepers or teachers. In +scores of New England towns, one man, employed to fill the heads of a +reluctant few with the dead languages, receives more salary than all +the other teachers combined. + +It seems to require a surgical operation to get the fact through our +thick heads, that our school system demands radical reform from top to +bottom to the end that hands as well as heads may receive technical +bread-and-butter, practical education. + +I was a victim of this elective-study craze, and with the usual +stupidity displayed by a child when left to decide what he shall do, +I chose Latin as my principal study in this common district school, +because I fancied it smacked of erudition. + +The teacher, knowing no more than myself of the language, set me to +committing to memory the whole of Andrews' Latin Grammar. I gained +the important information that "_sto, fido, confido, assuesco_, and +_preditus_" govern the ablative, and other valuable lore; but when I +asked the teacher where the Latin vernacular came in, she replied that +that would come to me later--that I must "open my mouth and shut my +eyes while she gave me something to make me wise." A solemn awe not +unmixed with envy pervaded the schoolroom as I, parrot-like, rattled +off this valueless jargon of a people dead for hundreds of years. + +As this study possessed no interest for me, I naturally dropped into +mischief, and being caught one day with a distorted picture of the +teacher on my slate with the following suggestive poem lines beneath +it:--"Savage by name and savage by nature, I hope the Lord will take +your breath before you lick us all to death,"--I was chased about the +room by the angry pedagoguess until I leaped through the back window, +and the hole made in the bank by my head is pointed out to this day as +a warning to recalcitrant pupils. + +[Illustration: "Floating 'Neath the Trees of Mill River."] + +I refused to return to this temple of wisdom, and digging a hole into +the haymow, secreted myself therein, pulling the hole in after me. +Here I would remain during school hours, watching through a crevice +cut in the side of the barn, my father who made the air resound +with threats of what he would do if I did not at once return to my +education mill. Here I was often joined by a congenial spirit, and +we played cards which were regarded as the emissaries of Satan by my +religious parents; then we would sally forth with masked faces and +wooden guns, and inspired by dime novels, overthrow the walls of +children's playhouses, throw rocks against the schoolhouse, bully the +small boys almost into fits, hook the neighbors' eggs, corn, melons +and apples, which we devoured at leisure in a hidden hut in the woods. + +When the spirit moved, we would "swipe" a neighbor's skiff and go +floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of Mill River, +lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting +in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the +fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling +victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; +then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across +a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing +on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes +for a mud-eel for its dinner. + +Then we would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some +fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. It was +delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy +of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon +the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the +flute-like melodies of the mockingbird of the north. + +We would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through +which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit +confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to +all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel +endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel, +everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him; +the turtles, snapping at everything in sight with impunity relying +upon the impregnable defense of their coats-of-mail. + +On one of these occasions we were aroused from our Arcadian dream by +a frightful roar, and the destruction of all things seemed at hand. A +young cyclone had struck the fire over which we had cooked our fish, +fanning it into a furious conflagration. We climbed a tall oak, and +soon, as far as the eye could reach, all the hills and woodlands +seemed wrapped in flames. Frantic farmers were seen flagellating the +excited oxen and horses, who, with tails in air, were dragging the +ploughs, making furrows around the houses and barns, which were nearly +all located in pastures rendered dry as tinder by that extraordinary +summer's heat. + +The cause of this disturbance was traced to us, and we barely escaped +coats of tar and feathers at the hands of the infuriated neighbors, +by the pleadings of our ever-loving mothers who promised we should go +every day to the academy and sin no more. + +We were thoroughly sobered by our dangers, and commenced our careers +at this ancient institution founded by the first Lieutenant-Governor +of Massachusetts. Here reigned supreme a fiery autocrat, a fervent +admirer of Greek and Latin, a cordial hater of mathematics--my weakest +point--a D.D., LL.D., who was determined to drive everybody into +college. He had heard of my escapades, and was fully prepared to lay +upon my devoted head all the pranks of a restless fun-loving crowd of +students. + +On the first day of my initiation, while the professor was invoking +the Divine blessing, the sight of a big dinner pail belonging to the +fat boy in front of me, proved too much of a temptation, and I hurled +it down the aisle, scattering pork, pickles, doughnuts, and so forth +in its wake, and ending with a loud bang against the platform. Of +course I was the suspect, and cutting off prayer abruptly, down he +rushed, and banged my head till I saw more stars than ever shone in +heaven. + +My academy "_alma mater_" has graduated but few who have-- + + "Climbed fame's ladder so high + From the round at the top they have stepped to the sky," + +and it is sad to recall that many of the most gifted, acquired +in college secret societies the alcohol habit, and now sleep in +drunkards' graves. + +Brilliant Charlie, my chum, who mastered languages and sciences as +easy as "rolling off a log." I saw him last summer, a wreck--wine and +bad women did it. The idolized son of pious parents, whose youth was +surrounded at home with the halo of Bible and prayer; but like Esau, +he "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage" and afterwards "found +no space for repentance, though he sought it earnestly and with many +tears." + +It seems but yesterday that he and I were enjoying a game of +"pickknife," lacerating the top of a new desk, when in rushed the +"D.D." with his feet encased in the thinnest of slippers and with +which he gave me a kick which broke his toe, then clasping it in his +hand, danced on one leg, whooping unconsciously cuss word ejaculations +till we shrieked with laughter; then he bumped our heads together +until my big brother shook the dominie-pedagogue as a dog would a rat, +and threatened that if he ever struck my head again he would drown him +in the horsepond. + +Dear, good brother, he always was, and is now my guardian angel, +although now he comes from heaven to shield me, for I am the last on +earth of my father's family. + +Alas, how many of those academy classmates, each of whom was then the +soul of honor and the heart of truth, drowned their intellects in the +flowing bowl. _Eheu, Eheu, fugaces anni labuntur!_ But surely it was +only this morning oh, beautiful, star-eyed Harry, that you and I, +wearied with the frantic vain attempts of the unmathematical professor +to elucidate by appalling triangles and hieroglyphics on the +blackboard the perplexities of cube root, ousted each other from the +seat, sprawling upon the floor, and were chased by the LL.D. out of +doors, never to return until we apologized and promised "to do so no +more." + +Although I had been as "prone to mischief" as the sparks to fly +upward--ringing the academy bell at midnight by means of a string tied +to the tongue, bringing the professor in his night shirt from his bed +to chase me, covering his chimney with a board till he was well-nigh +suffocated with smoke, hitching his horse to a boat in Mill River, +pillaging his coop and scattering his hens to the four winds of +heaven, crawling under his bed at night and nearly frightening him to +death with unearthly groans, catching him by the legs as he jumped out +and leaving him kicking on the floor as I leaped through the window +amid applauding students--I was appointed assistant teacher at the +beginning of my senior year. + +Then at once great dignity was assumed by me which, being resented by +my former cronies, I secured order by licking them at recess one by +one, though I suffered from many "nasal hemorrhages" while engaged +in fistic rough and tumbles to assert my authority; I conquered, but +secured many black eyes and bedewed the campus with much "claret" for +the good of the order. + +At length we were declared sufficiently crammed to enter college, +and on graduation day I discoursed in stentorian tones upon "True +Heroism," amid the applause of the fair sex, and convulsed the +audience with laughter by prancing, in my enthusiastic eloquence, upon +the sore toe of one of the reverend trustees on the stage who fairly +yelled with pain: "_Sic transit gloria mundi_." + +Among the sins of my youth, which I confess with "shame and confusion +of face" were the pranks played by me and some fellow-sinners upon our +nearest neighbors. These worthies consisted of an old man and what +appeared to be his much older daughter, the two most unaccountable +cranks that dame nature ever presented to my notice. + +The father was possessed of the insane hallucination that he was the +greatest poet that ever lived. Often I have seen him drop his hoe in +the potato field, and run for the house so that you could hardly see +his heels for dust, looking for all the world like an animated pair of +tongs. As he expressed it, "an idee had struck him," and all mankind +would die of intellectual starvation unless he at once embodied said +"idee" in a poem. + +His greatest delight was to gather about him of an evening a crowd +of young folks and read to us his preposterous "lines." On such +occasions, some of us would quietly steal away up into his garret, and +roll down over the stairs, with a thunderous uproar, a huge gilded +ball which had decorated a post outside a tavern where he formerly +dispensed much "fire water," to the impoverishment of his customers +and to the enrichment of himself. + +Then our host, with much profanity, would rush to the rescue armed +with an ancient bayonet and a fish trumpet which, like the bugle-horn +of Roderic Dhu, summoned all the neighbors to his assistance; but some +sympathizing friend would always upset the table holding the candle so +that they could never decide who were the guilty absentees. + +At other times while the great poet was singing his sweetest songs, we +would seize his ancient roosters by their tails, and while they were +making night hideous with their lamentations, the angry couple would +bombard the hen-roosts with shovels, hoes and other weapons in the +hope of slaughtering the marauders. These pleasantries made much fun +for us, and varied the monotony of the lives of our entertainers. + +The ancient daughter firmly believed that she possessed the fatal gift +of beauty, although her elongated face was of the thickness and color +of sole leather, and one eye was hideously closed, while the other was +of spotless green. It was wonderful to see her cork-screw curls and +languishing smirks when the young men took turns in pretending to +court her, while an admiring crowd gazed at their amours through the +window. + +I can recall but two of the greatest of the poems of this man who +delighted in the full belief that Shakespeare could not "hold a candle +to him." These I take pleasure in handing down through the ages. + +No. 1. + + "A youth of parts, a witty blade + To college went and progress made + Sounding round his logick; + The prince of hell wide spread his net, + And caught him by one lucky hit + And dragged him down to tophet." + +No. 2. + + "In the year 1801 + I, Enoch B----, was born + Without any shirt on." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CAREER OF A DOMINIE-PEDAGOGUE. + + +Dear old fathers and mothers! Of all the people in this world, they +look through the rubbish of our imperfections, and see in us the +divine ideal of our natures, love in us not perhaps the men we are, +but the angels we may be in the evolution of the "sweet by and by," +like the mother of St. Augustine, who, even while he was wild and +reckless, beheld him standing clothed in white a ministering priest at +the right hand of God. + +They see through us as Michel Angelo saw through the block of marble, +declaring that an angel was imprisoned within it. They are soul +artists. They can never acknowledge our faults, only our divine +possibilities; so, when I left the academy, my parents, with strong +yearning and with tears, entreated me to become a minister. I had +not the heart to disappoint them and as one hypnotized, on a Sabbath +morning during that summer, the clergyman immersed me in the river, +while a wondering crowd watched from the shore. The very waters seemed +to protest, for as I gasped for breath at the cold backward plunge, +I imbibed copious draughts of the briny deep, and was well-nigh +strangled. I survived the ordeal, and that afternoon preached in the +church to nearly the entire population of the town on the "Final state +of the impenitent dead." + +Oh, the terrors of this my first sermon, horrors to preacher as well +as to "preachees." As I sat in the pulpit beside our pastor, listening +to the tremulous tones of the organ which followed the prayer, and +gazing at the sea of upturned faces, they seemed taunting me with all +the wild pranks of my boyhood, and crying "Oh fool and hypocrite." + +All my schoolmates were there shaking with ill-concealed merriment. +Every pore poured forth perspiration, and my hair seemed to stand on +end like quills upon the back of the fretful porcupine. I thought of +the experience of the first sermon by a theological student which I +had recently read in a comic paper, and I trembled lest history was to +repeat itself. + +This theologue, like many of his cloth, was possessed of the insane +impression that he was gifted with the sublime inspiration of +eloquence, and being invited to preach on his return to the old home +for vacation, he selected the somewhat startling text "and the dumb +ass opened his mouth and spake." On this elevating theme he wrote a +sensational sermon and committed it to memory in order that he might +electrify his audience with eye power as well as by verbal flow of +soul. The awful day arrived, but when the young apostle arose to +preach, stage fright banished from his mind all but the thrilling +text. + +"My friends," said he, "we are informed by the holy book that this +dumb ass opened his mouth and spake." Then pulling his hair in +desperation, he repeated the text several times, when he was +interrupted by the disgusted pastor, who jumped to his feet and +shouted: + +"Well, friends, as the dumb ass has nothing to say, let us pray." + +This awful example well nigh converted me into another specimen of +this historic animal, but at last the pent up cave of the winds was +opened, and a gust of sound came forth which so stunned the listening +ears of my hearers that they dazedly mistook it for eloquence. + +I painted to them the picture of the incorrigible sinner "on flames of +burning brimstone tossed, forever, oh forever lost." I did not intend +to be a hypocrite; but drifted with the revival tide. + +I discoursed often that summer to audiences that crowded the church +to the doors. I was but fifteen years of age, and was called: "The +wonderful boy preacher." + +One Sunday the village crank came to hear me, honoring the occasion +by wearing a new stove-pipe hat of prodigious proportions, which he +deposited on the seat as he arose during prayer. When the amen was +pronounced, perhaps paralyzed by the fervor, he sat down upon said +stove-pipe, crushing it to a pie, then leaped from the wreck uttering +a blasphemous yell which convulsed the crowd with laughter, and thus +broke up the meeting without the benediction and passing of the +contribution-box, much to the delight of all who "steal their +preaching" on all possible occasions. + +I soon found that however anxious people were to save their souls, +they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through +tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being +impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the +"prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, +N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could +secure by going from house to house of my pupils. + +On arriving there I was ushered into the imposing presence of the +Free-will Baptist minister for examination; then I was made aware that +although I had plenty of Greek and Latin, I was woefully uninstructed +in the rudiments of our mother tongue, and was saved only by the fact +that my cousin was the largest contributor to the dominie's salary. + +The reverend superintendent had prepared an appalling array of +"posers" in accordance with the laws of the state, but my cousin at +my urgent request, assured him that I was an alumnus of one of the +greatest institutions in the world, that I was a clergyman of his own +denomination, that it was a waste of time to examine so distinguished +a scholar, that dinner was ready, and the hungry dominie was seduced +to the table where he partook of so much solid and liquid good cheer, +that he quite forgot his official duty, and gave me the required +certificate: thus I was saved from utter destruction. + +In this isolated country town the coming of the schoolmaster in his +tour of boarding around, was the great social event of the year to +each family in this Barrington, so called from the numerous children +which the mothers bear. The fatted pig was invariably killed in his +honor, and he was regaled with fried pork, roast pig, broiled hog, +sausages, and doughnuts reeking with swine fat _ad nauseam_, galore. +The teacher was thus made bilious, dyspeptic and so ugly, that he +tried to get even with his carnivorous tormentors by making it "as +hot" as possible for their offspring. + +At the opening of the school, this long and lank fifteen year old +pedagogue faced sixty pupils from the "a, b, c, tot" to the brawny +twenty-one-year-older, spoiling for a fight. When I assayed to take a +seat, the half-sawed-off hind legs of the chair gave way, and I fell +heels in air upon the dirty floor amid the yells and cat-calls of this +tumultuous army; then the stalwart ringleader came forward to throw me +into the snow bank, where my predecessor was nearly smothered with his +head under the snow and his feet uplifted to heaven. + +I quickly pulled a concealed ruler, and with a blow on the head, +knocked the young giant sprawling, then utilizing all my athletic +training, I tripped and banged his followers till they fled pell-mell +to their benches. Finally, I hypnotized my audience with great +eloquence, stating that I would give them teaching or clubbing as they +might prefer. My sweet sixteen, black-eyed girl cousin gave efficient +aid, winning the girls to my side; they secured the alliance of their +sweethearts, and the victory was complete. + +I soon found that some of the bright country lads and lasses knew +more than myself about the "three R's," but by getting a key to the +arithmetic, and trimming the midnight candle I managed to keep ahead +of the game. + +In this strictly agricultural town, I found every type of the genuine +unadulterated yankee stock. When I called on Mrs. Jones to furnish her +share of the perambulating schoolmaster's provisions, she remarked, "I +can eat you, but I can't sleep you, because I have no spare bedroom." +With feigned terror, I said that I feared I would not be a very +toothsome subject for a cannibal, thereupon she gave me the glad +hand, "come right in, my poor thing, and we will fat you up for our +Thanksgiving dinner." I entered, and ate my hog and doughnuts with +gladness of heart, for she was the most buxom, joyous, and hospitable +Betsy imaginable. + +It was she who cheered the house and the hearth more than all the +Christmas fires, an old-fashioned, thoroughly good woman, entirely +happy without the aid of diamonds, finery, or long-tailed gowns +to trail through the mud and sweep the streets. It was extremely +refreshing to see this really sensible, natural human being, as rare +in this age as an oasis in the desert. + +Her husband came in smiling, a veritable brother Jonathan, hale and +hearty, though tired, for he had arisen from bed at three o'clock +that morning, milked a dozen cows, done chores enough to kill a dozen +dapper city clerks, and then tramped beside his oxen through the deep +snow, taking a load of wood to sell in Dover nearly twenty miles away. + +This load he had labored hard for two days to cut on the mountainside, +and it brought him the munificent sum of three dollars, yet he was +happier than any multi-millionaire I ever saw. There were stumps he +had dug out, and rocks he had picked on his farm, enough to fence his +hundred acres almost sky-high; but even then he said he had to shoot +his corn and potatoes out of a gun to get them through the stones into +the ground. + +This family was the life of every husking-bee, where each red ear of +corn led to rollicking fun, resounding smacks on rosy cheeks, and of +paring-bees when even numbered apple-seeds were the match-makers for +bachelors and maids. They often took prizes in my spelling-matches, +when the bashful swains were allowed to clasp hands with their +sweethearts, which led to many lifelong hand and heart clasps in this +good old-fashioned town where there were no despairing old maids nor +lone, lorn, grouty unmated men. + +They went every Sunday to whittle sticks, swap jack-knives and +horses, and to listen to the white-haired parson who led them by the +resistless rhetoric of a blameless life, as well as by his heartfelt +prayers and exhortations in those "ways which are ways of pleasantness +and those paths which are paths of peace." + +"One hot summer's day," the farmer told me, "the elder was preaching +to a very drowsy crowd after a hard week's work in the hayfield, when +suddenly he stopped and shouted: 'Fire! Fire!' at the top of his +lungs. 'Where? where?' cried some ex-snorers jumping to their feet. +'In hell,' cried the indignant parson, 'for those who sleep under the +sound of the gospel.'" + +This model minister was dear to every heart, for it was he who had +blessed them when they first saw the light of day, had baptized them +when first his kindly teachings had awakened their aspirations to walk +in the straight and narrow way. It was he who married them when they +found each the _alter ego_, to whom they could say: + + "Thou art all to me love for which my heart did pine + A green isle in the sea love, a fountain and a shrine." + +It was he who had lifted their souls on the breath of prayer, when +their loved ones had "fallen asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, from +which none ever wake to weep." + +They loved him though they gave him from their scanty earnings but +$400 a year, and half the fish he could catch, yet they liberally +supplied his larder with their sweetest butter, freshest eggs, and the +choicest cuts from their flocks. When a city minister once said to +him: "You have a poor salary, brother," he at once replied: "Ah, but I +give them mighty poor preaching, you know." + +Grand old man, he followed closely in the footsteps of his Master, and +accomplished much more good than many famous ones who wander far from +the precepts of the lowly Nazarene, and deliver featureless sermons +to unresponsive, gaily-attired Dives under the arches of great +cathedrals. + +But the trail of the serpent is everywhere found, even in this +sequestered spot. There was, in the outskirts of the town, the +inevitable rumshop, fed, it was said, by an illicit still in the +woods, and there as usual Satan held high carnival among families +dead in trespasses and sins. There we assayed to hold temperance +prayer-meetings, but they loved darkness rather than light, and we +cast our pearls before swine, who turned and rent us. + +On one occasion we tried to hold services in the little old deserted +schoolhouse, and found it, much to our surprise, packed with the +inhabitants of Sodom; a more villainous looking crowd I never saw not +even in darkest New York. Beetle-browed, mop-haired men, whose faces, +if tapped, would apparently give forth as much fire-water as a rum +barrel. + +For a short time they listened to the singing: but when the aged +minister attempted with earnest words to inspire to a better life it +seemed as if all the fiends from heaven that fell, had pealed the +banner cry of hell. Then a decayed cabbage struck him full in the +face, ancient and unfragrant turnips and potatoes filled the air, our +little band crowded around to shield him, but unmercifully assailed, +we were obliged to wield the chairs vigorously over their heads to +fight our way to the door. + +One of our number left to guard the sleigh, luckily had it ready, in +we jumped and drove for our lives, pursued by invectives too horrible +to mention. + +This attack was inspired by the keeper of the den of iniquity as he +feared he would be deprived of his evil gains, and that night he +rewarded them with unlimited free drinks until they drowned their +consciences in a prolonged debauch. + +One of my patrons became my implacable enemy because I gave his +chip-of-the-old-block son some much merited discipline. This man, +Sampson by name, was the most malignant fellow I ever saw. One night +when with my pupils I was enjoying a skating party, he appeared with +some "sodomites" threatening to chuck me under the ice, and they might +have succeeded but for two of my friends who, when the enemy were +close upon my heels, suddenly stretched a rope across their path which +tripped them up, nearly breaking their heads in the concussion with +the ice. + +On another occasion, several of us crawled into a long hole to explore +a cave in the woods. While laboriously making our way on all fours, +carrying torches, we were suddenly horrified by fiendish hisses. +Visions of snakes danced before our minds, the girls shrieked, the +torches fell in our frantic scramble and we were left in Stygian +darkness. A mocking, demoniacal laugh was heard, winged creatures +dashed against our faces scratching and lacerating. + +After much confusion and terror, we succeeded in relighting our +torches, and found ourselves in a wizard-like cave. The bats, for such +were our assailants, fled away like lost spirits, grotesque shapes +were seen formed from the rocks by dripping waters during long ages, +fantastic icicles like the stalactites and stalagmites of the famous +Mammoth Cave hung suspended from the arching roof, but a resistless +longing to reach the air of heaven urged us on, and we crawled to +the opening through which we entered. I was in the advance, and on +reaching the entrance was horrified to find it nearly closed by a +large rock, and behind it appeared the malignant face of Sampson, who +danced in Satanic glee, laughing and shouting. + +"I've got you rats in a hole, and there you'll stay till you die!" he +shouted. + +We knew our enemy too well to expect any mercy, and painfully made our +way backwards to the main cavern. None had ever explored it further. +I at last saw a glimmer of light, and drawing nearer I discovered an +opening to the upper world through which, with great exertions, we +dragged ourselves back to the sweet air of heaven. The delight of the +reaction was exquisite like that of escaping from paradise lost to +paradise regained. + +When the ferocious Sampson heard of our deliverance, he fled, and was +never heard of again, yet this demon in human form had a twin brother +who was one of the best men in the town. + + "From the same cradle's side, from the same mother's knee, + One to long darkness and the frozen tide, and one to the peaceful sea." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DREAMS OF MY YOUTH. + + +In the early spring came the close of school term, and teacher, pupils +and parents parted with mutual regrets. My pecuniary reward was small; +but I shall always remember with pleasure the kind assurances received +that I left the intellectual status of that town much higher than I +found it. I have visited the place only once since, but my old friends +had all passed on to the higher life, and my young ones were scattered +to the four winds of heaven in search of that happiness and wealth +which is seldom found beneath the stars. + +I reached the old home under the hill, delighted to see once more the +eyes which looked love to eyes that spoke again, to hear the familiar +spring chorus from the river, the first robins and bluebirds rejoicing +over the resurrection of nature, to explore each sheltered nook for +the early cowslips, violets, pussy-willows, dandelions, and crocuses; +to gossip with my old friends the chipmunks, the muskrats, and the +woodchucks; to revisit each mossy hollow and sequestered retreat in my +much loved pine woods; to whittle again the willow whistles, to caress +the opening buds and tiny green growing blades of grass; to float once +more in my little boat under the embracing arms of my chums, the oaks, +birches, and hemlocks I loved so well; to watch the first flight of +Psyche, the butterfly, so emblematic of the soaring of the immortal +soul from the body dead. The wood duck seemed to smile upon me as of +old as she sailed gracefully into the little coves in my river, +the woodpeckers beat their drums in my honor, and the heron, the +"Shu-Shugah"--screamed welcome oh, my lover. + +The rapture of the returning life to nature thrilled my inmost being. +Blue waves are tossing, white wings are crossing, the earth springs +forth in the beauty of green, and the soul of the beautiful chanted to +all, the sweet refrain: + + Come to me, come to me, oh my God, oh, come to me everywhere, + Let the earth mean Thee, and the mountain sod, the ocean and the air, + For Thou art so far that I sometimes fear, + As on every side I stare + Searching within, and looking without, if Thou art anywhere. + +My mother brought out all her choicest treasures for her "long lost +baby"; my father and brothers "killed the fatted calf" for the +"prodigal returned," the wide old fireplace sent forth its cheering +warmth, the neighbors gathered round to swap stories, and the +apples, walnuts and home-brewed juice of the fruit contributed their +inspiration to the hearty good cheer. + +Within and without the genial spirit of springtime cheered the heart +of man and the heart of nature, and all things animate and inanimate +sang the words of the poet. + + "Doves on the sunny eaves are cooing, + The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree; + Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing, + And the crocus darts up the spring to see. + Spring has come with a smile of blessing, + Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath, + Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing, + And wakes from the winter's dream of death." + +That summer my services were frequently utilized as substitute +preacher by our good pastor, who was much afflicted with what Mrs. +Partington calls "brown creeturs." He had harped on one string of his +vocal apparatus so long that like Jeshuran of old "it waxed fat and +kicked." Exceedingly monotonous and soporific was his voice, and it +was necessary to strain every nerve to tell whether he was preaching, +praying or reading, the words were much the same in each case. + +The long cramming of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and all things dead had +driven out all the vim and enthusiasm of his youth; the dry-as-dust +drill of the theological institution had filled his mind with +arguments for the destruction of all other denominations to the entire +exclusion of all common sense. He forcibly reminded me of the Scotch +dominie who stopped at the stove to shake off the water one rainy +morning, and to rebuke the sexton for not having a fire. "Niver mind, +yer Riverince," replied the indignant serving man, "ye'll be dry +enough soon as ye begin praiching." + +One hot Sunday when our clergyman was droning away as usual, a +well-to-do fat brother, who once said he had such entire confidence in +our clergyman's orthodoxy that he didn't feel obliged to keep awake +to watch him, commenced to snore like a fog horn, nearly drowning the +speaker's voice. The reverend stopped, and thinking innocently, that +some animal was making the disturbance, said: "Will the sexton please +put that dog out." This aroused fatty, who left the church in a rage, +and his subscription was lost forever. + +Our pious pastor was a fair sample of the "wooden men" turned out by +the educational mills of the day; to an assembly of whom Edwin Booth +is reported to have said: "The difference between the theatre and the +church is this, you preach the gospel as if it were fiction, while +we speak fiction as if it were the gospel truth. When you give less +attention to dry theological disquisitions and much more to the graces +of elocution, you may expect to do some good in the world." + +His pastoral calls were appalling; arm extended like a pump handle to +shake hands, one up and down motion, a "how do you do?"--"fine day," +then a solemn pause, generally followed by his one story; "The day my +wife and I were married it rained, but it cleared off pleasant soon +after, and it has been pleasant ever since," then suspended animation, +finally, "let us pray," and when the same old prayer with few +variations was ended, once more the pump-handle operation and he +departed, wearing the same hopeless face. He was not a two-faced man, +for had he another face, he would surely have worn it. + +This sad-eyed man was much tormented by a brother minister in the +pews, who seemed to have a strong desire to secure our pastor's poor +little salary for his own private use and behoof. His plan evidently +was to throw the stigma of heresy upon the incumbent, and to this end, +when our preacher was one day laboring hard to show us exactly where +foreordination ends and free moral agency begins, the ex-minister +arose, excitedly declaring such talk to be rank Arminianism, and +denounced it as misleading sinners to the belief that they could be +saved even if they were not so predestinated in the eternal mind of an +all-wise, all-loving Jehovah, who had foredoomed some to heaven and +others to hell. The regular speaker was dumbfounded. An argumentative +duett followed, much to the scandal of the saints and the +hilariousness of the sinners, until the pitying organist struck up +with great force: "From whence doth this union arise?" when the +disgruntled disturber left the church vowing he would never pay +another cent for such heretical sermons. + +Later, a heated discussion arose among the church members as to +whether fermented wine should be used at the Sacrament of the Lord's +Supper, and when a vote was taken in favor of the unfermented, the +senior deacon withdrew in disgust and joined the "Pedo Baptist" church +where he could have alcohol in his. + +All this of course made the judicious grieve, and the cause of +religion to languish. This was the time, famous in church history, +when a great reaction set in against Cotton Mather theology, who +proclaimed that the pleasure of the elect would be greatly enhanced +by looking down from the sublime heights of heaven upon the non-elect +writhing in hell. + +Unitarianism grew apace, and Henry Ward Beecher immortalized himself +by saying: "Many preachers act like the foolish angler who goes to the +trout brook with a big pole, ugly line and naked hook, thrashes the +waters into a foam, shouting, bite or be damned, bite or be damned! +Result; they are not what their great Master commanded them to +be--successful fishers of men." + +Our pastor was a good man despite his peculiarities, and led a +blameless though colorless life; but his "hard shell" theology, his +long years of monkish seclusion in the training schools, engendering +gloomy views as to the final misery of the majority of human beings, +his poverty and lack of adaptation, banished all cheerfulness from his +demeanor, and when I recall his sad, solemn face, made so largely by +his views in regard to the horrors awaiting the most of us in the next +world, I find myself repeating the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe in +the "Minister's Wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted +by the old theology; "Oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? Brides +should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of +despair, and only one in a thousand escapes." + +When I semi-occasionally peruse one of the sermons I preached in those +days of my youth, I am strongly inclined to crawl into a den and pull +the hole in after me. I can fully believe the orator who said that a +stupid speech once saved his life. + +"I went back home," he said, "last year to spend Thanksgiving with the +old folks. While waiting for the turkey to cook, I went into the woods +gunning--it would amuse me, and wouldn't hurt the game, for I couldn't +hit the broadside of a barn at ten paces. While promenading, it +commenced to rain, and not wishing to wet my best Sunday-go-to-meetings, +I crawled into a hollow log for shelter; at last the clouds rolled by +and I attempted to pull out, but to my horror, the log had contracted so +that I was stuck fast in the hole, and I gave myself up for lost. I +remembered all the sins of my youth, and conscience assured me that I +richly deserved my fate; finally, I thought of a certain unspeakably +asinine speech which I once inflicted upon a suffering audience, and I +felt so small that I rattled round in that old log like a white bean in +a washtub, and slipped like an eel out of the little pipe-stem end of +that old tree. I was saved; but the audience had been ruined for life." + +Thus often in this cruel world do the innocent suffer, while the +guilty go unscathed to torture a confiding public with what the great +apostle calls the "foolishness of preaching." + +This summer brought our family few smiles but many tears, and the +death-angel passed close to our doors. My eldest brother, while +at work in the hayfield, was smitten by the sun, causing a mental +aberration which made him a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and +finally led him to cut the thread of life with his own hand; my second +brother was pulled by his coat entangled in a wheel, beneath a heavy +load which crushed his thigh. This left the rest of us to struggle as +best we could with multitudinous weeds striving to choke the crops, +and the many trials incidental to wresting sustenance from the +reluctant bosom of mother earth. + +My brother Mark, about this time took upon himself the joys and +sorrows of a family and home of his own, while I assumed the care of a +family of forty school children in the neighboring town of I----. + +I was but "unsweetened sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought +me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot +correctly." The usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the +war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary pranks were +resorted to by young America to settle the oft mooted question as to +who is master; the inevitable interference of parents followed, who as +usual, regarded their children as cherubs whose wings they seemed to +think would soon appear were it not for the tyrannical spanks of the +unworthy teacher. + +I survived the fiery ordeal after a fashion, and that winter entered a +college in the state of Maine. The same old unrest came to me there, +wearied with the dry-as-dust lectures by the faculty of superannuated +ministers, but I graduated after a two weeks' course, and vainly +endeavored for three weeks to catch the divine afflatus at the +Theological Institution, which was supposed to be necessary to enable +me to rescue the perishing as a preacher of the gospel. Then at +the suggestion of the president, who quickly discovered my mental +deficiencies, I was matriculated as a student at another university +founded by the brethren of the same "Hard-shell Persuasion." I was but +a dreamer, in the middle of my teens, dazed by conflicting opinions, +but anxious to walk "_quo dews vocat_." + + "Here I stood with reluctant feet, + Where the brook and the river meet, + Manhood and childhood sweet. + + "I saw shadows sailing by, + As the dove, with startled eye, + Sees the falcon downward fly. + + "To me, a child of many prayers, + Life had quicksands, and many snares, + Foes, and tempters came unawares. + + "Oh, let me bear through wrong and ruth, + In my heart the dew of youth, + On my lips the smile of truth." + +With this prayer of the poet upon our lips, many of us entered these +"classic halls," hoping to find there in communion with the good and +great of the past and the present, that mental and spiritual "manna" +from heaven which would inspire us to lead ourselves and others to the +sublime heights of heroic endeavor. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A DISENCHANTED COLLEGIAN-PREACHER. + + +Previous to my arrival at this ancient seat of learning, founded and +endowed for the perpetuation and propagation of the doctrines of our +denomination, I had never entertained the faintest shadow of doubt as +to the infallibility of our creed; but now all faith in it vanished +like the baseless fabric of a dream. Here at the fountain head of +wisdom, from which streams were supposed to flow for the healing of +the nations, my faith in the beliefs of my ancestors fled, nevermore +to return; here, where lived the great high priests of the sect, I had +expected to find the whole air roseate with divine love and grace, all +souls lifted to sublime heights on the breath of unceasing prayer and +praise. + +The disenchantment was appalling; my brothers in Christ, the grave and +reverend professors, were cold as icebergs, evidently caring nothing +for the souls or bodies of their Christian or pagan students; the +preacher at the college church was an ecclesiastical icicle, who, +in his manner at least, continually cried: "_Procul, procul_, oh, +_Profani_!" + +The prayer meetings were dead and formal, no enthusiasm; it was like +being in a spiritual refrigerator--with perhaps one exception, when, +through the cracks in the floor from the room of a frugal freshman who +boarded himself, came the overwhelming stench of cooking onions, and a +wag brother who was quoting scripture to the Lord in prayer, suddenly +opened his eyes, and sniffing the unctuous odors, shouted: "Brethren, +let us now sing 'From whence doth this onion (union) arise?'" and +roars of laughter would put an end to the solemn farce. + +Within the dismal college dormitories were herded a few hundred +youths, entirely free from all moral and social restraints, abandoned +to all orgies into which many characters in the formative state are +most likely to drift. I frequently saw a professing Christian teacher +torture with biting sarcasm his brother church-member, who had done +his best, though he failed to grasp some intricate mathematical +problem, until the poor fellow abandoned the college in despair. + +Is it strange that I and many others lost all faith in a religion that +brought forth such bitter fruit? When I strayed from the lifeless +dulness of the college church into the light and warmth of the +"liberal sanctuary," where the old man eloquently discoursed of +the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime +development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the +archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his +hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy +clothes when I delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is +it strange that I embrace his Darwinian theory instead of the +mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden +of Eden? + +I usually preached on Sundays, during my four years' course, in +the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total +depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my +thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted +from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would +walk in the footsteps of the only perfect One ever seen on earth. + +By trimming the midnight lamp and ruining my eyes, I won a scholarship +which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that I was released from +the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. The +usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from +upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who insisted upon wearing +stove-pipe hats and the forbidden canes; we tore each others' clothes +to the verge of nakedness, and broke each others' heads in frantic +football rushes; we indulged in ghost-like sheet and pillow-case +parades, during which we fought the police and made night hideous with +yells and scrimmages with the "townies"; we burned unsightly shanties, +and thus improved the appearance of the city. + +We tripped up unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the +icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the +long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with +dull thuds against the barber shop on South Main Street; we of course +stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or +recitations; we howled for hours under their respective windows: + + "Here's to old Harkness, for he is an imp of darkness! + Here's to old Cax., for his nose is made of wax! + Here's to old Prex--for he likes his double x!" + +until some of us were thrust by the police into the nauseating dens of +the stationhouse. + +Thus, like pendulums, we swung twixt studies and pranks till the boom +of the rebel cannon bombarding Fort Sumpter thundered upon our ears. +Suddenly our books were forgotten: the university cadets unanimously +tendered their services to the government; were at once accepted, +and it was the proudest day of my life when, as an officer in our +battalion, I marched with the rest to the drill camp on the historic +training ground. + +The citizens turned out en masse to do us honor, and frantically +cheered us on our way to do or die; every house was gay with old +glory; our best girls, inspired with patriotic fervor, applauded while +they bedewed the streets with their tears; the air resounded with +martial music and the boom of saluting cannon; the young war governor, +who went up like a rocket and down like a stick, led the way on +a prancing charger; the people vied with each other in tendering +hospitalities, and every corner afforded its liquid refreshments. We +thought it lemonade, but it "had a stick in it" and, presto!--we were +no longer seedy theologues, but young heroes all, resplendent with +brilliant uniforms and flashing bayonets, marching to defend our great +and glorious republic. + +We, unsuspecting, imbibed freely the seductive fluids, and soon our +heads were in a whirl. We wildly sang the war songs and gave the +college yells. It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. +That night, Jupiter Pluvius burst upon our frail tents in all his +fury, and I awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a +raging fever. I was taken to the hospital, and as I was a minor my +father took me from the service. + +For weeks I was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished, +alas,--like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart. +Before I regained the little strength I ever had, the war was over, +but I had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of +pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. The few remaining students +plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on +the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us. + +In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to +pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in +Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final +examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until, +as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little +of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong +sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private +examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him +about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned +for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in +copying the "_Pons Asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden +in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said: +"That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to +his walnuts and his wine. + +The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing +engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he +asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers +were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won. + +We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our +"mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_" +conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired +here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from +this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away +forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that +in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned +furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full +assurance that + + There lies in the centre of each man's heart + A longing and love for the good and pure, + And if but an atom, or larger part, + I know that this shall forever endure. + After the body has gone to decay-- + Yes, after the world has passed away. + + The longer I live and the more I see + Of the struggles of souls towards heights above, + The stronger this truth comes home to me, + That the universe rests on the shoulders of love-- + A love so limitless, deep and broad + That men have renamed it, and called it God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +IN SHADOW LAND. + + +I had cherished the delusive hope that my university diploma would be +the open sesame to any exalted position to which I might aspire; but +I found there was a multitude of competitors for every professional +emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to +secure any prize. My change in religious sentiments debarred me from +the pulpit, and I had no friends influential enough to give me a +profitable position as a teacher in New England. + +After making many applications, and enduring many hopes deferred which +make the heart sick, I struck out for New York one dark, rainy night, +with only $10 in my pocket to seek my fortune in that so-called +"Modern Sodom and Gomorrah." I knew no one in that great city, and on +my arrival before daylight in a dismal drenching storm, I entered the +nearest hotel to obtain some much needed sleep. + +A villainous looking servitor showed me to a cold barn-like room where +I found no way of locking the door, so I barricaded the entrance with +the bureau, placing the chair on top as a burglar alarm. The scant +bedclothes were so short that one extremity or the other must freeze, +so I compromised by protecting the "midway plaisance," and in my +cramped quarters, thought with envy of Dr. Root of Byfield, who was +said to stretch his long legs out the window to secure plenty of room +for himself, and a roost on his pedal extremities for his favorite +turkeys. + +I was on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus in the land of +Nod, when a stealthy attempt to open the door sent the chair with a +crash to the floor. Yelling at the top of my voice, "Get out of that, +or I'll put a bullet through you!" I heard a form tumble down the +steep stairs, and muffled curses which reminded me of the lines in the +Hohenlinden poem: "It is Iser (I sir) rolling rapidly." + +At the first dawn of a dismal day I crept down the dirty stairs, and +out of the door of what I learned to be one of the most dangerous +houses in that sin-cursed city. + +The days immediately following while seeking for employment were +forlorn and miserable; I was the fifth wheel of a coach which no one +wanted. Finally, when I had spent my last cent for a beggarly meal, I +saw an advertisement for a teacher in the reform school, and called on +a Mr. Atterbury, the trustee. He regarded me with a pitying eye; told +me two teachers had recently been driven from the prison by the kicks +and cuffs of the toughest boys that ever went unhung; but if I wished +to try it, he would pass me to that "den of thieves." I grasped at +the chance like a drowning man at a straw, and that very night found +myself facing nearly 1,000 hard looking specimens from the slums of +all nations. The schoolroom was a huge hall, in which, at a tap of the +bell, great doors were rolled on iron tracks to subdivide it into many +small class sections, each in charge of a lady assistant. The organ +pealed out the notes for the opening song which was given fairly well; +but when I attempted to read the Master's beginning of the responsive +ritual, a stalwart young giant hurled a book at my head, and bedlam +broke loose. I jumped from the platform, seized the ringleader by the +hair and collar, and with a strength hitherto undreamed of by me, +dragged him before he could collect his thoughts to a closet door, +hurled him headlong and turned the key. The boys said afterwards that +fire flashed from my eyes, and they thought the devil had come. + +I grasped a heavy stick, used for raising the windows, and told them +in stentorian tones of a desperate man, that I would break the heads +of all who were not instantly in their seats. The schoolma'ams +quivered with fear, but the boys slunk to their places and I harangued +them to the effect, that they could have peace or war; if peace, they +would be treated kindly and be taught to become successful men; if +war, they alone would suffer, for I had come there to stay. + +I tried to inspire these poor vicious boys, conceived in sin and born +in iniquity, with the thought that knowledge is power; that many +of the greatest and best of earth had risen from their ranks by +persistent endeavor into the light and liberty of the children of God; +that they could become happy and successful by being and doing good; +that if they would set their faces resolutely towards the better life, +I would gladly help to the utmost of my ability. + +One by one their eyes kindled with the light that is never seen on +sea or shore. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. They had +never been appealed to in that way before, and the spark of goodness +lying dormant in even the most depraved natures, responded to the +breath of kindly words. + +I touched the bell, the great subdividing doors were rolled, and my +assistants quietly proceeded to the work of instruction, confident +that the war was over. + +When I had marched my regiment to their cells that night, and retired +to my room, I reflected that every human existence has its moments of +fate, when the apples of the Hesperides hang ready upon the bough, +but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. The decision of +an hour may open to us the gates of the enchanted garden where are +flowers and sunshine, or it may condemn us, Tantalus-like, to reach +evermore after some far-off and unattainable good. I dreamed that the +clock of fate had struck the hour for me, that I had found my mission +on earth, and that henceforth the "Peace be still" of the Master would +calm life's troubled sea. + +In reconnoitring the island the next day, I found much to admire. +The great domes of the massive buildings towered aloft above the +encircling walls, like aerial sentinels warning us to lift our +thoughts to the blessings that come from on high. The great ships went +sailing by to lands beyond the sea; in front was a veritable bower of +paradise, apple and peach-trees fruited deep, green lawns, rippling +waters, fair as the garden of the Lord. Every prospect pleases and +naught but man is vile. + +The signal was given from the Harlem shore for the institution's boat. +I jumped on board, and the strong arms of the uniformed boys of our +boat's crew propelled us across the river, where two policemen stood +on the pier guarding a girl about eighteen years of age. Quick as a +flash she pushed one of them into the water, his head stuck in the +mud, his legs kicking in the air; then she shrieked with laughter and +ran like a deer up the street. The other policeman and myself +jumped into an express wagon, seized the reins from the astonished, +protesting black driver, plied the whip to his horse and gave chase. + +"What for you dune dar?" cried the darky. + +"Shut up!" was the only reply, and away we went, Gilpin-like, with the +horse on the run. We headed off the girl, and after a rough-and-tumble +scrimmage threw her into the wagon, kicking, screaming, and scratching +like a wild-cat. We took her by main force to the girls' wing of the +prison and put her into a cell. + +Scarcely was I seated at the table when the alarm-bell rang, and, +being officer of the day I ran over to inquire the cause, and found +the powerful young virago, our prisoner, enjoying herself hugely. When +the matron had been handing her some food through a hole in the cell, +the girl shot out her arm, grabbed her by the hair and with the other +hand was now pulling out the hairs by the roots, sometimes a few at +a time, sometimes by the handful, then she would bang the official's +nose against the wall, then knockout blows on the face. The matron was +in awful agony and faint from loss of blood. Entreaty availed nothing, +so I seized a dipper of hot water and dashed it on the girl's naked +arm; the matron fell heels over head on one side, and the prisoner +executed a somersault in the opposite direction, then jumped to her +feet, shook her fist at me and swore like a pirate. + +This young Amazon had been arrested in a vile den kept on a house-boat +in the harbor, and long made life a burden for our women officials. + +A careful study of the five hundred girls in this reform school as +compared with the one thousand boys, proved clearly that women, there +as elsewhere, are either the best or the worst of the human race. When +a girl cuts loose from the angel she was intended to be, she usually +descends to the lowest possible pit of degradation; as soon as this +girl in question found there was nothing to be gained by her fiendish +outbursts of fury, she cunningly changed her tactics with her pious +teacher, and pretended to "be born again." She ostensibly chose the +Bible for her favorite reading, prayed fervently, and became so +circumspect in her deportment that she was promoted to the position of +assistant cook in the good girls division. + +Here she contrived to bake into a cake a letter which she gave to a +visitor, who took it to one of her former companions in sin, and one +day, while walking with her confiding teacher in the garden, a boat +appeared rowed by four men. Into this the young hypocrite jumped, and +like a "sow that was washed, returned to wallowing in the mire." + +In contrast to her ungrateful depravity, the boy I had chucked into +the closet on my first night here became my firm friend, and the +stroke oar of my private boat crew. + +One day I was taking a boat ride in the harbor with two of my lady +assistants and six stalwart boy oarsmen, when a boat shot out at us +from Blackwell's Island with four villainous men and two degraded +women. Coming alongside, one of the women said to the boys: "Throw +that officer overboard, and come with us; we will get you $400 a piece +as bounty, then you can desert from the army, and have a jolly good +time." My teachers fainted with fear; my crew rested on their oars, +wild with desire to escape; it was a crisis. I looked them steadily in +the eyes. + +"Boys," I said, quietly, "when sinners entice thee, consent thou +not--row." + +"We won't hurt you," said my leader; "you have been good to us; let us +get into that boat." + +"Never," said I. "You shall not go to hell, pull!" The men grabbed at +me, my boys pounded them off with their oars, and one of the men +fired two shots which whistled close to my head, but the boys pulled +vigorously, and we sailed away amid the jeers and curses of our +enemies. + +"Sherman," said I, to my stroke oarsman, as we landed on our island, +"why didn't you throw me overboard?" + +"You have been kind to us," he replied, "and we never go back on our +friends." + +I had the pleasure before I left this school, to secure good positions +for all my crew, and they became useful men. I was soon after this +promoted to the vice-principalship of the institution, and an +ex-minister was appointed my first assistant, a good man, but quite +absent-minded. He recalled to my memory the story of a man who came +home in a pouring rain, put his wet umbrella into bed with his wife, +and stood himself up behind the door where he remained all night. + +One day, when I was off duty, I went sailing with two ladies through +"Little Hell Gate," which rushes with great fury by our island, to the +sea. All at once the alarm bell rang. In my haste to get ashore, I +ran the boat onto a partially submerged rock, and it would have been +capsized, had I not jumped out onto the rock and pushed it off. Down +I went under the rushing tide. When I came to the surface I saw the +white belly of a shark, as he turned to seize me in his jaws. I could +almost feel his sharp teeth. My head struck the side of the boat, just +as the ladies, with great presence of mind, grabbed me by the hair, +and pulled me on board. We landed and I rushed, puffing and dripping +like a porpoise, to the wall gate, unlocked it and entered. + +A frightful scene was before me. Williams, my assistant, was on the +ground, covered with blood, and around him was a crowd of the worst +boys in the prison, pounding, kicking, and trying to snatch his keys +so as to escape by unlocking the gate. Luckily my bat with which I had +played baseball with the boys stood in the corner, and grabbing this +I struck out with all my strength, knocking down the boys right and +left. Just then the guard came up on the run, the wounded man was +carried to the hospital, and his assailants locked up. + +Williams, it appeared, had, in his absent-mindedness, unlocked the +jail instead of the wall gates, and let out upon him this horde of +ruffians who had been put in there for safe-keeping. He finally +recovered, but left the island through fear of his life. + +The discipline of the school was much benefited by forming a school +regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of +the boys themselves. They were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder +straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of Napoleon, and their +ambition was stimulated by merited promotions from the ranks. + +For more than a year I thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting +those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the +influence of kindly words and acts, even as the Aeolian harp yields +its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven. It was an +inspiration to watch the blossoming of purer thoughts and higher +aspirations, and to feel that we were cooperating with the invisible +spirits in developing the hidden angels in this youthful army. + +All at once the shadows fell, the baneful greed of that organized +appetite called "Tammany Hall," reached out its devil-fish tentaculae, +which neither fear God, nor have any mercy on men, to seek our blood. +Evil looking Shylock-faced trustees began to supplant those noble men +who had made this refuge a veritable gate of heaven to so many more +sinned against than sinning,--children of the vile. These avaricious, +beastly emissaries of "Tammany," soon snarled at us poor teachers that +we must divide our small salaries with them or give place to those +that would. Not a school book, or a shin-bone for soup, could be +bought unless these leeches had a commission from it; they brought +enormous baskets and filled them with fruit practically stolen from +our children, and carted them home for their own cubs. + +Our superintendent and chaplain were strong sectarians, but very +weak Christians, and they readily made friends of the "Mammon of +unrighteousness." One hot Sunday, when I was in command at chapel, the +somnolent tones of the chaplain, who, as usual, was pouring forth a +stream of mere words--words almost devoid of thought, lulled a large +number of my fifteen hundred boys and girls into the land of dreams. + +As soon as the services were over and I had surrendered my flock to +the yard master, I was summoned before the superintendent where the +pious chaplain accused me of insulting him by not keeping the children +awake. I quietly asked him how this could be done. "Go among them with +a rattan," said he. I told him I thought the preacher deserved the +rattan much more than the children, that they would listen gladly if +he would give them anything worth hearing. From that moment he was my +malicious foe. + +One day while returning from a row in the harbor, I treated my +boat's crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the +superintendent's whistle sounded, and I was called before the trustees +then in session. + +"Are you aware," said he, savagely, "that the rules direct that all +fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?" + +"Yes," was my reply. + +"Well, then, you were stealing, just now." + +"I was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a +thief." The trustees roared with laughter. The president of the board +then asked if I had seen others stealing the fruit. + +"Yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees." + +"Well," said he, "this is a den of thieves." + +"All except the convicts, sir," I replied. + +These incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose +petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power +for good that I reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative +position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the +romantic county of Berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the +stars. + +Among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many "wharf +rats"--so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like +Topsy, they had simply "growed," and slept under the wharves of the +city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to +assuage the pangs of hunger. They were vicious to a degree, and at +first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an +abundant meal obtained honestly. They would rather fight than eat, and +prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling +the truth. Some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of +surprising acuteness. I once asked one of these why he was sent to the +reform school. + +"Oh," was the reply, "I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after +the water dam the copper scooped me in." + +Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him +the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he +called out: "How do you know that is A?" + +"Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A." + +"Well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller +lied?" + +At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a +speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the +boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes. The orator was +annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced +by saying: "I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his +maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass--" At this point, quick as a +flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "Well, if you +ain't Professor Holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?" + +Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering +pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect +imitation of Holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into +the coon song:-- + + "De bigger dat you see de smoke + De less de fire will be, + And de leastest kind ob possum + Climbs de biggest kind ob tree. + + "De nigger at de camp-groun' + Dat kin loudest sing an' shout, + Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos' + Befo' de week am out." + +Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would +unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and +unprecedented attractiveness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SUNLIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PALACE AND COTTAGE. + + +My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the +Bowery, while those at S---- were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue; +but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally +and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I +was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the +millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as +much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the +poor. + +On my arrival in Berkshire County, I found both of my employers were +off on a spree, and that I was ordered to do the work of receiving and +organizing. One day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and +outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondholder" and his +wife, arrayed in purple, fine linen, and diamonds, pulled a flashily +appareled, humpbacked boy up to me, every lineament of whose face +showed depravity and cunning. "There," said the father, "is my d---- +d son, he drinks, swears, and breaks all the commandments every day. +Take him, and send the bill to me." He handed me his card and away +they went. + +This was not an isolated case. I did my best for them; but they were +satiated with luxury, hated books, and seemed to care for nothing +but debauchery. The very next day several of these scamps obtained +permission to visit the cave in "Bear Mountain," where ice could be +found throughout the year. As they did not return on time, I went +in search and found them all drunk. They had no appreciation of the +sun-kissed mountains, waving forests, or verdure-clad valleys; the +grand scenery awakened no responsive smiles, no ennobling aspirations; +they were intent upon nothing but drowning their ignoble souls in the +noxious fumes of tobacco and alcohol. I tumbled them into the wagon, +drove them to their dormitory and put them to bed, lower than the +beasts they seemed to be in their depravity; not all to be sure, for +there were a few choice spirits like Julian Hawthorn, who followed to +some extent the example of his illustrious father, and has won his +spurs in literature. + +I found to my disgust that bad eggs would ruin the good ones; but that +many good ones could not take the rottenness from even one of the bad. +It seemed a hopeless task to endeavor to inspire such impoverished +souls, and I retired in despair, to accept the principalship of the +ancient academy in the village. + +Here I met the children of the so-called middle class, the very bone +and sinew of the Republic; here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and +untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I +pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. E and duco is the +etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of +the mind. I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to +perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all +were intent upon acquiring thorough, practical education. + +When I saw their enthusiasm lagging from want of physical exercise, at +the tap of the bell, we would all rush out upon the beautiful campus +and kick football, or run races until, with glowing faces and +invigorated energies, they would follow me back to our studies, +sometimes into the cheerful academy hall, sometimes under the shade of +the noble oaks, where we would study botany close to nature's heart +amid the songs of birds and the sublime chanting of the tree-tops. + +We gave musical and dramatic entertainments, securing ample funds to +decorate the walls of our hall with works of art; we went on rides +together in barges, drank in long draughts of inspiration from the +glorious scenery, and studied geology, practically, like, if not equal +to Hugh Miller, among the rocks and boulders. I was doing good, and +here I should have remained; but the old unrest came back to me, and I +unwisely accepted a much larger salary in teaching in my native county +of Essex. + +As soon as I took command of my two hundred boys and girls in B----, +I realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted +educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of +the public school system. + +Many children are so crammed with everything that they really +know nothing. In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of +definitions, written by public school children that very year in +another school of this town. + + "Stability is the taking care of a stable." + + "A mosquito is the child of black and white parents." + + "Monastery is the place for monsters." + + "Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk." + + "Expostulation is to have the smallpox." + + "Cannible is two brothers who killed each other in the + Bible." + + "Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, + the head, the chist and the stummick. The head contains the + eyes and brains, if any; the chist contains the lungs and a + piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of + which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w, and y." + +Every teacher was rated according to his ability to secure from his +pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion. + +I grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of +incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board, +considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious +life of the young. I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and +accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic +Lloyd Ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in +a Kort by the wimmun o' Marrble ed." + +Here I had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in +summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. They had +been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my +school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the +first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard +as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking +down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound +cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was +busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful +instrument. + +These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile, +saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then +stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once +suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the +window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly +objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it +fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained +for, and the uproar pro tem subsided. + +This was the winter famed in the history of Massachusetts, as +producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week I was +snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced +cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils. + +One day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who +had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor, +himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was +drowned. The loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his +followers, and _vi et armis_, I managed to survive the fourteen weeks' +term. At the close of the first session of the last day, I threw a +football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off, +kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to +take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, I was in +the "hub of the universe." I afterwards learned that my discretion +was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the +determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to Davy +Jones' locker. + +I had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until I met in +the city, the veritable Judas Iscariot, ready and anxious to sell +anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper, +or any old thing he could pick up. This Jew pretended to wish to sell +one-half interest in his commercial school for $2,000. I had some +negotiations with him, but found out, by careful investigation, that +he had already sold several confiding teachers, who ascertained too +late to save their money, that this fraud was collector and treasurer +of all funds of the company, that he required his partner to do all +the drudgery, and that his report always claimed that all collections +had been paid out for expenses. + +He reminded me of the legend, that when the devil took Christ to the +top of a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth, and +said: "All these things will I give you to fall down and worship +me." Suddenly, the face of a Shylock appeared, saying: "Shentlemen, +peeshness ish peeshness, and if you can't trade, I will take dat +offer." + +I mention this little incident hoping it may prove a warning to the +unwary who, like myself, may fall among the sharpers of the Modern +Athens. Disgusted with this business experience, and wishing to do +good and get good, I advertised, offering $50 for an acceptable +position as teacher, and I at once received many responses from +thrifty committeemen, and retiring teachers. + +I interviewed a clergyman who wanted the reward in advance; but when +the time came for him to deliver the goods, he had suddenly decamped +in the night to avoid a coat of tar and feathers from indignant +parents whose children's morals had been basely ruined by this wolf +in sheep's clothing. Others extended itching palms for the money, but +failed to secure for me the "_sine qua non_." + +At last, an impecunious teacher in W----, who was retiring to accept +a "louder" call in Boston, introduced me to his Board as a particular +friend whom he had known for many years, (he had never seen me +before), and vouched for me as one of the greatest of living +instructors. + +When the three doctors, constituting the school board, were about to +give me a searching examination, which doubtless would have floored +me, prearranged calls summoned them to see pretended patients, and on +the mercenary pedagogue's assurance that I was a university graduate, +they hastily signed my commission and I was saved. + +I shall always remember my two years' experience in this beautiful +town, with much pleasure and pride. On the opening of the school I +found myself looking upon over one hundred of the finest appearing +boys and girls I had ever beheld, seated in a noble new hall well +equipped with organ and all the apparatus which wealth could procure. + +Soon after the opening exercises, the usual trial of the new master +commenced, and a stifling, choking odor threw all into convulsions +of coughing, almost to strangulation. Some one had thrown a large +quantity of cayenne pepper down the register. I quietly opened the +windows, and when the noxious fumes had passed away, the new principal +said: + +"I feel sure that the pleasant outward appearance of my family here is +an expression of the inward goodness and honor of you all, and I am +confident that the perpetrator of this disagreeable mischief will take +pride in removing suspicion from his companions by rising in his seat +and apologizing for his thoughtless rudeness." + +A fine, manly looking boy at once arose. "Come up here, my friend, and +let us talk it over," I said, and he came and stood by my side. "We +are all brothers and sisters here, and I have no doubt you, Arthur, +will now express your regrets for what you have done." He did so, the +audience applauded, and the incident was closed. + +The new master's manner was such a decided contrast to that of his +"knock down and drag out" predecessor, that it captivated his +protégés at the start, and this was the only unpleasant episode in my +delightful intercourse with these charming children. + +I established a society called the "Class of Honor," which soon +comprised my entire family. Every pupil who had no marks against him +or her for failures in scholarship or deportment, was decorated with +a blue ribbon, and when he had earned and worn this for one month, he +was presented with a handsome diamond shaped pin on which was engraved +the words "class of honor." They were prouder of this decoration than +ever were the imperial guard of Napoleon of the Cross of the Legion. + +If a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve +himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the +point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved +from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was +stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public +libraries. Each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to +the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. The +high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a +successful career. + +We had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave +grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, +the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, +declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all +went merry as a marriage bell. + +My salary was raised voluntarily every six months; I enjoyed their +games with them in our ample playgrounds. We often, on holidays, +roamed the woods and seashore together; I often dined with them in +their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions I was one of the +principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save +one. For some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated +with moisture from the sluggish Abajona, kept my throat in an almost +chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, +I could hardly speak above a whisper. Had it not been for this one +serious handicap, I think I would gladly have remained there for life. + +I kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's +house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for +myself and pupils. + +One incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my +efforts in their behalf. During the first campaign of General Grant +for the presidency, many of my pupils and I joined the W--Battalion of +uniformed and torch bearing "Tanners." We marched to the city as an +escort for speakers at a Republican rally. When the hoodlums smashed +our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished +statesman, retreated; but I lost my head and charged the rioters, +using my torch handle vigorously; I was cut off from my company of +which I was lieutenant, and captured by the Democrats. As soon as my +men realized this, they rushed upon my captors _en masse_; many +heads were broken, but I was rescued and carried to the train on the +shoulders of my heroic defenders. + +If my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, I would never +have left W----, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a +much larger salary from N----, and I foolishly accepted. + +The change from W--to N----, was like that from breezy, sunny green +fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild +flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the +suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and +where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and +unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural +and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they +were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank +account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the +teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their +own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out +the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board. + +In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and +loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury +and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to +bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all +social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your +own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you +attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial +orthodox church. + +I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the +little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and +would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. +Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the +fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth +because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of +one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one +day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful +poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name: + + "Old Aunt Dunk + Is a mean old skunk." + +She flew into a furious rage, declared that some Unitarian must have +perpetrated this insult, and that I must find the culprit. + +She never forgave me because I failed to do so, and at her urgent +solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few +signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed +tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. +As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons +presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was +unanimously refused by the school board. + +It would have been laughable had it not been so serious and pitiful, +to see the frantic attempts of the poor in this town to keep up +appearances, and counterfeit the style of those who had grown rich by +cheating widows and orphans in bucket shops and stock gambling. The +little minnows put on all the snobbish airs of the whales who had +grown so large by devouring all the small fish in their business seas. + +One pillar of the church, who was a cashier, ruined his bank by +stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house +and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time +he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered +his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a +tower upon it to look down in contempt upon all the lesser shrines. + +He barely escaped the sheriff at night-time, and fled beyond the seas, +leaving his showy family to poverty and the ill-concealed derision of +those who worshipped them while they were supposed to be rich. + +Such as these made life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of +my year, I left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in +which I had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. +My life seemed a failure; I reflected long upon the question of the +Psalmist, "What is man?" and here are the answers which I culled from +many thoughtful poets, whose names are appended to their several +replies. + + In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made all;-- + (_Brome_.) + + He who climbs high, endangers many a fall;--(_Chaucer_.) + + A passing gleam called life is o'er us thrown,--(_Story_.) + + It glimmers, like a meteor, and is gone.--(_Rogers_.) + + To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise--(_Congreve_.) + + The flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow dies--(_Shelly_.) + + And what do we, by all our bustle gain?--(_Pomfret_.) + + A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain.--(_Tupper_.) + + Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without;--(_Holmes_.) + + Yet who knows most, the more he knows to doubt.--(_Daniel_.) + + Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.--(_Burns_.) + + And trifles make the sum of human things.--(_More_.) + + If troubles overtake thee, do not wail;--(_Herbert_.) + + Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are + frail.--(_Percival_.) + + The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;--(_Bryant_.) + + Great sorrows have no leisure to complain.--(_Gaffe_.) + + One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--(_Shakespeare_.) + + For we the same are that our sires have been;--(_Knox_.) + + Nor is a true soul ever born for naught,--(_Lowell_.) + + Yet millions never think a noble thought.--(_Bailey_.) + + Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays,--(_Heath_.) + + And God fulfils Himself in many ways.--(_Tennyson_.) + + The world's a wood in which all lose their way--(_Buckingham_.) + + A fair where thousands meet, but none can stay;--(_Fawkes_.) + + To sport their season, and be seen no more,--(_Cowper_.) + + Till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.--(_Pope_.) + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ADVENTURES IN MOSQUITO-LAND. + + +At the close of the school in July, 1870, a friend of mine, Doctor +B----, of Boston, and I, attracted by the alluring prospectus of a +new town near Plymouth, North Carolina, visited that place via the +Merchant's and Miner's steamship line. + +I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied +by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as +the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly +Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable +excursion. + +"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and +professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a +contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. + +"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them, +black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed +with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity +and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed +to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not +venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling +bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes +on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling +limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog +and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would +starve though we were slain. + +"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor. +'The shoo-fly--the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that? +and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking +bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely +covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies +stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies +with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for +all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth +to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' +cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from +our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors. + +"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everything save life, the +professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables +flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant +girls, for the bath-house--here at length plunged beneath the flood he +found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his +friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved +there to starve rather than again to face his foes. + +"After much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame +all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. Here two servant +girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints, +while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the +flies of the season. At length our appetites or rather we ourselves, +were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their +dead and divide the spoils of war. + +"Our host, who is a true gentleman from Pennsylvania, then ordered the +darkies to harness the span. After the inevitable delays which always +attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, +we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves +that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. +Our host had a lame hand, and the professor volunteered to drive; +our friends, the varmints, now confined their kind attentions almost +exclusively to the horses, which they butchered unmercifully. Oh, such +roads! Boys of New England, if you sigh for 'sunny' North Carolina, +go; go by all means, and you will return satisfied that old +Massachusetts, with all its east winds is a paradise compared with +what we saw in the 'old North State,' or in the 'Old Dominion.' + +"But to our journey. The horses floundered through quagmires covered +in some places with logs, which toss and tumble you till every bone +aches, floundered and swam through streams reeking with scum from +the cypress swamps; the roads are about six inches wider than your +carriage, and the professor found himself obliged to avoid the sharp +corners of fences, on either side the deep ditches on whose very edge +ran the wheels; to urge his horses over stumps and fallen trees; to +whip them over long snouts of prostrate pigs who refused to budge an +inch; to jump them over chasms running dark and deep across his path +and to spur them down sharp, perpendicular pitches which threatened to +break every bone in his body. + +"Here and there we saw a few logs piled up together, flanked by mud +and sticks, and dignified by the name of house; the naked piccaninnies +rolled in the dust, and the poor-white scowled as he lifted his hat, +while we worried our miserable way along. + +"Now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the +doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for +enjoyment. After shooting at the wild pigs for a while, finding there +was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they +threw off their clothes, and regardless of moccasins, regardless of +spiders and the whole race of poisonous vermin, they plunged to their +necks into the ditch by the roadside. For long weary hours we wallowed +till the welcome form of our host appeared, and we recommenced the +pitching and stumbling of the dangerous return voyage of this, our +pleasure trip. + +"For miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with +moss and enormous Scuppernong grape-vines, were unbroken by a single +clearing or a single shanty. The Scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a +great luxury; from these are made a wine equal to anything that can be +found (we believe) in the world. One vine is found on Roanoke Island, +which is two miles in length, covers several acres of land, and was +planted by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, centuries ago. For miles +that afternoon, we wandered up and down the country seeking for water +fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking +darkies, making collections of souvenirs, gazing at the good-looking +crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the +aborigines, the flies. + +"We have seen some toothsome things in the South, some beautiful +scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and +mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times +defiled the feast of the wandering Trojans. + +"The great gala-day of Jamesville has dawned, to-day the great Norfolk +steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more) +comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. Here are groups of +'F.F.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd--n +nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing +and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, +mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F., +looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A +scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the +howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that +is. + +"The _Astoria_, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate +of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the +wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth +for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New +England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day--all +night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer +groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty +Roanoke. + +"Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long +trailing mosses, looking like the pale sickly shrouds enveloping a +dead and ruined world. Here and there we saw huge nests of the +size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a +lightning-struck tree, perched on its topmost bough, the great bald +eagle of the South, keeping his sleepless watch and ward, while the +wife-bird tended the household gods below. Deadly moccasins and +huge turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of +blackberries were wasting their sweetness on the desert air. Now and +then there came to us like an inspiration from heaven the ecstatic +music of the mockingbird, carrying shame and despair to the breasts of +all the other warblers of the aerial choir. + +"Nothing could be more inspiring than the notes of this charming +singer, as we listened to them here amid these melancholy swamps +exhaling the sickly miasma beneath this blighting sun, with not a +breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trumpet creepers, +or to cool the fevered brow. Melancholy waitings are heard from the +swamps, and the waves in parting, look like fields of fire. The winds +come to us, but with them no refreshing, for they came over mile after +mile of suffocating, reeking lagoons, stifling with the hot breath of +the miasma. + +"Every now and then the Rip Van Winkle machinery breaks down, and for +hours we are motionless, listening per force to the terrific cursing +and pounding in the Vulcanic realms below. At length the sun, not like +the rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red +monster intent on devouring the world, shoots at us his blighting, +withering lances of scorching heat. We touch once more at Plymouth, +which greets us with its usual entertainment of murderous fleas, +death-dealing watermelons and chain-lightning whiskey. Our ten minute +touch here lengthened into three horrid sweltering hours owing to +the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for +'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at +length we enter the great canal leading to the North River of Norfolk. + +"With chat and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, +when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering +in the mud. 'No moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' +and so for three mortal hours we lay stuck in the mud at the edge of +the great dismal swamp of Virginia. 'Ah,' said the mate, 'there is the +scene of many a horror, there the nigger was torn limb from limb by +the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation +and death amid deadly snakes and miasma rather than comfort in +bondage; there I myself saw crowds of black men swinging from limb to +limb like monkeys over reeking scums to their fever-haunted dens to +escape the lash.' + +"Thus was the story of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe verified by one of +Virginia's own sons. All the fearful word paintings of Dred floated +again before our mental vision, and we thanked God that the old horror +of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er +the land of the free and the home of the brave.' + +"But these hours of waiting, like all things earthly, at length had +their end, and just as the moon gilded the cypress-trees with golden +glory, the wheels began to move and we again worried our tortuous way +up the North River. 'Ah,' said the melancholy-looking man who had +been long gazing in silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here I am, +friendless and alone in this wretched country, peddling beeswax +and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but I was once a +schoolmaster with $1,200 a year, down in Connecticut; wine and women +did it. But,' said he, 'I'll be rich yet--I've got it--I've discovered +perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet.' + +"'Wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the +professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions +of coming glory. Just then we were electrified by a cheer from the +doctor, as the lights of Norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, +yet to float the commerce of a great city. + +"We bade farewell without a single regret to the old tub _Astoria_, +and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand +and one stenches, stumbling over the prostrate forms of sleeping +negroes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a +bath, which the nasty water of North Carolina had forbidden for many +weary days. Suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of drums and the +shouts of hundreds, calling to a mass meeting in Court House Square. +Thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant +Southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'Mother of +Presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a +white man's government amidst the shouts of the great unwashed; while +the sons of Ham looked silently and sullenly on. + +"We gladly responded to the steamer's shrill call and sailed away to +our home in the great and glorious North." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +IN ARCADIE. + + +I gladly returned, like a tired child, to the kindly faces and hearty +greetings of my loving and much loved father, mother, brothers, green +fields, and all the beautiful children of summer. + + "Born where the night owl hooted to the stars, + Cradled where sunshine crept through leafy bars; + Reared where wild roses bloomed most fair, + And songs of meadow larks made glad the summer air, + + "Each dainty zephyr whispers follow me, + Ten thousand leaflets beckon from each tree; + All say, 'why give a life to longings vain? + Leave fame and gold: come home: come home again.' + + "I hear the forest murmuring 'he has come' + A feathered chorus' joyous welcome home; + Each flower that nods a greeting seems a part + Of nature's welcome back to nature's heart." + +The old home was much changed, and for the better. With much patient +toil, the unsightly rocks and stumps had been removed from the fields +which sloped gracefully to the little river and were covered with +tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and +daisies. The dilapidated house and barn had given place to modern +buildings; apple, pear, and peach-trees, covered with fragrant +blossoms were substituted for their decayed and skeleton prototypes; +the narrow, crooked, muddy lane, where horses and wagons had struggled +through the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had become a +firm and fairly straight highway. + +My house in the tree on the hilltop, where I had often rehearsed my +orations and sermons in such stentorian tones that the amazed cows +lifted their tails on high and took to their heels, welcomed me back +embowered in leafy new-grown branches. + +My second brother, realizing that as "unto the bow the cord is, as +unto the child the mother, so unto man the woman is--useless one +without the other," had taken unto himself a good wife, the daughter +of the deacon, our next neighbor. My mother thus had a much needed +helper, as their farms, like their owners, were joined in wedlock. + +[Illustration: I Rehearsed My Orations with Startling Effect.] + +The worthy deacon and my deeply religious father alternately led the +family devotions, and peace and comfort prevailed. The mowing machine, +horse-hoe, corn-planter and power-rake dispensed with the drudgery of +the scythe and back-breaking hand tools. A protective tariff had set +the mill wheels rolling in the neighboring cities, thus furnishing +excellent markets for all the products of the farm. The sky-scraping +shoe manufactories, where men, like automatons, delved night and day +for a few weeks and then leaving them to semi-starvation for the rest +of the year, had not yet arrived. + +One of my brothers had, like most of the farmers of that day, his +little shop where in winter he coined a few hundred dollars +making boots and shoes, and where I earned many precious pennies, +blackballing the edges and occasionally pegging by hand, all of which +is now done by machinery. + +We could now afford occasional holidays, when we all gaily sailed down +the river, dug clams, caught lobsters in nets, regaled ourselves with +toothsome chowders, broils and stews in the open air, and had many +rollicking good times swimming in the breakers, frolicking, old and +young, like children. We pitched our tents on old Bar Island, slept on +the fragrant hay at night, played ball, and renewed our youth inhaling +deep draughts of the salty wind which bloweth in from the sea. + +When sailing home one day with a wet sheet, a flowing main, and a +breeze following far abaft, we espied a boat submerged to the gunwhale +floating out to sea. Throwing our yacht up into the wind, we took the +craft in tow to the landing, and were surprised and delighted beyond +measure to find it nearly half full of fine large lobsters, held +there by a wire netting. For weeks we and all the neighbors held high +carnival boiling and eating the luscious crustaceans. + +We had much merriment one day on a fishing excursion at the expense +of a parsimonious member of our crew. At first he alone pulled in the +much prized tomcods and flounders. "Well," said he, "I think we better +go in, each one for himself." "All right," was the reply, but soon +stingy ceased to catch any, while the rest of us pulled in the fish as +fast as we could throw the hooks. Mr. Greedy looked very solemn, and +at last, unable to repress his selfishness longer, shouted: "I think +we better share all alike!" "Too late," was the chorus, and while he +carried home but a beggarly string, the rest rejoiced in our great +abundance. + +These seem like little incidents, light as airy nothings, but they +come back to memory in the twilight of life when other and greater +events are all forgotten. + +When the crops were all harvested, and the winds and snows of winter +shut me out from my woodland, river, and seashore haunts, I grew weary +of the monotony of the indoor country life, and once more went to the +city of Boston in the endless quest of the unattainable. + +Restless as the sea, we are never satisfied this side the stars; but +we are all looking forward to that sweet by and by, "as the hart +panteth for the water brook." + + I shall be satisfied, not here, not here + Not where the sparkling waters fade into mocking + sands as we draw near, + Where in the wilderness each footstep falters, + I shall be satisfied; but, oh, not here. + + Not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us, + Where the worn spirit never finds its goal, + But haunted ever by thoughts that grieve us, + Across our souls floods of bitter memories roll. + + Satisfied, satisfied, the soul's vague longing, + The aching void, which nothing earthly fills, + Oh, what desires upon my mind are thronging, + As my eyes turn upward to the heavenly hills! + + Shall they be satisfied, the spirit's yearning, + For sweet communion with kindred minds? + The silent love that here meets no returning, + The inspiration, which no language finds? + + There is a land, where every pulse is thrilling, + With rapture, earth's sojourners may not know, + Where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, + And peacefully earth's storm-tossed currents flow. + + Far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us, + Lies that fair country, where our hearts abide, + And, of its bliss, naught more wondrous is told us, + Than these few words, I shall be satisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +FROM PHILISTINE TO BENEDICT AND A HONEYMOON. + + +The fates, who lead the willing-and drive the unwilling, guided me to +the old time firm of B. & T. publishers. They were overwhelmed with +applications from the great army of the impecunious, and did not wish +to pay any more salaries; but "mercy tempers the blast to the shorn +lamb," and they persuaded me, by a tender of large profits on their +Worcester's Dictionaries, to strike out on my own hook and endeavor +to induce a reluctant public to buy these instead of the popular +dictionaries written by "Noah Webster who came over in the ark." + +The special prices granted by the publishers enabled me to undersell +the wholesalers, and by securing their adoption as regular text-books +by school boards, I made more money than ever before in my life, +sometimes from $25 to $100 per day, consequently the firm finding I +was filling the markets and my own pockets so that they had no sales +at regular prices, hired me at a liberal salary as representative of +all their publications. + +In this business I won my "double stars," although the competition was +intense. I often found as many as twenty agents at the same time and +in the same town, log-rolling with school committees for the adoption +of their books, the merits of the publications "cut but little ice." +Nearly every school official "had his price," wanting to know what +there was in his vote for him, and the agent who best concealed the +bribery hook by dining and wining teachers and committeemen, filling +their libraries with complimentary books and their pockets with secret +commissions, "caught the most fish." + +When among Romans, I was, much to my disgust, obliged to do as +Romans did. I would often go to cities where my opponent's readers or +arithmetics had been adopted the night before, point out the defects +of rival publications, give an unabridged dictionary to each official, +offer a ten per cent. commission to the "king pin," take the board in +a hack to their headquarters, secure a reconsideration, telegraph for +my books, and the next day with express wagons and helpers, put our +readers into every school in the town. + +This was sharp practice, prices were cut, until finally, we gave new +books in even exchange for old ones, trusting to future sales to +reimburse us, but when they needed another supply, they would swap +even with another publisher, so that our bread cast upon the waters +never returned. + +We often secured "louder calls" for influential teachers and clergymen +in reciprocation for their votes, bought anything they had to sell at +their own prices until many publishers became bankrupt; the big fish +swallowing the little ones, and then came the survival of the longest +purse. + +One evening, after my day's work in the city of G--was ended, being +lonesome in my hotel, I thought of a family residing there who had a +summer residence in R----, and concluded to renew my acquaintance with +the eldest daughter with whom I had enjoyed many rides and sails, and +to whom I had quoted many romantic poems the previous season. + +With fear and trembling, for I was always a bashful youth, I rang the +door bell, and was ushered into the parlor where I caught my first +glimpse of a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked, graceful younger sister to +whom, at a glance, I knew I was married in heaven. + +Whence came that vital spark blending our souls in one? Had we lived +and loved on some fairer shore? Who can tell? Had our spirits been +wandering through the universe millions of years seeking each the +other, nor finding rest until we met? Only the angels know. + +All we knew and all we seemed to care to know was that at last each +had found the "alter ego" for which it pined. There were no others +on earth--father, mother, sister, brothers, came and went almost +unheeded. Strange as it may seem, on this evening of our first +meeting, we told each other the old, old story, first told in Eden, +reiterated by millions since, and will continue to be rehearsed until +Gabriel through his trumpet sounds the final love song to the world. + + With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, + We sailed for the Hesperides, + The land where golden apples grow; + But that, ah that was long ago. + + How far, since then, the ocean streams + Have swept us from that land of dreams, + That land of fiction and of truth, + The lost Atlantis of our youth. + + Ultima Thule, utmost isle, + Here in thy harbors for a while, + We lower our sails; awhile we rest + From the unceasing, endless quest. + +For a long time I had divided homes and a divided heart, one at the +old home with the old folks, the other in the city by the sea. + +In our new-born and first-born enthusiasm, we applied to Mary's +parents for an early union of hands as well as hearts; but they wisely +insisted upon a year's interim, promising that, if at the end of this +trial time our ardor had not cooled, they and the minister would +"bless you my children," and our hearts should beat as one +forevermore. + +The course of true love never did run smooth, and when the claiming +day arrived, Mary's mother told me that she had been credibly informed +that another girl had a prior claim to my promised hand. I protested +in vain, and, as the daughter was invisible, I left the house in a +rage. + +A week, which seemed like a century, passed by on leaden wings in +which I strove to drown my sorrows in the "flowing bowl" of hard work, +and foolish declarations that "I didn't care"; then came a kind letter +from Alderman B----, gracefully apologizing for his wife's mistaken +assertions, stating that "Mary was giving them no peace day or night," +and inviting me to call at my earliest convenience. + +The very next train took me to the old familiar trysting-place, once +more the white-winged dove of peace brooded over the B--mansion, +and we all, especially the parents, fully realized that in order to +appreciate heaven we must have at least seven days of hell. + +Shortly after, at the home of the bride's parents, we twain were made +one in the presence of numerous friends and presents; the old shoes +and rice were duly showered, and we were off for a month's tour, and a +lifelong honeymoon. + +During this wedding tour, at the request of my employers, I combined +business with pleasure, the firm generously paying all our expenses, +and continuing my salary. + +We visited many cities, greatly enjoying their varied attractions; but +the business part of our journey, which was collecting large sums of +money due for books, was not particularly delightful, as the banks had +all suspended specie payments as a result of the "green back craze," +and I was often obliged to resort to legal measures and attachments of +property, to secure from reluctant book sellers the sums long overdue. + +At one hotel we met with an adventure which well-nigh proved serious. +I was awakened at night by the flash from a bull's eye lantern, a +sense of suffocation and a scream from my wife. A masked burglar +was before me, pressing to my face a handkerchief saturated with +chloroform, and endeavoring to take from under the mattress a large +sum of money which I had collected the day before. + +"No noise," said he, "your money or your life." + +"All right," said I quietly, "I'll get it for you." He stepped back a +pace, I quickly pulled from under the pillow my self-cocking revolver, +and fired in rapid succession. + +His pistol exploded at nearly the same time, he dropped to the floor, +his light vanished, and for a time all was darkness and suspense. I +expected another bullet any moment, and seeing nothing to fire at +myself, feared to jump from the bed lest I be seized by invisible +hands of the desperate villain. Then came shouts and pounding upon +the door by neighbors aroused by the uproar. Encouraged by the +reinforcements, I struck a light but the ruffian had escaped through +the open window on to a piazza roof, thence by a pillar to the ground. + +Then we were besieged by excited inquirers, and the rosy-fingered +Aurora, daughter of the dawn, appeared before the calm which succeeded +the storm. + +Shortly after our return from this journey, a great light went out on +earth to shine in heaven. My wife's father suddenly left the body,--he +did not die, for + + There is no death, what seems so is transition, + This life of mortal breath + Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, + Whose portal we call death. + +Alderman B---- was a gentleman of the old school, a loving father, a +very successful business man, managing marine railways, ship-building +and repairing, as well as grain mills. We missed him sadly; but were +consoled by the reflection that our great loss was his eternal gain. + +My eldest brother, and two of my brother Mark's children, at about +this time crossed the same bright river and rested under the shade of +the celestial trees. + +Myself and wife had intended to live in G----, but as her father was +gone, and as she had formed a strong mutual attachment for my family, +my wife the following summer took much pleasure in building a handsome +cottage nearly opposite my father's house, and on a beautiful lot of +land given us by my brother. We formed a literary and musical club, +which met weekly at our house, making it the social centre of the +entire town. + +I was elected chairman of the school committee, and proceeded +vigorously in a crusade against ignorance; but soon found that +the life of a reformer is crowned with more thorns than roses, a +thousandfold! I removed incompetent teachers who, by their silly +question and answer methods, were producing parrots--not scholars. + +On one occasion, when I substituted a trained normal school graduate +for a useless dancing doll who had made herself popular by flattering +parents and coddling their children, all pupils were withdrawn from +the school. I told the new teacher to ring the bell, take in sewing +if she wished, and draw her salary even if she was left alone in her +glory; then I notified the parents that unless they at once sent their +children to the school, I should have the pupils arrested for truancy, +and themselves fined for violating the laws of the state. Moral +suasion had failed; but the strong arm of the law prevailed, and they +soon acknowledged that the new instruction was the best they had ever +had in the district. + +Much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds +with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains, +descriptions of all the frog ponds in Ethiopia, and other useless +trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete +rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic; +long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc. + +I issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study, +substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles, +and in this, also, I met with opposition from the "moss-backs," who +insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough +for their children; they wanted no "new-fangled" notions. + +They reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book +had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser +sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, +read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing +together the one thousand three hundred and forty 'leventh hime." + + "'All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the + weasel--'" + +He was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded. Taking off his +spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again, +gazed at the book in consternation: "Well," said he, "I never seed +that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the Lord put it in, and +we'll sing it whir or no," and proceeded: + + "'The preacher kissed the cobbler's wife, pop goes the weasel.'" + +As I have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get +progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used +freely by me, and I had the satisfaction as well as the odium of +infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my +two years' service as school superintendent in this town. + +A few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to +the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the +people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the +"little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump" of the ancient +hell fire theology. + +It is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous +and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and +reviled by your neighbors whose feeble intellects fail to appreciate +your strenuous efforts to push forward the car of progress in their +midst; but the consolations expressed in this poem bring balm to every +wounded spirit. + + "I know as my life grows older, + And mine eyes have clearer sight, + That under each rank wrong, somewhere, + There lies the root of right. + That each sorrow has its purpose + By the suffering oft unguessed; + But as sure as the sun brings morning, + Whatever is, is best. + + "I know that each sinful action, + As sure as the night brings shade, + Is some time, somewhere punished, + Though the hour be long delayed. + I know that the soul is aided + Sometimes, by the heart's unrest, + And to grow, means often to suffer; + But whatever is, is best. + + "I know there are no errors + In the great eternal plan, + And all things work together + For the final good of man. + And I know when my soul speeds onward + In the grand eternal quest, + I shall say, as I look earthward, + Whatever is, is best." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE ANGELS OF LIFE AND DEATH. + + +By and by unwonted silence and anxiety reigned in our house. The +family doctor remained all night, then a faint cry was heard, and +little baby May came into this world of ours, + + "The gates of heaven were left ajar; + With clasping hands and dreamy eyes, + Wandering out of paradise, + She saw this planet, like a star; + We felt we had a link between + This real world and that unseen." + +These beautiful lines of one of the sweetest of earth's singers, came +to us like a new revelation at the advent of our first-born, as also +those other immortal words-- + + "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, + The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting, + And cometh from afar. + Not in entire forgetfulness + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory do we come + From heaven, which is our home." + +Our little vocalist commenced rehearsing for her chosen profession the +very minute that she first saw the light, and she certainly continued +the development of her lungs with marvelous persistency. Then her +numerous grandparents, uncles, and aunts all vied with each other in +petting and spoiling the one pet lamb of the several families, and she +basked in the sunshine of unlimited affection. + +A few bright years sped by, all roseate with love, prosperity and +contentment in this happy valley. Then two little cherubs, just alike +as "two peas in a pod" came to us at dawn of day, like twin rays +from the rising sun, their blue eyes beaming with smiles which have +continued ever since. + +We named them Ada and Ida: but were obliged to label them to tell +"which was which," and said label is essential for distinguishment to +this very day, though twenty-four bright summers have passed since the +sight of them first gladdened our hearts. + +But almost with the sunbeams came the terrible cloud overspreading all +our lives. The mother had scarcely welcomed the twin buds of promise, +when she faded away like a flower and was + + "Gone beyond the darksome river, + Only left us by the way; + Gone beyond the night forever, + Only gone to endless day; + + Gone to meet the angel faces, + Where our lovely treasures are; + Gone awhile from our embraces, + Gone within the gates ajar." + +There seemed to be no light left on earth; the sun was blotted out +forever, + + Oh glory of our youth that so suddenly decays! + Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze! + Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air + Scatters a moment's sweetness, and flies we know not where! + + "A boat at midnight sent alone + To drift upon the moonless sea; + A lute whose leading chord is gone; + A wounded bird that hath but one + Imperfect wing to soar upon, + Are like me + Oh loved one, without thee;" + +but the pitiful wailings of the twin girl babies called me back to +earth again, and I took up the cares of existence, though they seemed +greater than I could bear. + +The largest church in the village was filled to overflowing with +sincere mourners, for the sweet face of the departed had brought +good cheer into many darkened households in our town. All sectarian +barriers were for the time burned away by the flame of sympathy, and +wonderful to tell, the Universalist clergyman who married us was +allowed to pronounce the eulogy in an orthodox Congregational church. + +When the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear +words of the hymn-- + + "Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown," + +and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it +required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through +the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir +from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way +thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied +spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore. + +"Faith sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing." +Infinitely sad was the passing of our beloved, to those left in the +earth-life; but soothingly comes to us the song chanted by the choir +invisible whenever a soul escapes the mortal coil: + + "Passing out of the shadow, + Into a purer light; + Stepping behind the curtain, + Getting a clearer sight. + + "Laying aside a burden, + This weary mortal coil; + Done with the world's vexations-- + Done with its tears and toil. + + "Tired of all earth's playthings, + Heartsick and ready to sleep-- + Ready to bid our friends farewell, + Wondering why they weep. + + "Passing out of the shadow + Into eternal day-- + Why do we call it dying, + This sweet going away?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +TRIBULATIONS OF A WIDOWER. + + +But we must descend from the sublime to the stern realities of this +workaday world. Of all the people on this earth, a lone, lorn widower +with three babies on his hands, is the most forlorn and miserable. +Take care of them himself he cannot, and if he hires the ordinary +woman to do so, she immediately sets her cap for him, and leaves +no stone unturned to secure him for a husband, especially if he is +possessed of some of this world's goods which she covets with all her +mind and soul. + +Words are inadequate to describe the annoyances I endured for two +weary years from this class of women, who seemed to be the only +ones who would come to a lonely country home to assume such +responsibilities and endless labors. The world seemed full of these +anxious but not aimless women, who claimed to adore little children; +but who really cared for nothing except to capture a "widower with +means." + +One nurse carelessly slipped on the stairs, and the twins went flying +from her arms through the air down the long passageway, apparently +to their death; only a miracle saved them. I picked up the little +wingless cherubs, scarcely bigger than my fist, and their blue eyes +smiled at me, as if they had really enjoyed their aerial flight. + +They seemed to have a charmed and charming existence; they were the +admiration of all the people far and wide who flocked to our house to +see and fondle the really "heavenly twins." My business kept me +from home nearly all the time; but my father, mother, brother, and +sister-in-law kindly watched my caretakers with argus eyes, and the +so-called triplets throve wonderfully day by day. + +Whenever in my absence, my good childless brother and his wife found +one of my hired women unworthy, he would tell her to pack her trunk, +then he would drive her to the depot, banish her from the town +over which he long reigned as chairman of the selectmen and State +representative, telegraph me to hunt up another one, and thus the road +to the station was nearly worn out, and the railroad receipts were +greatly augmented. + +One of these women, while I was far away, greatly scandalized the +whole town by leaving the "light infantry" to their fate one Sunday, +and indulging in the pious delights of shooting wood-chucks. My +indignant brother and his father-in-law deacon disarmed the jezabel, +made her sleep in the barn that night, sent her off flying the next +morning, and personally, tenderly as mothers, watched over the +children until I arrived with another nurse. + +One woman whipped little May secretly with a stick; but the victim's +wonderful lungs aroused my mother who, reinforced by the entire +family, overpowered the virago, and sent her off on the next train. +It is evident from these thrilling recitals that I was not a good +mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when +I was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus +appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight. + +I vowed in my wrath that I would never again speak to a woman outside +my own immediate family. I tried in vain to hire men nurses, and I +sympathized with Paolo Orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck +of Isabella di Medici, and strangled her; I almost envied Curzon of +Simopetra who had never seen a woman. But I soon found that this +misanthropy was unjust, that I misjudged the pure depths of life's +river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface. + +Women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can +be. There is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between +the extremes marked by Miriam beating her timbrels, and Cleopatra +applying the asp; Cornelia, caring for nothing but her Roman jewels; +Guyon, rapt in God; Lucrezia Borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and +Florence Nightingale sweetening the memory of the Crimean war with +philanthropic deeds. + +What group of men can be brought together more distinct in +individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny, +than such women as Eve in the garden of Eden, Mary at the foot of the +cross, Rebecca by the well, Semiramis on her throne, Ruth among the +corn, Jezabel in her chariot, Lais at a banquet, Joan of Arc in +battle, Tomyris striding over the field with the head of Cyrus in +a bag of blood, Perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre, +Martha cumbered with many cares, Pocahontas under the shadow of the +woods, Saint Theresa in the Convent, Madame Roland on the scaffold, +Mother Agnes at Port Royal, exiled DeStael wielding her pen as a +sceptre, and Mrs. Fry lavishing her existence on outcasts? + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +FAITH SEES A STAR. + + +One day I was introduced by a friend to a very attractive lady +school-teacher, who combined with superior domestic training, +elocutionary and musical accomplishments. She was so sincere and +sympathetic that I found myself almost unconsciously expressing the +same sentiments that I had spoken to another long ago in the city by +the sea. + +The love which I supposed had passed on forever to the other world, +seemed to be sent back to me through the opening clouds of evening by +my self-sacrificing spirit bride, to give to another who would love +and cherish the helpless little ones who so needed a mother's care. + +I poured forth all my sorrows, troubles, perplexities and needs to a +congenial, sympathetic spirit, and she consented to go to my home and +take up the burdens which the ascended mother had been required by the +angel-world to lay down. + +On the arrival of the new housekeeper, order was evolved out of chaos; +the children received the best of care, and the horse a much needed +rest after his arduous labors in carting to and from the depot the +numerous hired women who had been "weighed in the balance and found +wanting." In the following month of roses, Lillian concluded that my +"first glance" attachment was reciprocated; we were married in her +father's house at Allston; we enjoyed a brief tour of the White +Mountains, and then settled down in our cottage to our life work. The +peace of God, which always comes, sooner or later to those who strive +to do their duty, was ours, and the inspiration of Whittier's sweet +poem "My Psalm" brought infinite consolation to our blended lives. + + "I mourn no more my vanished years; + Beneath a tender rain, + An April rain of smiles and tears, + My heart is young again. + + "All as God wills, who wisely heeds + To give or to withhold, + And knoweth more of all my needs + Than all my prayers have told. + + "All the jarring notes of life + Seem blending in a psalm, + And all the angles of its strife + Slow rounding into calm. + + "And so the shadows fall apart, + And so the sunbeams play; + And all the windows of my heart + I open to the day." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ON THE POLITICAL STUMP. + + +I had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being President of +the Republican Club in our town, and that autumn I was hired by +Dr. George B. Loring to conduct his campaign for the position of +Representative in Congress; this I accomplished so successfully that +Judge Thayer, the chairman of the State Committee, hired me to stump +the Commonwealth against General Butler and in favor of the Hon. +George D. Robinson as candidate for Governor. This campaign will long +be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the +political history of Massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as +a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the +endurance. One will suffice by way of illustration. + +Free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and +stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican +orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to +combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. At a meeting +of our state committee in Boston, Judge Thayer announced that General +Hall of Maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach +Rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that +evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours. +Rockport was almost solid for Butler, and his friends had declared +that no Republican should speak there, consequently no one +volunteered. At last, the Judge, in despair, said: + +"Foss, will you go?" + +"I shall obey orders," was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved +shirkers, and I bolted for the train. + +On arriving at my destination, I found the station crowded with a +howling mob, and the Republican town committee were frantically +shouting: "General Hall, General Hall!" "Here," said I, and only by +the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the +embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on +the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which +I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost +physical and mental collapse. + +The "hail to the chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: +"Put him out!"--"Duck him!"--"Ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., Yells +of the Butlerites who had packed the hall. At last I got my "mad up," +and rising, I lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon +my uproarious foes. This astonished the "great unwashed," and a big +Irishman jumped on the stage, shouting: + +"Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a +cool un." + +There was silence. Taking out my cigar, I laughed long and loud. + +"What you laughing at?" howled the mob. + +"This reminds me," said I, very slowly, "of a little story." + +"Out with it," was the response. + +"When I was a teacher in Marblehead," drawled I, "I had occasion +to wallop a boy with a cowhide. I made him touch his toes with his +fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the +more I whaled him the more he laughed. I laid on Macduff with a +'damned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet +he laughed. 'What you laughing at?' cried I. 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're +licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. It's just that +way here. You gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; I am not General +Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant." The crowd +roared: "He's a good un, let's hear him--ha, ha, ha, he's a good un," +and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw. + +"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound +money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, +brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to +have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and +nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to +door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. Do you want that kind +of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and +everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your +money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you +bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?" + +"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it +well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is." + +"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in +the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his +bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog +who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt +him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his +knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've +gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to +death.' + +"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll +freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have +plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you +for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and +drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the +bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that +soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the +world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me +of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in +his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they +actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had +stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by +such windy effigies?" + +Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave +them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest +political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers, +as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief +authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next +election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this +I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, +having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to +trade money for fame. + +Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry +winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over +the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often +hazardous. + +I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides +for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous +colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer +to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and +fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N----. + +We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, +letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other +diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for +new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and +so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. + +Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the +agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the +hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me +about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness +and much hard-earned cash. We made the old place to bud and blossom +like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an +ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon +the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when +ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, +came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good +salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped +resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers. I +gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for-- + + Somewhere the sun is shining, + I thought as I toiled along + In the freezing cold of the winter, + Yes, somewhere the sun is shining + Though here I shiver and sigh, + Not a breath of warmth is stirring + Not a beam in the arctic sky. + + Somewhere the thing we long for + Exists on earth's wide bound, + Somewhere the heat is cheering + While here winter nips the ground. + Somewhere the flowers are springing, + Somewhere the corn is brown, + And is ready unto the harvest + To feed the hungry town. + + Somewhere the twilight gathers, + And weary men lay by + The burdens of the daytime, + And wrapped in slumber lie. + + Somewhere the day is breaking, + And gloom and darkness flee; + Though storms our bark are tossing, + There's somewhere a placid sea. + + And thus, I thought, 'tis always + In this mysterious life, + There's always gladness somewhere + In spite of its pain and strife; + And somewhere the sin and sorrow + Of earth are known no more; + Somewhere our weary spirits + Shall find a peaceful shore. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THAT _EDDYFYING_ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. + + +This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has +always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty +creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more +appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its +Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career +of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every +principle of modern science. + +This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied +"Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon +became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, +posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble +intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a +lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their +eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey +upon the weak minded. + +Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a +regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving +benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion +that said mummery affected a miraculous cure. + +As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted +the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science" +doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her +soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady +was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a +copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the +opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make +me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever. + +I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and +prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a +heterogeneous conglomeration of words--mere words, a hodge podge of +all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of +the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to +find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their +comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being +called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great. + +One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the +sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million +dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew +Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. +Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or +obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal +mind in solution." + +Like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems +to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of +folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess +the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired +with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling +in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the +thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure. +Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the +anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it +is a sin." + +I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have +been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith +required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure +all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give +my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong +contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and +health" is _multum in parvo_. Here it is: + +Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old +world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin, +means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so +discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G--noa; +but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the gods saw her with the +olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall +receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from +unrest and from war forevermore." + +Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian +Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its +many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but +sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient +for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new +gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Selah_. + +[Illustration: We Steamed up the Lordly St. John's River of Florida.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +IN THE LAND OF FLOWERS. + + +After these scientific investigations, my wife and I left New England +covered with snow and swept by fierce, freezing winds to find this +far-famed peninsular basking in delicious sunshine, the air full of +the exquisite perfume of orange blossoms and the songs of rejoicing +birds. It was an enchanted land, the balsamic odors from the beautiful +evergreen pine forests starred by the fragrant magnolia blossoms of +spotless white, exorcised the ulceratic demons from throat and lungs. + +We feasted upon the delicious fruits and vegetables fresh from the +trees and earth, and the returning healthy appetite was refreshed by +tender venison, wild turkeys and quails from the woods, nutritious and +abundant fish and ducks from the lakes and rivers. It was a new heaven +and a new earth, full of gladness and semi-tropical luxuries. + +As soon as the hospitable people learned that I represented our +beloved Uncle Sam, I was overwhelmed with free passes and free hotels, +anywhere and everywhere. + +The Count De Barry, who had amassed a vast fortune as the American +representative of "Mum's Extra Dry," and who had received numerous +valuable seeds and shrubs from our generous department, took us on his +palatial steamer for hundreds of miles up the lordly St. John's River, +where we feasted our eyes upon acres of wild ducks, pelicans, cranes +and many huge, lazy alligators floating on the waves, rejoicing in the +life-giving beams of the sun. + +The stately trees along the banks, old when Adam was a baby, were +covered with flowering vines of wondrous beauty and fragrance; then +vast orange groves appeared covered with blossoms, small and ripe +fruit all at the same time; numerous herds of cattle standing knee +deep in the water, leisurely browsing upon the river plants both on +the surface and under the shallow river. + +We would anchor, and throwing a clasp-net which spread out on the +bottom and then closed like a purse, we pulled in excellent fish by +the hundreds; sitting on the canopied deck we shot ducks which the +negroes captured in small boats, and soon served cooked for our +delectation; pineapples and berries were brought from the shore, in +fact, it was a lotus-eater's dream of paradise, and seemed to be a +land and a river "flowing with milk and honey." + +The words from Willis' confessional came floating to our minds. + + "On ocean many a gladsome night, + When heaved the long and sullen sea, + With only waves and stars in sight, + We stole along by isles of balm; + We furled before the coming gale, + We slept amid the breathless calm, + We flew beneath the straining sail. + + Oh, softly on these banks of haze + Her rosy face the summer lays, + Becalmed along the azure sky + The argosies of cloudland lie; + The holy silence is God's voice + We look, and listen, and rejoice." + +When the night fell, and one by one, in the infinite meadows of +heaven, blossomed out the beautiful stars, the forget-me-nots of the +angels, they seemed so near that you almost expected to touch them +with the hand, and the silver moon arising, set the clouds on fire +with gladness and "left upon the level water one long track and trail +of splendor, down whose stream we sailed into the purple vapors, to +the islands of the blessed, to the kingdom of Ponemah to the land of +the hereafter." + +While thus we dreamed, the balmy zephyr brings from the forecastle to +our delighted hearing, the tinkling music of the banjo and guitar, the +melody of the singing voices and dancing feet of our freedmen boat's +crew. The lines of Whittier were resurrected in our thoughts. + + "Dear, the black man holds his gifts + Of music and of song, + The gold that kindly nature sifts + Among his sands of wrong, + The power to make his toiling days + And poor home comforts please; + The quaint relief of mirth that plays + With sorrow's minor keys." + +For they sang among others the identical words of the poet's +expressive song, + + "Ole massa on he trabbels gone, + He leaf de land behind: + De Lord's breff blow him furder on, + Like corn-shuck in de wind: + We own de hoe, we own de plow, + We own de hans dat hold, + We sell de pig, we sell de cow, + But nebber chile be sold. + + De norf wind tell it to de pines, + De wild-duck to de sea, + We tink it when de church-bell ring, + We dream it in de dream, + De rice-bird mean it when he sing, + De eagle when he scream, + De yam will grow, de cotton blow, + We'll hab de rice and corn; + Nebber you fear, if nebber you hear + De driber blow his horn." + +And so all too quickly passed that ideal night, without thought of +sleep, till the rising sun shot his radiant beams over the great +river, when we steamed slowly up to the long pier, and walked under +an arch of stately palms to our host's beautiful home, embowered in +orange trees and luxuriant trumpet creepers in this summer land of +perpetual bloom. + +Close by the Count's residence was a lake of sulphur water, gushing +from deep down in the earth. Into this we plunged and swam until we +seemed to be born again into immortal youth, then on the broad piazza +we enjoyed a feast which would have delighted Jupiter and all his +gods, every course of which was taken from the adjoining trees, +grounds and waters. + +We then inspected the great plantation, where was found growing in +profusion, everything essential to the wants of the most fastidious +of mortals, while the surrounding woods and river teemed with a great +variety of fish and game. + + I roam as in a waking dream + The garden of the Hesperides, + And see the golden fruitage gleam + Amid the stately orange-trees. + + Unfading green is on the hill, + The vales are decked with countless flowers, + While hums the bee, the song birds trill + Sweet music through the sunny hours. + + The moss is waving in the gale + From live oak, hickory, and pine, + And draping like a bridal-veil + The beauteous yellow jessamine. + + Through countless vistas in the wood + I see the windows of the morn + Ope to the world a glowing flood + Of glory when the day is born. + + And when, with robes of Tyrian dye, + The evening comes when day is done, + I see around the radiant sky + A hundred sunsets blent in one. + +We parted from our genial entertainer with much reluctance when the +superintendent of the railroad claimed us as his guests, and with +him, we inspected the famous orange groves along his line, resting on +Sunday at a palatial hotel where the St. John's River broadens into +the great Lake Munroe. + +While at church we were much entertained by the lively, frolicsome +manoeuvres of the numerous beautiful chameleons of rapidly changing +colors, who greatly distracted the attention of the congregation from +the service by their pranks on the walls and decorations. + +Directly in front of us was a sleepy, bald-headed man upon whose +shining, nodding, snoring pate several flies were resting in quiet +enjoyment of the sermon. All at once, this toothsome collection +attracted the attention of a very large bright-eyed chameleon admirer +who launched himself through the air upon said bald head in pursuit of +his dinner. With a yell of fear, the sleeper struck the animal with +his huge hand, sending the long tailed frolicsome creature heels +over head directly upon the clergyman's manuscript, and the alarmed +preacher, in turn, with a smothered imprecation and a sweeping blow, +hurled the sprawling legs and elongated tail down upon some frightened +children who screamed and tumbled over each other upon the floor in a +struggling heap. + +This was too much for the pent-up risibilities of the audience who +laughed long and loud, greatly to the disturbance of the solemnity of +the occasion. The witty minister remarked that this addition to his +flock, like some church members, seemed to care more for the carnal +than the spiritual, and proceeded to the thirteenthly division of his +discourse. + +From here we traveled for hundreds of miles over the flat, monotonous, +arid sands of south Florida, where green grass and fresh garden +vegetables were unknown, frequently remarking that if we owned these +localities and hades, we would give away the former and live in the +latter place. But when we retraced our steps, and reached the rich +highlands of the northern counties of Marion, Bradford, and Clay, +found the earth covered with green grass in winter, the trees +beautiful with blossoms and luscious oranges, the air fragrant with +rare flowers, and resonant with songs of birds, saw the planters +shipping thousands of crates of fruit and vegetables, and finally +arrived at the far-famed Silver Springs, it seemed as if we had found +Ponce de Leon's fountain of immortal youth. + +The crystal clear waters of this wonderful spring, or more properly +called lake, gush in immense volumes seemingly from the very centre of +the earth, spreading out until wide and deep enough to float a great +navy, and are so transparent that multitudes of fishes are seen +disporting among marine plants and shells plainly discernible hundreds +of feet below. + +Here we embarked on a comfortable steamer, and sailed nearly +twenty-four hours down the incomparable Ocklawaha River, through +scenes that are indescribably picturesque; under arches of gigantic +trees covered with sombrely beautiful Spanish mosses and trumpet +creeper vines, where all day long are heard the ecstatic songs of +mockingbirds, and where flutter the plumages of all the colors of the +rainbow. + +[Illustration: The Indiscribably Picturesque Ocklawaha River of +Florida.] + +Swiftly the golden hours fly, as we float over this marvelous river; +softly the dusky boatmen chant their love songs, the fires from their +"fatwood" cauldron on the upper deck illuminates the stately trees, +and the strains of the poet, Butterworth, come plaintively to our +mental hearing. + + "We have passed funereal glooms, + Cypress caverns, haunted rooms, + Halls of gray moss starred with blooms-- + Slowly, slowly, in these straits, + Drifting towards the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "In the towers of green o'erhead + Watch the vultures for the dead, + And below the egrets red + Eye the mossy pools like fates, + In the shadowy cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Clouds of palm crowns lie behind, + Clouds of gray moss in the wind, + Crumbling oaks with jessamines twined, + Where the ring-doves meet their mates, + Cooing in the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "High the silver ibis flies-- + Silver wings in silver skies; + In the sun the Saurian lies: + Comes the mockingbird and prates + To the boatman at the gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Now the broader waters gleam-- + Seems my voyage upon the stream + Like a semblance of a dream, + And the dream my Soul elates; + Life flows through the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Ibis, thou wilt fly again, + Ring-dove, thou wilt sigh again, + Jessamines bloom in golden rain; + And a loving song-bird waits + Me beyond the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +SUNBEAM, THE SEMINOLE. + + +When I had concluded the recitation of the poem which closes the +preceding chapter, a fine-looking gentleman sitting near us arose, and +lifting his hat very gracefully, said: + +"Pardon me. As a native Floridian, I have much enjoyed hearing you +repeat that poem relating to my State." + +This led to a pleasant conversation, during which he introduced us to +his wife as being one of the aborigines. We expressed much interest in +this statement, and finally persuaded him to give us an account of +his courtship, which, with some amplifications, was substantially as +follows: + +It is midnight in the vast everglades of Florida. The mammoth forest +trees seem to support the arch of heaven as the pillars uphold the +great dome of the nation's capitol. Here and there the century-old +orange trees are resplendent with the golden globes of the luscious +fruit, and millions of flowering vines beautify even the dead monarchs +of the woods. + +All these tropical splendors are illumined by the rays of the full +hunter's moon, which transforms the trailing streamers of dewy Spanish +moss into long-drawn chains of sparkling silver. From swamp and +foliage the voices of the night fill the balmy air with quavering +wailings, punctured by the occasional screams of wild-cats and +hootings of the melancholy owls. Here in this forest primeval, mid +the murmuring pines and star-eyed magnolias, nature rules supreme, +uncontaminated by the trammels of civilization. + +But what is that? Surely human forms swinging noiselessly from limb +to limb over dark pools where the deadly moccasins and ferocious +alligators slumber, over stagnant lagoons beautified by great lilies, +and densely populated with rainbow colored fishes, and gaily decorated +by water-fowl now all motionless in the embrace of sleep, the brother +of death. + +The moonbeams reveal a band of broad-shouldered, copper-colored +aborigines, who once ruled over the whole of this fair peninsular. +They are returning, with packs of supplies strapped upon their backs, +from a trading journey to the city of Kissimmee, where they have +exchanged the fruits of their hunting for many-colored calicos, +ammunition, and alas for the once-noble red men! fire-water. They had +left their canoes when they could no longer be floated, and are now +returning in this, the only possible manner, to their fertile oasis, +protected from the white men by many miles of bogs into which all foot +travelers would sink to unknown slimy depths and death. + +On they come in single file, hand over hand from tree to tree, their +long legs dangling in the air, led by Tiger-tail, the chief of the +survivors of the most intelligent and powerful of all the Indian +tribes. Suddenly the leader stops, gives the low cry of the Ring-dove, +which halts his followers, and suspended in air, gazes at the sleeping +form of a young white man, reclining, with his rifle beside him, on +a hammock which rises dry and grass-covered above the surrounding +morasses. + +Motioning his band to follow, the chief drops noiselessly beside the +sleeper, stealthily seizes the gun, revolver, and bowie-knife of the +helpless victim, hands them to others, and shouts "Humph, wake up!" +The pale-face reaches for his weapons, and finding them gone, jumps to +his feet, gazing without flinching at his stalwart captors. + +"Who you be?" grunted the chief. "What for you here?" + +"I am Henry Lee of Lawtey," was the calm reply, "and I am hunting." + +"Humph, you white man hunt Seminole from earth. You no right here. You +my prisoner; follow me, my slave." + +As resistance was useless, the youth silently obeys, climbing hour +after hour until his arms seemed about to be wrenched from their +sockets. At last, just as the rising sun shot his lances of light +through the forest's gloom, the chief drops to solid earth, followed +by all. + +A romantically beautiful scene lies before them. No longer the +styx-like waters; the funereal realms of Pluto have vanished, and an +elevated plateau appears, partially cleared. Here and there graceful +palms, tall, slender cocoanut and orange trees laden with fruit; +sparkling springs; abundant harvests of varied crops; picturesque +wigwams and huts, fair as the garden of the Lord. A pack of dogs +started to yelp, but at once slunk away at a word from the chieftain, +who points to a hut, quietly saying: "Go in there till I call you." + +Henry obeyed, and exhausted with his journey, sank quickly to sleep +upon the straw-covered floor. At length, when the sun was high in the +heavens, he was awakened by a black man, who placed before him some +venison and corn bread, then silently withdrew. After satisfying his +hunger, he went out to explore. + +It was an ideal scene of tropical luxuriance; cattle and sheep were +feeding upon the abundant grasses; but they suddenly took to their +heels, with uplifted tails and terrified eyes, at the sight of his +white face, a spectacle never before seen on this oasis, peopled +hitherto exclusively by "Copperheads." Swarms of children were +shooting their arrows at deer-skin targets; groups of braves, +fantastically attired, lounged under the shade of the wide-spreading +umbrella trees, smoking fragrant tobacco in long-stemmed pipes, but +they did not deign to give the visitor even an inquiring glance. + +Henry interviewed a number of negroes hoeing corn and sweet potatoes, +who informed him in broken English that they were the slaves of the +Indians; that they had never heard of the civil war, nor of Abraham +Lincoln. They claimed to be well treated, and were contented, having +plenty to eat and no very severe labor. They cast anxious glances +towards the village, and seemed glad when he walked away, saying +they had never before seen a white man and thought he must be "big +medicine." + +The birds were singing gaily, all nature smiled complacently, and he +strolled over the flower-bedecked fields into the recesses of the +forest, where he seated himself under a blossom-covered magnolia +around which twined the fragrant jessamine. He gave himself up to +day-dreams. All at once a light, moccasined footfall is heard, and +there stepped from the woods an Indian girl, graceful as a fawn, with +her head crowned with flowers, and softly singing a strange, sweet +song in an unknown tongue. When the stranger was seen she started to +flee, but with a smile he beckoned her to stop, which she did, as +though hypnotized. + +"Oh," she whispered, "you are the pale-face my father has captured; +but if Tiger-tail should see me speaking to you, he would kill us +both. Such is the law of the Seminoles. No Indian maiden must speak to +a white man; but I never saw such as you before." + +"But, how happens it," said he, in astonishment, "that you speak my +language?" + +"My father taught me," was the reply, "he is a scholar; we all speak +some American." + +"May I know your name?" asked our hero. + +"I am Sunbeam, daughter of the Seminole chief." + +"And mine is Henry Lee," he replied to her inquiring look. "You +are well named," he continued. "I have seen many daughters of the +pale-faces; but none so fair and bright as you. Sunbeam, at this my +first glance, I love you; can you sometime love me?" + +"I do love you now," replied the artless girl; "the Great Spirit tells +me to do so; but we must not be seen together; they will kill us, we +must part at once." + +"Dearest," cried Henry, "when can we meet again?" + +"To-morrow at noon," came the impulsive reply. "In my cave there back +of that cypress; no one is allowed to enter but me; there I say my +prayers, and my father says it is sacred to me alone. Good-bye, +Henry," and she sped like a deer into the shades of the forest. + +The youth was sincere, for it had flashed upon him like an inspiration +when their eyes first met, that she was born for him, and he for her. +They were married in heaven, ages ago. It came like a word from the +Infinite to these kindred souls. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness +which surrounds us manifests things unseen. Such visions sometimes +effect a transformation in those whom they visit, converting a poor +camel driver into a Mohammed, a peasant girl tending goats, into a +Joan of Arc. + +This love-flash from the invisible blent these two hitherto widely +separated souls into one, even as the positive electricity leaps +through the spaces to find the negative, and when met, dissolves the +separateness into a harmonious oneness which can never be sundered. +The unsophisticated Indian maiden went her way, thrilling with the +thought that her heart is in his bosom, and his in hers, useless one +without the other. + +The white youth was suddenly changed from an idle, wandering, +purposeless dreamer, into a fearless lover, ready to face death itself +to secure the object of his worship, and he sauntered back to his hut +with no flinching from the many dangers which surrounded him. + +There a black slave met him, bearing an abundant feast. "Eat," said +the negro, "and then go to the lodge of Tiger-tail, the largest in the +village, with the skin of a tiger stretched on the door." + +As soon as Henry had assuaged his hunger, he hastened to obey the +summons. As before, no human being noticed him, and he walked to +the wigwam, knocked on the door-post, and answering the "come" from +within, entered. To his astonishment, the giant leader was evidently +trying to read a newspaper, but took no notice of his entrance for +some minutes, when he suddenly said: + +"What is this?" pointing to a line of what Henry saw was the message +to Congress of the President of the United States. The chief watched +closely as his captive slowly read: + +"The Seminole Indians have been driven by our troops to their +fastnesses in the swamps of the Everglades, and it is for Congress to +decide whether they shall be further punished for their outbreak." + +The chief slowly rose to his frill height, and walked in silence for a +long time, when he turned to our hero, and fastened upon him his eagle +eyes. "Humph," at length he muttered, "the pale-face rob Seminole of +everything else, now he follow us here:--no, the great father must +know the truth, you teach me to write him, no white man ever come here +and go away to tell, you stay here always; you no speak to any one +here but me, you set down, teach me." + +For a long time Henry labored hard to show this remarkable savage how +to read and write. No teacher ever had a more attentive pupil; but it +was very difficult for his untutored mind to master these, to him, +puzzling hieroglyphics. At length, Tiger-tail arose, and saying in an +exasperated tone: + +"Humph! Damn! Me kill something, me mad! You come here every day when +I send for you," and seizing his rifle, and pointing the youth to go, +he strode savagely away into the woods. + +The youth returned to his hut, and wearied with his unusual labors, +was soon asleep, dreaming all night of the loved Sunbeam, whom he +hoped would soon irradiate the darkness of his life. The hours of the +next day dragged away on leaden wings, and the trysting hour drew +near; but to his utter disgust, just as he was on the point of going +to his beloved, the negro appeared summoning him once more to the +chief, and his heart sank with fear that their secret was discovered. + +Tiger-tail betrayed no emotion, and for a long time teacher and pupil +struggled with their tasks as before, until the Indian, unable to +restrain his pent-up restlessness longer, strode away to seek relief +in the chase, leaving Henry to wend his way with many watchful glances +to the shrine of his worship. + +While walking slowly and circuitously to avoid suspicion, and closely +scrutinizing the trunks and tops of trees for any spy who might be +watching, he noticed a slight movement of the tall grass around a +fallen cypress, and rushing to reconnoitre, a warrior leaped to his +feet and dashed into the underbrush. Then the youth realized that +suspicious eyes were following him, and that he was risking his life +to meet the daughter of the chief. + +He dared not enter the mouth of the cave; but walked through the thick +bushes above it much depressed in spirit, when suddenly he heard his +name softly called, and looking downward, saw an opening into the +earth large enough to admit his body. "Drop down this way," was +whispered, and after assuring himself that no spy was in sight, he +obeyed, falling into the arms of the waiting girl. + +"Henry," said she, "I was followed; but no one knows of this entrance +but myself; close it with this shrub. We are watched, and must never +meet here again." + +"But, dearest," sobbed the youth, "life is not worth living without +you; we must escape together this very night." + +"I will go with you to the ends of the earth," was the reply. "I loved +you long before you came here; I have the gift of second sight. Months +ago I saw you coming to me. I have explored the way to the great +river. At midnight, meet me under the great cypress, throw this +perfume to the dogs and they will not bark;" she handed him a small +vial. "I must go; you follow when you hear the King-dove coo; go to +your hut." She embraced him, and was gone. + +Soon, he heard the signal, and he cautiously raised himself to the +upper air, returned to his wigwam, and was soon enjoying rapturous +dreams with his head resting where he knew the rays of the moon would +shine into his face to awaken him at the appointed time for flight. +When he peered anxiously through the entrance of his wigwam at a +little before midnight, he was appalled at the sight. A multitude of +dogs surrounded the hut, ready, evidently by their yelpings, to bring +down upon him the whole tribe of Indians, should he try to escape. + +"Alas," thought he, "there are battles with fate which can never be +won," and for a moment he seemed paralyzed at his doom. Then came +to mind a recollection of the perfume given him by his thoughtful +Sunbeam, and he resolved to do or die. + +Noiselessly as a shadow, he stepped out, hoping to escape the +attention of his canine guards; but in a moment, every cur was on his +feet and were about to make the welkin ring, when he threw at the +leader the contents of his vial. Instantly, all fawned at his feet, +and he hastened to his rendezvous. + +Not a sound was heard save an occasional snore from some sleeper, and +soon he found his faithful sweetheart in the shadow of the century-old +cypress. She quickly slung his rifle across his back, fastened about +him the revolver and bowie-knife, bound over her own shoulder a bag of +provisions; "follow me," she whispered, and away they sped into the +vast primeval forest. + +For hours they hastened in silence, then the maiden halted at the edge +of a dark morass, and whispered: "Here we leave the earth; I know +the way," and they launched themselves into the limbs of the trees, +clambered hand over hand for a long, long time; when well-nigh +exhausted, they dropped down into a little brook, carefully avoiding +any contact with the tell-tale earth. + +"Quick," said Sunbeam; "we must hasten up this stream which will +conceal our footsteps, to the great river, where we can hide and rest +in a great hollow tree which I found there," and on they went with +their feeble remnant of strength. + +At last, just as the rising sun was dispersing the vapors of night, +our elopers swung themselves from the brook into the branches of an +overarching hollow tree, helped each other to the bottom of this house +not made with hands, and soon slept the slumber of utter exhaustion. +It was many hours before tired nature's sweet restorer released these +two loving children from its embraces, and then it seemed as if all +the fiends from heaven that fell had pealed the banner-cry of hell. + +The howls of dogs, and the savage war-whoops announced that their +enemies were upon them; but undismayed by the terrible dangers, they +resolved to die together rather than endure separation. + +"My father never loved me," whispered Sunbeam, "because I am a girl, +while he hoped for a warrior child; if they find us, kill me; I cannot +live without you." + +"We will go to the Great Spirit together, beloved," was the calm +reply. + +Soon they heard the voice of Tiger-tail close to them, talking to his +braves. "They no cross river," he said; "all canoes here, dogs no get +scent, all back to swamp, we find um there, you, War-Eagle, watch +canoes." Again the air resounds with the yells of dogs and warriors, +then all was silent. + +"War-Eagle hate me," whispered the maiden, "cos I no be his squaw; but +we must go before they return." Slowly the lovers pulled themselves +upward by the ingrown stumps of limbs, and, concealed in the thick +branches, looked around; no one was in sight except the Indian left +to guard the canoes, and he was reclining on the bank of the river, +evidently exhausted. + +Noiselessly they lowered themselves to the ground and approached the +recumbent brave, when a loud snore showed that their enemy was in the +land of nod. "Take my revolver," said Henry, "and shoot--if we must," +then, making a slip-noose of the stout thongs which had bound the +provision bag, he deftly slipped it around the arms of the Indian, and +with a quick jerk he was firmly bound. + +The savage tried to grasp his gun, but, unable, was about to give the +whoop of alarm, when the youth clapped his hand over the vast mouth; +the red man subsided, was quickly gagged and tied to a tree. + +"Now, darling, to our boat," and into it they jumped, and Henry bent +to his oars with all his might. On they sped in their light canoe, +these two hearts beating as one, towards liberty and the loved ones +waiting to welcome them in the white man's home. "Dearest Sunbeam," +said Henry, resting for a moment on his oars, "soon you will be the +fairest flower in my garden of home." + +"Oh, Henry," was the faint reply, "I am but a simple Indian girl, and +I know so little." + +"But it will be our delight to live and learn together," said Henry, +"for-- + + "'Thou art all to me, love, for which my heart did pine, + A green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine.'" + +On they glided, out of that paradise of nature, where every prospect +pleases, and naught but man is vile. Sunbeam left the place of her +nativity without a lingering glance behind, for there she had been +nothing but an unwelcome girl. + +In a pretty cottage in Lawtey, you may now see Sunbeam, the Seminole, +wife of a successful planter, Henry Lee, beloved by all who know her, +surrounded by orange groves and fragrant flowers in that land of +perpetual bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +A FOUNDER OF TOWNS AND CLUBS. + + +My ship of life was laden to the water's edge with labors of +varying utility. We founded the Apollo Club, a musical and literary +organization including in its membership the most prominent men and +women of the city; we gave entertainments with our orchestra, singing +society, and costumed dramatic stars, which gave us ample funds to +pay for numerous delightful steamboat excursions, sleigh-rides and +picnics, while developing our latent talents, and greatly enhancing +the social life of our community. + +I refer to this with much pleasure, as it led to the formation of +similar societies in many surrounding towns, much to the benefit of +all concerned. I made an elaborate report of my Florida observations +which was printed entire by the United States Department of +Agriculture, widely distributed, and stimulated many to benefit their +condition by securing comfortable homes in that land of fruits, +flowers and delightful climate. + +That year the angel world sent us our bright-eyed, smiling little +Elizabeth, thus making our trio of sweet singers a quartette to share +our joys and lessen our sorrows, coming like the dews from that heaven +to which we all return when our mission to refresh and inspire the +earth life is ended. It is interesting to note the varying definitions +of the word, baby, which have floated down to us in the literature of +all nations. Here are some of them which I have culled from various +authors: + + "A tiny feather from the wing of love, dropped into the sacred lap + of motherhood." + + "The bachelor's horror, the mother's treasure, and the despotic + tyrant of the most republican household." + + "A human flower untouched by the finger of care." + + "The morning caller, noonday crawler, midnight brawler." + + "The magic spell by which the gods transform a house into a home." + + "A bursting bud on the tree of life." + + "A bold asserter of the rights of free speech." + + "A tiny, useless mortal, but without which the world would soon be + at a standstill." + + "A native of all countries who speaks the language of none." + + "A mite of a thing that requires a mighty lot of attention." + + "A daylight charmer and a midnight alarmer." + + "A wee little specimen of humanity, whose winsome smile makes a + good man think of the angels." + + "A curious bud of uncertain blossom." + + "The most extensive employer of female labor." + + "That which increases the mother's toil, decreases the father's + cash, and serves as an alarm clock to the neighbors." + + "It's a sweet and tiny treasure." + + "A torment and a tease," + + "It's an autocrat and anarchist," + + "Two awful things to please." + + "It's a rest and peace disturber," + + "With little laughing ways," + + "It's a wailing human night alarm," + + "A terror of your days." + +And this final definition which exactly describes each of our +quartette, + + "The sweetest thing God ever made + And forgot to give wings to." + +To crown the honors which this year were thrust upon me, my political +party tendered me the nomination for mayor of the city; but when I +ascertained the fact that I would be obliged to bribe the 300 roosters +on the fence who held the balance of power, and who must be paid two +dollars each to persuade them to come off their perch and vote, I +preferred the $600 to the empty honor, and declined. + +It is said that dame fortune knocks once at every man's door, but +the old woman sent to mine later, her ugly-faced unmarried daughter, +mis-fortune. At the request of some of the Boston newspapers, I wrote +an account for the press of my Florida journey and observations, which +attracted much attention and many callers, among whom were the F---- +brothers, of Boston, who painted the attractions of a town of Orange +County in such glowing colors, that I was induced to visit said place +in summer accompanied by my friend, lawyer S---- of Newburyport. + +We found even the summer climate very agreeable the location very +attractive, and the general prospects for a northern colony there +quite promising. We wandered through the woods far and wide, shooting +quail, an occasional wild turkey, caught fish from the numerous +beautiful lakes, sleeping sometimes under the pines, then in houses, +whose owners were away visiting with no thought of locking their doors +in this land where thieving was unknown. We led a real Bohemian life +in Arcady, quietly bonding hundreds of acres of land, and having +located a hotel and townsite between two charming lakes, leaving a +Mr. G---- W---- a friend of the F---- brothers, as superintendent, to +secure more lands and to cut avenues, we went home, where we formed a +syndicate stock company of which I was elected general manager, with +full powers to sell $50,000 of stock with which to pay for the bonded +lands and the building of a hotel. + +I sold the stock at $100 per share, giving one acre of land with each +share of said stock. This would have been a very successful +enterprise had it not been for the cunning duplicity and greed of our +superintendent, who proceeded diligently to "feather his own nest" +at our expense. I accomplished my task of raising funds very +successfully, and the next winter moved with my family to A----, +taking with us a competent engineer, a Mr. H----, to survey and stake +the lands. + +Here I unearthed the rascality of the superintendent, who, beside +taking our salary and commission for buying lands, had extorted large +commissions and bonuses from the sellers, which came out of our funds +in increasing the prices for which the lands were charged to our +company. In addition to this he had hired a large force of negroes +at high wages, on which he drew a secret commission, opened a store, +selling so called canned peaches,--which really contained much whiskey +and few peaches--to his workmen, and thus getting all their wages. + +I at once discharged all the superfluous negroes, built a fine hotel +which was soon filled with a superior class of people from the north, +set out orange groves for non-resident stockholders, and all would +have been well, had it not been for the extraordinary action at the +annual meeting of the stockholders. + +While I was engrossed with my many duties, the superintendent +cunningly went north and secured proxies in his name, and returning, +beat me by two votes, secured for himself my position as general +manager, and then proceeded to wreck the whole enterprise, much to +his own pecuniary benefit, while my friends who had invested on my +representations, blamed me for their losses though I was entirely +innocent of any wrong whatever. + +To cap the climax, this superintendent refused to make an accounting +for several thousand dollars with which I had entrusted him to make +purchases of lands on my personal account. I secured a warrant for his +arrest, chased him half over the county with a sheriff, and brought +him to the city for trial. On our way to the hotel, I was set upon by +a crowd of roughs who had been dined and wined by said W----, and who +threatened to lynch me. I backed up into a corner of the hotel piazza, +laid my hand on an imaginary revolver, threatening to shoot, and was +defending myself with a whirling chair, when the sheriff's posse +rushed to my deliverance in the nick of time, and W---- was forced to +hand over my money. + +He then made life unbearable by sending negroes at night in my absence +to annoy my family, who escaped injury only by the vigorous use of a +revolver by my wife who defended the little ones by numerous shots +which sent the tormentors flying to the woods. This unscrupulous +superintendent secured by his cunning a large amount of our funds; but +it was a curse to him for he squandered it in riotous living. + +When he married he chartered a large steamer and brass band, took on +board a crowd of guests, champagne flowed like water, every luxury was +furnished liberally, and the excursion was a prolonged debauch. + +To-day this fellow is a fugitive from justice, forsaken by wife and +fair weather friends, and thus really, if not literally, is fulfilled +the prophecy of the poet, + + "Her dark wing shall the raven flap + O'er the false-hearted, + His warm blood the wolf shall lap + E'er life be parted, + Shame and dishonor sit + O'er his grave ever, + Blessing shall hallow it + Never, no never." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +A MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS WITH A ONE DOLLAR CAPITAL. + + +Soon after my encounter at S---- with the unspeakable W----, I met +Major St. A----, who gave a cordial invitation to myself and family to +become his guests in his new town of T----, with a view to securing +our cooperation in the development of his multitudinous schemes. This +invitation we accepted, and very early one beautiful morning in March, +my wife, four children and myself, with driver and guide, embarked on +a "prairie schooner," drawn by three horses, for the promised land. + +It was an ideal drive through many miles of fragrant, towering pine +trees, fording beautiful lakes, catching fish, shooting game, camping +for refreshment on the banks of crystal clear brooks. The oldest girls +would ride on the horses' backs, chase quails, pluck the wayside +flowers, occasionally watching the flight of paroquettes flashing like +diamonds through the air, listening to the mockingbirds filling the +woods with their exquisite songs, and inhaling as it were the ether of +the immortal Gods, the matchless, perfumed, life-giving Florida air. + +All at once, with little warning, as is usual in semi-tropical lands, +the night fell, and our learned guide suddenly found that he had lost +the trail. The owls hooted, the wild-cats screamed, likewise the +"kids," with overpowering fear. We plunged ahead at random, when we +suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner." +The horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near +approach of some water snake or alligator. + +We might have been all drowned, had we not discovered a lantern hung +in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our +course to dry land. By the aid of the light we found the trail, and at +length reached the Major's hotel, hungry and tired. Here we found our +embarrassed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who +refused to leave the goods until he received his payment therefor. + +Our landlord appeared to be "dead broke," but finally persuaded the +reluctant provision-dealer to go away with his pockets filled with +"I.O.U.'s" instead of cash, and about midnight on the verge of +starvation we fully appreciated an abundant feast. We soon found that +our, enthusiastic friend was trying to do a million dollar business +on a one dollar capital. He was building two railroads, running a +steamboat line, a hotel, a sawmill, building a town and a fifty +thousand dollar opera house for a one hundred population town, with +not a dollar in his pocket. + +[Illustration: Flight of the Governor and Staff.] + +The next day we sailed on his steamer to meet the governor of the +state, and his staff who were invited to attend a ball in his honor. +The crew was mutinous on account of receiving no pay, the antiquated +machinery broke down every few minutes, and the Major had a fierce +quarrel with a negro minister who had paid first-class fare and +refused to take second-class quarters, to which all colored folks were +forced at the muzzle of the revolver, and a bloody race battle was +only avoided by the fact that the negroes were entirely unarmed. + +At length, loading the deck with wild ducks, and fish that fairly +jumped into the little boat to avoid their enemies, the ferocious +gar-fish, we took the governor and staff on board, and floundered back +at a snail's pace to T----. At the landing, we boarded a dilapidated +street car drawn by mules, for the hotel. + +Soon--crash! bang, a rail gave way, sending the dignified +governor,--stove-pipe hat flying in the air, coat-tails covering his +head,--into a ditch, his long legs kicking frantically to extricate +his head from the mud. We rescued him and staff with difficulty from +the filth, looking like a bedraggled pack of half-drowned rats. + +Finally we reached the hotel, when the colored orchestra from +Jacksonville rushed upon our host demanding their pay in advance, +with furious oaths and unclassical imprecations. In some way, the +embarrassed diplomat silenced their clamors; then the colored waiters +struck for their pay, and "razors were flying in the air." The furious +landlord at last quieted their clamor with a shotgun, and at about +midnight the grand march was sounded, and a nearly famished crowd made +desperate efforts to look cheerful and "trip the light fantastic toe." +All earthly horrors have an end, and in the wee small hours a starving +multitude was treated to a barbacue by our half-crazed host. + +Almost every white man in this town sold chain-lightning whiskey, and +in our short walk from dance hall to hotel we were obliged to jump +over the prostrate forms of drunken darkies. + +As in the lowlands, bordering upon large bodies of water, in all +tropical and semi-tropical countries, we found, to our horror and +dismay, the mosquitoes in ferocious, bloodthirsty swarms which +rendered life not worth the living; so, as soon as we could, without +seriously offending our host, we took our flight, at least what little +there was left of us, to the delightful highlands of Marion County. + +Here, free from the horrors of mosquitoes, we recruited our attenuated +bodies at the elegant Ocala House, thence by rail to Jacksonville +where we took the steamer for home. Off Hatteras we encountered a wild +storm which sent our great boat well-nigh to the stars, then with an +almost perpendicular plunge, almost to Davy Jones' locker, until, with +the nauseating sea-sickness, we were afraid, first that we should die +and later we only feared lest we should not die. + +At last the young cyclone subsided, and we sailed over a tranquil +sea into Boston harbor, thence by rail to our Bay state home. At +Jacksonville, by the way, we had an experience quite characteristic of +those ante-free-delivery days of old. I went to the post-office for +our mail, having but a few minutes to spare before the departure of +the north-bound train. To my disgust, I found a line of negroes nearly +half a mile in length waiting their turns for calling for letters. One +would step to the window and in an exasperatingly in-no-hurry way, +say: "Anything for Andrew Jackson, sah?" After a long delay--"no!" + +"Do yer 'spect dere may be soon, sah?" + +"Did you expect any?" came the reply. + +"No sah, but sumbudy might write, sah." + +"Gwan, next!" Then some white man in a hurry would step up to +next--"here's a quarter for your place, git aout!" The darky would +pocket his money with a broad grin, and but for his ears, the top of +his head would be an island. + +I could not wait, and would not bribe, so went to the door of the +office, and kicked and banged furiously. "G'way fum de doo'! What de +hell you do on de doo'?" came from the inside. + +"I'm a government officer from Washington," I shouted. "Open the door +or I'll knock it down." Out popped the "cullud pusson" profuse in +apologies. I grabbed my mail and rushed for the train in the very nick +of time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +PENDULUM 'TWIXT SMILES AND TEARS. + + +In many particulars this year of our Lord, 1883, was a sad one for us +all. The pecuniary loss, resultant upon the town-building disaster, +was severe; but the revelation which came to me of the innate meanness +of human nature in matters of money, was the more depressing by far. + +It was amazing to hear wealthy people, who had bought of me a few +hundred dollars' worth of stock, and who really felt the loss of it +much less than they would suffer from a fly bite, whine as if this had +reduced them to the direst poverty, and insinuate that I, who had lost +manifold more than they, should refund, though the loss was entirely +the result of their own stupidity in failing to send me the proxies I +had asked for by mail. + +We consoled ourselves, as usual, with the knowledge that we had acted +honestly and conscientiously towards all, and that the miseries of +this short life are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which +shall be revealed in us in the near future of the life eternal." + +The blue arch above us, ever changing like the sea, has always +possessed a peculiar fascination for me, and I never let slip a +convenient opportunity to feast my eyes upon it. I was pursuing this +favorite occupation one day this year, when an unusually beautiful +cloud attracted my attention, and as I watched its rapidly changing +forms, there was slowly evolved from it the kindly loving face of my +mother. It was no fancy, no distorted figment of a dream. The dear +face smiled upon me with angelic sweetness, glanced upward, and was +gone; then I knew that I had another guardian angel in heaven. + +In a short time, news came from R---- that she who had gladly devoted +her life to self-sacrifice for her children, had been relieved from +the always weak and suffering body. + +Dear, good mother! Her highest and only ambition was to do good; not +a selfish thought ever even flitted across her horizon. Frank as the +day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew; like our Lord himself, she +sacrificed herself for the good of others. Her sons, Richard and Mark, +welcomed her at the gates ajar, and she was at rest. + + What is death but a journey home? + A perfect rest when the work is done, + A gentle sleep for earth-weary eyes, + And the soul ascends to the azure skies. + +We in the earth life went on as best we could. My only brother Joshua +sold the old homestead with its burdens, too heavy for him to bear +alone, bought our former home for one-half it had cost us, which was +much more than any other would pay for it; while we sold our castle +and farm which had become a mountain on our shoulders, and went to +live with my wife's parents in Boston, where I continued my work of +introducing the school text-books which had been sold, and myself with +them, to a New York publishing firm. + +When the winter winds and snows began to blow, I longed for the balmy +zephyrs of fair Florida, and like the summer birds, I once more +journeyed southward; there, after a long search for the best +throughout the land of flowers, journeying in steam yachts, row-boats, +on horseback, and sometimes hand over hand on the branches of trees, +over tracks inaccessible in any other manner, I formed another stock +company consisting of several financiers who had spent all their lives +in Florida, and secured many thousands of acres of excellent lands +in the highlands of Marion County, hoping to do good and get good by +inducing the surplus population of our cities to go back to the bosom +of Mother Earth, where a moderate amount of labor will give them an +independent livelihood free from the snow and cold which infest the +wintry north, free from the heart-breaking demoralization of +begging for work in our overcrowded cities where scores of the +poverty-stricken are tumbling over each other in the frantic grabbing +for every job of work and every crumb of charity. + +Were a mere modicum of the vast sums now worse than wasted in +pauperizing the unemployed; a tithe of the money squandered on +building palaces for our numberless, ever-begging colleges, devoted to +settling the poor upon the unimproved lands in Florida, the dangerous +flood of ever-increasing crime, and physical and mental suffering +which now threatens the very existence of our republic, would soon +vanish from our cities, and thousands of the dangerous classes would +become self-supporting, self-respecting, independent men and women. + +Were a tithe of the vast sums lavished by our millionaires upon the +pictured walls, gorgeously embellished ceilings, overcrowded book +shelves of our numerous libraries, and upon the unchristlike towers +of unfrequented cathedrals, be even loaned to those who would gladly +cultivate the thousands of acres of untilled soil in fair Florida, +all the suffering hangers-on for jobs would become successful +agriculturists, owning their own farms, buying their own books, and +sufficiently educating their own children. + +If the money spent every winter in pauperizing the unemployed by +giving them free soup, could be devoted to settling colonies upon our +uncultivated lands, the vexing problems and contests between labor and +capital would be easily solved and obliterated; the unskilled poor +would be at once enabled to respond to the call of the poet-- + + "Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame, + Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! + With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, + She calls you to feast from her beautiful lap. + + Come out from your alleys, your courts and your lanes, + And breathe like your eagles, the air of our plains! + Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives + Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYED: THEN DEPOSED. + + +Here on elevated lands around a pretty clearwater lake, directly on +the Florida Central and Peninsula Railroad, and near a famous grotto +extending deep into the earth, at the bottom of which, like a well, +was an abundance of water containing peculiar fish, near the noted +Eichelburger cave, and vast forests of gigantic trees with sloping +hills around, we founded the town of B----. + +I was elected general manager, and went north to sell the $100,000 of +capital stock, convertible at the option of the holder into our lands +at schedule price, leaving a Mr. B---- as superintendent to cut +avenues, build a hotel, and conduct the general affairs in my absence. + +For several years I devoted all my energies very successfully to +selling the stock and organizing colonies of settlers. I paid ten per +cent. dividend on the stock while I was manager, besides furnishing +thousands of dollars to defray expenses of building a handsome railway +station, a fine commodious schoolhouse and town hall, a good hotel, +and providing good roads. + +I went to Tallahassee, and log rolled through the state legislature a +bill enabling us to form a city government, and statutory prohibition +of all liquor selling in our new town by incorporating said +prohibition into all our deeds. After securing these funds and many +settlers, also Ex-Governor Chamberlain of Maine as president of our +board of directors, I moved to the new town with my family, there to +reside permanently. + +Here our duties were in many respects agreeable, because useful, for +quite a long time. My wife was mother of the town, going from house to +house ministering to the wants of the newcomers who had become sick +by their carelessness in exposing themselves by night and day while +intoxicated with the delights of this incomparable climate. She formed +a union church, sang in the choir, and sometimes played the organ. I +was the father of the town in many senses of the word, being the only +person having any legal authority, and was expected to settle all +disputes whether between man and man or between man and wife. + +Our town was overrun by hungry clergymen of many denominations and +from nearly every state, all clamoring for the lucre to be obtained by +preaching in our union church. I might have obtained the friendship of +one by appointing him as pastor; but I made malicious enemies of all +by insisting upon each one officiating in turn and taking therefor the +contents of the contribution box on his day. + +The air resounded with the prayer-meeting shouts of these +ecclesiastics who all secretly worked against me, because I would not +allow them to found as many churches as there were inhabitants. + +Many of the impecunious newcomers schemed against me because I could +not furnish them all with light work and heavy pay. Some would persist +in drinking surface water, ignoring all sanitary laws, became unwell +and then cursed the climate and my so-called misrepresentations; +others would ignore all instructions as to the agricultural methods +essential to success in this climate, and then denounce me on the sly +because their crops were not satisfactory. + +Many wished to act as real estate agents on commission, and when +one succeeded, the rest, fired with jealousy, would accuse me of +favoritism because their own incompetency did not secure for them +these prizes. Our house was besieged by day and night, so that we +had to cut a hole in the outside door to talk with them when we were +seeking a little sleep. + +We formed a temperance, literary and musical club which every one in +the town attended, and at this, at least, we spent many pleasant and +useful hours. I was president of this club, and performed all the +drudgery necessary to its success. I established a general store at +which goods were sold at about cost, but many complained because they +could not have unlimited credit. + +One oasis in this fault-finding desert, was the outside colony of +freedmen. I employed many of them to do the heavy work of clearing +avenues, and the air resounded with their cheerful songs, and I had +the pleasure, with much labor, to save from the rapacious white +robbers, the farms which these colored men had received from generous +Uncle Sam. One case will illustrate the many instances in which I +appeared as umpire. + +Uncle and Aunty Peter Gooden owned a fertile farm, and made a good +living and more by diligent labor thereon. A white "cracker" coveted +this property, and told the ignorant aunty that he would let her have +$300 on mortgage at two per cent. per week, so that she could buy +a new yellow wagon, silver-mounted harness and prancing mules, a +gorgeous red silk dress with much finery, with which she could +outshine all her neighbors. These unsophisticated, honest "coons," +thinking it meant that they would have to pay only two cents per week, +accepted the offer, affixed their X marks to his unknown papers, and +not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like this simple couple. + +In a short time they came to me broken-hearted, sobbing, and wailing, +telling me that the "cracker shylock" had foreclosed, ordering them +out of their house and home. I at once notified the avaricious shark +that he was guilty of violating the laws of the state by defrauding +and by false pretenses, tendered him the principal with legal +interest, and threatened punishment by law if he did not accept. He +said, like the fabled raccoon in the tree, "Don't shoot, I'll come +down." I paid the money for which, in due time, Uncle Peter reimbursed +me. + +I secured the hatred of the "crackers," but the undying gratitude +of the negroes, who vied with each other in bringing us game in +profusion, the first fruits of their crops, and shedding tears if +we offered payment therefor, begging to be allowed to show their +thankfulness by these free gifts. If one of them heard a threat +against us he would guard our house all night with a shotgun, and +would shadow me as I went about in the night, ready to spring upon any +of my assailants. + +[Illustration: Ups and Downs in the Wild Woods.] + +I provided a school and church for these loving, dusky children, +and it was pathetic and cheering to see them all, from the tiny +pickaninnies to the tottering gray heads, going regularly with their +primers and Bibles, trying to learn to read and write. + +Many pleasant evenings in midwinter we sat on our vine-clad piazza, +enjoying the balmy breezes, perfumed with the delicious orange +blossoms, looking at the stately pines glorified by moonlight and +starlight; listening to the songs of these dark-faced but white-souled +serenaders, the whites of whose eyes and perfect teeth could be seen +beaming upon us through the dusky shades of the forest. + +On the evening of the day when news arrived of the first election of +Grover Cleveland to the Presidency, we were sitting as usual on our +piazza, when, suddenly, I saw a flash of fire in the woods, followed +by the report of a rifle, then others in quick succession. Rushing to +the scene I found a few Southern whites armed with repeating rifles, +facing a large band of negroes carrying a motley array of pitchforks, +scythes, razors, clubs, and a few ancient shotguns. Yelling: "Hold +up!" I sprang between the embattled hosts, and demanded to know what +was the row. + +"Get out of the way, you damned Yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or +we'll riddle you with bullets." Then they gave the far-reaching, +fiendish, rebel yell. + +"Shoot," I replied, "if you want to be hung." + +--"Boys," I said, turning to the darkies, "what's the matter?" + +"Oh, boss, massa Linkum's dead, de Dimikrat am Presidunt, und we poo' +niggers be slabes agin. We fight, we die, but we won't be slabes agin, +neber." + +Again came the roar of rifles behind me and the minnie balls went +shrieking over our heads. "Boys," I shouted, "you are mistaken. A +million Northern soldiers will march down here if necessary to prevent +that; go at once to your homes; I will take care of you." Slowly the +colored men, who trusted me implicitly, melted away in the darkness. +Again the rebel yell, again the rifle shots high in the air. +"Gentlemen," said I, to the menacing whites, "come with me to the +Hall, I want to talk with you." + +"To hell with you!" they yelled, but followed me into the building. + +When they had sullenly taken seats, with guns threateningly at the +ready, they glared at me like tigers ready to spring. Soon a man, I +had, on my way, sent to the store, arrived with a box of good Florida +cigars, and I quietly passed them around to my "lions couchant," +took a seat on the platform facing them, lit up, and commenced the +enjoyment of a silent smoke, they following suit. + +The tender of a cigar in the South is a recognition of comradeship +which is a most potent mollifier. At last they brought their guns +to the ground arms, parade rest, and the leader, an ex-Confederate +officer, drawled out, "Wall, Yank, what do you want of we uns?" + +"Just as you please, gentlemen, peace or war?" + +"We are smoking the pipe, or cigar, of peace, Yank." + +"So mote it be, brothers," said I, knowing that they were all members +of the mystic tie. "We meet on the level, let us part on the square." + +"So mote it be," was the response in a regular lodge room chorus. + +A few quick signs were exchanged between chair and settees, the ice +was broken, the "lodge was opened in due form;" there was no longer +any restraint, for we were all members of the most ancient fraternal +order on earth, of which the wisest man who ever lived was founder. +They had not known this before. The white dove descended, and they +promised on the sacred oath which makes all men brothers, to molest +the negroes no more. We had a jolly good time, gave each other the +Grand Masonic grip and departed to our homes. + +As I walked, I saw several dark figures dodging from tree to tree, +and all that night my dusky-hued friends kept vigilant watch and ward +about our cottage. The next morning many valiant war-men in time of +peace, but peace-men in time of war, told me what brave fighting they +would have done for my protection had I but called upon them to do so. + +I stocked the lake with excellent food fish obtained from the National +Fish Commissioner, built good sidewalks, arched by beautiful shade +trees; and many prominent men bought lands in our town. We passed an +ordinance forbidding the use of our public thoroughfares to cattle +and hogs, and for a while the air quivered with the squealings of +infuriated razor backs. + +Our valiant city marshal would pounce upon each one of these +long-snouted swine; then came the tug-of-war, amid clouds of dust; +down went marshal and razor-back, the nose as long and sharp as a +ploughshare cleaving the earth near the sidewalks lined with laughing +people. Our great Floridian always triumphed, and his pig-ship was +incarcerated in the town "pound" until owner paid charges and penned +his property outside city limits. + +Once I saw a terrific contest between one of these long-legged, +long-nosed porkers and the lone, pet alligator of our lake. His +pig-ship was enjoying a drink when Mr. 'Gator seized him by the snout, +the porcine braced and yelled; the 'gator let go in amazement; the pig +turned to run; 'gator seized him by the leg, then Greek met Greek, +teeth met teeth, till' the saurian struck him with his mighty tail, +and all was over; the alligator and the porker lay down in peace +together with the pig inside the 'gator. + +One day, one of our fishermen brought in a string of trout which far +overshadowed the miraculous draught of fishes in the Sea of Galilee. +On being questioned as to how he did it, he said he got one bite and +pulled for three hours. The fish kept catching hold of each others' +tails in their eagerness to be caught, until he had landed four +barrels of the toothsome fat trout. + +Our champion brought from a few hours' hunt, enough quail for the +entire town; and when asked how he did it, he replied: "Oh, I saw +three thousand quail roosting on the limb of a tree. I had only my +rifle with one ball; I shot at the limb, cracked it, their legs fell +through the crack which closed when the bullet went through, and +chained them all hard and fast. All I had to do was to cut off the +limb with my jack-knife and bag the whole lot." + +One day this mighty Nimrod brought home three bears and four deer. +"How did you do it?" asked the envious multitude. "I was asleep in my +wigwam, was waked up by a rumpus outside, rushed out with my gun, and +chased the crowd around the hut till I was dead beat, then I bent my +rifle across my knee into the exact circumference shape of my house, +and fired. The bullet whistled by me for half an hour, chasing the +varmints who were chasing each other; bum by, the bullet caught up, +went through the whole crowd, and by gum; that 'ere bullet is chasing +round that wigwam naouw." + +On another occasion, this same man brought in a lot of wild turkeys +all ready for the table. As usual we expressed our wonderment. "Wall, +by gum," said he, "'twas the beatemest thing you ever heered on. I +was waked up by these critters squawkin' over my haouse; I fired up +chimbly, and daown tumbled the whole gang; the fire burnt off the +feathers and roasted um up braown afore I could get at um." + +"But how about the stuffing?" + +"Oh, that's nothin'; they'd stuffed themselves afore I shot um." + +We had often congratulated ourselves upon our immunity from snakes, +never having seen even one in our Bailiwick; but our sweet dreams of +peace were rudely disturbed by this Baron Munchausen who horrified our +ladies one day, by saying that he went into our church to make some +repairs, and there met a rattle-snake which swallowed him whole at one +full swoop; at once he recalled the Sunday-school lesson of Jonah in +the whale's belly, took courage, struck a match, made a bonfire of his +hat, and by its light cut his way out with his hatchet, ran to his +house, got his gun and shot the snake, which was so large that he had +not noticed the man's cutting, nor his escape, but was vastly enjoying +his after dinner nap. This man long bore the honors of being the +champion liar and champion hunter of the universe. + +Thus, rapidly, sped away our days replete with alternating smiles and +tears until arrived the time for our annual stockholders' election. On +our way to Ocala to attend this important event, I conversed at length +with the Rev. W----, upon whom I had conferred many and profitable +favors. This ostentatiously pious individual expressed much gratitude +for my kindness to him, assured me that my administration of affairs +had been a grand success, that I had gained the merited respect and +confidence of all the people in the town and that he would urge my +reelection as general manager, with all his strength. + +The conference progressed very harmoniously for awhile, when I was +called out to see a man on some important business, and on reentering +the room, I noticed some excitement among the members, when General +Chamberlain, the president, called me to his chair and frankly told +me, in the hearing of all, that the Rev. W---- had, as soon as I left, +denounced me fiercely as a fraud and a liar, stating that I had the +respect of no one in B----; that the town would be ruined were I +reelected; that he himself would take my position without any salary, +relying solely upon commission from land sales, as compensation, and +that he made this statement at the unanimous request of the citizens +of the town. + +All eyes were turned to me for an explanation. I looked for awhile +at the hypocritical clergyman very steadily, until he cringed like a +viper, and turned pale as a ghost. I then narrated the statements made +to me scarcely an hour before, called upon him for some proof of his +accusations, and closed by saying that I would not accept a reelection +unless it came to me unanimously. The craven reverend left the room +without a word; I was reelected without a dissenting vote, and thus +closed one of the most revolting revelations of depravity that I ever +witnessed. + +This "wolf in sheep's clothing," after an extraordinary career in +endeavoring to "fleece" others, finally lost every dollar of his +property, fled from the town with his family, and I have never been +able to hear from him since. I wish for the sake of faith in human +nature that this had been the only case of "fall from grace," but +alas, there were others! + +But let the curtain fall. Moral--have no confidence in the man who +wears his religion on his coat sleeve or necktie; but try the spirits +whether they are of Christ. + +At this time, a party of prominent people arrived at B----, from +the North, to consider the feasibility of investing quite largely +somewhere in Florida. As they wished to visit the southern part of the +state before deciding, I procured free passes for all, and escorted +them via steamer, down the entire Gulf coast, touching at all +attractive points, exploring coral islands where myriads of sea birds +nested, encircling us with wild screams till the clouds of them +well-nigh shut out the sun; then we collected rare shells and flotsam +and jetsam from far away lands; one hour, floating over the calm Gulf +of Mexico, as smooth as a mirror, then tossed by a sudden tempest +far towards the stars, and tumbling down to Davy Jones' locker; now +enjoying the lotos-eaters' paradise, then, as we reached the lowlands, +well-nigh devoured by millions of mosquitoes and sand flies. + +Then we crossed the peninsular, traveling under hammock-woods and +century-old wild-orange trees, whose "twilight dim hallowed the +noonday," regaled with unlimited fish and game to the far-famed Indian +River,--delightful recreation-spots for a few weeks in winter, but too +hot, damp, and mosquitoey for colonies. Then we were guests of the +millionaires' club at Cape Canaveral, where were acres of wild ducks, +droves of screaming catamounts, and huge-billed, fish-devouring +pelicans. We drove over many miles of hard, firm sea-beaches--delightful +brief winter homes for the rich, then back to our fertile piny woods +highlands, convinced that the "backbone" of the peninsular was the only +desirable locality for permanent settlers who must get a living from the +bosom of mother earth. + +Soon after, leaving Mr. B----, the superintendent, in charge of the +company's interests in our new town, which now contained over one +hundred houses, and had elected a Mayor and Alderman, I returned with +my family to Boston, devoting my time to lecturing on Florida in +general, and B---- in particular, in nearly all the cities of New +England, distributing illustrated books which I had prepared, and +which were approved as true, by many prominent people who had lived +for many years among the scenes which were therein described. + +My labors were very successful, and a great success for our enterprise +seemed assured, when I received a letter from our directors, stating +that a Dr. K---- had offered to accept my position as general manager, +without salary; pay his own expenses, relying on his commissions on +land sales, and that as I had declined to serve on this basis they +had felt compelled to accept his services. As I was obliged to have +a regular income for the support of my family, I acquiesced in the +directors' decision, and soon, under the new incompetent management, +the company failed; so another of my business enterprises, on the very +verge of a grand success, became a defeat, and again the innocent were +blamed for the acts of the guilty. I converted my stock in the M.L.&I. +Co., into lands of the company at a great loss to me, as I took the +lands at company's schedule values instead of at the cost prices, +while the stock cost me--the full price of $100 per share. Blessed is +he who expecteth nothing, for he alone shall not be disappointed. + + Our varying days pass on and on, + Our hopes fade unfulfilled away, + And things which seem the life of life + Are taken from us day by day. + + Our little dramas all may fail, + And naught may issue as we planned, + Our costliest ships refuse to sail, + Our firmest castles fall to sand. + + But God lives on, and with our woe + Weaves golden threads of joy and peace, + And somewhere we will surely know + From sorrow and pain the glad release. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. + + +This year of our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow +than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in +connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while +alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper: +"James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the +news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding me +farewell. + +My father was an honest man, the noblest work of God; he had gained +none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what +was better far, a conscience void of offense towards God and man. In +the words of Thoreau--"If a man does not keep pace with his fellows, +perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step +to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." This my +father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from +earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a +deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life. + +The winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to his arctic +home, and when the first harbingers of spring appeared, singing the +memorial songs of the Resurrection, the old country fever, inherited +from many generations of farmer ancestors, seized me, and we bought a +small plantation for $4,200, in N----, Mass., to which we moved April +28, 1887. Here, as usual, much money was expended on improvements and +for horse, carriages, cow, pigs, hens, also for scanty harvests of +vegetables, and our only returns therefor consisted of large crops +of backaches, nasal hemorrhages, and rheumatism incurred in frantic +attempts to coax from the reluctant soil, some slight compensation for +excessive labor. + +Here, as usual, I was busied with many cares, lecturing in various +places on the subject of Florida and selling our private lands in that +state. Like Mr. Pickwick, I was founder of many societies, notably the +N---- club, which, with a fine orchestra and much dramatic talent +soon became the social and literary attraction of the town; also the +Republican club, which conducted a vigorous campaign for protective +tariff and sound money, attracting large audiences by political +debates. I was president of both these flourishing organizations, was +chairman of the parish committee of the Unitarian Church, leading +to its enlargement and extended usefulness, was a member of the +congressional committee of the district which wrested a congressman +from the Democrats, electing, after a desperate struggle, John W. +Candler, to the National Legislature in place of Russell, "the +sheepless Shepherd." + +On the 16th of June of this year, Rebecca, the wife of my only +surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen +shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, +my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had +long gone before. She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet +to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the +best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she +found it. + + One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear, + One by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear. + +On the evening of the 16th of August in this year, an experience +came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious +thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called +death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence. + +My brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a +week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the +gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw +a notice posted on a tree stating that the B---- sisters would give +a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. We were all +skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the +contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded +to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity. +Here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of +intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed +figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly +elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called +to meet them. + +This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form +whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the +platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. On responding to the +invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor, +kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister," +informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in +loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had +exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her +to help. Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one +dazed. + +"James," she said, "I am Mary, your wife." She embraced me with many +kisses as in the long ago, and continued: "I am so glad to see you +and Lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her +goodness to our children; my time here is so short." Then turning; +"Jot," she whispered to my brother, "come here;" she kissed him, said: +"Rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak +to come out. We give you all our love and blessing; good-bye," and +disappeared through the floor at our feet. + +There was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the +unseen world. We had "felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had +heard the sound of the voice that is still," and henceforth we knew +that we walked hand in hand with angels. We realized unmistakably the +truth of the words of the poet Longfellow: + + "The forms of the departed enter at the open door, + The beloved, the true hearted come to visit us once more, + And with them the being beauteous, who unto my youth was given + More than all things else to love me, and is now a saint in Heaven. + Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside, + If I but remember only such as these have lived and died." + +The pages of the Bible, the testimony of all the sweet singers of all +the ages, confirm indisputably our certain knowledge of spirit return, +and _we know_ the truth of what the saints and sages of all time have +dreamed, and by faith have believed, all religions have taught, it is +now demonstrated beyond all doubt and we can say most joyfully-- + + "Oh land, oh land + For all the broken-hearted, + The mildest herald by our fate allotted + Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand + To lead us with a gentle hand + Into the land of the great departed, + Into the silent land." + +We turned to our duties, inspired by the knowledge that we were guided +and assisted by the loved ones gone before. After living on the +flat-as-pan-cake plain of N---- for three years, again was I +disenchanted; all the poetic illusions of farm life vanished, all the +oxygen seemed to be exhausted from the air, the romance of raising +potatoes at a cost of five dollars a peck disappeared, the old farm +hung like a millstone round my neck, we sold it and hired a pretty +cottage in the lucre-worshipping town of B----, on the 29th of March, +1890, where we led uneventful lives for one year, until my fickle +fancy was captivated by a fine new house on the hilltop overlooking +the sea, in the town of W----, Mass. This we bought and entered on the +14th of May, 1891. + +Here at last we thought we had found the Mecca towards which, all our +lives we had been drifting. Once more came the passion for beautifying +our own, and we made our lawns to bud and blossom like the roses; +worshipping at the shrine of the majestic ocean, + + "Its waves were kneeling on the strand, + As kneels the human knee, + Their white locks bowing to the sand + The priesthood of the sea." + +Here we passed four very pleasant and useful years; consciously near +to us, though unseen, were all our loved ones of the spirit world. +Almost every night our angel friends communicated with us unmistakably +through the ouija, and planchette; they would draw caricature pictures +of us all, and give us conundrums and jokes that we had never known +before. One evening in particular, Mary wrote us to give her children +the best possible musical instruction, stating that May would become a +great singer and flute player, and that Ada would be a fine organist +and pianist, as well as singer; that Ida would do well with violin and +voice. + +We were incredulous, as they had inherited no musical talent, neither +had they manifested any inclination in these directions; but Mary was +so persistent and strenuous in her appeals, that we heeded the advice, +gave the girls good teachers along these lines, and soon, their +spirit-mother's predictions were fulfilled to the very letter, and the +so-called "Foss triplets" became a veritable inspiration to thousands +of delighted listeners to their rendition of instrumental and vocal +strains of music. + +The dews of heaven descend upon all the flowers of the field, some +open their petals, welcome the refreshment and are blessed thereby; +while others close their buds, refusing the blessing, and as a result, +wither and die. Even so come to all souls the spirits of the departed, +and they inspire or fail in their mission of love according to whether +we open or close to them the doors of our inner sanctuaries. + + The departed, the departed, + They visit us in dreams, + They glide above our memories + Like sunlight over streams. + + The melody of summer waves, + The thrilling notes of birds + Can never be so dear to me + As their softly-whispered words. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +A PRACTICAL SOCIALIST AND COLONIZER. + + +We found in this town of W----, a moribund Unitarian Church, with +scarcely a handful of attendants, listening once a week to a lifeless +minister and an asthmatic harmonium accompanied by a few feeble, +inharmonious voices. + +Our sympathies were aroused for this expiring infant, and we resolved +to rescue it if possible from its open grave. My wife and I, +accompanied by the "Triplets," on the front seat of our carriage +as drivers, canvassed the entire town, asking all we met to lay up +treasures in heaven by "rescuing the perishing," and we soon secured +money to buy a fine toned organ and to hire a wideawake pastor. Ada +played the new organ; May formed a quartette with herself as soprano, +Ida often accompanying with her violin; my wife teaching in the +Sunday-school, myself serving as chairman of the Parish Committee, and +soon our church was filled with attentive and much edified listeners +and helpers. I organized the Channing Club, which soon included in its +membership all the leading musical and dramatic talent of the town. We +met weekly in the church vestry which was soon decorated by handsome +pictures, scenery and bric-a-brac, the gifts of our members, making a +very spacious and attractive resort. + +This club over which I presided, developed to a remarkable degree the +latent talents of many who had never before thought themselves capable +of entertaining and instructing the public. We had an orchestra of +stringed and brass instruments, in which May played the flute, Ada +the piano and organ, Ida second violin, while all our four girls sang +solos, duets, trios, and quartettes. Many elderly people paid generous +fees for honorary membership, while the large, active membership, +responded regularly when called upon with musical, literary, or +dramatic renditions individually or in combination as they might +prefer. It was a delightful and instructive symposium which ought to +be found in every town. + +The Channing Club soon became famous, and gave first-class +entertainments to very large audiences at high admission fees in our +own and surrounding towns as well as in Boston, thus replenishing the +church treasury and greatly promoting sociability and friendship by +regular dances and suppers which made hundreds seem like one large +family, bound together by many friendly ties, each one readily +responding to the call of the president to render his or her full +share of entertainment and good cheer for the good of all. + +It was an ideal socialistic order, and we truly "sat together in +heavenly places." All gladly contributed to the needs of the poor +or the sick; we chartered steamers and went on picnic excursions to +attractive island resorts in our beautiful harbor; class distinctions +were banished, envy and jealousy disappeared like snow before the sun, +and good fellowship reigned supreme. Our rich and poor met together as +brothers and sisters. + +Such an organization in churches would soon banish class hatreds, and +do much to make this world a paradise like to that above. + +The winter of 1892 was a red-letter season in the history of us all. +We rented our house in W----, to a friend, and lived in Florida, +our four girls attending Rollins College at Winter Park, where they +enjoyed life immensely in the incomparable climate which, with their +studies in this excellent school, was of great benefit to them, +physically and mentally. I was favored with free passes all over the +state, and devoted my time to a careful examination of large tracts +of land in various counties, but found none to my liking until on +our return trip, we spent several weeks at Lawtey, in the county of +Bradford. + +Florida, within its vast area, contains a great variety of land and +climates, and the person who has traversed only the beaten track +of the tourist knows nothing of the fertile tracts and delightful +temperatures of these green-grassed and Piny-woods Highlands. Here, as +nowhere else in the world, nature has provided all the essentials to +agricultural success; there was but one mortgaged homestead in the +entire township; it is the greatest strawberry mart in the world; the +abundance of nutritious wild grasses render cattle and sheep raising +throughout the year a source of great revenue, and the maximum of crop +returns is secured with a minimum of labor. + +At last, after years of search throughout the state, we found our +ideal location for a colony, and I bonded over 6,000 acres of fertile, +well-wooded lands, returned home, formed a syndicate, and paid for our +tract, to which we gave the appropriate suggestive name of "Woodlawn." +I successfully pursued my avocation of advertising and selling our +lands, having an office in Boston and cooperating agents in several +states. + +On June 11th, 1894, my brother Joshua, the last of my father's family +except myself, was suddenly called to join our many loved ones in the +spirit world. All our lives we had been as David and Jonathan, and not +a cloud had swept across the azure of our sky of mutual affection, +until the advent of his second wife. He was one of the best men that +ever lived, and nearly everyone in his town had been benefited by his +well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and he found awaiting him, +many treasures in the grand bank of heaven. + + "I cannot say, and I will not say + That he is dead--he is just away, + With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, + He has wandered into an unknown land, + And left us dreaming how very fair + It needs must be, since he lingers there; + We think of him faring on, as dear + In the love of there as the love of here, + Think of him still as the same, I say, + He is not dead--he is just away." + +Soon after the departure of my brother to the better land, our +spirit-band informed us very plainly through "Ouija," that it was our +duty to remove to Boston in order that our children might have better +educational facilities, and be admitted to the "musical swim" of the +"Hub of the Universe." We obeyed their mandate, and the predictions of +our angel friends were fully verified. In our new home the older girls +met those to whom they were married in Heaven, and to whom they +gave their hands and hearts. I now look back over a half century of +existence on this earth, and my muse inspires me to record that: + + I have ships that went to sea + More than fifty years ago. + None have yet come back to me, + But keep sailing to and fro, + Plunging through the shoreless deep, + With tattered sails and battered hulls + While around them scream the gulls. + + I have wondered why they stayed + From me, sailing round the world + And I've said, "I'm half afraid + That their sails will ne'er be furled." + Great the treasures that they hold, + Silks, and plumes, and bars of gold, + While the spices which they bear + Fill with fragrance all the air. + + I have waited on the piers + Gazing for them down the bay, + Days and nights, for many years, + Till I turned heart-sick away. + But the pilots, when they land, + Kindly take me by the hand, + Saying, "Surely they will come to thee, + Thy proud vessels from the sea." + + So I never quite despair, + Nor let hope or courage fail, + And some day, when skies are fair, + Up the bay my ships will sail. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +HAND IN HAND WITH ANGELS. + + +In our Boston home, there came to us one of the most wonderful and +inspiring experiences ever vouchsafed to mortals beneath the stars; +an experience which solved forever for us the problem of immortality, +which all the religious teachings of all the ages had been powerless +to accomplish. It confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt, our knowledge +of the future life obtained previously at Onset Bay, as the following +named events transpired in our own house in the presence of witnesses +under test circumstances which precluded all possibility of deception. + +Mrs. B----, of Boston, came to our house alone, gratuitously, on her +own volition, sat within a few feet of our entire family and two of +our neighbors, having no cabinet or any paraphernalia which are always +required by those charlatans who have associated the fair name of +spiritualism with fraud and chicanery. In about one hour there +appeared in our parlor, in full view of us all, more than thirty +forms; some tall as were ever seen on earth, others little children, +the forms of our offspring who were "still born"; my brother Joshua, +who had been in spirit life a little over one year came fully +materialized and was clearly recognized by my entire family. + +He gave me, while I was standing within two feet of the medium, the +firm grip of a Master Mason; his hand was like that of a living human +being; he whispered a few intelligible words, saying that we should +have no fear if trouble came, that all would turn out for our ultimate +good, and disappeared at my feet; then a tall, finely-formed young man +with dark moustache came, beating his breast with his hand. "You see, +I am all here," he said; "I am John Mansfield, formerly of New Jersey. +I was attracted to your house by the music. I am guardian of your +girls; I am going to try to help in your father and mother." He +vanished; then returned, trying to bring the half-materialized but +recognizable forms as he had promised; but they were weak, and seen +but dimly. + +Then came the clearly defined form of the children's aunt, and the +girls, who were somewhat timid, recognized her at once. She kissed +each one several times in rapid succession just as she used to do when +she met them in the long ago; called them and my wife by name, and +disappeared, apparently through the floor. Then appeared Mary, my +spirit-wife, and many others whom we could not recognize. + +Little Blue Bell, one of the medium's cabinet spirits, them came, +pointing to the door, saying: "See that little fat snoozer?" we looked +around and saw the wondering eyes of our Bessie, who we supposed was +"snoozing" in bed; she had come down in her night-dress. Finally, +Nellie, our hired girl, who, being a Catholic, had been warned by the +priest never to countenance spiritualism, and had locked herself in +her room, came into the parlor, wild-eyed and with her hair streaming +over her shoulders, saying she was compelled to come in. At once the +form of a young Irish girl clad in peasant costume, with hair to her +waist, appeared, and clasped Nellie in her arms; they talked a few +minutes, and the form vanished in air. Nellie told us that it was a +schoolmate of hers who died in Ireland fifteen years before, that they +had been great friends, and vied with each other in growing the longer +hair. + +These facts may seem incredible to those who have never received +visitations from the other world; but we know that we saw and felt the +forms of our spirit friends on that occasion, as surely as we know +that we ever saw them when they were with us daily in the body on +earth. + +When alone that night, I "dropped into poetry," and here is what my +spirit-guided hand wrote, February 4th, 1895. + + Out of the darkness cometh a light, + Out of the silence cometh a voice, + The pathway of life grows suddenly bright, + And as never before we all rejoice. + + The dearly beloved who have gone before + Come back to bless from the beautiful shore; + They speak to us words of lofty cheer, + That banish the clouds of darksome fear. + + How sweet to _know_ that there is no death, + That the soul outlives the fleeting breath; + That guardian angels surround us ever + With a deathless love no power can sever. + + We mourn no more the vanished youth, + We are nearing the heaven of eternal truth; + We lament no more the earthly ills, + For their power will cease on the heavenly hills. + + We grieve no more for the wrinkled brow, + Nor for withering locks as white as snow, + For soon will we greet what is unseen now, + Soon to the sunlit heights will we go. + + For many years doubt's saddening shade + On our hearts its pall has laid: + But a gleam comes from the bright forever, + And gloom and fear shall haunt us never. + + We have felt the touch of the vanished hand, + We have heard the sound of the voice that is still; + They have come to us from the better land, + Their cheering words our spirits thrill. + + "We will know the loved who have gone before, + And joyfully sweet will the meeting be + When over the river, the beautiful river, + The angel of death shall carry me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +AMONG THE LAW-SHARKS. + + +It seems to be an unwritten law of human life that every great joy +shall be quickly followed by a great sorrow. The materialized forms +of our spirit loved-ones had scarcely vanished from sight, when the +trouble of which my brother had forewarned us fell like a thunderbolt +from a cloudless sky. + +We had, without a thought of deception, and at prices which then +prevailed, sold to many persons, lands in Florida, some for +settlement, some as investments. Phosphate had been discovered in +the immediate vicinity of some of our tracts, and this fact had led +speculators to buy our lands, hoping that these deposits might greatly +enhance values; but the usual competition to sell this valuable +fertilizer had for the time reduced prices to a non-paying basis; +then, too, an unprecedented freeze, which once in about a hundred +years visits all semi-tropical countries, had destroyed many orange +groves in the State, and so frightened short-sighted, timid people, +that Florida lands were at a great discount, and, as when a panic +sweeps over Wall Street, many frantically hastened to sell, and there +were but few buyers. + +This led several of my customers to conspire to frighten me into +paying them large sums as hush money, pretending that I had secured +their purchases under false pretenses; but the Yankee spirit of +our fathers, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," +prompted me to defy their infamous demands. + +Under the lead of a fiendishly "smart" lawyer, they declared that I +told them their lands were full of phosphate, and within city limits, +although my published circulars and maps stated nothing of the kind. +They denounced me as a fraud in the newspapers, brought lawsuits +against me, attached property, and proceeded in a most brutal manner +to compel payment of their unjust claims. + +My word for half a century had everywhere been as good as my bond, +and my bond as good as gold. I had never before had a lawsuit or any +trouble with any one, and so in my inexperience I employed a lawyer +friend, who was no match for my enemies' human tiger. They testified +unfairly in court, and after many crushing annoyances from the law's +delays, my lawyer, putting in no defense, in order, as he said, +to save his ammunition for use in the Superior Court, to which he +appealed, they secured judgment. + +All these slanders broke my never firm health; I was soon on the verge +of nervous prostration, and was ordered by my physician to at once +secure a change of climate to save my life. My innocent lawyer +supposed that a court of justice would postpone my trial until my +return; but we have now some "courts of injustice." + +Some lawyers are worse than highway robbers; they make the laws as +legislators to suit their own iniquitous, selfish purposes, so worded +that they are susceptible of almost any interpretation, thus +leading to endless litigations by which these cannibal devourers of +reputations are robbing the public of their possessions. They employ +spies to stir up strife, and some lawyers and judges seem to be banded +together to fleece the confiding lambs of the public. The judge not +only refused to postpone the trial until I was able to attend, but +refused to have the jury informed that I was absent on account of +serious sickness. + +We are bound hand and foot, the slaves of these law-sharks, and it +seems as if nothing but revolution and the banishing of these tyrants, +will ever deliver the public from the worse than African slavery to +which some lawyers subject us. We have seen innocent, modest lady +witnesses subjected to bull-dozing and abuse by barbarous lawyers, +until they suffered tortures to which those of the Spanish Inquisition +were merciful. + +As I was obliged to go or die, I accepted the offer of my wife's +brother, a member of the publishing firm of Webster's Dictionaries, +and went to California to fight their battles against the new Standard +Dictionary which was rapidly driving the Webster books out of the +markets of the entire Pacific slope. + +The trial took place during my enforced absence; my enemies' crafty +attorney told the jury that my failure to appear was a sure evidence +of guilt; my doctor's affidavit that he sent me away to save my life +was not allowed to be presented in court; each plaintiff claimed to +have heard the statements imputed to have been made by me to the +others, one of them making love to, and afterwards marrying one of my +most important witnesses, and so the verdict was against me. + +But curses often "come home to roost," and my enemies were ultimately +not benefited at all, as the lawyer-sharks devoured all they received +from me. + +In the meanwhile, during their worrying and falsifying, I was speeding +away in a palace-car, confident that my spirit brother's declaration +would prove true that truth is mighty and will prevail, if not in the +brief here, yet surely in the eternal hereafter. It is very saddening +to see how many, who claim to be your friends while you are +prosperous, are the first to assail with poisoned arrows when you are +attacked in the courts or in the public prints; but my conscience is +clear, and + + Serene, I fold my hands and wait, + Nor care for wind, or tide or sea. + I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, + For soon my own shall come to me. + + Asleep, awake, by night or day, + The friends I seek are seeking me; + No wind can drive my bark astray, + Nor change the tide of destiny. + + The stars come nightly to the sky; + The tidal wave into the sea; + Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, + Can keep my own away from me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +CAMPAIGNING IN WONDERLAND. + + +This delightful journey was a wonderful revelation of the greatness, +power, and grandeur of this glorious republic in which we live. I +gazed with amazement for many hours as we flew over the marvelously +fertile and beautiful prairies of Kansas; here miles upon miles of +wheat, corn, and alfalfa waving like vast seas, irrigated by means of +numberless windmills; there, herds of cattle, numerous as the leaves +of autumn; here, long lines of steam plows breaking thousands of acres +of virgin soil; there mammoth steam reapers devouring vast areas of +gold mines of grain; the food of the nations pouring into bags at one +end, while the stalks were bound midway ready for the fattening of +cattle. The chaff flew in clouds, and quickly, from these machines, +millions of bushels of wheat were soon on their way to the markets of +the world. What wonder that our country now has in Washington over +five hundred millions of gold dollars; the richest treasury ever known +on earth? + +Now we catch glimpses of vast mines of coal and salt; then of great +cities which have sprung up as by magic; and soon my eyes were greeted +with a vision of heavenly splendor in Colorado. Three hundred miles +of the Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak towering 14,000 feet towards the +stars; great clouds of snow blowing from the summit into the valleys; +there cascades of mighty rivers flowing to irrigate lovely valleys; +here the great city of Denver, having 125,000 population, and one mile +higher up in the air than Boston. + +In this city I met my former college professor, now the +multi-millionaire United States senator, burdened with many crushing +cares, knowing about as much peace and quietness as a toad under a +two-forty-gait harrow. + +Then on went the mighty train; here a glimpse at Manitou of the +"Garden of the Gods," with cathedral spires of old red sandstone +towering hundreds of feet towards the clouds which capped their +summits with halos; on through the grand canyon of the Arkansas River, +in places two miles nearer heaven than Boston; here we see gigantic +natural castles with battlements, bastions and fortresses whose +leveled cannon you almost instinctively dodge to escape their +imaginary bomb-shells. Now we climb almost perpendicular heights, +thousands of feet; now we slide down into chasms barely escaping the +rushing waters; then we shoot through a tunnel two miles long under +1,500 feet of solid rock; now we rush over vast plateaus 10,000 feet +above the sea; then we catch glimpses of herds of cattle, now of great +caves, lone trees with not a bit of earth visible about their roots; +now we rush into Leadville, a mining camp of 10,000 people. At +midnight a huge stone rolled down the mountainside onto the track, +delaying us for two hours. Had it fallen a minute later we would have +been crushed into nothingness. + +In the morning I awoke in Utah, rode all the forenoon over arid +plains; gaunt, hungry wolves scud away, cayotes ran yelping, and jack +rabbits hopped out of sight for dear life; then we arrive at Salt Lake +City, which the Mormons have transformed from a howling wilderness +into a fine city, with a surrounding country budding and blossoming +with bounteous harvests. The peak towers aloft where the United States +Regulars halted after their terrible march over the mountains, near +where the famous Nauvoo Legion of the Mormons surrendered, after their +rebellion to make Brigham Young their king, though he said that by a +wave of his hand he could hurl back the balls of the national cannon +to annihilate the soldiers of the republic. + +I drank in with delight the music of the grand organ and the four +hundred trained singers of the Mormon choir in the vast tabernacle. + +Then on thundered the train by the great Salt Lake, one hundred miles +long and forty miles wide, so salt that it buoys you up on its surface +like a feather; then on over the sage-brush desert to Reno, Nevada, +where is the world-renowned Comstock mine, from which over one hundred +millions of dollars' worth of silver has already been taken. + +Then we climbed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, around and around in a +circle, shot through a snow shed forty miles long; then lumber chutes +appear many miles in length, through which enormous logs are shot down +by water power from the mountain lake. Four billion feet of lumber are +cut here in a year. + +Then on we go past Lake Tahoe, twenty-two miles long, surrounded by +mountains two miles in height; then past Cape Horn, along precipices +down which I threw a stone which fell 2,500 feet into the American +River. + +We slide down the mountains to Auburn, California, and find fruit +trees in blossom, grass green, and crops several inches high. A sudden +change in a few minutes from deep snow and severe cold to blossoms and +roses. On we go to Sacramento, surrounded by great ranches with vast +herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the wild grasses; then on to San +Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the unpacified Pacific. + +The principal occupation of the street cars in 'Frisco, is climbing +almost perpendicular heights, and then sliding down hill. All very +pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part +and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all passengers tumbling over and +on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the +bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, +and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit +slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the +crowd. + +Here you can get a good meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for +"two bits" (twenty-five cents), you can buy three different kinds of +newspapers for the same price as one, as they have no coins smaller +than a nickel. For a nickel you can ride for miles to the Cliff House +which is at the Golden Gate, where are acres of giant flowers of every +conceivable variety, all beautiful, but odorless; you watch the sea +lions nearly the size of oxen, and who roar and fight on the boulders. +Then we enter a bath-house, acres in extent, covered with glass, where +you can swim in sea water warmed by steam-pipes, listen to the band, +examine the multitude of wild animals and curiosities collected from +all parts of the world. + +[Illustration: The Golden Gate of the Unpacified Pacific.] + +Then we visit the city park of twelve hundred acres, once nothing but +flying sand. At first they planted on these dunes, grass roots from +South America; these fastened themselves to the sand and formed a +little soil; then were planted shrubs to stop the sand storms, then +trees, and now the real estate is not all in the air. + +This little nickel will take you to a mountaintop overlooking city and +ocean, where you can sit under the Eucalyptus trees which shed +their bark instead of their leaves, and enjoy the music and the not +overmodest dramas, without extra charge. + +The saloons, stores and theatres are open seven days and nights in +the week, and multitudes of all nationalities, clad in their peculiar +costumes, hobnob with each other in the most free and easy manner +imaginable, without waiting for introductions, in this the most +cosmopolitan city on earth. + +Sometimes you will see the harbor literally covered with the most +delicious fruits and vegetables, dumped into the water, because the +transportation charges to market would more than eat up the proceeds +of their sale. I visited at San Jose, the large flourishing fruit +orchard of a college classmate who had spent years of hard labor and +the earnings of a lifetime, to bring his trees into bearing; but I +found he had deserted his ranch because he could not make a living +thereon, and had gone to preach for a little church far away, at five +hundred dollars per annum. + +I saw at Riverside large crops of oranges frozen upon the trees; +but the real estate sharks never allow these facts to be published, +because they fatten on the profits made by selling lands to the +gullible "tender feet" from the east, who, when they have bought these +farms at enormous prices, find to their utter discouragement, that +they must also buy water for irrigation from monopolists, at ruinous +rates, else the soil is worthless. Here as nowhere else is illustrated +the truth of the Scriptural adage: "To him that hath shall be given, +but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he +hath." + +When you go to a place scarcely thirty miles distant, which, in New +England, you would reach in an hour, you are obliged to travel all +night, as you must climb cloud-touching mountains, going many miles to +cover what would be only one mile in a straight line; now you glide +along close to the long, lazy waves of the great Pacific Ocean, where +the grass kisses the salt lips of the sea; now from the tops of the +Santa Cruz mountains, you survey the world at your feet; now you rush +through the red-wood primeval forests, giants touching the clouds with +their tops, while in the hollow trunk of one of these trees a family +of twelve can live quite comfortably; then on to Los Angeles,--"City +of the angels," they call it--a beautiful city for those possessed of +means or who are dispossessed of bodies which must be clothed and fed. + +[Illustration: The Dome of Mount Shasta Gleams like "the Great White +Throne."] + +Some have "struck oil" here, and the stench and grime from the +spouting wells have ruined the houses of hundreds who have reaped no +profit from the petroleum, because they did not own the adjoining lots +where it was found; then on we go to lovely Passadena on a table-land +surrounded by snow-capped mountains; but the winds from the cold +summits come suddenly when you are melting with the heat, bringing +plenty of catarrh for all; then on to San Diego on the hill by the +sea, where the fog is sometimes so thick you can cut it into blocks +with an axe; then on to the far-famed Coronado Hotel, close by the +sea. + +In the boom-time, this was claimed to be the veritable "Garden of +Eden," and soil was considered worth its weight in gold, but now my +guide offered me six house lots which cost him three thousand dollars, +for two hundred dollars; the bubble had burst, a few had become rich, +while hundreds of speculators had lost their all. + +I swam in the spacious warmed-water sea-baths, communed with the wild +ducks, cormorants and pelicans, looked with amazement at the giant +ostriches, and sympathized with their seeming wonderment as to why we +were all sent into this sad, bewildering maze of life. + +At National City the refluent wave of the boom had left many of the +houses and business blocks dilapidated and unoccupied save by bats, +spiders and flies. You could occupy free of rent many buildings with +none to molest or make you afraid. + +Thence on dashes the train to the celebrated Hotel Delmonte, at +Monterey, the show place of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, by +its extortionate transportation charges, has ruined many struggling +fruit raisers in this state where monopoly holds such mighty sway. + +There are many hotels in Florida which far surpass this as far as +the buildings are concerned; but the grounds are extensive and very +beautiful, and the wide piazzas are embowered in a profusion of +all kinds of climbing vines covered with the loveliest blossoms. +Stretching away until earth and sky meet, is an imperial domain, +covered with noble trees which were giants when Adam was a baby, many +festooned with English ivy and flowering trumpet creepers almost to +the stars. Then we walked under long Gothic arches, cool and fragrant. + +Here is every arrangement conceivable for entertainment; on one side +the Pacific ocean; on the other the Coast Range Mountains, a very +pleasant resort for the very rich; but we found there at this time +more servants than guests. + +The town of Monterey is interesting only for its ruins of ancient +monasteries and convents, where a few lazy half-breeds alone remain +to tell the tale of multitudes over whom the Catholic priests reigned +supreme, reducing their dupes to beggary by their extortions. Once +these mountains were covered with vast flocks of sheep, but the +foolish reduction of the tariff on wool by the Wilson bill, destroyed +all profits, and the flocks disappeared into the hungry mouths of the +people. + +Thence the iron horse took us back to 'Frisco, and we sailed all day +and all night to Sacramento. The scenery was grand, but the cold +weather chilled us to the very bones. Islands of old red sandstone +loom like sentinels along the coast, covered with lighthouses to warn +the mariners. The twin peaks of Montepueblo covered with perpetual +snow, seemed to support the heavens as do the pillars the dome of the +capitol. + +Swarms of screaming sea gulls fill the air, some of which, benumbed by +cold alighted on the steamer's deck. Lonely ranches are seen, hemmed +in by the everlasting hills. + +Our great, lazy boat, propelled by a stern wheel as big as a barn, +paddled slowly over the muddy waters of the great Sacramento River, +made yellow by the turbid waters sent to it from scores of hydraulic +mines on the mountains. On one island is an immense smelting furnace, +the tall chimneys of which send forth volumes of poisonous smoke, +dangerous to breathe, and covering everything with a coating black as +soot. Inhaling this, some of the operators die of lead poisoning. Many +islands are here scarcely above the water's edge, having little houses +built on stilts occupied by the salmon fishers who are seen pulling +their nets, and around whose heads whirl and scream flocks of fish +hawks, ravenous for their prey. + +After a successful book fight at the capital city, I went to Red Bluff +where I was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a +hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. I survived only by keeping +my head wrapped in ice water; I could neither eat nor sleep, and like +Dickens, I longed to "take off my flesh, and sit in my bones." It was +a veritable hell on earth. + +The county superintendent of schools here, told me he sold his prune +crop that year for five thousand dollars, and went away leaving the +purchaser to pick the fruit. On his return, he found that the red +spiders had anticipated the pickers, and destroyed the entire crop, so +that his work of years came to naught, as the buyers of course refused +to pay to feed the spiders. + +Thence I went to San Luis Obispo, and on the way we struck the Coast +Range Mountains. The tortuous upclimbing and downsliding of the train +disclosed scenery imposing and grand. You looked down the precipitous +rock-ribbed sides thousands of feet to the narrow, beautiful valleys, +made productive by the irrigation from many foaming waterfalls. We +circle the mountains many times before reaching the valleys, traveling +many hours to gain a straight-line mile. + +These valleys are lovely to look down upon; but the fogs much of the +time hang over them like a pall, and catarrh and rheumatism render +life one of misery to many of the people. + +[Illustration: Above the Clouds.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +AMONG THE CLOUDS. + + +In the following May, 1896, I took a sky-scraping journey to the great +states of Washington and Oregon. The climbing of Mt. Shasta and the +Siskyo range by train presented sublime views that no language can +even feebly describe. At the summits we were at least two miles in +the air higher than the dome of the Massachusetts State House. As +we climbed, I could see from the window of the palace car, the two +engines of our train puffing for all they were worth around the +curves, far ahead. + +We looked down from the narrow rim of the railroad, thousands of feet +perpendicular upon foaming rivers dashing themselves into rainbows +and cataracts against the everlasting boulders in their courses. +Here cascades, miles in length, came rushing down the mountainsides, +shooting hundreds of feet into the air as they struck the giant rocks, +and at one place we stopped for half an hour to drink from the soda +springs pure, delicious soda water, huge geysers of it effervescing, +scintillating, silvery in the sunbeams, caught in a rocky basin from +which it is sent all over the world. + +Above, the mighty Sacramento River has its source in a little spring, +almost touching the stars--so emblematical of our human life, which +begins in the infinite on high; is enveloped in a dust of earth; +expands in its evolution into the angel back into the eternity from +whence it came; for science reveals that the springs come from the +clouds as dew and rain, run their courses, and by evaporation are +taken back into their first home in the vapors of the heavens. + +There are enormous log-shoots seeming like Jacob's ladder to reach +from earth to heaven, and in which, the giants of the vast mountain +forests are carried by water with almost lightning speed to the mills +on the river; there the splendid snow-covered dome of Shasta gleams +above the clouds like the great white throne described by St. John in +Revelation. + +Now come glimpses of little green valleys; here and there, a few small +houses and flocks of sheep show that these cases are peopled "far from +the maddening crowd's ignoble strife." + +These vast solitudes of forests are very impressive and solemn as +the day of judgment; giant fir-trees, pines and spruces, beautifully +clothed in perpetual green even to the lower dead limbs which nature +has covered with a verdure of moss--like our dead hopes, blasted +by the fires of adversity but made radiant by the fore-gleams of +immortality. There the bright mistletoe is suspended from dead +tree-tops, like beauteous crowns adorning the heads of those who have +died rather than surrender to the low and base; there deep canyons, +brilliant with the diamonds made by the sun from the scintillating +drops from dashing torrents--so from the unseen heights come the dews +of heaven to refresh those who walk by faith and not by sight "looking +not at the things seen which are temporal, but at the things not seen +which are eternal." + +Here comes a dense white cloud of snow through the air, covering our +train with a pearly shroud, through the rifts of which, far below, we +have glimpses of lovely vales and white ranch-houses, smiling up at +us, above the clouds. + +Dearly beloved--all seems to say it becometh us, not to sorrow for the +dead hopes, broken promises, and bitter disappointments of this mortal +life, remembering that this is not our home, that we tarry here for +a few fleeting days, that our true home is with the good beyond the +infinite azure of the heavens, where dear ones are Waiting to welcome +us to the endless rest and peace awaiting all who fight the good +fight, and who keep themselves unspotted from the world. + +At times, while the train was dashing along over the seemingly +interminable plains, green and productive during the rainy season, but +now parched and arid by the terrible heat, we were almost suffocated +by the dense dust clouds, and well-nigh withered by the winds which +seem to come from the very jaws of Dante's Inferno; then the shifting +young cyclone would suddenly envelop us with chilling snows from +Shasta, and so we oscillated like pendulums 'twixt torrid heats and +arctic colds. + +At last, almost dazed by the unspeakable, lightning-like, climatic +transformations, the great iron steeds brought us to Portland, the +metropolis of the great state of Oregon. Here, as in many places on +the Pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season +to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape +the merciless peltings of the clouds of shot-like dust. The dampness +in this valley, hemmed in by the now dripping, then brook covered +mountains, is far from pleasant, and covers many of the buildings +with unsightly mosses. In Washington and Oregon those who survive the +climatic trials are a strong, energetic race, rapidly building up +powerful empires in the great aggregation of states of our grandest +nation the world has ever known. + +The broad-minded, generous-hearted people of this great far west, make +no distinctions as to sex in apportioning their salaries for +school work, and this, coupled with their numerous co-educational +universities and normal schools, has given them an army of lady +teachers and superintendents unequaled elsewhere in the world. + +The county superintendents of schools are elected by the popular vote, +and the women take to the stump-speaking and the usual kissing of +voters' babies as naturally as ducks take to the water. Result,--the +ladies secure the political plums, and the men are rapidly being +driven to manual labor, their natural sphere of action, though +not without vigorous kicking against the inevitable. These +ex-men-superintendents buttonhole you at every turn, reciting the +outrages perpetrated upon them by their successful women competitors. + +At an election in a California town, one of these men sufferers, +mistaking me for a voter, took me by a button of my coat, and poured +forth a tale of woe so long that, unable to endure it longer, I cut +off the button and fled. He did not notice my departure, and two hours +later, there he was holding on to the button, all alone, gesticulating +frantically, and beseeching me to vote for him to save his wife and +ten children from starvation. For aught I know, he has not missed me +to this day; but is still sounding forth his wild appeals. + +Should I describe fully all the wonderful scenes beheld by me in this +wonderland, I should exhaust time and trench upon eternity. Suffice it +to state that I returned to 'Frisco, fought a successful dictionary +battle there, formed the acquaintance of many distinguished men, among +them the great Irving Scott, who built the famous battleship Oregon. +He was president of the city school-board, head of the vast Union Iron +Works, and besides performing many herculean labors, was stumping the +state nightly in favor of the election of William McKinley to the +presidency of the United States. + +I was fairly driven from this city by the ferocious fleas, which +seemed to render life almost unendurable in hovel and palace. I could +get no rest day or night in many parts of the state, on account of the +savage attacks of these unspeakable, insatiate biters, more terrible +than an army with Gatling guns. + +Crossing the beautiful bay in the floating palace ferry-boat, I was +for a time enchanted with Highland Park, Oakland. In front, through a +vista of Eucalyptus, oak and elm trees, appear the glistening waters +of the famed inland sea; on the right are seen the domes and spires +of Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco; across the valley loom the +mountains, in the rainy season green to their summits, on which rest +the serene blue of the heavens, except when, the frequent fogs bury +everything from sight. On one side of the house, at the same time, +the trade winds from the Pacific chill you to your very bones, on the +other side the burning heat is unbearable. Afar off the humble home of +Joaquin Miller, poet of the Sierras, clearly appears. + +There are many beautiful homes on this lofty hilltop, but they were +all for sale at bargains, for their occupants have grown weary of the +cloud bursts of the long dreary rainy season, then of the parching +heats of the equally dreary dry season, when a pickaxe and crowbar are +required to dig a potato unless you keep water running from the hose +day and night. These people long to return to their old homes in New +England where the varying seasons are not so monotonous. + +I was invited to accompany a religious society on a week's camp in +a romantic canyon; but I was glad I did not when they returned in a +couple of days, narrating an adventure which daunted the stoutest +hearts. On the second night of their camping, the men were aroused +from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing +out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten +the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes, +hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. The men fought +desperately all night with shotguns and clubs. Life is scarcely worth +the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the +horrible tarantulas. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +DISENCHANTED.--HOME AGAIN. + + +I had secured the adoption of our dictionaries in every county visited +by me, and now the publishers desired me to remain on the Pacific +coast permanently, without salary, relying on commissions on sales of +their books made by me and my sub-agents by canvassing, from house to +house. This financial proposition was far from being alluring, for the +laws enacted by a national democratic rule of four years had ruined +many of the principal industries of this section, and the larger +cities required a license fee of twenty dollars per week from all +canvassing agents. Many houses displayed large signs, "No book agents +allowed here," and they kept ferocious dogs to enforce the rule. The +majority of the people were poor; the rich were already supplied with +dictionaries; and the schools would have no funds available with which +to buy reference books for nearly a year. Competing agents had visited +every house before my arrival on the coast, and I therefore resigned +my worthless position, and took the Eastern agency for a Tonic Port +which had, by its wonderful efficacy, delivered many from the horrors +of nervous prostration, anaemia, and kindred diseases which afflict so +many of the human race. + +Another disenchantment,--another Eden becomes a Sahara. I had reached +the Pacific coast just when the departing rainy season had left all +nature fair as a poet's dream of love, and, vainly dreaming that this +was perpetual, it seemed as if I would sigh for no other heaven. But +the scorching heat and Siroccoes from the Mohave Desert followed close +upon the rear-guard of the retreating, life-giving rain-clouds, and +soon the lovely flowers died; the enchanting green grass withered; the +soul of the beautiful vanished, and the suffocating dust storms buried +the earth in a ghostly shroud, save where wealth was sufficient to +bring the mountain streams for irrigation. + +I had for a time reveled in the dreams which fleetingly haunt all +mortals, that there I had found the lost Arcadia, where balmy zephyrs +fan the brow into ecstasy forever; but, alas! After a brief respite +I had, in that land which the real estate sharks called "Paradise," +suffered more from alternating chilling winds and withering heat than +ever before; one day sweltering in the thinnest of seersuckers, and +perhaps the very next shivering in all the woolens I could command. + +Without a shadow of regret or even a backward look, I bade farewell to +the Pacific and returned to the Atlantic of my youth, until the day +dawns and the shadows flee away. + +I sojourned for some months in the cities of Richmond, Baltimore, +Providence, and Philadelphia, endeavoring to impress upon the minds of +the physicians the importance of prescribing my remedy, but with no +glittering financial success, lingering for weeks in the last named +city, on the very verge of the grave to which I was brought by the +filthy water of that grotesquely misnamed "City of Brotherly Love." + +I had been, in former years, the champion school-book agent of New +England, and publishers had often told me that if I ever returned to +this vocation, they would gladly employ me. I applied to one of these +for a position, requesting a man who owed his success in business +entirely to my friendly aid and instructions, to speak a good word for +me, but he at once showed his gratitude by securing the appointment +for himself, being aided and abetted by an influential bald-headed +man who hated me, simply because I had sent to him a friend who +represented a hair restorer. Said bald-headed man had many reasons +to, and had often claimed to be, a friend of mine; but was foolishly +sensitive about his lack of hirsute adornment, and said I insulted him +by referring to his billiard-ball caput. Truly, gratitude is a lost +art, and some friends immediately become enemies when they can secure +from you no more plunder. + +It is exceedingly difficult for a man who has passed the "death line" +of the half century, to find a place where he can do good and get +good; the hustling crowd of younger and stronger competitors push +him to the wall or trample him beneath their feet, in the terrific +scramble for the bare necessities of life. He drifts into the +depressing occupation of book or life insurance agency, and at once +every so-called friend, who pretended to worship him when he was +prosperous, gives him the cold shoulder, and "poor devil" is the most +complimentary epithet with which he is greeted. + +Analogous with that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth, still a +mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all +of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny +childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the +temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as +the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, +snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble +the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren +beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under equatorial +heats, some to perish by polar perils; a few to take root and +flourish, building imperishable landmarks; and many to stagnate in the +long inglorious rest of the Sargasso Sea. + +But really to the faithful soul nothing is lost; though the great +prizes of earth are denied us, every heroic endeavor, every struggle +to benefit the world sends treasures on high to our credit in the +grand bank of heaven. + + There are the thoughts that one by one died 'ere we gave them birth, + The songs we tried in vain to sing, too sweet, too beautiful for earth. + No endeavor is in vain; + Its reward is in the doing, + And the rapture of pursuing, + Is the prize the vanquished gain. + +We are all conscious of these songs we have tried in vain to sing, and +we are confident we will yet sing them when the bodily impediments are +swept away, and, as the earthly shadows lengthen, as the chill winds +of old age strengthen, we more and more appreciate the wonderful +expression of this thought, in that sweetest of all poems of the minor +key, called "The voiceless." + + "We count the broken lyres that rest + Where the sweet wailing singers slumber; + But o'er the silent brother's breast, + The wild flowers who will stoop to number. + + "A few can touch the magic string, + And noisy fame is proud to win them; + Alas for those who never sing, + But die with all their music in them. + + "Not where Leucadian breezes sweep + O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow; + But where the glistening night dews weep + O'er nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + + "If singing breath or echoing chord + To every hidden pang were given, + What endless melodies were poured, + As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven." + +We have done our best according to the light that has been given; we +will continue to do so until the end, and we are soothed and sustained +by the inspiring thought so sweetly expressed by one of our greatest +poets. + + "I know not where God's islands lift + Their fronded palms in air, + I only know I cannot drift + Beyond His love and care. + + "And so beside the silent sea, + I wait the muffled oar: + No harm from Him can come to me + On ocean or on shore." + + Only waiting till the angels + Open wide the mystic gate, + At whose feet I long have lingered, + Weary, sad, and desolate; + Even now I hear their footsteps, + And their voices far away-- + When they call me, I am waiting, + Only waiting to obey. + + + + +AFTERMATH + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +THE FLORIDA CRACKERS. + + +When the previous thirty chapters were in press, the conviction was +forced upon me that any book which touched upon Florida without a +description of its poor whites called "Crackers," would be like the +play of "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out, and I gladly pay +this tribute of grateful remembrance to the most unique, and the only +truly contented people that I have ever met on earth. + +So far forth as history enlightens us, the ancestors of these peculiar +specimens of the human race were never born anywhere in particular, +but like Topsy, they "simply growed." + +Why these usually long, lean, lank, saffron-hued, erst-while +clay-eaters have received such an unromantic name has been variously +accounted for. Some say the name was suggested by the fact that when +not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which +swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent +cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their +game or drive their cattle. An ex-slave of one of them tells me that +they are called "Crackers," because they are all "cracked as to their +cocoanuts." + +Although the faces of many of these children of nature are usually as +expressionless as a cast-iron cook-stove, they are far from being as +stupid as they look; for even General Jackson, "the man of blood +and iron," would have won but few, if any, laurels in his campaigns +against the Seminoles, had it not been for his advanced guard of the +warlike "Crackers." + +"Out there in history" we see him and his army, while recklessly +rushing the redskins, become lost and bewildered in the vast primeval +forest. Day after day, they marched, but always in a circle; and +each nightfall found them near where they broke camp in the morning. +Provisions failed, and hunger and thirst drove the soldiers frantic. +Every night they were pelted by bullets from unseen foes; stabbed and +stung by innumerable insects; death for all stared them in the face; +myriads of buzzards whirled above them, anxious for their prey. + +While Jackson and his men, prostrated by heat, fruitless marching and +discouragement, were praying for succor, suddenly the air seemed to +be filled with human forms, which to their dazed minds appeared to be +angels sent in answer to their fervent petitions. Grotesque looking +angels were these, swinging from limb to limb of the forest trees; but +heavenly in their beneficence were the solemn-faced "Crackers," as +hundreds of them dropped to the ground and fed the exhausted warriors +with "hog, hominy," and water from packs strapped with their rifles to +their dirty, sturdy shoulders--"'nough sight better work for angels +to do than loafin' around the throne." While the feasting was in +full swing, suddenly the haggard and careworn face of "Old Hickory" +appeared in their midst. "Boys," said he, in his quick, incisive +tones, "don't eat any more, 'twill make you sick, stow it away in your +haversacks." Then, turning to the Floridians, he quietly remarked, +"Gentlemen, you saved our lives; many thanks! Now we will do as +much for you. Where are the Injuns?" All the tree-climbers arose +respectfully, saluted, and a tall, cadaverous-looking, long-haired, +coon-skin-capped leader advanced, took the general by the hand, and +slowly drawled,-- + +"Ginrul, the red niggers air skulkin' yender to the river, waitin' to +chaw up you uns tonight. + +"Colonel Tompkins," came the quick command, "_climb_ your forces to +the river, pour a volley into the red-skins at sundown, yell for all +you're worth, we'll do the rest." + +"All right, Ginrul, we uns will be thar," and away went the "flying +Crackers," facing unspeakable dangers as calmly as a child looks into +the loving eyes of its mother. + +Sometimes they glided noiselessly as the autumn leaves cleave the +air over the pine-needle carpet of the forest, and when this was +impossible on account of the bogs and morasses, which would swallow +them down to unknown depths, they swung through the tops of the +sighing pines until they had flanked their unsuspecting foes; then, +just as the sun was setting, they struck terror to the hearts of the +Seminoles by an unexpected volley from their rifles and by frightful +yells, + + "As if all the fiends from heaven that fell, + Had pealed the banner-cry of hell." + +The red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps +and river straight upon the ambushed army of Jackson, who mowed them +down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes. The spirits +of the Indians were crushed, and the remnant of a once powerful tribe +fled into the vast, to the whites, inaccessible everglades, where +their descendants now live on their fertile oasis, which is cultivated +by their negro slaves, who never heard of Abraham Lincoln, or his +proclamation of emancipation. "Old Hickory" and his gallant soldiers +have all the glory; but their heroic allies returned quietly to their +huts, their "hog and hominy," as unconcernedly as if they had done +nothing more important than catching a trout or shooting a quail. + +The stolidity and patience of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that +of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for +twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being +encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of +a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in +scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable composure as before. + +Although almost invariably poor so far as money is concerned, owing +to their love of ease, these children of nature are proverbially +hospitable, and you are welcome as his guest until you eat his last +bit of food unless you offer him compensation therefor; if you do that +his wrath knows no bounds, as I once found to my sorrow. + +I had been wandering with three other horseback riders for a day and +night lost in the woods; we were hungry and tired to the verge of +collapse, when suddenly up went the heads and tails of our quadruped +friends, who neighed with delight, and dashed pell mell toward a huge +building or rather connected aggregation of buildings which loomed +up on a hill in the pines. We made the welkin ring with our saluting +shouts, but there was no response, the settlement was deserted; we +stabled and fed our horses in the near-by barn, and led by a Floridian +friend entered the largest house. Had manna fallen to us from heaven +our surprise could not have been greater; a huge table was before us +covered with enormous quantities of roasted meats,--venison, quail, +wild turkey, hoe-cakes and fruits galore. We fell upon the provisions +like famished wolves, and when at last our "aching voids" were filled, +we were appalled at the havoc we had wrought; still no hosts appeared +to welcome or rebuke. + +On the wide mantel was a quantity of homemade cigars from which those +of us who were "slaves to the filthy weed" made selections, and on the +broad piazza were illustrating the wise man's definition of a cigar, +"a roll of nausea with fire on one end and a fool on the other," when +the air resounded with loud reports like pistol-shots and shouts of +"whoa, whe, gee," rebel yells and barking of dogs; then a multitude +of cattle dashed into view urged on by a cavalcade of men, women and +children. The drivers gave us only casual glances until the round-up +was completed and the enclosing gates shut, when the rollicking crowd +came trooping toward us, and our guilty consciences made us fearful +of dire punishment for our peculations. Then a tall, long-haired +patriarch saluted us with "Howdy, strangers, howdy," shook hands with +us heartily, and with a wave of his hand, "my wife and children, +gents," glanced at the impoverished table, when he shouted "glad you +had good appetites, strangers, mother, guess you'll have to tune up +some more cooking." + +The whole crowd gave us a marching salute, and made the water fly in +a big tub where they performed much-needed ablutions, and soon, +hoe-cakes were smoking, pork and sausages sizzling, doughnuts +swelling, manipulated by the many willing hands: then the whole army +"fell to" the abundant feast. It was wonderful and laughable to see +that crowd of sons, daughters, grand-sons, grand-daughters--fifty in +number--all one family, "stow away the prog." + +Each one reminded you of the Irishman's pig who was said to devour a +half-bushel of boiled potatoes, and when he was outside of all that, +he, himself, would not fill a two quart measure. What a clatter of +dishes as the buxom girls helped mother "clear up"! Then we had fun at +the milking; it required a dozen strong men to hold one kicking cow +while a woman, squeezed out a little milk from the reluctant udders, +though she gave down freely later when the ravenous calf took hold. If +the men relaxed for a minute, up goes the irate cow's heels, away goes +the pail "dowsing" the maid with the foaming milk from head to foot, +anon the wild-eyed brute would down horns and charge, the milkeress +takes to her heels, then a flight of lassoos, over goes the frantic +animal onto her back, the ropes tighten until she was conquered and +forced to "give down some of her juice." One dose of this medicine +was usually sufficient for any wild cow, and forever after she would +"stand and deliver in peace." + +Shall we ever forget the feeding of the pigs? Oh, the wild charge they +made when they saw the feed troughs filled! "Everyone for himself, and +the devil take the hindermost;" one huge razor-back stretches himself +at full length on the "dough" in his generous attempt to prevent the +rest from "making hogs of themselves"; an indignant young Cracker +lassoos the hind legs, and by a dextrous pull sends his swine-ship +whirling and rending high heaven with his lamentations. + +At last all are stuffed as full as our "grandmother's sassingers," and +then reclining in the sun, they express by their contented grunts and +snores, ecstatic rapture as they pile on flesh for the stuffing of +their carniverous owners. Then we watched a giant Crackeress feeding +what she called her "feathered hogs." With frenzied eyes, whirring +wings and waring beaks, all rushed to cheat the others and to secure +the whole earth, each for himself, very like many "two-legged hogs +without feathers"; a hen seizes a hoe-cake of her own size and +frantically rushes away in the vain hope of devouring it in peace in +some sequestered nook; but argus, envious eyes are watching, and her +uncles and her aunts pursue, striking with beaks and claws to rob her +of her big all. It was a minature Wall Street and stock-exchange, +where human hogs and foul birds of prey fight to the death to plunder +their own brothers. + +And now gently the night stole o'er us-- + + "Night, so holy and so calm, + That the moonbeams hushed the spirit, + Like the voice of prayer or psalm" + +and until the "wee sma hours," while three generations listened +intently, we swapped stories with our generous "Crackers." + +Our patriarch host had been a captain in the rebel army until he had +his "belly full of fight," as he quaintly termed it. His wife had +blest him with an even score of boys and girls, all now living in this +delightful climate, where he said, "no one ever died; they simply +dried up and blowed away into the happy hunting-grounds beyond the +stars." When a baby was born or a child married, this chief of the +tribe "hitched on" another house, until now the one-story dwellings +covered an acre of his vast lands. + +He and his tribe raised on his great farm here in Bradford County +everything he needed to eat, drink, or to wear: his wife and daughters +spun and wove their clothing from the cotton grown and ginned on his +own fields; the delicious syrup and sugar which adorned and sweetened +the mountains of rye pancakes and floods of home-raised coffee, was +made from the cane which was grown, and ground on his own soil. +He grew his own tobacco, tea, peanuts, oranges, figs, pineapples, +bananas; he fattened his cattle and hogs on his own cassava and the +abundant wild grasses; his flocks of sheep "cut their own fodder," and +the wool and mutton was all clear profit. This "Cracker" family was +the happiest and most independent I ever saw on earth. + +All around this plantation are millions of uncultivated acres where +the wretches of our city slums could be equally happy if our Carnegies +and Rockefellers would only loan the funds to colonize them there. +The millions of dollars, now worse than wasted by our selfish +millionaires? could thus soon make this earth a paradise like to that +above. After enjoying this free delightful life for several days, and +we were on the point of departing, I said to our host, "Captain, we +have enjoyed your hospitality immensely, and I hope you will allow me +to reciprocate," holding toward him a bank-note. + +Instantly his eyes flashed angry fire, he shot out his fist to strike +me, when a neighbor said, "Don't hit him Cap, he don't know no better, +he's a Yank." "Wall Yank," drawled this six feet of fighting man, +"seein' ye don't know no better, I'll let ye off this time; but I +don't keep no tarvern, and when me and my family come yure way, we'll +all stop with yew, that'll even it up." As I looked at the fifty +yawning caverns of chewing mouths, and reflected upon the cost of +feeding them in Boston for even one day, I thanked God that I had not +given him my card, and we rode away amid ear-splitting cheers and +waving of hands, each one of which resembled in size the tail-board of +a coal-cart. + +On another occasion while scouring the Florida country for lands for +colonizing purposes in company with a native, the night caught us in +the dense forest; our horses stumbled over immense fallen trees, the +owls hooted, the wild cats screamed, the thunder roared, occasionally +a pine fell splintered by the lightning, the rain fell in torrents, +and we seemed destined to shiver all the long black hours supperless +and comfortless, when our eyes were greeted by the cheerful light +shining through the open door of a log hut; a dozen curs gave tongue +and went for our legs till a sharp yell from within sent them yelping +away. A genuine Cracker appeared, and seeing our dripping forms in the +electric flash, he quietly said, "Lite strangers, lite, jest in time, +plenty of hog and hominy." He led our tired steeds into the leanto, +fed them, and ushered us into his one-room shanty, where his lank wife +and a dozen children silently made room for us around a rough board +table. "Mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and +the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of +a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it +browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking +skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in +a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering +appetite. Then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to +satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the +wild wood. "Come, chilluns, to bed," said our host, and they were all +stacked one over the other on the one corn-shuck couch where a chorus +of snores proved they were in the land of dreams. + +Our host relapsed into silence and seemed to be pondering some +profound problem in his mind; but suddenly blurted out, "Strangers, +reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice +pison nor nuthin'? reckon I was born dry!" My guide in reply produced +a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that +Kunnel." There was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out, +but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his +cavernlike mouth with a joyous "Ah, that's the rale stuff, have some +mother? The woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to +drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns. + +"Strangers," ejaculated this typical Cracker, "this is the dog-gondest +place ter git er drink yer ever seed. Aour caounty went dry last +'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum +fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't +let me hev it 'thout Doc's 'scripshun--went to Doc, wouldn't give me +'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed +on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke +for three weeks ahed. Dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum +erlong. Naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo." + +Then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs +to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his +den by declining, obeyed. The next morning we found ourselves set up +alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife +were snoring on the bed. Verily, "For ways that are dark and tricks +that are vain, the heathen 'Cracker' is peculiar." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +LOOKING FORWARD. + + +When I was writing the last words of the preceding chapter of this +book, and was about to + + "Heed my tired pen's entreaty, + And say, oh, friends, _valete_," + +I seemed to be trying to awake from a trance in which I had been the +unwilling instrument, compelled by an intelligence extraneous to +myself to expose to an incredulous public the most sacred scenes and +thoughts of a lifetime. + +I had decided to relieve the patience of my readers with the +thirty-first chapter; but when the retrospective kaleidoscope closed, +a vision rose before me so vivid, so real, that I am constrained to +describe it in the hope that the warning may prevent the tragic part +of the dream from becoming a reality. + +It is Christmas day in the year of our Lord, 1910; the thunder-cloud, +which for many years had been increasing in blackness, now surcharged +with pent-up lightnings, and overspreading our entire national +horizon, bursts with the fury of a cyclone. + +The great masses of the people had for a long time watched with +ever-increasing rage the seeming conspiracy of the employing and +professional classes to bind to their chariot-wheels those who labored +with their hands. Gigantic trusts had "cornered" all the necessaries +of life, and a few lily-fingered plutocrats in their marble palaces +dictated to the horny-handed sons of toil the amount of their beggarly +wages, and the prices they must pay for every needed article, until +every job of work and every bone of charity was fought for by +multitudes who mercilessly stabbed each other in their mad fury to +assuage the pangs of hunger. + +When the people rallied at the polls, and elected to the high offices +members of their own unions, the millionaires bribed these officials +to obey their every command, and these mercenary law-makers, as often +as chosen, joined the ever-growing ranks of the oppressors. + +Even the almost innumerable colleges throughout the Republic, whose +treasuries had absorbed countless millions of dollars, had proved +a measureless curse, as they had become mere cramming machines and +nurseries of lawlessness and brutality. The great universities had +long idolized plug-ugly football kickers and baseball sluggers to +the utter ignoring of scholarship, until the hordes of eleemosinary +prize-fighters among the so-called students created a reign of terror +where they were located, and far surpassed in ferocity even the +gladiators of ancient Rome. The annual "athletic contest" between the +two greatest universities was fought out with almost inconceivable +fury on "Soldiers' Field." + +Irresistible bodies met the immovable, cheered on by yelling legions, +each phalanx would conquer or die, and die they did by scores; they +kicked and slugged like maniacs until separated by the combined +police-forces of the surrounding cities, and more were killed and +wounded than in the entire Spanish War. When night fell, thousands of +collegians invaded the capitol of the State, and with savage yells and +wedge-rushes drove all citizens from the streets; they closed every +theatre, pelting the actors with whiskey bottles stolen from the +saloons in which they had smashed thousands of dollars' worth of +costly furniture; they stole every sign from stores, which caught +their fancy; no woman was respected, until their orgies were stopped +by the bayonets of the national guard. + +Such "scholars" as these had for many years been ground through these +educational mills by thousands, crowding the ranks of the professional +classes to suffocation. Legions of unscrupulous lawyers, more +heartless than pirates or brigands in Bulgaria, infested every city +and town, busy as demons stirring up strife, drilling witnesses to +perjury, bull-dozing the innocent even unto death with the full +connivance of the plunder-sharing judges, until the jails were crowded +with victims who could not pay their outrageous fees. + +These lawyer-sharks packed caucuses, stuffed ballot-boxes, and thereby +elected themselves to legislatures where they enacted unjust laws to +subserve their own iniquitous depredations. + +But this nefarious pillaging was not confined to the courts alone: +armies of patientless doctors must be fed at the expense of the +long-suffering public, and as all the people were not _naturally_ sick +all the time for the benefit of the quacks, these so-called doctors +prevailed upon their legislative college-chums to pass laws compelling +all to be innoculated with virus, ostensibly to render them immune to +various contagions, but really to furnish unlimited plunder to their +"family physicians." + +Even the women caught the craze for "higher education" to fit +themselves for "kid-glove" professional emoluments; they, too, tore +each other's hair, scratched each other's faces in frantic football +rushes, tumbling over each other in the wild scrimmage for fees, +leaving the kitchens to the ignorant foreigners, who ruined digestions +with preposterous cookery, which would have killed a nation of +ostriches. + +The great Republic might have survived even such horrors as these had +it not been for the out-breaking of another craze more terrible far +than an army with gattling guns, I refer to the most destructive of +all scourges, the mania for stock-gambling. The crafty, unscrupulous +managers of bucket-shops, stock-exchanges, and brokerages filled the +columns of the press with manufactured accounts of vast fortunes +made in an hour by imaginary investors of small sums, and at once +multitudes of farmers, mechanics, and even teachers abandoned their +honest pursuits to squander their hard earnings in the vain attempts +to "buck the tiger," and "beard the lion in his den." + +The inevitable result followed: the lion and the lamb lay down +together, with the lamb inside the lion, thousands of formerly +well-to-do people were pauperized. Thousands of farms were abandoned, +hundreds of factories were deserted, while the fiendish, cheating +boss-gambler sharks were gorged to repletion with their infamous +plunder; then followed a frenzy of hatred on the part of the masses +against the classes: city treasuries were depleted to feed the +starving with free soup, the cities were crowded with the desperate, +hungry multitudes who had lost their all, and bloody riots capped the +climax of a hell on earth. + +From the cupola of the State House in Boston, a little group of +citizens gazed upon a scene which would daunt the stoutest heart; +these five men standing motionless and speechless under the gilded +dome are of widely differing stations in life, as far apart as the +poles in culture, education, and creed, but their faces wore the same +expressions of profound sadness mingled with stern determination. + +The tall man on the right is the Governor of the State of +Massachusetts, a millionaire, a classic face showing his aristocratic +lineage in every feature, a scholarly, furrowed brow, dressed with +scrupulous care, and looking at the frightful scenes with the +dauntless eye of an eagle. He is the chosen leader of the Republican +party which for many years has controlled the destinies of the "Old +Bay State." Next stands a man in every way in strong contrast to his +refined companion, a short, stout, ruddy-faced son of Ireland, but +now Mayor of the city of Boston, a Democrat of Democrats, carelessly +dressed, a political boss, who under ordinary circumstances would +never have affiliated with his lordly neighbor. + +Next in the line is a smooth-faced portly man, clad in fine +broadcloth, unmistakably a Catholic Priest; next is a man of soldierly +bearing whose uniform and shoulder-straps proclaim him to be the +commander of the national guard of the State; close beside the +guardsman is the stalwart superintendent of the city police. For a few +minutes only, these men were spell-bound by the terrible scenes before +them. A mob of ragged wild-eyed men and women are straggling along the +street, some wearing the red caps of Anarchy, firing revolvers at the +windows of the houses and at every well-dressed person in sight, some +waved strange banners labelled "Bread or blood," "Down with the rich," +"Shoot the soldiers"; many blood-red flags are waved with demoniacal +yells. + +Directly in front of this howling mob is massed the First Corps of +Cadets, and the 9th Regiment of Irish militia; soldiers are seen +falling in the ranks, and blood crimsoned the snow, alarm bells are +clanging, flames are bursting from the elegant buildings, tremendous +explosions are heard which seemed to shake the foundations of the +city. Ferocious men and women are seen looting the stores, drinking +plundered liquors; the off-scouring of all nations are pillaging, +burning, murdering; the spirit of hell seems in full control on this +natal day of the Prince of Peace. Still the national guard did not +fire. + +"Father," cried the Governor, "will the 9th Regiment kill their own +brothers if ordered to shoot?" + +"My children will obey orders, sir," quietly replied the priest. + +"Then in heaven's name, General, Marconi the order; if we wait longer +everything is ruined." + +The Mayor's eyes flashed fire; he seemed about to countermand--the +priest lifted his hand, "Brother, we must," he said--the Mayor +hesitated; he saw many of his own constituents among the rioters; his +face was like that of a corpse, then, "Order," he gasped. + +The General touched the keys before him, the Colonel of the 9th +flinched as if struck by a bullet, then a quick command, the clear +notes of the bugle sounded, the Irish soldiers hesitated, glanced at +the cupola; the priest with outstretched arms confirmed the mandate; +the repeating rifles were levelled, and crash upon crash went the +volleys of bullets into the bosoms of the mob. Again pealed the bugle +note, and quick as a flash forward rushed the dandy Cadets and the +Irish soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in a wild bayonet charge. + +Screams, groans and curses rend the air, scores of the rioters are +weltering in their gore, the rest broke, fled, leaving the streets +strewn with the dead and wounded. + +"Marconi the hospitals," said the Governor; and in a trice the +ambulances are bearing away the sufferers to be tenderly cared for, as +if they were the best, instead of the worst of the human race. + +"Brothers," said the Governor, "shall we order the troops and police +in every city to fire? It will be merciful to end this horrible +suspense." "Amen," came the response from the bowed heads of his +companions; instantly the command was Marconied to every place which +was in a state of anarchy. + +Suddenly came the crash of musketry from many parts of the city, +accompanied by the grumbling bass of the gattling guns, then the +defiant yells ceased, and all was quiet. + +"Your Excellency," calmly spoke the General, "here are Marconis from +every city that the fight is over, the mobs have dispersed. + +"Thank God," came the chorus from each in this remarkable quintette +who had co-operated in the carefully-considered plans which had so +quickly brought peace to the distracted city and State. + +"Brothers," said the Governor, "we must feed the hungry, and give +work to the people of our overcrowded cities: there is but one way to +accomplish this, we must colonize the unemployed upon the Southern and +Western lands, the people must go back to the bosom of mother earth +where they can have independent homes of their own; there are no +public funds for this purpose, and the rich must furnish the necessary +money for transportation, or the Republic is dead. I will personally +guarantee the funds necessary to furnish homes for all who will go +from Massachusetts to cultivate the unimproved lands in Florida and +Colorado, which, with others, I purchased years ago to provide for +this crisis which many prophesied was sure to come. I will at once +telegraph to secure the co-operation of the Governors of all the +States in our Union; the evening papers will announce our plans to the +world." + +In a few minutes the lightnings were flashing full accounts of this, +the most important meeting ever held, throughout the length and +breadth of the nation; the responses were the most enthusiastic and +thrilling ever known in the history of mankind. Money in vast sums was +wired by the rich to every Governor, for the purpose of transforming +the poverty-stricken of the slums into self-supporting self-respecting +farmers; railroad presidents tendered free transportation; one touch +of nature made the whole world kin. + +In an uncompleted tunnel under the harbor of Boston was gathered a +vast crowd of wild-eyed Anarchists, and desperate hungry wretches from +the vilest dens, who had just sworn with unspeakable oaths to burn and +plunder the city that very night, to murder all the rich, to commit +outrages no fiend had ever dared to dream before. When they were about +to rush out and let loose the dogs of carnage and unspeakable horrors, +suddenly in the glare of their torches appeared the priest who an hour +before, had played such an important part in the State House cupola +conference. A hush fell upon the rabble as they recognized their +spiritual adviser; with a voice of almost super-human power, he +shouted, + +"Brothers, there is no excuse for murder, no cause for lawlessness, +money is flowing in like water to furnish homes for us all away from +these stifling factories out in God's pure air of the prairies and +fields of the great West and the sunny South. For the sake of your +wives and children do no violence; assemble all to-morrow morning in +the amphitheatre, where you will find food in abundance, until we are +located upon our own portion of God's green earth." + +The effect of these sympathetic words was wonderful; malice and frenzy +were driven from the minds of these children of the slums, even as the +devils were exorcised from the Magdalen of old, and inspired with new +hopes and holier aspirations they vanished into the shades of evening. + +All night long the Salvation Army, the Volunteers of America, hundreds +of every nationality and creed, labored strenuously in making +preparations to feed the hungry, clothe the shivering, and care for +the sick. When the morning dawned fair and balmy beyond all precedent +for this season of the year, the scene in the vast amphitheatre +baffled description, over which the heavenly host rejoiced as never +before. The united bands of the city discoursed sweet music from the +balcony, from steaming cauldrons the multitudes were fed to repletion +with nourishing delicious food; the sick, the weak, the women and +children were abundantly supplied in their homes, all seemed like one +great family, the rich and the poor clasped hands like brothers, and +the spirit of peace on earth good will toward men reigned supreme. +When all had been refreshed, while the bands played "Hail to the +Chief," the Governor, with a great number of the most prominent in +church, state, and philanthropy, filed in upon the rostrum, welcomed +by enthusiastic cheers. As the applause died away His Excellency said, + +"In the city hives are clustered far too many human bees, we must +swarm out into the country where there is honey enough and to spare, + + "'Go back to your mother, ye children, for shame, + Who have wandered like truants, for riches and fame! + With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, + She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + + Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, + And breathe, like your eagles, the air of our plains; + Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives + Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives.' + +"You, who are strong, and who delight in buffetting the cold and snows, +should go to the deserted New England farms or to the broad prairies +of the West, the graneries of the world; but you who shrivel in the +wintry blasts, and who are subject to rheumatism and coughs, should go +to the sunny southlands where you can work and rejoice in a climate of +perpetual summer. + +"We have funds in abundance to secure lands for all, build houses, +furnish essentials for tilling the soil, and provisions, until crops +can be raised; this money you can repay in easy installments to be +used to equip future applicants. All wishing to secure these homes +without money and without price can apply at the State House +to-morrow." + +A glad shout which reached the stars and gladdened the angelic hosts +was the immediate response to these tidings, and poverty was banished +forever from the Great Republic. + +The scene changes--from stygian darkness, desolation and gloom of +dingy, malodorous factories and streets, where ragged, hopeless +beggars-for-work delve and curse, to the glorious sunlight and balmy +air of the "Land of Flowers." Here we see pretty vine-clad cottages +embowered in orange groves, and surrounded by luxuriant harvests of +everything to make life worth the living. Here we see the murderous +villains of the Boston Christmas-day mobs, no longer blood-thirsty, +but smiling and happy as they listen to the songs of birds, the +bleating of their own flocks, the laughter of their delighted +children, while the prosperous fathers "tickle the bosom of their own +mother earth with the hoe to make it laugh with abundant crops for man +and beast." The grateful citizens have named their towns in honor of +their generous benefactors, thus establishing for Carneiges, Morgans +and Rockefellers monuments to their memories which will endure +forever. + +Thus was removed for all time the antagonism between labor and +capital; thus were envy and class hatreds banished from society, and +thus was our glorious Republic secured upon firm foundations, which +will endure "until the final day breaks and all earthly shadows flee +away." + +Thus at last the prophetic vision of the poet seemed to be realized in +"the land of the free and the home of the brave." + + "One dream through all the ages + Has led the world along: + The wise words of the sages, + The poet in his song, + The prophet in his vision,-- + All these have caught the gleam, + Have caught the light elysian, + Have told the haunting dream. + + This dream is that the story + The ages have unrolled + Shall blossom in the glory + Of one long age of gold; + That every man and woman + Shall find life glad and free, + That in whate'er is human + Is hid Divinity. + + The rod of old oppression + One day shall broken be; + Those held in night's possession + The light of hope shall see; + For tears there shall be laughing, + And peace shall be for strife, + And thirsty lips be quaffing + The wine of glorious life. + + The rage and noise of battle + Shall sink, and fall to peace, + The lowing of the cattle, + The fruit and corn increase; + No more the wide sky under + The rattle of the drum, + No more the cannon's thunder,-- + God's kingdom shall have come. + + Some day, dearest, where skies are bright, + We'll dwell in the beauty of love and light; + And sorrow will seem + Like a far-off dream, + And life shall be morning, that knows no night! + + Some day, dearest--that perfect day + For which we knelt in the dark to pray + We'll reap the rest + That God deems best-- + In the beautiful vales of the far-away!" + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman from Everywhere, by James Henry Foss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE *** + +***** This file should be named 12193-8.txt or 12193-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12193/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/12193-8.zip b/old/12193-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4f62b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12193-8.zip diff --git a/old/12193.txt b/old/12193.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..67e926c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12193.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7310 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman from Everywhere, by James Henry Foss + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gentleman from Everywhere + +Author: James Henry Foss + +Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12193] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE + + +BY + +JAMES HENRY FOSS + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +1903 + + +TO + +MY BELOVED, ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN, + +THIS BOOK IS + +MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED + +IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT + +BY ITS PERUSAL + + Many sailing o'er life's solemn main, + Forlorn and shipwrecked brothers, may take heart again. + + + + +Contents + +CHAPTER + +I. Launching of My Life Boat +II. My First Voyage +III. Near to Nature's Heart +IV. Joys and Sorrows of School-Days +V. Career of a Dominie-Pedagogue +VI. Dreams of My Youth +VII. A Disenchanted Collegian-Preacher +VIII. In Shadow Land +IX. Sunlight and Darkness in Palace and Cottage +XI. Adventures in Mosquito Land +XI. In Arcadie +XII. From Philistine to Benedict and a Honeymoon +XIII. The Angels of Life and Death +XIV. Tribulations of a Widower +XV. Faith Sees a Star +XVI. On the Political Stump +XVII. That _Eddyfying_ Christian Science +XVIII. In the Land of Flowers +XIX. Sunbeam, The Seminole +XX. A Founder of Towns and Clubs +XXI. A Million Dollar Business with a One Dollar Capital +XXII. Pendulum 'twixt Smiles and Tears +XXIII. Monarch of all He Surveyed: Then Deposed, +XXIV. Foregleams of Immortality +XXV. A Practical Socialist and Colonizer +XXVI. Hand in Hand with Angels +XXVII. Among the Law-Sharks +XXVIII. Campaigning in Wonderland +XXIX. Among the Clouds +XXX. Disenchanted: Home Again +XXXI. The Florida Crackers +XXXII. Looking Forward + +[Illustration: [cursive] Your friend, the Author +James H. Foss] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +LAUNCHING OF MY LIFE-BOAT. + + Wild was the night, yet a wilder night + Hung around o'er the mother's pillow; + In her bosom there waged a fiercer fight + Than the fight on the wrathful billow. + + +Already there were more children than potatoes in her hut of logs, and +yet, another unwelcome guest was coming, to whom fate had ordained +that it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born. + +A sympathizing neighbor held over the suffering woman an umbrella to +shield her from the rain which poured through the dilapidated roof, +and when the dreary light of that Sunday morning dawned, my frail bark +was launched on the stormy, sullen sea of life. + +My father, a good man, but a ne'er-do-well financially, had loaned his +best clothes, watch and pocketbook to a friend to enable him to call +on his best girl in captivating style, and said friend expressed his +gratitude by eloping with the girl and all the borrowed finery. + +That same night the boom broke, and allowed all the savings of our +family invested in logs, cut by my father and his lumbermen, to float +down the river and be lost in the sea. + +Thus storm, flood, calamity and sorrow, far in advance heralded the +future of myself, the fourth son of a fourth son who, on that Sunday, +in the dog-days of 1841, reluctantly came into this world. + +The howling of the wolves in the surrounding wild-woods, the screaming +of the catamounts in the near-by tree-tops, the sterile dog-star +drying up the crops, the marching of my father to fight in the +threatened Aroostook war, all conspired for months before this fateful +night to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloomy forebodings in +the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the +mind of the baby yet unborn. + +All through that wretched summer, scorching drought alternating +with cloud-bursts vied with each other in blasting the hopes of the +farmers, and premature frost destroyed the few remaining stalks of +corn, so that when the winter snows came, gaunt famine stared our +family fiercely in the face. + +My father and three brothers faced the withering storms bravely, +unpacking their internal stores of sunshine, as the camel in the +desert draws refreshment from his inner tank when outward water fails. + +We were isolated from human companionship, except when occasionally +the doctor came on the tops of the fences and branches of the +pine-trees to soothe the pains of my sickly mother. At this time the +snow was so deep that a tunnel was cut to the neighboring hovel where +shivered our ancient horse and cow. + +My father and brothers tramped with snare and gun on snow-shoes +through the woods, securing occasionally a partridge or squirrel, and +semi-occasionally a deer, or pickerel from the lake. On one of these +occasions, two of my brothers and the dog met with an adventure which +nearly gave them deliverance from all earthly sorrows. As they faced +the terrible cold of a January morning, the wailing of the winds in +the tree-tops, and the few flying snowflakes foreboded a storm which +burst upon them in great fury while about two miles from home. +Bewildered and benumbed, they dug a hole in the snow down to the +earth, and were soon buried many feet deep, thus affording them some +relief from the cold; but they nearly famished with hunger and gave +themselves up for lost. Suddenly, the dog, who was huddled with them +for warmth, jumped away whining and scratching in great excitement. +He refused to obey their orders to be still and die in peace, but, +digging for some minutes, his claws struck a tree, then, rushing over +the boys and back again to the trees repeatedly, he roused them from +their lethargy to follow him; but nothing was visible but a hole in a +tree through which the dog jumped and barked furiously. + +Cutting the hole larger with their axe, they found the interior to be +dry punk, which at once suggested the exhilarating thought of a fire, +and soon a delightful heat from the burning drywood permeated their +snow cave, the smoke being more endurable than the previous cold. All +at once they heard a strange snorting and scratching above in the +tree with whines which drove the dog wild with excitement, then, +with burning embers and suffocating smoke, down came a huge animal, +well-nigh breaking the necks of frantic dog and "rubbering" boys. + +After this came the tug of war. Teeth, axe, gun, fire, dog, bear, and +boys all mixed up in a fight to the finish. Finally, as bruin was not +fully recovered from the comatose state of his winter hibernating, +after many scratches and thumps, cuts and shots, came the survival of +the fittest. + +Not even imperial Caesar, with the world at his feet, could have been +prouder than were boys and dog when they looked at their prostrate +foe, and reflected that this conquest meant the physical salvation +of our entire family. Soon the chips flew from the tree, and over a +cheerful fire they roasted and devoured bear steaks to repletion. + +Digging to the surface, they found that the storm had subsided, and +rigging a temporary sled from the boughs of the tree, they dragged +home this "meat in due season." + +All through the hours of the following night the wolves, attracted by +the scent of blood, howled and scratched frantically around the hut, +calling for their share in that "chain of destruction," by which the +laws of the universe have ordained that all creatures shall subsist. +The infant, of course, joined lustily in the chorus until the boys +almost wished themselves back in their shroud of snow. + +So, with alternate feasting and fasting we passed the long weeks of +that Arctic winter until the frogs in the neighboring swamp crying: +"Knee deep, knee deep," and "better go round, better go round," +proclaimed the season of freshets when the vast plain below us was +traversible only in boats. Then the birds returned from the far South, +but brought no seed-time or harvest, for that was the ever to be +remembered "Year without a summer," and but for the wild ducks and +geese shot on the lake, and the wary and uncertain fish caught with +the hook, all human lives in that region would have returned to the +invisible from whence they came. + +It seemed as if chaos and dark night had come back to those wild +woods. The migratory fever seized upon us all, and my parents +determined to seek some unknown far away, to sail to the beautiful +land of somewhere, for they felt sure that-- + + Somewhere the sun is shining, + Elsewhere the song-birds dwell; + And they hushed their sad repining + In the faith that somewhere all is well. + + Somewhere the load is lifted + Close by an open gate; + Out there the clouds are rifted, + Somewhere the angels wait. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MY FIRST VOYAGE. + + +My father and brothers constructed a "prairie schooner" from our +scanty belongings, and one forlorn morning in early autumn, with the +skeleton horse and cow harnessed tandem for motive power, we all set +sail for far-off Massachusetts. + +We slept beneath our canopy of canvas and blankets; those of our +number able to do so worked occasionally for any who would hire, +but employers were few, as this was one of the crazy seasons in the +history of our Republic when the people voted for semi-free trade, and +the mill wheels were nearly all silent for the benefit of the mills of +foreign nations. They shot squirrels and partridges when ammunition +could be obtained, forded rivers, narrowly escaping drowning in the +swift currents, and suffered from chills and fever. + +One dark night some gypsies stole our antediluvian horse and cow. The +barking of the faithful dog awakened father and brothers who rushed +to the rescue, leaving mother half dead with fear; but at length the +marauders were overtaken, shots were exchanged, heads were broken, and +after a fierce struggle and long wandering, lost in the woods, our +fiery steeds were once more chained to our chariot wheels. + +The next day we came to a wide river which it was impossible to ford, +but mercy, which sometimes "tempers the blast to the shorn lamb," sent +us relief in the shape of an antiquated gundalow floating on the tide. +Like Noah and family of old, we managed to embark on this ancient ark, +and paddled to the further shore. + +There we miraculously escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk. While +painfully making our way through the primeval forest, we were suddenly +saluted by the ferocious war-whoop, and a dozen Indians barred our +way, flourishing their primitive implements of warfare. A shot from +father's double-barreled gun sent them flying to cover, our steeds +rushed forward with a speed hitherto unknown, the prairie schooner +rocked like a boat in a cyclone, the mother shrieked, the _enfant +terrible_ howled like a bull of Bashan, and just as the "Red devils" +were closing in from the rear, the mouth of a cave loomed up in the +hillside into which dashed "pegasus and mooly cow" pell-mell. + +Our red admirers halted almost at the muzzle of the gun and the blades +of my brothers' axes. Luckily the Indians had neither firearms nor +bows and arrows. They made rushes occasionally, but the shotgun +wounded several, the axes intimidated, and they seemed about to settle +down to a siege when, with a tremendous shouting and singing of +"Tippecanoe and Tyler too," a band of picturesquely arrayed white men +came marching along the trail. The enemy took to their heels, and we +learned that our rescuers had been to a William Henry Harrison parade +and barbecue, for this was the time of the famous "hard cider" +campaign. + +The Indians had been there too and, filling up with "fire water," +their former war-path proclivities had returned to their "empty, +swept, and garnished" minds, to the extent that they yearned to +decorate their belts with our scalps. + +Our preservers scattered to their homes, and the would-be scalpers +were seen no more, leaving the world to darkness and to us in the +woods. The woods, where Adam and Eve lived and loved, where Pan +piped, and Satyrs danced, the opera house of birds; the woods, green, +imparadisaical, mystic, tranquillizing--to the poet perhaps when all +is well--but to us, they seemed haunted by spirits of evil, the yells +of the demons seemed to echo and reecho; but an indefinable something +seemed to sympathize with the infinite pathos of our lives, and at +last sleep, "the brother of death," folded us in his arms, and the +curtain fell. + + "There is a place called Pillow-land, + Where gales can never sweep + Across the pebbles on the strand + That girds the Sea of Sleep. + + 'Tis here where grief lets loose the rein, + And age forgets to weep, + For all are children once again, + Who cross the Sea of Sleep. + + The gates are ope'd at daylight close, + When weary ones may creep, + Lulled in the arms of sweet repose, + Across the Sea of Sleep. + + Oh weary heart, and toil-worn hand, + At eve comes rest to thee, + When ply the boats to Pillow-land, + Across the Sleepy sea. + + Thank God for this sweet Pillow-land, + Where weary ones may creep, + And breathe the perfume on the strand + That girds the Sea of Sleep." + +It is pleasant in this sunset of life, to recall the testimony of my +brothers that through all those troublous scenes, father and mother +were soothed and consoled by an unfaltering faith in the ultimate +triumph of the good and true, that their faces were often illumined as +they repeated to each other those priceless words of the sweet singer, + + "Drifting over a sunless sea, cold dreary mists encircling me, + Toiling over a dusty road with foes within and foes abroad, + Weary, I cast my soul on Thee, mighty to save even me, + Jesus Thou Son of God." + +At last the "perils by land and perils by sea, and perils from false +brethren," this long, long journey ended and we reached the promised +land. We halted in old Byfield, in the state of Massachusetts, with +worldly goods consisting of a bushel of barberries, threadbare +toilets, and the ancient equipage dilapidated as aforesaid. + +After much tribulation, father took a farm "on shares," which was +found to result in endless toil to us, and the lion's share of the +crops going to the owners, who toiled not, neither did they spin, but +reaped with gusto where we had sown. + +After a few years of this profitless drudgery, my father bought an old +run-down farm with dilapidated buildings in the neighboring town of +R----, mortgaging all, and our souls and bodies besides, for its +payment. We hoped we had rounded the cape of storms which sooner or +later looms up before every ship which sails the sea of life, for we +had fully realized the truth of the poem-- + + We may steer our boats by the compass, + Or may follow the northern star; + We may carry a chart on shipboard + As we sail o'er the seas afar; + But, whether by star or by compass + We may guide our boats on our way, + The grim cape of storms is before us, + And we'll see it ahead some day. + + How the prow may point is no matter, + Nor of what the cargo may be, + If we sail on the northern ocean, + Or away on the southern sea; + It matters not who is the pilot, + To what guidance our course conforms; + No vessel sails o'er the sea of life + But must pass the cape of storms. + + Sometimes we can first sight the headland + On the distant horizon's rim; + We enter the dangerous waters + With our vessels taut and trim; + But often the cape in its grimness + Will before us suddenly rise, + Because of the clouds that have hid it + Or the blinding sun in our eyes. + + Our souls will be caught in the waters + That are hurled at the storm cape's face; + Our pleasures and joys, our hopes and fears, + Will join in the maddening race. + Our prayers, desires, our penitent griefs, + Our longings and passionate pain, + Be dashed to spray on the stormy cape + And fly in our faces like rain. + + But there's always hope for the sailor, + There is ever a passage through; + No life goes down at the cape of storms, + If the life and the heart lie true. + If in purpose the soul is steadfast, + If faithful in mind and in will, + The boat will glide to the other side, + Where the ocean of life is still. + +[Illustration: "It was a Fair Scene of Tranquillity."] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +NEAR TO NATURE'S HEART. + + +It seems but yesterday, although more than a half century ago, that I, +a puny boy, stood on the hilltop and looked for the first time upon +this, the earliest home of which I have any vivid recollection. It +was a fair scene of rustic tranquillity, where a contented mind might +delight to spend a lifetime mid hum of bees and low of kine. + +Along the eastern horizon's rim loomed the blue sea beyond the sandy +dunes of old Plum Island; the lazy river born in babbling brooks and +bubbling springs flowing languidly mid wooded islands, and picturesque +stacks of salt hay, representing the arduous toil of farmers and +dry-as-dust fodder for reluctant cows. Nearer, the two church spires +of the little village, striving to lift the sordid minds of the +natives from earthly clods to the clouds, and where beckoning hands +strove vainly to inspire them with heavenly hopes; around them, +glistening in the sunlight, the marble slabs where sleep the rude +forefathers of the hamlet, some mute inglorious Miltons who came from +England in the early sixties, whose tombstones are pierced by rifle +bullets fired at the maraudering red skins. These are the cities of +the dead, far more populous than the town of the living. + +Nearer, the willowy brook that turns the mill; to the south the dense +pine woods, peopled in our imaginations, with fairy elves, owls, and +hobgoblins--now, alas, owing to the rapacity of the sawmills, naught +but a howling wilderness of stumps and underbrush. + +Directly below me, stands our half-century old house with its eaves +sloping to the ground, down which generations of boys had ruined their +pants in hilarious coasting; near by, the ancient well-swipe, and the +old oaken bucket which rose from the well; beyond this, of course, +as usual, the piggery and hennery to contaminate the water and breed +typhoid fever, and in the house cellar, the usual dampness from the +hillside to supply us all with rheumatism and chills. + +There existed apparently in the early dawn of the nineteenth century, +an unwritten law which required the farmers to violate all the laws of +sanitation, and then to ascribe all ills the flesh is heir to, to the +mysterious will of an inscrutable Providence whose desire it was to +make the heart better by the sorrows of the countenance, and to save +the soul from hell by the punishment of the body. Vegetables were +allowed to rot in the cellars, and to make everybody sick with +their noxious odors so that we might not be too much wedded to this +transitory existence. Pork, beans, and cabbage must be devoured in +enormous quantities just before going to bed for the purpose of +inspiring midnight groans and prayers to be delivered from the pangs +of the civil war in the inner man. + +This moralizing is inspired by the pessimism of disenchanted age; but +on that beautiful morning of the long ago, naught occurred to me +save the wedlock of earth and heaven: I was near to nature's heart, +listening to the ecstatic songs of the robins, the orioles and +sweetest of all the bobolink. + + "Oh, winged rapture, feathered soul of spring: + Blithe voice of woods, fields, waters, all in one, + Pipe blown through by the warm, mild breath of June, + Shepherding her white flocks of woolly clouds, + The bobolink has come, and climbs the wind + With rippling wings that quiver not for flight + But only joy, or yielding to its will + Runs down, a brook of laughter through the air." + +After the charm of the novelty of the scene had vanished, I descended +from my perch to explore this sleepy hollow: the barn door hung +suspended on a single hinge, like a bird with but one unbroken wing to +soar upon. The swallows twittered their love-songs under the eaves; +chipmunks scolded my intrusion and threw nuts at my head from the +beams; a lone, lorn hen proclaimed her triumph over a new laid egg, +and then, with fiery eyes, assaulted me with profanity as I filled +my hat with her choicest treasures. A litter of pigs scampered away, +wedging themselves into a hole in the wall, and hung there kicking and +squealing, while their indignant mother chased me up a ladder where +she hurled at me the vilest imprecations; a solitary Phoebe bird +wailed out her plaintive "pee wee, pee wee, pee whi itt," and a +newly-married pair of sandpipers chanted their song of the sea on the +edge of a mud puddle in the yard. + +At last the infuriated sow went to liberate her wedged-in offspring, +leaving me to flee to the house where I cooked my eggs and some +ancient potatoes in the ashes of a fire smoldering in the wide old +fireplace. I have since eaten royal dinners in palatial hotels, but +nothing has ever tasted half as good as this extemporized lunch of my +boyhood. + +Here the rest of the family found me later when they came bringing +their household goods; here I might have laid, broad and deep, the +foundations of a useful life, had I possessed even a modicum of the +stick-to-itiveness so essential to success. + +A limited amount of discontent is a powerful stimulus to more +strenuous endeavor; but when you have intensity without continuity of +mental action, beware of imitating my example of progressing along the +lines of the least resistance; for if you do you will never attain +to that persistency of effort which can come only from overcoming +obstacles. + +When my father gave me a moderate task of weeding onions, I soon +became tired of crawling on hands and knees under a scorching sun, +inundating the earth with perspiration and tears, so I substituted a +hoe for fingers, tearing up onions with the weeds that I might the +sooner secure unlimited rheumatism by bathing in the brook. Had +my father given me what he earnestly desired, and what I richly +deserved,--a sound spanking, and more weeding to do,--I might have +developed much needed perseverance, but spanking was never allowed by +my fond mother, and I became a shirk. + +I was set to picking berries to replenish the family larder; but +this soon became monotonous, and I appropriated the old grain-sieve, +placing it beside the bushes, and pounding the huckleberries into it +with a stick; the result was a heterogeneous conglomeration of worms, +leaves, bugs, and crushed berries; but I succeeded in eliminating the +refuse by throwing the whole mass into a tub of water, and skimming +off the risings. I would then descant to buyers upon the freshness +of the berries wet with the dews of heaven, but my ruse was soon +discovered, and people refused to purchase such mucilaginous pulp. + +Our widowed hired woman was possessed of a baby, and I was assigned +the task of rocking the cradle; but I soon sighed for the apple +blossoms and songs of birds,--we had no English sparrows then--so I +drove a nail into the cradle, tied to it the clothes-line, and went +out of doors and began pulling at the cord. Soon agonizing screams +were heard, and baby was found on the floor with the cradle pounding +on top of him. + +I was sent to drive home the cows from pasture, but left the task to +the dog, who chased them over the wall into the corn-field where they +devastated the crop, and ruined the milk by devouring green apples, +while I, skylarking in a neighbor's pasture, was treed by an angry +bull, who kept me in the branches until I caught a violent cold and +became for weeks a family burden. + +I was set to milking the cows, but I tied their tails to the beams, +applied a lemon-squeezer to their udders until everybody was aroused +by the bellowings of the infuriated beasts, and the milk and myself +were found carpeting the dirty floor. + +At last all patience was exhausted, and as I was born on Sunday, and +was good for nothing else my parents, good, pious church-members, +concluded I must become a minister, consequently they sent me to +school. School! What memories come back to us over the arid wastes of +life at the very mention of this magic word! There is the place where +immortal minds are filled with loathing at the very sight of books, +or where the torch of learning is kindled, which burns on with +ever-increasing brightness forever more, and when I think of some of +the teachers of my youth I am reminded of what the wise pastor said to +a "stupid lunk-head" who had conceived the preposterous idea that he +was called to be a preacher. "What, you be a minister?" + +"Yes," said the dunce, "are we not commanded in the holy book to +preach the gospel to every critter?" + +"Verily," was the reply; "but every critter is not commanded to preach +the gospel." + +So long as percentages obtained after "cramming" for examinations are +the criterions which decide the accepting or rejecting of candidates +for teaching positions, we must expect "critters" for the school +guides of our children, who, like some of my own tutors, will + + "Ram it in, cram it in-- + Children's heads are hollow; + Rap it in, tap it in-- + Bang it in, slam it in + Ancient archaeology, + Aryan philology, + Prosody, zoology, + Physics, climatology, + Calculus and mathematics, + Rhetoric and hydrostatics. + Stuff the school children, fill up the heads of them, + Send them all lesson-full home to the beds of them; + When they are through with the labor and show of it, + What do they care for it, what do they know of it?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +JOYS AND SORROWS OF SCHOOL-DAYS. + + +It was the custom in R----, and is now to quite an extent elsewhere, +to elect as school committee those especially noted for their +ignorance and unfitness for the duties, perhaps to keep them out of +the almshouse, or to educate them by the absorption process while +hearing pupils recite. These men were paid two dollars for each call +they made at schools, consequently they "called" early and often, +especially when the school ma'ams were young and pretty. + +Here, as elsewhere, there was always a great fight at town-meetings +for these school board positions, especially when the school-book +agents became numerous, for these committees could secure from said +agents unlimited free books, and get high prices for all their +spavined horses, dried up cows, and sick pigs in return for voting for +rival text-books. + +As the committees were often unequal to the task of making out a +course of study, pupils selected what studies they pleased, as +suicidal a policy as it would be if, when you were sick and went +to the physician for relief, he should point to a lot of different +medicines, and tell you to pay your money, and take your choice. + +As there was a cramming machine close by called an academy, whose sole +object was to push students into Harvard College, of course the common +schools must be "crammers" for the academy, and the result was, that +we had no educational institutions whatever, and mental dyspepsia +was well-nigh universal, a smattering of everything, a knowledge of +nothing. As well might we pour food into the mouth by the peck, pound +it down with a ramrod, and expect healthful physical growth. + +Hundreds of poor parents are working themselves to death to send their +children to such schools with a view to elevating them to "higher +positions" than they themselves occupy, and soon we will have none to +do the honest physical labor of life, but the world will be full of +kid-gloved hangers on for soft jobs, who regard working with the hands +to be a disgrace. + +Well do I remember going to a neighbor, whose farm was mortgaged for +all it was worth to buy finery and pay tuition bills in said academy, +and begging for the services of the daughter to help my sick mother. I +was refused with insult and scorn. "Do you think," shrieked the irate +virago, "that I will allow my daughter who is studying French, Latin, +Greek, and German to wash your dirty dishes?" I was driven from the +house at the point of the boot. That daughter is to-day shaking and +twitching with St. Vitus's dance, a physical and mental wreck from +overstudy, causing nervous exhaustion and despair. + +Hundreds of girls throughout our country who might have been good +housekeepers, are to-day useless invalids, made so by what is called +"higher education." Hundreds of boys, who might have become successful +farmers and mechanics, are now dissipating in beer shops while waiting +in vain for lily-fingered positions as bookkeepers or teachers. In +scores of New England towns, one man, employed to fill the heads of a +reluctant few with the dead languages, receives more salary than all +the other teachers combined. + +It seems to require a surgical operation to get the fact through our +thick heads, that our school system demands radical reform from top to +bottom to the end that hands as well as heads may receive technical +bread-and-butter, practical education. + +I was a victim of this elective-study craze, and with the usual +stupidity displayed by a child when left to decide what he shall do, +I chose Latin as my principal study in this common district school, +because I fancied it smacked of erudition. + +The teacher, knowing no more than myself of the language, set me to +committing to memory the whole of Andrews' Latin Grammar. I gained +the important information that "_sto, fido, confido, assuesco_, and +_preditus_" govern the ablative, and other valuable lore; but when I +asked the teacher where the Latin vernacular came in, she replied that +that would come to me later--that I must "open my mouth and shut my +eyes while she gave me something to make me wise." A solemn awe not +unmixed with envy pervaded the schoolroom as I, parrot-like, rattled +off this valueless jargon of a people dead for hundreds of years. + +As this study possessed no interest for me, I naturally dropped into +mischief, and being caught one day with a distorted picture of the +teacher on my slate with the following suggestive poem lines beneath +it:--"Savage by name and savage by nature, I hope the Lord will take +your breath before you lick us all to death,"--I was chased about the +room by the angry pedagoguess until I leaped through the back window, +and the hole made in the bank by my head is pointed out to this day as +a warning to recalcitrant pupils. + +[Illustration: "Floating 'Neath the Trees of Mill River."] + +I refused to return to this temple of wisdom, and digging a hole into +the haymow, secreted myself therein, pulling the hole in after me. +Here I would remain during school hours, watching through a crevice +cut in the side of the barn, my father who made the air resound +with threats of what he would do if I did not at once return to my +education mill. Here I was often joined by a congenial spirit, and +we played cards which were regarded as the emissaries of Satan by my +religious parents; then we would sally forth with masked faces and +wooden guns, and inspired by dime novels, overthrow the walls of +children's playhouses, throw rocks against the schoolhouse, bully the +small boys almost into fits, hook the neighbors' eggs, corn, melons +and apples, which we devoured at leisure in a hidden hut in the woods. + +When the spirit moved, we would "swipe" a neighbor's skiff and go +floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of Mill River, +lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting +in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the +fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling +victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; +then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across +a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing +on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes +for a mud-eel for its dinner. + +Then we would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some +fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. It was +delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy +of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon +the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the +flute-like melodies of the mockingbird of the north. + +We would watch the delicate traceries of the water gardens through +which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit +confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to +all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel +endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel, +everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him; +the turtles, snapping at everything in sight with impunity relying +upon the impregnable defense of their coats-of-mail. + +On one of these occasions we were aroused from our Arcadian dream by +a frightful roar, and the destruction of all things seemed at hand. A +young cyclone had struck the fire over which we had cooked our fish, +fanning it into a furious conflagration. We climbed a tall oak, and +soon, as far as the eye could reach, all the hills and woodlands +seemed wrapped in flames. Frantic farmers were seen flagellating the +excited oxen and horses, who, with tails in air, were dragging the +ploughs, making furrows around the houses and barns, which were nearly +all located in pastures rendered dry as tinder by that extraordinary +summer's heat. + +The cause of this disturbance was traced to us, and we barely escaped +coats of tar and feathers at the hands of the infuriated neighbors, +by the pleadings of our ever-loving mothers who promised we should go +every day to the academy and sin no more. + +We were thoroughly sobered by our dangers, and commenced our careers +at this ancient institution founded by the first Lieutenant-Governor +of Massachusetts. Here reigned supreme a fiery autocrat, a fervent +admirer of Greek and Latin, a cordial hater of mathematics--my weakest +point--a D.D., LL.D., who was determined to drive everybody into +college. He had heard of my escapades, and was fully prepared to lay +upon my devoted head all the pranks of a restless fun-loving crowd of +students. + +On the first day of my initiation, while the professor was invoking +the Divine blessing, the sight of a big dinner pail belonging to the +fat boy in front of me, proved too much of a temptation, and I hurled +it down the aisle, scattering pork, pickles, doughnuts, and so forth +in its wake, and ending with a loud bang against the platform. Of +course I was the suspect, and cutting off prayer abruptly, down he +rushed, and banged my head till I saw more stars than ever shone in +heaven. + +My academy "_alma mater_" has graduated but few who have-- + + "Climbed fame's ladder so high + From the round at the top they have stepped to the sky," + +and it is sad to recall that many of the most gifted, acquired +in college secret societies the alcohol habit, and now sleep in +drunkards' graves. + +Brilliant Charlie, my chum, who mastered languages and sciences as +easy as "rolling off a log." I saw him last summer, a wreck--wine and +bad women did it. The idolized son of pious parents, whose youth was +surrounded at home with the halo of Bible and prayer; but like Esau, +he "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage" and afterwards "found +no space for repentance, though he sought it earnestly and with many +tears." + +It seems but yesterday that he and I were enjoying a game of +"pickknife," lacerating the top of a new desk, when in rushed the +"D.D." with his feet encased in the thinnest of slippers and with +which he gave me a kick which broke his toe, then clasping it in his +hand, danced on one leg, whooping unconsciously cuss word ejaculations +till we shrieked with laughter; then he bumped our heads together +until my big brother shook the dominie-pedagogue as a dog would a rat, +and threatened that if he ever struck my head again he would drown him +in the horsepond. + +Dear, good brother, he always was, and is now my guardian angel, +although now he comes from heaven to shield me, for I am the last on +earth of my father's family. + +Alas, how many of those academy classmates, each of whom was then the +soul of honor and the heart of truth, drowned their intellects in the +flowing bowl. _Eheu, Eheu, fugaces anni labuntur!_ But surely it was +only this morning oh, beautiful, star-eyed Harry, that you and I, +wearied with the frantic vain attempts of the unmathematical professor +to elucidate by appalling triangles and hieroglyphics on the +blackboard the perplexities of cube root, ousted each other from the +seat, sprawling upon the floor, and were chased by the LL.D. out of +doors, never to return until we apologized and promised "to do so no +more." + +Although I had been as "prone to mischief" as the sparks to fly +upward--ringing the academy bell at midnight by means of a string tied +to the tongue, bringing the professor in his night shirt from his bed +to chase me, covering his chimney with a board till he was well-nigh +suffocated with smoke, hitching his horse to a boat in Mill River, +pillaging his coop and scattering his hens to the four winds of +heaven, crawling under his bed at night and nearly frightening him to +death with unearthly groans, catching him by the legs as he jumped out +and leaving him kicking on the floor as I leaped through the window +amid applauding students--I was appointed assistant teacher at the +beginning of my senior year. + +Then at once great dignity was assumed by me which, being resented by +my former cronies, I secured order by licking them at recess one by +one, though I suffered from many "nasal hemorrhages" while engaged +in fistic rough and tumbles to assert my authority; I conquered, but +secured many black eyes and bedewed the campus with much "claret" for +the good of the order. + +At length we were declared sufficiently crammed to enter college, +and on graduation day I discoursed in stentorian tones upon "True +Heroism," amid the applause of the fair sex, and convulsed the +audience with laughter by prancing, in my enthusiastic eloquence, upon +the sore toe of one of the reverend trustees on the stage who fairly +yelled with pain: "_Sic transit gloria mundi_." + +Among the sins of my youth, which I confess with "shame and confusion +of face" were the pranks played by me and some fellow-sinners upon our +nearest neighbors. These worthies consisted of an old man and what +appeared to be his much older daughter, the two most unaccountable +cranks that dame nature ever presented to my notice. + +The father was possessed of the insane hallucination that he was the +greatest poet that ever lived. Often I have seen him drop his hoe in +the potato field, and run for the house so that you could hardly see +his heels for dust, looking for all the world like an animated pair of +tongs. As he expressed it, "an idee had struck him," and all mankind +would die of intellectual starvation unless he at once embodied said +"idee" in a poem. + +His greatest delight was to gather about him of an evening a crowd +of young folks and read to us his preposterous "lines." On such +occasions, some of us would quietly steal away up into his garret, and +roll down over the stairs, with a thunderous uproar, a huge gilded +ball which had decorated a post outside a tavern where he formerly +dispensed much "fire water," to the impoverishment of his customers +and to the enrichment of himself. + +Then our host, with much profanity, would rush to the rescue armed +with an ancient bayonet and a fish trumpet which, like the bugle-horn +of Roderic Dhu, summoned all the neighbors to his assistance; but some +sympathizing friend would always upset the table holding the candle so +that they could never decide who were the guilty absentees. + +At other times while the great poet was singing his sweetest songs, we +would seize his ancient roosters by their tails, and while they were +making night hideous with their lamentations, the angry couple would +bombard the hen-roosts with shovels, hoes and other weapons in the +hope of slaughtering the marauders. These pleasantries made much fun +for us, and varied the monotony of the lives of our entertainers. + +The ancient daughter firmly believed that she possessed the fatal gift +of beauty, although her elongated face was of the thickness and color +of sole leather, and one eye was hideously closed, while the other was +of spotless green. It was wonderful to see her cork-screw curls and +languishing smirks when the young men took turns in pretending to +court her, while an admiring crowd gazed at their amours through the +window. + +I can recall but two of the greatest of the poems of this man who +delighted in the full belief that Shakespeare could not "hold a candle +to him." These I take pleasure in handing down through the ages. + +No. 1. + + "A youth of parts, a witty blade + To college went and progress made + Sounding round his logick; + The prince of hell wide spread his net, + And caught him by one lucky hit + And dragged him down to tophet." + +No. 2. + + "In the year 1801 + I, Enoch B----, was born + Without any shirt on." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CAREER OF A DOMINIE-PEDAGOGUE. + + +Dear old fathers and mothers! Of all the people in this world, they +look through the rubbish of our imperfections, and see in us the +divine ideal of our natures, love in us not perhaps the men we are, +but the angels we may be in the evolution of the "sweet by and by," +like the mother of St. Augustine, who, even while he was wild and +reckless, beheld him standing clothed in white a ministering priest at +the right hand of God. + +They see through us as Michel Angelo saw through the block of marble, +declaring that an angel was imprisoned within it. They are soul +artists. They can never acknowledge our faults, only our divine +possibilities; so, when I left the academy, my parents, with strong +yearning and with tears, entreated me to become a minister. I had +not the heart to disappoint them and as one hypnotized, on a Sabbath +morning during that summer, the clergyman immersed me in the river, +while a wondering crowd watched from the shore. The very waters seemed +to protest, for as I gasped for breath at the cold backward plunge, +I imbibed copious draughts of the briny deep, and was well-nigh +strangled. I survived the ordeal, and that afternoon preached in the +church to nearly the entire population of the town on the "Final state +of the impenitent dead." + +Oh, the terrors of this my first sermon, horrors to preacher as well +as to "preachees." As I sat in the pulpit beside our pastor, listening +to the tremulous tones of the organ which followed the prayer, and +gazing at the sea of upturned faces, they seemed taunting me with all +the wild pranks of my boyhood, and crying "Oh fool and hypocrite." + +All my schoolmates were there shaking with ill-concealed merriment. +Every pore poured forth perspiration, and my hair seemed to stand on +end like quills upon the back of the fretful porcupine. I thought of +the experience of the first sermon by a theological student which I +had recently read in a comic paper, and I trembled lest history was to +repeat itself. + +This theologue, like many of his cloth, was possessed of the insane +impression that he was gifted with the sublime inspiration of +eloquence, and being invited to preach on his return to the old home +for vacation, he selected the somewhat startling text "and the dumb +ass opened his mouth and spake." On this elevating theme he wrote a +sensational sermon and committed it to memory in order that he might +electrify his audience with eye power as well as by verbal flow of +soul. The awful day arrived, but when the young apostle arose to +preach, stage fright banished from his mind all but the thrilling +text. + +"My friends," said he, "we are informed by the holy book that this +dumb ass opened his mouth and spake." Then pulling his hair in +desperation, he repeated the text several times, when he was +interrupted by the disgusted pastor, who jumped to his feet and +shouted: + +"Well, friends, as the dumb ass has nothing to say, let us pray." + +This awful example well nigh converted me into another specimen of +this historic animal, but at last the pent up cave of the winds was +opened, and a gust of sound came forth which so stunned the listening +ears of my hearers that they dazedly mistook it for eloquence. + +I painted to them the picture of the incorrigible sinner "on flames of +burning brimstone tossed, forever, oh forever lost." I did not intend +to be a hypocrite; but drifted with the revival tide. + +I discoursed often that summer to audiences that crowded the church +to the doors. I was but fifteen years of age, and was called: "The +wonderful boy preacher." + +One Sunday the village crank came to hear me, honoring the occasion +by wearing a new stove-pipe hat of prodigious proportions, which he +deposited on the seat as he arose during prayer. When the amen was +pronounced, perhaps paralyzed by the fervor, he sat down upon said +stove-pipe, crushing it to a pie, then leaped from the wreck uttering +a blasphemous yell which convulsed the crowd with laughter, and thus +broke up the meeting without the benediction and passing of the +contribution-box, much to the delight of all who "steal their +preaching" on all possible occasions. + +I soon found that however anxious people were to save their souls, +they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through +tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being +impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the +"prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, +N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could +secure by going from house to house of my pupils. + +On arriving there I was ushered into the imposing presence of the +Free-will Baptist minister for examination; then I was made aware that +although I had plenty of Greek and Latin, I was woefully uninstructed +in the rudiments of our mother tongue, and was saved only by the fact +that my cousin was the largest contributor to the dominie's salary. + +The reverend superintendent had prepared an appalling array of +"posers" in accordance with the laws of the state, but my cousin at +my urgent request, assured him that I was an alumnus of one of the +greatest institutions in the world, that I was a clergyman of his own +denomination, that it was a waste of time to examine so distinguished +a scholar, that dinner was ready, and the hungry dominie was seduced +to the table where he partook of so much solid and liquid good cheer, +that he quite forgot his official duty, and gave me the required +certificate: thus I was saved from utter destruction. + +In this isolated country town the coming of the schoolmaster in his +tour of boarding around, was the great social event of the year to +each family in this Barrington, so called from the numerous children +which the mothers bear. The fatted pig was invariably killed in his +honor, and he was regaled with fried pork, roast pig, broiled hog, +sausages, and doughnuts reeking with swine fat _ad nauseam_, galore. +The teacher was thus made bilious, dyspeptic and so ugly, that he +tried to get even with his carnivorous tormentors by making it "as +hot" as possible for their offspring. + +At the opening of the school, this long and lank fifteen year old +pedagogue faced sixty pupils from the "a, b, c, tot" to the brawny +twenty-one-year-older, spoiling for a fight. When I assayed to take a +seat, the half-sawed-off hind legs of the chair gave way, and I fell +heels in air upon the dirty floor amid the yells and cat-calls of this +tumultuous army; then the stalwart ringleader came forward to throw me +into the snow bank, where my predecessor was nearly smothered with his +head under the snow and his feet uplifted to heaven. + +I quickly pulled a concealed ruler, and with a blow on the head, +knocked the young giant sprawling, then utilizing all my athletic +training, I tripped and banged his followers till they fled pell-mell +to their benches. Finally, I hypnotized my audience with great +eloquence, stating that I would give them teaching or clubbing as they +might prefer. My sweet sixteen, black-eyed girl cousin gave efficient +aid, winning the girls to my side; they secured the alliance of their +sweethearts, and the victory was complete. + +I soon found that some of the bright country lads and lasses knew +more than myself about the "three R's," but by getting a key to the +arithmetic, and trimming the midnight candle I managed to keep ahead +of the game. + +In this strictly agricultural town, I found every type of the genuine +unadulterated yankee stock. When I called on Mrs. Jones to furnish her +share of the perambulating schoolmaster's provisions, she remarked, "I +can eat you, but I can't sleep you, because I have no spare bedroom." +With feigned terror, I said that I feared I would not be a very +toothsome subject for a cannibal, thereupon she gave me the glad +hand, "come right in, my poor thing, and we will fat you up for our +Thanksgiving dinner." I entered, and ate my hog and doughnuts with +gladness of heart, for she was the most buxom, joyous, and hospitable +Betsy imaginable. + +It was she who cheered the house and the hearth more than all the +Christmas fires, an old-fashioned, thoroughly good woman, entirely +happy without the aid of diamonds, finery, or long-tailed gowns +to trail through the mud and sweep the streets. It was extremely +refreshing to see this really sensible, natural human being, as rare +in this age as an oasis in the desert. + +Her husband came in smiling, a veritable brother Jonathan, hale and +hearty, though tired, for he had arisen from bed at three o'clock +that morning, milked a dozen cows, done chores enough to kill a dozen +dapper city clerks, and then tramped beside his oxen through the deep +snow, taking a load of wood to sell in Dover nearly twenty miles away. + +This load he had labored hard for two days to cut on the mountainside, +and it brought him the munificent sum of three dollars, yet he was +happier than any multi-millionaire I ever saw. There were stumps he +had dug out, and rocks he had picked on his farm, enough to fence his +hundred acres almost sky-high; but even then he said he had to shoot +his corn and potatoes out of a gun to get them through the stones into +the ground. + +This family was the life of every husking-bee, where each red ear of +corn led to rollicking fun, resounding smacks on rosy cheeks, and of +paring-bees when even numbered apple-seeds were the match-makers for +bachelors and maids. They often took prizes in my spelling-matches, +when the bashful swains were allowed to clasp hands with their +sweethearts, which led to many lifelong hand and heart clasps in this +good old-fashioned town where there were no despairing old maids nor +lone, lorn, grouty unmated men. + +They went every Sunday to whittle sticks, swap jack-knives and +horses, and to listen to the white-haired parson who led them by the +resistless rhetoric of a blameless life, as well as by his heartfelt +prayers and exhortations in those "ways which are ways of pleasantness +and those paths which are paths of peace." + +"One hot summer's day," the farmer told me, "the elder was preaching +to a very drowsy crowd after a hard week's work in the hayfield, when +suddenly he stopped and shouted: 'Fire! Fire!' at the top of his +lungs. 'Where? where?' cried some ex-snorers jumping to their feet. +'In hell,' cried the indignant parson, 'for those who sleep under the +sound of the gospel.'" + +This model minister was dear to every heart, for it was he who had +blessed them when they first saw the light of day, had baptized them +when first his kindly teachings had awakened their aspirations to walk +in the straight and narrow way. It was he who married them when they +found each the _alter ego_, to whom they could say: + + "Thou art all to me love for which my heart did pine + A green isle in the sea love, a fountain and a shrine." + +It was he who had lifted their souls on the breath of prayer, when +their loved ones had "fallen asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, from +which none ever wake to weep." + +They loved him though they gave him from their scanty earnings but +$400 a year, and half the fish he could catch, yet they liberally +supplied his larder with their sweetest butter, freshest eggs, and the +choicest cuts from their flocks. When a city minister once said to +him: "You have a poor salary, brother," he at once replied: "Ah, but I +give them mighty poor preaching, you know." + +Grand old man, he followed closely in the footsteps of his Master, and +accomplished much more good than many famous ones who wander far from +the precepts of the lowly Nazarene, and deliver featureless sermons +to unresponsive, gaily-attired Dives under the arches of great +cathedrals. + +But the trail of the serpent is everywhere found, even in this +sequestered spot. There was, in the outskirts of the town, the +inevitable rumshop, fed, it was said, by an illicit still in the +woods, and there as usual Satan held high carnival among families +dead in trespasses and sins. There we assayed to hold temperance +prayer-meetings, but they loved darkness rather than light, and we +cast our pearls before swine, who turned and rent us. + +On one occasion we tried to hold services in the little old deserted +schoolhouse, and found it, much to our surprise, packed with the +inhabitants of Sodom; a more villainous looking crowd I never saw not +even in darkest New York. Beetle-browed, mop-haired men, whose faces, +if tapped, would apparently give forth as much fire-water as a rum +barrel. + +For a short time they listened to the singing: but when the aged +minister attempted with earnest words to inspire to a better life it +seemed as if all the fiends from heaven that fell, had pealed the +banner cry of hell. Then a decayed cabbage struck him full in the +face, ancient and unfragrant turnips and potatoes filled the air, our +little band crowded around to shield him, but unmercifully assailed, +we were obliged to wield the chairs vigorously over their heads to +fight our way to the door. + +One of our number left to guard the sleigh, luckily had it ready, in +we jumped and drove for our lives, pursued by invectives too horrible +to mention. + +This attack was inspired by the keeper of the den of iniquity as he +feared he would be deprived of his evil gains, and that night he +rewarded them with unlimited free drinks until they drowned their +consciences in a prolonged debauch. + +One of my patrons became my implacable enemy because I gave his +chip-of-the-old-block son some much merited discipline. This man, +Sampson by name, was the most malignant fellow I ever saw. One night +when with my pupils I was enjoying a skating party, he appeared with +some "sodomites" threatening to chuck me under the ice, and they might +have succeeded but for two of my friends who, when the enemy were +close upon my heels, suddenly stretched a rope across their path which +tripped them up, nearly breaking their heads in the concussion with +the ice. + +On another occasion, several of us crawled into a long hole to explore +a cave in the woods. While laboriously making our way on all fours, +carrying torches, we were suddenly horrified by fiendish hisses. +Visions of snakes danced before our minds, the girls shrieked, the +torches fell in our frantic scramble and we were left in Stygian +darkness. A mocking, demoniacal laugh was heard, winged creatures +dashed against our faces scratching and lacerating. + +After much confusion and terror, we succeeded in relighting our +torches, and found ourselves in a wizard-like cave. The bats, for such +were our assailants, fled away like lost spirits, grotesque shapes +were seen formed from the rocks by dripping waters during long ages, +fantastic icicles like the stalactites and stalagmites of the famous +Mammoth Cave hung suspended from the arching roof, but a resistless +longing to reach the air of heaven urged us on, and we crawled to +the opening through which we entered. I was in the advance, and on +reaching the entrance was horrified to find it nearly closed by a +large rock, and behind it appeared the malignant face of Sampson, who +danced in Satanic glee, laughing and shouting. + +"I've got you rats in a hole, and there you'll stay till you die!" he +shouted. + +We knew our enemy too well to expect any mercy, and painfully made our +way backwards to the main cavern. None had ever explored it further. +I at last saw a glimmer of light, and drawing nearer I discovered an +opening to the upper world through which, with great exertions, we +dragged ourselves back to the sweet air of heaven. The delight of the +reaction was exquisite like that of escaping from paradise lost to +paradise regained. + +When the ferocious Sampson heard of our deliverance, he fled, and was +never heard of again, yet this demon in human form had a twin brother +who was one of the best men in the town. + + "From the same cradle's side, from the same mother's knee, + One to long darkness and the frozen tide, and one to the peaceful sea." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DREAMS OF MY YOUTH. + + +In the early spring came the close of school term, and teacher, pupils +and parents parted with mutual regrets. My pecuniary reward was small; +but I shall always remember with pleasure the kind assurances received +that I left the intellectual status of that town much higher than I +found it. I have visited the place only once since, but my old friends +had all passed on to the higher life, and my young ones were scattered +to the four winds of heaven in search of that happiness and wealth +which is seldom found beneath the stars. + +I reached the old home under the hill, delighted to see once more the +eyes which looked love to eyes that spoke again, to hear the familiar +spring chorus from the river, the first robins and bluebirds rejoicing +over the resurrection of nature, to explore each sheltered nook for +the early cowslips, violets, pussy-willows, dandelions, and crocuses; +to gossip with my old friends the chipmunks, the muskrats, and the +woodchucks; to revisit each mossy hollow and sequestered retreat in my +much loved pine woods; to whittle again the willow whistles, to caress +the opening buds and tiny green growing blades of grass; to float once +more in my little boat under the embracing arms of my chums, the oaks, +birches, and hemlocks I loved so well; to watch the first flight of +Psyche, the butterfly, so emblematic of the soaring of the immortal +soul from the body dead. The wood duck seemed to smile upon me as of +old as she sailed gracefully into the little coves in my river, +the woodpeckers beat their drums in my honor, and the heron, the +"Shu-Shugah"--screamed welcome oh, my lover. + +The rapture of the returning life to nature thrilled my inmost being. +Blue waves are tossing, white wings are crossing, the earth springs +forth in the beauty of green, and the soul of the beautiful chanted to +all, the sweet refrain: + + Come to me, come to me, oh my God, oh, come to me everywhere, + Let the earth mean Thee, and the mountain sod, the ocean and the air, + For Thou art so far that I sometimes fear, + As on every side I stare + Searching within, and looking without, if Thou art anywhere. + +My mother brought out all her choicest treasures for her "long lost +baby"; my father and brothers "killed the fatted calf" for the +"prodigal returned," the wide old fireplace sent forth its cheering +warmth, the neighbors gathered round to swap stories, and the +apples, walnuts and home-brewed juice of the fruit contributed their +inspiration to the hearty good cheer. + +Within and without the genial spirit of springtime cheered the heart +of man and the heart of nature, and all things animate and inanimate +sang the words of the poet. + + "Doves on the sunny eaves are cooing, + The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree; + Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing, + And the crocus darts up the spring to see. + Spring has come with a smile of blessing, + Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath, + Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing, + And wakes from the winter's dream of death." + +That summer my services were frequently utilized as substitute +preacher by our good pastor, who was much afflicted with what Mrs. +Partington calls "brown creeturs." He had harped on one string of his +vocal apparatus so long that like Jeshuran of old "it waxed fat and +kicked." Exceedingly monotonous and soporific was his voice, and it +was necessary to strain every nerve to tell whether he was preaching, +praying or reading, the words were much the same in each case. + +The long cramming of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and all things dead had +driven out all the vim and enthusiasm of his youth; the dry-as-dust +drill of the theological institution had filled his mind with +arguments for the destruction of all other denominations to the entire +exclusion of all common sense. He forcibly reminded me of the Scotch +dominie who stopped at the stove to shake off the water one rainy +morning, and to rebuke the sexton for not having a fire. "Niver mind, +yer Riverince," replied the indignant serving man, "ye'll be dry +enough soon as ye begin praiching." + +One hot Sunday when our clergyman was droning away as usual, a +well-to-do fat brother, who once said he had such entire confidence in +our clergyman's orthodoxy that he didn't feel obliged to keep awake +to watch him, commenced to snore like a fog horn, nearly drowning the +speaker's voice. The reverend stopped, and thinking innocently, that +some animal was making the disturbance, said: "Will the sexton please +put that dog out." This aroused fatty, who left the church in a rage, +and his subscription was lost forever. + +Our pious pastor was a fair sample of the "wooden men" turned out by +the educational mills of the day; to an assembly of whom Edwin Booth +is reported to have said: "The difference between the theatre and the +church is this, you preach the gospel as if it were fiction, while +we speak fiction as if it were the gospel truth. When you give less +attention to dry theological disquisitions and much more to the graces +of elocution, you may expect to do some good in the world." + +His pastoral calls were appalling; arm extended like a pump handle to +shake hands, one up and down motion, a "how do you do?"--"fine day," +then a solemn pause, generally followed by his one story; "The day my +wife and I were married it rained, but it cleared off pleasant soon +after, and it has been pleasant ever since," then suspended animation, +finally, "let us pray," and when the same old prayer with few +variations was ended, once more the pump-handle operation and he +departed, wearing the same hopeless face. He was not a two-faced man, +for had he another face, he would surely have worn it. + +This sad-eyed man was much tormented by a brother minister in the +pews, who seemed to have a strong desire to secure our pastor's poor +little salary for his own private use and behoof. His plan evidently +was to throw the stigma of heresy upon the incumbent, and to this end, +when our preacher was one day laboring hard to show us exactly where +foreordination ends and free moral agency begins, the ex-minister +arose, excitedly declaring such talk to be rank Arminianism, and +denounced it as misleading sinners to the belief that they could be +saved even if they were not so predestinated in the eternal mind of an +all-wise, all-loving Jehovah, who had foredoomed some to heaven and +others to hell. The regular speaker was dumbfounded. An argumentative +duett followed, much to the scandal of the saints and the +hilariousness of the sinners, until the pitying organist struck up +with great force: "From whence doth this union arise?" when the +disgruntled disturber left the church vowing he would never pay +another cent for such heretical sermons. + +Later, a heated discussion arose among the church members as to +whether fermented wine should be used at the Sacrament of the Lord's +Supper, and when a vote was taken in favor of the unfermented, the +senior deacon withdrew in disgust and joined the "Pedo Baptist" church +where he could have alcohol in his. + +All this of course made the judicious grieve, and the cause of +religion to languish. This was the time, famous in church history, +when a great reaction set in against Cotton Mather theology, who +proclaimed that the pleasure of the elect would be greatly enhanced +by looking down from the sublime heights of heaven upon the non-elect +writhing in hell. + +Unitarianism grew apace, and Henry Ward Beecher immortalized himself +by saying: "Many preachers act like the foolish angler who goes to the +trout brook with a big pole, ugly line and naked hook, thrashes the +waters into a foam, shouting, bite or be damned, bite or be damned! +Result; they are not what their great Master commanded them to +be--successful fishers of men." + +Our pastor was a good man despite his peculiarities, and led a +blameless though colorless life; but his "hard shell" theology, his +long years of monkish seclusion in the training schools, engendering +gloomy views as to the final misery of the majority of human beings, +his poverty and lack of adaptation, banished all cheerfulness from his +demeanor, and when I recall his sad, solemn face, made so largely by +his views in regard to the horrors awaiting the most of us in the next +world, I find myself repeating the words of Harriet Beecher Stowe in +the "Minister's Wooing," when she was thinking of that hell depicted +by the old theology; "Oh my wedding day, why did they rejoice? Brides +should wear mourning, every family is built over this awful pit of +despair, and only one in a thousand escapes." + +When I semi-occasionally peruse one of the sermons I preached in those +days of my youth, I am strongly inclined to crawl into a den and pull +the hole in after me. I can fully believe the orator who said that a +stupid speech once saved his life. + +"I went back home," he said, "last year to spend Thanksgiving with the +old folks. While waiting for the turkey to cook, I went into the woods +gunning--it would amuse me, and wouldn't hurt the game, for I couldn't +hit the broadside of a barn at ten paces. While promenading, it +commenced to rain, and not wishing to wet my best Sunday-go-to-meetings, +I crawled into a hollow log for shelter; at last the clouds rolled by +and I attempted to pull out, but to my horror, the log had contracted so +that I was stuck fast in the hole, and I gave myself up for lost. I +remembered all the sins of my youth, and conscience assured me that I +richly deserved my fate; finally, I thought of a certain unspeakably +asinine speech which I once inflicted upon a suffering audience, and I +felt so small that I rattled round in that old log like a white bean in +a washtub, and slipped like an eel out of the little pipe-stem end of +that old tree. I was saved; but the audience had been ruined for life." + +Thus often in this cruel world do the innocent suffer, while the +guilty go unscathed to torture a confiding public with what the great +apostle calls the "foolishness of preaching." + +This summer brought our family few smiles but many tears, and the +death-angel passed close to our doors. My eldest brother, while +at work in the hayfield, was smitten by the sun, causing a mental +aberration which made him a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and +finally led him to cut the thread of life with his own hand; my second +brother was pulled by his coat entangled in a wheel, beneath a heavy +load which crushed his thigh. This left the rest of us to struggle as +best we could with multitudinous weeds striving to choke the crops, +and the many trials incidental to wresting sustenance from the +reluctant bosom of mother earth. + +My brother Mark, about this time took upon himself the joys and +sorrows of a family and home of his own, while I assumed the care of a +family of forty school children in the neighboring town of I----. + +I was but "unsweetened sixteen," and lack of tact and strength brought +me many trials in my endeavors to "teach the young ideas how to shoot +correctly." The usual tacks were placed in my chair, causing the +war-dances incidental to such occasions; the customary pranks were +resorted to by young America to settle the oft mooted question as to +who is master; the inevitable interference of parents followed, who as +usual, regarded their children as cherubs whose wings they seemed to +think would soon appear were it not for the tyrannical spanks of the +unworthy teacher. + +I survived the fiery ordeal after a fashion, and that winter entered a +college in the state of Maine. The same old unrest came to me there, +wearied with the dry-as-dust lectures by the faculty of superannuated +ministers, but I graduated after a two weeks' course, and vainly +endeavored for three weeks to catch the divine afflatus at the +Theological Institution, which was supposed to be necessary to enable +me to rescue the perishing as a preacher of the gospel. Then at +the suggestion of the president, who quickly discovered my mental +deficiencies, I was matriculated as a student at another university +founded by the brethren of the same "Hard-shell Persuasion." I was but +a dreamer, in the middle of my teens, dazed by conflicting opinions, +but anxious to walk "_quo dews vocat_." + + "Here I stood with reluctant feet, + Where the brook and the river meet, + Manhood and childhood sweet. + + "I saw shadows sailing by, + As the dove, with startled eye, + Sees the falcon downward fly. + + "To me, a child of many prayers, + Life had quicksands, and many snares, + Foes, and tempters came unawares. + + "Oh, let me bear through wrong and ruth, + In my heart the dew of youth, + On my lips the smile of truth." + +With this prayer of the poet upon our lips, many of us entered these +"classic halls," hoping to find there in communion with the good and +great of the past and the present, that mental and spiritual "manna" +from heaven which would inspire us to lead ourselves and others to the +sublime heights of heroic endeavor. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A DISENCHANTED COLLEGIAN-PREACHER. + + +Previous to my arrival at this ancient seat of learning, founded and +endowed for the perpetuation and propagation of the doctrines of our +denomination, I had never entertained the faintest shadow of doubt as +to the infallibility of our creed; but now all faith in it vanished +like the baseless fabric of a dream. Here at the fountain head of +wisdom, from which streams were supposed to flow for the healing of +the nations, my faith in the beliefs of my ancestors fled, nevermore +to return; here, where lived the great high priests of the sect, I had +expected to find the whole air roseate with divine love and grace, all +souls lifted to sublime heights on the breath of unceasing prayer and +praise. + +The disenchantment was appalling; my brothers in Christ, the grave and +reverend professors, were cold as icebergs, evidently caring nothing +for the souls or bodies of their Christian or pagan students; the +preacher at the college church was an ecclesiastical icicle, who, +in his manner at least, continually cried: "_Procul, procul_, oh, +_Profani_!" + +The prayer meetings were dead and formal, no enthusiasm; it was like +being in a spiritual refrigerator--with perhaps one exception, when, +through the cracks in the floor from the room of a frugal freshman who +boarded himself, came the overwhelming stench of cooking onions, and a +wag brother who was quoting scripture to the Lord in prayer, suddenly +opened his eyes, and sniffing the unctuous odors, shouted: "Brethren, +let us now sing 'From whence doth this onion (union) arise?'" and +roars of laughter would put an end to the solemn farce. + +Within the dismal college dormitories were herded a few hundred +youths, entirely free from all moral and social restraints, abandoned +to all orgies into which many characters in the formative state are +most likely to drift. I frequently saw a professing Christian teacher +torture with biting sarcasm his brother church-member, who had done +his best, though he failed to grasp some intricate mathematical +problem, until the poor fellow abandoned the college in despair. + +Is it strange that I and many others lost all faith in a religion that +brought forth such bitter fruit? When I strayed from the lifeless +dulness of the college church into the light and warmth of the +"liberal sanctuary," where the old man eloquently discoursed of +the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime +development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the +archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his +hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy +clothes when I delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is +it strange that I embrace his Darwinian theory instead of the +mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden +of Eden? + +I usually preached on Sundays, during my four years' course, in +the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total +depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my +thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted +from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would +walk in the footsteps of the only perfect One ever seen on earth. + +By trimming the midnight lamp and ruining my eyes, I won a scholarship +which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that I was released from +the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. The +usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from +upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who insisted upon wearing +stove-pipe hats and the forbidden canes; we tore each others' clothes +to the verge of nakedness, and broke each others' heads in frantic +football rushes; we indulged in ghost-like sheet and pillow-case +parades, during which we fought the police and made night hideous with +yells and scrimmages with the "townies"; we burned unsightly shanties, +and thus improved the appearance of the city. + +We tripped up unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the +icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the +long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with +dull thuds against the barber shop on South Main Street; we of course +stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or +recitations; we howled for hours under their respective windows: + + "Here's to old Harkness, for he is an imp of darkness! + Here's to old Cax., for his nose is made of wax! + Here's to old Prex--for he likes his double x!" + +until some of us were thrust by the police into the nauseating dens of +the stationhouse. + +Thus, like pendulums, we swung twixt studies and pranks till the boom +of the rebel cannon bombarding Fort Sumpter thundered upon our ears. +Suddenly our books were forgotten: the university cadets unanimously +tendered their services to the government; were at once accepted, +and it was the proudest day of my life when, as an officer in our +battalion, I marched with the rest to the drill camp on the historic +training ground. + +The citizens turned out en masse to do us honor, and frantically +cheered us on our way to do or die; every house was gay with old +glory; our best girls, inspired with patriotic fervor, applauded while +they bedewed the streets with their tears; the air resounded with +martial music and the boom of saluting cannon; the young war governor, +who went up like a rocket and down like a stick, led the way on +a prancing charger; the people vied with each other in tendering +hospitalities, and every corner afforded its liquid refreshments. We +thought it lemonade, but it "had a stick in it" and, presto!--we were +no longer seedy theologues, but young heroes all, resplendent with +brilliant uniforms and flashing bayonets, marching to defend our great +and glorious republic. + +We, unsuspecting, imbibed freely the seductive fluids, and soon our +heads were in a whirl. We wildly sang the war songs and gave the +college yells. It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. +That night, Jupiter Pluvius burst upon our frail tents in all his +fury, and I awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a +raging fever. I was taken to the hospital, and as I was a minor my +father took me from the service. + +For weeks I was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished, +alas,--like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart. +Before I regained the little strength I ever had, the war was over, +but I had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of +pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. The few remaining students +plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on +the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us. + +In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to +pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in +Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final +examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until, +as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little +of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong +sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private +examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him +about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned +for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in +copying the "_Pons Asinorum_" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden +in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said: +"That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to +his walnuts and his wine. + +The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing +engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he +asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers +were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won. + +We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our +"mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "_alma mater_" +conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired +here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from +this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away +forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that +in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned +furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full +assurance that + + There lies in the centre of each man's heart + A longing and love for the good and pure, + And if but an atom, or larger part, + I know that this shall forever endure. + After the body has gone to decay-- + Yes, after the world has passed away. + + The longer I live and the more I see + Of the struggles of souls towards heights above, + The stronger this truth comes home to me, + That the universe rests on the shoulders of love-- + A love so limitless, deep and broad + That men have renamed it, and called it God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +IN SHADOW LAND. + + +I had cherished the delusive hope that my university diploma would be +the open sesame to any exalted position to which I might aspire; but +I found there was a multitude of competitors for every professional +emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to +secure any prize. My change in religious sentiments debarred me from +the pulpit, and I had no friends influential enough to give me a +profitable position as a teacher in New England. + +After making many applications, and enduring many hopes deferred which +make the heart sick, I struck out for New York one dark, rainy night, +with only $10 in my pocket to seek my fortune in that so-called +"Modern Sodom and Gomorrah." I knew no one in that great city, and on +my arrival before daylight in a dismal drenching storm, I entered the +nearest hotel to obtain some much needed sleep. + +A villainous looking servitor showed me to a cold barn-like room where +I found no way of locking the door, so I barricaded the entrance with +the bureau, placing the chair on top as a burglar alarm. The scant +bedclothes were so short that one extremity or the other must freeze, +so I compromised by protecting the "midway plaisance," and in my +cramped quarters, thought with envy of Dr. Root of Byfield, who was +said to stretch his long legs out the window to secure plenty of room +for himself, and a roost on his pedal extremities for his favorite +turkeys. + +I was on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus in the land of +Nod, when a stealthy attempt to open the door sent the chair with a +crash to the floor. Yelling at the top of my voice, "Get out of that, +or I'll put a bullet through you!" I heard a form tumble down the +steep stairs, and muffled curses which reminded me of the lines in the +Hohenlinden poem: "It is Iser (I sir) rolling rapidly." + +At the first dawn of a dismal day I crept down the dirty stairs, and +out of the door of what I learned to be one of the most dangerous +houses in that sin-cursed city. + +The days immediately following while seeking for employment were +forlorn and miserable; I was the fifth wheel of a coach which no one +wanted. Finally, when I had spent my last cent for a beggarly meal, I +saw an advertisement for a teacher in the reform school, and called on +a Mr. Atterbury, the trustee. He regarded me with a pitying eye; told +me two teachers had recently been driven from the prison by the kicks +and cuffs of the toughest boys that ever went unhung; but if I wished +to try it, he would pass me to that "den of thieves." I grasped at +the chance like a drowning man at a straw, and that very night found +myself facing nearly 1,000 hard looking specimens from the slums of +all nations. The schoolroom was a huge hall, in which, at a tap of the +bell, great doors were rolled on iron tracks to subdivide it into many +small class sections, each in charge of a lady assistant. The organ +pealed out the notes for the opening song which was given fairly well; +but when I attempted to read the Master's beginning of the responsive +ritual, a stalwart young giant hurled a book at my head, and bedlam +broke loose. I jumped from the platform, seized the ringleader by the +hair and collar, and with a strength hitherto undreamed of by me, +dragged him before he could collect his thoughts to a closet door, +hurled him headlong and turned the key. The boys said afterwards that +fire flashed from my eyes, and they thought the devil had come. + +I grasped a heavy stick, used for raising the windows, and told them +in stentorian tones of a desperate man, that I would break the heads +of all who were not instantly in their seats. The schoolma'ams +quivered with fear, but the boys slunk to their places and I harangued +them to the effect, that they could have peace or war; if peace, they +would be treated kindly and be taught to become successful men; if +war, they alone would suffer, for I had come there to stay. + +I tried to inspire these poor vicious boys, conceived in sin and born +in iniquity, with the thought that knowledge is power; that many +of the greatest and best of earth had risen from their ranks by +persistent endeavor into the light and liberty of the children of God; +that they could become happy and successful by being and doing good; +that if they would set their faces resolutely towards the better life, +I would gladly help to the utmost of my ability. + +One by one their eyes kindled with the light that is never seen on +sea or shore. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. They had +never been appealed to in that way before, and the spark of goodness +lying dormant in even the most depraved natures, responded to the +breath of kindly words. + +I touched the bell, the great subdividing doors were rolled, and my +assistants quietly proceeded to the work of instruction, confident +that the war was over. + +When I had marched my regiment to their cells that night, and retired +to my room, I reflected that every human existence has its moments of +fate, when the apples of the Hesperides hang ready upon the bough, +but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. The decision of +an hour may open to us the gates of the enchanted garden where are +flowers and sunshine, or it may condemn us, Tantalus-like, to reach +evermore after some far-off and unattainable good. I dreamed that the +clock of fate had struck the hour for me, that I had found my mission +on earth, and that henceforth the "Peace be still" of the Master would +calm life's troubled sea. + +In reconnoitring the island the next day, I found much to admire. +The great domes of the massive buildings towered aloft above the +encircling walls, like aerial sentinels warning us to lift our +thoughts to the blessings that come from on high. The great ships went +sailing by to lands beyond the sea; in front was a veritable bower of +paradise, apple and peach-trees fruited deep, green lawns, rippling +waters, fair as the garden of the Lord. Every prospect pleases and +naught but man is vile. + +The signal was given from the Harlem shore for the institution's boat. +I jumped on board, and the strong arms of the uniformed boys of our +boat's crew propelled us across the river, where two policemen stood +on the pier guarding a girl about eighteen years of age. Quick as a +flash she pushed one of them into the water, his head stuck in the +mud, his legs kicking in the air; then she shrieked with laughter and +ran like a deer up the street. The other policeman and myself +jumped into an express wagon, seized the reins from the astonished, +protesting black driver, plied the whip to his horse and gave chase. + +"What for you dune dar?" cried the darky. + +"Shut up!" was the only reply, and away we went, Gilpin-like, with the +horse on the run. We headed off the girl, and after a rough-and-tumble +scrimmage threw her into the wagon, kicking, screaming, and scratching +like a wild-cat. We took her by main force to the girls' wing of the +prison and put her into a cell. + +Scarcely was I seated at the table when the alarm-bell rang, and, +being officer of the day I ran over to inquire the cause, and found +the powerful young virago, our prisoner, enjoying herself hugely. When +the matron had been handing her some food through a hole in the cell, +the girl shot out her arm, grabbed her by the hair and with the other +hand was now pulling out the hairs by the roots, sometimes a few at +a time, sometimes by the handful, then she would bang the official's +nose against the wall, then knockout blows on the face. The matron was +in awful agony and faint from loss of blood. Entreaty availed nothing, +so I seized a dipper of hot water and dashed it on the girl's naked +arm; the matron fell heels over head on one side, and the prisoner +executed a somersault in the opposite direction, then jumped to her +feet, shook her fist at me and swore like a pirate. + +This young Amazon had been arrested in a vile den kept on a house-boat +in the harbor, and long made life a burden for our women officials. + +A careful study of the five hundred girls in this reform school as +compared with the one thousand boys, proved clearly that women, there +as elsewhere, are either the best or the worst of the human race. When +a girl cuts loose from the angel she was intended to be, she usually +descends to the lowest possible pit of degradation; as soon as this +girl in question found there was nothing to be gained by her fiendish +outbursts of fury, she cunningly changed her tactics with her pious +teacher, and pretended to "be born again." She ostensibly chose the +Bible for her favorite reading, prayed fervently, and became so +circumspect in her deportment that she was promoted to the position of +assistant cook in the good girls division. + +Here she contrived to bake into a cake a letter which she gave to a +visitor, who took it to one of her former companions in sin, and one +day, while walking with her confiding teacher in the garden, a boat +appeared rowed by four men. Into this the young hypocrite jumped, and +like a "sow that was washed, returned to wallowing in the mire." + +In contrast to her ungrateful depravity, the boy I had chucked into +the closet on my first night here became my firm friend, and the +stroke oar of my private boat crew. + +One day I was taking a boat ride in the harbor with two of my lady +assistants and six stalwart boy oarsmen, when a boat shot out at us +from Blackwell's Island with four villainous men and two degraded +women. Coming alongside, one of the women said to the boys: "Throw +that officer overboard, and come with us; we will get you $400 a piece +as bounty, then you can desert from the army, and have a jolly good +time." My teachers fainted with fear; my crew rested on their oars, +wild with desire to escape; it was a crisis. I looked them steadily in +the eyes. + +"Boys," I said, quietly, "when sinners entice thee, consent thou +not--row." + +"We won't hurt you," said my leader; "you have been good to us; let us +get into that boat." + +"Never," said I. "You shall not go to hell, pull!" The men grabbed at +me, my boys pounded them off with their oars, and one of the men +fired two shots which whistled close to my head, but the boys pulled +vigorously, and we sailed away amid the jeers and curses of our +enemies. + +"Sherman," said I, to my stroke oarsman, as we landed on our island, +"why didn't you throw me overboard?" + +"You have been kind to us," he replied, "and we never go back on our +friends." + +I had the pleasure before I left this school, to secure good positions +for all my crew, and they became useful men. I was soon after this +promoted to the vice-principalship of the institution, and an +ex-minister was appointed my first assistant, a good man, but quite +absent-minded. He recalled to my memory the story of a man who came +home in a pouring rain, put his wet umbrella into bed with his wife, +and stood himself up behind the door where he remained all night. + +One day, when I was off duty, I went sailing with two ladies through +"Little Hell Gate," which rushes with great fury by our island, to the +sea. All at once the alarm bell rang. In my haste to get ashore, I +ran the boat onto a partially submerged rock, and it would have been +capsized, had I not jumped out onto the rock and pushed it off. Down +I went under the rushing tide. When I came to the surface I saw the +white belly of a shark, as he turned to seize me in his jaws. I could +almost feel his sharp teeth. My head struck the side of the boat, just +as the ladies, with great presence of mind, grabbed me by the hair, +and pulled me on board. We landed and I rushed, puffing and dripping +like a porpoise, to the wall gate, unlocked it and entered. + +A frightful scene was before me. Williams, my assistant, was on the +ground, covered with blood, and around him was a crowd of the worst +boys in the prison, pounding, kicking, and trying to snatch his keys +so as to escape by unlocking the gate. Luckily my bat with which I had +played baseball with the boys stood in the corner, and grabbing this +I struck out with all my strength, knocking down the boys right and +left. Just then the guard came up on the run, the wounded man was +carried to the hospital, and his assailants locked up. + +Williams, it appeared, had, in his absent-mindedness, unlocked the +jail instead of the wall gates, and let out upon him this horde of +ruffians who had been put in there for safe-keeping. He finally +recovered, but left the island through fear of his life. + +The discipline of the school was much benefited by forming a school +regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of +the boys themselves. They were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder +straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of Napoleon, and their +ambition was stimulated by merited promotions from the ranks. + +For more than a year I thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting +those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the +influence of kindly words and acts, even as the Aeolian harp yields +its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven. It was an +inspiration to watch the blossoming of purer thoughts and higher +aspirations, and to feel that we were cooperating with the invisible +spirits in developing the hidden angels in this youthful army. + +All at once the shadows fell, the baneful greed of that organized +appetite called "Tammany Hall," reached out its devil-fish tentaculae, +which neither fear God, nor have any mercy on men, to seek our blood. +Evil looking Shylock-faced trustees began to supplant those noble men +who had made this refuge a veritable gate of heaven to so many more +sinned against than sinning,--children of the vile. These avaricious, +beastly emissaries of "Tammany," soon snarled at us poor teachers that +we must divide our small salaries with them or give place to those +that would. Not a school book, or a shin-bone for soup, could be +bought unless these leeches had a commission from it; they brought +enormous baskets and filled them with fruit practically stolen from +our children, and carted them home for their own cubs. + +Our superintendent and chaplain were strong sectarians, but very +weak Christians, and they readily made friends of the "Mammon of +unrighteousness." One hot Sunday, when I was in command at chapel, the +somnolent tones of the chaplain, who, as usual, was pouring forth a +stream of mere words--words almost devoid of thought, lulled a large +number of my fifteen hundred boys and girls into the land of dreams. + +As soon as the services were over and I had surrendered my flock to +the yard master, I was summoned before the superintendent where the +pious chaplain accused me of insulting him by not keeping the children +awake. I quietly asked him how this could be done. "Go among them with +a rattan," said he. I told him I thought the preacher deserved the +rattan much more than the children, that they would listen gladly if +he would give them anything worth hearing. From that moment he was my +malicious foe. + +One day while returning from a row in the harbor, I treated my +boat's crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the +superintendent's whistle sounded, and I was called before the trustees +then in session. + +"Are you aware," said he, savagely, "that the rules direct that all +fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?" + +"Yes," was my reply. + +"Well, then, you were stealing, just now." + +"I was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a +thief." The trustees roared with laughter. The president of the board +then asked if I had seen others stealing the fruit. + +"Yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees." + +"Well," said he, "this is a den of thieves." + +"All except the convicts, sir," I replied. + +These incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose +petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power +for good that I reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative +position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the +romantic county of Berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the +stars. + +Among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many "wharf +rats"--so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like +Topsy, they had simply "growed," and slept under the wharves of the +city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to +assuage the pangs of hunger. They were vicious to a degree, and at +first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an +abundant meal obtained honestly. They would rather fight than eat, and +prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling +the truth. Some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of +surprising acuteness. I once asked one of these why he was sent to the +reform school. + +"Oh," was the reply, "I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after +the water dam the copper scooped me in." + +Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him +the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he +called out: "How do you know that is A?" + +"Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A." + +"Well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller +lied?" + +At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a +speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the +boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes. The orator was +annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced +by saying: "I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his +maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass--" At this point, quick as a +flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "Well, if you +ain't Professor Holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?" + +Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering +pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect +imitation of Holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into +the coon song:-- + + "De bigger dat you see de smoke + De less de fire will be, + And de leastest kind ob possum + Climbs de biggest kind ob tree. + + "De nigger at de camp-groun' + Dat kin loudest sing an' shout, + Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos' + Befo' de week am out." + +Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would +unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and +unprecedented attractiveness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SUNLIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PALACE AND COTTAGE. + + +My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the +Bowery, while those at S---- were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue; +but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally +and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I +was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the +millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as +much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the +poor. + +On my arrival in Berkshire County, I found both of my employers were +off on a spree, and that I was ordered to do the work of receiving and +organizing. One day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and +outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondholder" and his +wife, arrayed in purple, fine linen, and diamonds, pulled a flashily +appareled, humpbacked boy up to me, every lineament of whose face +showed depravity and cunning. "There," said the father, "is my d---- +d son, he drinks, swears, and breaks all the commandments every day. +Take him, and send the bill to me." He handed me his card and away +they went. + +This was not an isolated case. I did my best for them; but they were +satiated with luxury, hated books, and seemed to care for nothing +but debauchery. The very next day several of these scamps obtained +permission to visit the cave in "Bear Mountain," where ice could be +found throughout the year. As they did not return on time, I went +in search and found them all drunk. They had no appreciation of the +sun-kissed mountains, waving forests, or verdure-clad valleys; the +grand scenery awakened no responsive smiles, no ennobling aspirations; +they were intent upon nothing but drowning their ignoble souls in the +noxious fumes of tobacco and alcohol. I tumbled them into the wagon, +drove them to their dormitory and put them to bed, lower than the +beasts they seemed to be in their depravity; not all to be sure, for +there were a few choice spirits like Julian Hawthorn, who followed to +some extent the example of his illustrious father, and has won his +spurs in literature. + +I found to my disgust that bad eggs would ruin the good ones; but that +many good ones could not take the rottenness from even one of the bad. +It seemed a hopeless task to endeavor to inspire such impoverished +souls, and I retired in despair, to accept the principalship of the +ancient academy in the village. + +Here I met the children of the so-called middle class, the very bone +and sinew of the Republic; here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and +untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I +pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. E and duco is the +etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of +the mind. I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to +perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all +were intent upon acquiring thorough, practical education. + +When I saw their enthusiasm lagging from want of physical exercise, at +the tap of the bell, we would all rush out upon the beautiful campus +and kick football, or run races until, with glowing faces and +invigorated energies, they would follow me back to our studies, +sometimes into the cheerful academy hall, sometimes under the shade of +the noble oaks, where we would study botany close to nature's heart +amid the songs of birds and the sublime chanting of the tree-tops. + +We gave musical and dramatic entertainments, securing ample funds to +decorate the walls of our hall with works of art; we went on rides +together in barges, drank in long draughts of inspiration from the +glorious scenery, and studied geology, practically, like, if not equal +to Hugh Miller, among the rocks and boulders. I was doing good, and +here I should have remained; but the old unrest came back to me, and I +unwisely accepted a much larger salary in teaching in my native county +of Essex. + +As soon as I took command of my two hundred boys and girls in B----, +I realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted +educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of +the public school system. + +Many children are so crammed with everything that they really +know nothing. In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of +definitions, written by public school children that very year in +another school of this town. + + "Stability is the taking care of a stable." + + "A mosquito is the child of black and white parents." + + "Monastery is the place for monsters." + + "Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk." + + "Expostulation is to have the smallpox." + + "Cannible is two brothers who killed each other in the + Bible." + + "Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, + the head, the chist and the stummick. The head contains the + eyes and brains, if any; the chist contains the lungs and a + piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of + which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w, and y." + +Every teacher was rated according to his ability to secure from his +pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion. + +I grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of +incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board, +considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious +life of the young. I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and +accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic +Lloyd Ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in +a Kort by the wimmun o' Marrble ed." + +Here I had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in +summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. They had +been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my +school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the +first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard +as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking +down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound +cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was +busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful +instrument. + +These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile, +saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then +stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once +suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the +window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly +objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it +fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained +for, and the uproar pro tem subsided. + +This was the winter famed in the history of Massachusetts, as +producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week I was +snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced +cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils. + +One day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who +had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor, +himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was +drowned. The loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his +followers, and _vi et armis_, I managed to survive the fourteen weeks' +term. At the close of the first session of the last day, I threw a +football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off, +kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to +take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, I was in +the "hub of the universe." I afterwards learned that my discretion +was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the +determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to Davy +Jones' locker. + +I had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until I met in +the city, the veritable Judas Iscariot, ready and anxious to sell +anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper, +or any old thing he could pick up. This Jew pretended to wish to sell +one-half interest in his commercial school for $2,000. I had some +negotiations with him, but found out, by careful investigation, that +he had already sold several confiding teachers, who ascertained too +late to save their money, that this fraud was collector and treasurer +of all funds of the company, that he required his partner to do all +the drudgery, and that his report always claimed that all collections +had been paid out for expenses. + +He reminded me of the legend, that when the devil took Christ to the +top of a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth, and +said: "All these things will I give you to fall down and worship +me." Suddenly, the face of a Shylock appeared, saying: "Shentlemen, +peeshness ish peeshness, and if you can't trade, I will take dat +offer." + +I mention this little incident hoping it may prove a warning to the +unwary who, like myself, may fall among the sharpers of the Modern +Athens. Disgusted with this business experience, and wishing to do +good and get good, I advertised, offering $50 for an acceptable +position as teacher, and I at once received many responses from +thrifty committeemen, and retiring teachers. + +I interviewed a clergyman who wanted the reward in advance; but when +the time came for him to deliver the goods, he had suddenly decamped +in the night to avoid a coat of tar and feathers from indignant +parents whose children's morals had been basely ruined by this wolf +in sheep's clothing. Others extended itching palms for the money, but +failed to secure for me the "_sine qua non_." + +At last, an impecunious teacher in W----, who was retiring to accept +a "louder" call in Boston, introduced me to his Board as a particular +friend whom he had known for many years, (he had never seen me +before), and vouched for me as one of the greatest of living +instructors. + +When the three doctors, constituting the school board, were about to +give me a searching examination, which doubtless would have floored +me, prearranged calls summoned them to see pretended patients, and on +the mercenary pedagogue's assurance that I was a university graduate, +they hastily signed my commission and I was saved. + +I shall always remember my two years' experience in this beautiful +town, with much pleasure and pride. On the opening of the school I +found myself looking upon over one hundred of the finest appearing +boys and girls I had ever beheld, seated in a noble new hall well +equipped with organ and all the apparatus which wealth could procure. + +Soon after the opening exercises, the usual trial of the new master +commenced, and a stifling, choking odor threw all into convulsions +of coughing, almost to strangulation. Some one had thrown a large +quantity of cayenne pepper down the register. I quietly opened the +windows, and when the noxious fumes had passed away, the new principal +said: + +"I feel sure that the pleasant outward appearance of my family here is +an expression of the inward goodness and honor of you all, and I am +confident that the perpetrator of this disagreeable mischief will take +pride in removing suspicion from his companions by rising in his seat +and apologizing for his thoughtless rudeness." + +A fine, manly looking boy at once arose. "Come up here, my friend, and +let us talk it over," I said, and he came and stood by my side. "We +are all brothers and sisters here, and I have no doubt you, Arthur, +will now express your regrets for what you have done." He did so, the +audience applauded, and the incident was closed. + +The new master's manner was such a decided contrast to that of his +"knock down and drag out" predecessor, that it captivated his +proteges at the start, and this was the only unpleasant episode in my +delightful intercourse with these charming children. + +I established a society called the "Class of Honor," which soon +comprised my entire family. Every pupil who had no marks against him +or her for failures in scholarship or deportment, was decorated with +a blue ribbon, and when he had earned and worn this for one month, he +was presented with a handsome diamond shaped pin on which was engraved +the words "class of honor." They were prouder of this decoration than +ever were the imperial guard of Napoleon of the Cross of the Legion. + +If a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve +himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the +point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved +from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was +stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public +libraries. Each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to +the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. The +high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a +successful career. + +We had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave +grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, +the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, +declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all +went merry as a marriage bell. + +My salary was raised voluntarily every six months; I enjoyed their +games with them in our ample playgrounds. We often, on holidays, +roamed the woods and seashore together; I often dined with them in +their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions I was one of the +principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save +one. For some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated +with moisture from the sluggish Abajona, kept my throat in an almost +chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, +I could hardly speak above a whisper. Had it not been for this one +serious handicap, I think I would gladly have remained there for life. + +I kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's +house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for +myself and pupils. + +One incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my +efforts in their behalf. During the first campaign of General Grant +for the presidency, many of my pupils and I joined the W--Battalion of +uniformed and torch bearing "Tanners." We marched to the city as an +escort for speakers at a Republican rally. When the hoodlums smashed +our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished +statesman, retreated; but I lost my head and charged the rioters, +using my torch handle vigorously; I was cut off from my company of +which I was lieutenant, and captured by the Democrats. As soon as my +men realized this, they rushed upon my captors _en masse_; many +heads were broken, but I was rescued and carried to the train on the +shoulders of my heroic defenders. + +If my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, I would never +have left W----, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a +much larger salary from N----, and I foolishly accepted. + +The change from W--to N----, was like that from breezy, sunny green +fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild +flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the +suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and +where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and +unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural +and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they +were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank +account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the +teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their +own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out +the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board. + +In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and +loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury +and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to +bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all +social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your +own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you +attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial +orthodox church. + +I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the +little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and +would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. +Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the +fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth +because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of +one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one +day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful +poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name: + + "Old Aunt Dunk + Is a mean old skunk." + +She flew into a furious rage, declared that some Unitarian must have +perpetrated this insult, and that I must find the culprit. + +She never forgave me because I failed to do so, and at her urgent +solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few +signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed +tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. +As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons +presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was +unanimously refused by the school board. + +It would have been laughable had it not been so serious and pitiful, +to see the frantic attempts of the poor in this town to keep up +appearances, and counterfeit the style of those who had grown rich by +cheating widows and orphans in bucket shops and stock gambling. The +little minnows put on all the snobbish airs of the whales who had +grown so large by devouring all the small fish in their business seas. + +One pillar of the church, who was a cashier, ruined his bank by +stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house +and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time +he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered +his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a +tower upon it to look down in contempt upon all the lesser shrines. + +He barely escaped the sheriff at night-time, and fled beyond the seas, +leaving his showy family to poverty and the ill-concealed derision of +those who worshipped them while they were supposed to be rich. + +Such as these made life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of +my year, I left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in +which I had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. +My life seemed a failure; I reflected long upon the question of the +Psalmist, "What is man?" and here are the answers which I culled from +many thoughtful poets, whose names are appended to their several +replies. + + In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made all;-- + (_Brome_.) + + He who climbs high, endangers many a fall;--(_Chaucer_.) + + A passing gleam called life is o'er us thrown,--(_Story_.) + + It glimmers, like a meteor, and is gone.--(_Rogers_.) + + To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise--(_Congreve_.) + + The flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow dies--(_Shelly_.) + + And what do we, by all our bustle gain?--(_Pomfret_.) + + A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain.--(_Tupper_.) + + Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without;--(_Holmes_.) + + Yet who knows most, the more he knows to doubt.--(_Daniel_.) + + Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.--(_Burns_.) + + And trifles make the sum of human things.--(_More_.) + + If troubles overtake thee, do not wail;--(_Herbert_.) + + Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are + frail.--(_Percival_.) + + The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;--(_Bryant_.) + + Great sorrows have no leisure to complain.--(_Gaffe_.) + + One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--(_Shakespeare_.) + + For we the same are that our sires have been;--(_Knox_.) + + Nor is a true soul ever born for naught,--(_Lowell_.) + + Yet millions never think a noble thought.--(_Bailey_.) + + Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays,--(_Heath_.) + + And God fulfils Himself in many ways.--(_Tennyson_.) + + The world's a wood in which all lose their way--(_Buckingham_.) + + A fair where thousands meet, but none can stay;--(_Fawkes_.) + + To sport their season, and be seen no more,--(_Cowper_.) + + Till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.--(_Pope_.) + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ADVENTURES IN MOSQUITO-LAND. + + +At the close of the school in July, 1870, a friend of mine, Doctor +B----, of Boston, and I, attracted by the alluring prospectus of a +new town near Plymouth, North Carolina, visited that place via the +Merchant's and Miner's steamship line. + +I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied +by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as +the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly +Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable +excursion. + +"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and +professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a +contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. + +"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them, +black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed +with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity +and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed +to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not +venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling +bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes +on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling +limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog +and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would +starve though we were slain. + +"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor. +'The shoo-fly--the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that? +and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking +bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely +covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies +stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies +with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for +all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth +to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' +cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from +our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors. + +"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everything save life, the +professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables +flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant +girls, for the bath-house--here at length plunged beneath the flood he +found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his +friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved +there to starve rather than again to face his foes. + +"After much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame +all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. Here two servant +girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints, +while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the +flies of the season. At length our appetites or rather we ourselves, +were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their +dead and divide the spoils of war. + +"Our host, who is a true gentleman from Pennsylvania, then ordered the +darkies to harness the span. After the inevitable delays which always +attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, +we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves +that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. +Our host had a lame hand, and the professor volunteered to drive; +our friends, the varmints, now confined their kind attentions almost +exclusively to the horses, which they butchered unmercifully. Oh, such +roads! Boys of New England, if you sigh for 'sunny' North Carolina, +go; go by all means, and you will return satisfied that old +Massachusetts, with all its east winds is a paradise compared with +what we saw in the 'old North State,' or in the 'Old Dominion.' + +"But to our journey. The horses floundered through quagmires covered +in some places with logs, which toss and tumble you till every bone +aches, floundered and swam through streams reeking with scum from +the cypress swamps; the roads are about six inches wider than your +carriage, and the professor found himself obliged to avoid the sharp +corners of fences, on either side the deep ditches on whose very edge +ran the wheels; to urge his horses over stumps and fallen trees; to +whip them over long snouts of prostrate pigs who refused to budge an +inch; to jump them over chasms running dark and deep across his path +and to spur them down sharp, perpendicular pitches which threatened to +break every bone in his body. + +"Here and there we saw a few logs piled up together, flanked by mud +and sticks, and dignified by the name of house; the naked piccaninnies +rolled in the dust, and the poor-white scowled as he lifted his hat, +while we worried our miserable way along. + +"Now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the +doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for +enjoyment. After shooting at the wild pigs for a while, finding there +was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they +threw off their clothes, and regardless of moccasins, regardless of +spiders and the whole race of poisonous vermin, they plunged to their +necks into the ditch by the roadside. For long weary hours we wallowed +till the welcome form of our host appeared, and we recommenced the +pitching and stumbling of the dangerous return voyage of this, our +pleasure trip. + +"For miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with +moss and enormous Scuppernong grape-vines, were unbroken by a single +clearing or a single shanty. The Scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a +great luxury; from these are made a wine equal to anything that can be +found (we believe) in the world. One vine is found on Roanoke Island, +which is two miles in length, covers several acres of land, and was +planted by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, centuries ago. For miles +that afternoon, we wandered up and down the country seeking for water +fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking +darkies, making collections of souvenirs, gazing at the good-looking +crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the +aborigines, the flies. + +"We have seen some toothsome things in the South, some beautiful +scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and +mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times +defiled the feast of the wandering Trojans. + +"The great gala-day of Jamesville has dawned, to-day the great Norfolk +steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more) +comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. Here are groups of +'F.F.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd--n +nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing +and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, +mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F., +looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A +scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the +howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that +is. + +"The _Astoria_, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate +of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the +wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth +for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New +England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day--all +night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer +groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty +Roanoke. + +"Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long +trailing mosses, looking like the pale sickly shrouds enveloping a +dead and ruined world. Here and there we saw huge nests of the +size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a +lightning-struck tree, perched on its topmost bough, the great bald +eagle of the South, keeping his sleepless watch and ward, while the +wife-bird tended the household gods below. Deadly moccasins and +huge turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of +blackberries were wasting their sweetness on the desert air. Now and +then there came to us like an inspiration from heaven the ecstatic +music of the mockingbird, carrying shame and despair to the breasts of +all the other warblers of the aerial choir. + +"Nothing could be more inspiring than the notes of this charming +singer, as we listened to them here amid these melancholy swamps +exhaling the sickly miasma beneath this blighting sun, with not a +breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trumpet creepers, +or to cool the fevered brow. Melancholy waitings are heard from the +swamps, and the waves in parting, look like fields of fire. The winds +come to us, but with them no refreshing, for they came over mile after +mile of suffocating, reeking lagoons, stifling with the hot breath of +the miasma. + +"Every now and then the Rip Van Winkle machinery breaks down, and for +hours we are motionless, listening per force to the terrific cursing +and pounding in the Vulcanic realms below. At length the sun, not like +the rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red +monster intent on devouring the world, shoots at us his blighting, +withering lances of scorching heat. We touch once more at Plymouth, +which greets us with its usual entertainment of murderous fleas, +death-dealing watermelons and chain-lightning whiskey. Our ten minute +touch here lengthened into three horrid sweltering hours owing to +the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for +'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at +length we enter the great canal leading to the North River of Norfolk. + +"With chat and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, +when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering +in the mud. 'No moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' +and so for three mortal hours we lay stuck in the mud at the edge of +the great dismal swamp of Virginia. 'Ah,' said the mate, 'there is the +scene of many a horror, there the nigger was torn limb from limb by +the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation +and death amid deadly snakes and miasma rather than comfort in +bondage; there I myself saw crowds of black men swinging from limb to +limb like monkeys over reeking scums to their fever-haunted dens to +escape the lash.' + +"Thus was the story of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe verified by one of +Virginia's own sons. All the fearful word paintings of Dred floated +again before our mental vision, and we thanked God that the old horror +of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er +the land of the free and the home of the brave.' + +"But these hours of waiting, like all things earthly, at length had +their end, and just as the moon gilded the cypress-trees with golden +glory, the wheels began to move and we again worried our tortuous way +up the North River. 'Ah,' said the melancholy-looking man who had +been long gazing in silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here I am, +friendless and alone in this wretched country, peddling beeswax +and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but I was once a +schoolmaster with $1,200 a year, down in Connecticut; wine and women +did it. But,' said he, 'I'll be rich yet--I've got it--I've discovered +perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet.' + +"'Wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the +professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions +of coming glory. Just then we were electrified by a cheer from the +doctor, as the lights of Norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, +yet to float the commerce of a great city. + +"We bade farewell without a single regret to the old tub _Astoria_, +and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand +and one stenches, stumbling over the prostrate forms of sleeping +negroes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a +bath, which the nasty water of North Carolina had forbidden for many +weary days. Suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of drums and the +shouts of hundreds, calling to a mass meeting in Court House Square. +Thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant +Southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'Mother of +Presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a +white man's government amidst the shouts of the great unwashed; while +the sons of Ham looked silently and sullenly on. + +"We gladly responded to the steamer's shrill call and sailed away to +our home in the great and glorious North." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +IN ARCADIE. + + +I gladly returned, like a tired child, to the kindly faces and hearty +greetings of my loving and much loved father, mother, brothers, green +fields, and all the beautiful children of summer. + + "Born where the night owl hooted to the stars, + Cradled where sunshine crept through leafy bars; + Reared where wild roses bloomed most fair, + And songs of meadow larks made glad the summer air, + + "Each dainty zephyr whispers follow me, + Ten thousand leaflets beckon from each tree; + All say, 'why give a life to longings vain? + Leave fame and gold: come home: come home again.' + + "I hear the forest murmuring 'he has come' + A feathered chorus' joyous welcome home; + Each flower that nods a greeting seems a part + Of nature's welcome back to nature's heart." + +The old home was much changed, and for the better. With much patient +toil, the unsightly rocks and stumps had been removed from the fields +which sloped gracefully to the little river and were covered with +tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and +daisies. The dilapidated house and barn had given place to modern +buildings; apple, pear, and peach-trees, covered with fragrant +blossoms were substituted for their decayed and skeleton prototypes; +the narrow, crooked, muddy lane, where horses and wagons had struggled +through the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had become a +firm and fairly straight highway. + +My house in the tree on the hilltop, where I had often rehearsed my +orations and sermons in such stentorian tones that the amazed cows +lifted their tails on high and took to their heels, welcomed me back +embowered in leafy new-grown branches. + +My second brother, realizing that as "unto the bow the cord is, as +unto the child the mother, so unto man the woman is--useless one +without the other," had taken unto himself a good wife, the daughter +of the deacon, our next neighbor. My mother thus had a much needed +helper, as their farms, like their owners, were joined in wedlock. + +[Illustration: I Rehearsed My Orations with Startling Effect.] + +The worthy deacon and my deeply religious father alternately led the +family devotions, and peace and comfort prevailed. The mowing machine, +horse-hoe, corn-planter and power-rake dispensed with the drudgery of +the scythe and back-breaking hand tools. A protective tariff had set +the mill wheels rolling in the neighboring cities, thus furnishing +excellent markets for all the products of the farm. The sky-scraping +shoe manufactories, where men, like automatons, delved night and day +for a few weeks and then leaving them to semi-starvation for the rest +of the year, had not yet arrived. + +One of my brothers had, like most of the farmers of that day, his +little shop where in winter he coined a few hundred dollars +making boots and shoes, and where I earned many precious pennies, +blackballing the edges and occasionally pegging by hand, all of which +is now done by machinery. + +We could now afford occasional holidays, when we all gaily sailed down +the river, dug clams, caught lobsters in nets, regaled ourselves with +toothsome chowders, broils and stews in the open air, and had many +rollicking good times swimming in the breakers, frolicking, old and +young, like children. We pitched our tents on old Bar Island, slept on +the fragrant hay at night, played ball, and renewed our youth inhaling +deep draughts of the salty wind which bloweth in from the sea. + +When sailing home one day with a wet sheet, a flowing main, and a +breeze following far abaft, we espied a boat submerged to the gunwhale +floating out to sea. Throwing our yacht up into the wind, we took the +craft in tow to the landing, and were surprised and delighted beyond +measure to find it nearly half full of fine large lobsters, held +there by a wire netting. For weeks we and all the neighbors held high +carnival boiling and eating the luscious crustaceans. + +We had much merriment one day on a fishing excursion at the expense +of a parsimonious member of our crew. At first he alone pulled in the +much prized tomcods and flounders. "Well," said he, "I think we better +go in, each one for himself." "All right," was the reply, but soon +stingy ceased to catch any, while the rest of us pulled in the fish as +fast as we could throw the hooks. Mr. Greedy looked very solemn, and +at last, unable to repress his selfishness longer, shouted: "I think +we better share all alike!" "Too late," was the chorus, and while he +carried home but a beggarly string, the rest rejoiced in our great +abundance. + +These seem like little incidents, light as airy nothings, but they +come back to memory in the twilight of life when other and greater +events are all forgotten. + +When the crops were all harvested, and the winds and snows of winter +shut me out from my woodland, river, and seashore haunts, I grew weary +of the monotony of the indoor country life, and once more went to the +city of Boston in the endless quest of the unattainable. + +Restless as the sea, we are never satisfied this side the stars; but +we are all looking forward to that sweet by and by, "as the hart +panteth for the water brook." + + I shall be satisfied, not here, not here + Not where the sparkling waters fade into mocking + sands as we draw near, + Where in the wilderness each footstep falters, + I shall be satisfied; but, oh, not here. + + Not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us, + Where the worn spirit never finds its goal, + But haunted ever by thoughts that grieve us, + Across our souls floods of bitter memories roll. + + Satisfied, satisfied, the soul's vague longing, + The aching void, which nothing earthly fills, + Oh, what desires upon my mind are thronging, + As my eyes turn upward to the heavenly hills! + + Shall they be satisfied, the spirit's yearning, + For sweet communion with kindred minds? + The silent love that here meets no returning, + The inspiration, which no language finds? + + There is a land, where every pulse is thrilling, + With rapture, earth's sojourners may not know, + Where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, + And peacefully earth's storm-tossed currents flow. + + Far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us, + Lies that fair country, where our hearts abide, + And, of its bliss, naught more wondrous is told us, + Than these few words, I shall be satisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +FROM PHILISTINE TO BENEDICT AND A HONEYMOON. + + +The fates, who lead the willing-and drive the unwilling, guided me to +the old time firm of B. & T. publishers. They were overwhelmed with +applications from the great army of the impecunious, and did not wish +to pay any more salaries; but "mercy tempers the blast to the shorn +lamb," and they persuaded me, by a tender of large profits on their +Worcester's Dictionaries, to strike out on my own hook and endeavor +to induce a reluctant public to buy these instead of the popular +dictionaries written by "Noah Webster who came over in the ark." + +The special prices granted by the publishers enabled me to undersell +the wholesalers, and by securing their adoption as regular text-books +by school boards, I made more money than ever before in my life, +sometimes from $25 to $100 per day, consequently the firm finding I +was filling the markets and my own pockets so that they had no sales +at regular prices, hired me at a liberal salary as representative of +all their publications. + +In this business I won my "double stars," although the competition was +intense. I often found as many as twenty agents at the same time and +in the same town, log-rolling with school committees for the adoption +of their books, the merits of the publications "cut but little ice." +Nearly every school official "had his price," wanting to know what +there was in his vote for him, and the agent who best concealed the +bribery hook by dining and wining teachers and committeemen, filling +their libraries with complimentary books and their pockets with secret +commissions, "caught the most fish." + +When among Romans, I was, much to my disgust, obliged to do as +Romans did. I would often go to cities where my opponent's readers or +arithmetics had been adopted the night before, point out the defects +of rival publications, give an unabridged dictionary to each official, +offer a ten per cent. commission to the "king pin," take the board in +a hack to their headquarters, secure a reconsideration, telegraph for +my books, and the next day with express wagons and helpers, put our +readers into every school in the town. + +This was sharp practice, prices were cut, until finally, we gave new +books in even exchange for old ones, trusting to future sales to +reimburse us, but when they needed another supply, they would swap +even with another publisher, so that our bread cast upon the waters +never returned. + +We often secured "louder calls" for influential teachers and clergymen +in reciprocation for their votes, bought anything they had to sell at +their own prices until many publishers became bankrupt; the big fish +swallowing the little ones, and then came the survival of the longest +purse. + +One evening, after my day's work in the city of G--was ended, being +lonesome in my hotel, I thought of a family residing there who had a +summer residence in R----, and concluded to renew my acquaintance with +the eldest daughter with whom I had enjoyed many rides and sails, and +to whom I had quoted many romantic poems the previous season. + +With fear and trembling, for I was always a bashful youth, I rang the +door bell, and was ushered into the parlor where I caught my first +glimpse of a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked, graceful younger sister to +whom, at a glance, I knew I was married in heaven. + +Whence came that vital spark blending our souls in one? Had we lived +and loved on some fairer shore? Who can tell? Had our spirits been +wandering through the universe millions of years seeking each the +other, nor finding rest until we met? Only the angels know. + +All we knew and all we seemed to care to know was that at last each +had found the "alter ego" for which it pined. There were no others +on earth--father, mother, sister, brothers, came and went almost +unheeded. Strange as it may seem, on this evening of our first +meeting, we told each other the old, old story, first told in Eden, +reiterated by millions since, and will continue to be rehearsed until +Gabriel through his trumpet sounds the final love song to the world. + + With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, + We sailed for the Hesperides, + The land where golden apples grow; + But that, ah that was long ago. + + How far, since then, the ocean streams + Have swept us from that land of dreams, + That land of fiction and of truth, + The lost Atlantis of our youth. + + Ultima Thule, utmost isle, + Here in thy harbors for a while, + We lower our sails; awhile we rest + From the unceasing, endless quest. + +For a long time I had divided homes and a divided heart, one at the +old home with the old folks, the other in the city by the sea. + +In our new-born and first-born enthusiasm, we applied to Mary's +parents for an early union of hands as well as hearts; but they wisely +insisted upon a year's interim, promising that, if at the end of this +trial time our ardor had not cooled, they and the minister would +"bless you my children," and our hearts should beat as one +forevermore. + +The course of true love never did run smooth, and when the claiming +day arrived, Mary's mother told me that she had been credibly informed +that another girl had a prior claim to my promised hand. I protested +in vain, and, as the daughter was invisible, I left the house in a +rage. + +A week, which seemed like a century, passed by on leaden wings in +which I strove to drown my sorrows in the "flowing bowl" of hard work, +and foolish declarations that "I didn't care"; then came a kind letter +from Alderman B----, gracefully apologizing for his wife's mistaken +assertions, stating that "Mary was giving them no peace day or night," +and inviting me to call at my earliest convenience. + +The very next train took me to the old familiar trysting-place, once +more the white-winged dove of peace brooded over the B--mansion, +and we all, especially the parents, fully realized that in order to +appreciate heaven we must have at least seven days of hell. + +Shortly after, at the home of the bride's parents, we twain were made +one in the presence of numerous friends and presents; the old shoes +and rice were duly showered, and we were off for a month's tour, and a +lifelong honeymoon. + +During this wedding tour, at the request of my employers, I combined +business with pleasure, the firm generously paying all our expenses, +and continuing my salary. + +We visited many cities, greatly enjoying their varied attractions; but +the business part of our journey, which was collecting large sums of +money due for books, was not particularly delightful, as the banks had +all suspended specie payments as a result of the "green back craze," +and I was often obliged to resort to legal measures and attachments of +property, to secure from reluctant book sellers the sums long overdue. + +At one hotel we met with an adventure which well-nigh proved serious. +I was awakened at night by the flash from a bull's eye lantern, a +sense of suffocation and a scream from my wife. A masked burglar +was before me, pressing to my face a handkerchief saturated with +chloroform, and endeavoring to take from under the mattress a large +sum of money which I had collected the day before. + +"No noise," said he, "your money or your life." + +"All right," said I quietly, "I'll get it for you." He stepped back a +pace, I quickly pulled from under the pillow my self-cocking revolver, +and fired in rapid succession. + +His pistol exploded at nearly the same time, he dropped to the floor, +his light vanished, and for a time all was darkness and suspense. I +expected another bullet any moment, and seeing nothing to fire at +myself, feared to jump from the bed lest I be seized by invisible +hands of the desperate villain. Then came shouts and pounding upon +the door by neighbors aroused by the uproar. Encouraged by the +reinforcements, I struck a light but the ruffian had escaped through +the open window on to a piazza roof, thence by a pillar to the ground. + +Then we were besieged by excited inquirers, and the rosy-fingered +Aurora, daughter of the dawn, appeared before the calm which succeeded +the storm. + +Shortly after our return from this journey, a great light went out on +earth to shine in heaven. My wife's father suddenly left the body,--he +did not die, for + + There is no death, what seems so is transition, + This life of mortal breath + Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, + Whose portal we call death. + +Alderman B---- was a gentleman of the old school, a loving father, a +very successful business man, managing marine railways, ship-building +and repairing, as well as grain mills. We missed him sadly; but were +consoled by the reflection that our great loss was his eternal gain. + +My eldest brother, and two of my brother Mark's children, at about +this time crossed the same bright river and rested under the shade of +the celestial trees. + +Myself and wife had intended to live in G----, but as her father was +gone, and as she had formed a strong mutual attachment for my family, +my wife the following summer took much pleasure in building a handsome +cottage nearly opposite my father's house, and on a beautiful lot of +land given us by my brother. We formed a literary and musical club, +which met weekly at our house, making it the social centre of the +entire town. + +I was elected chairman of the school committee, and proceeded +vigorously in a crusade against ignorance; but soon found that +the life of a reformer is crowned with more thorns than roses, a +thousandfold! I removed incompetent teachers who, by their silly +question and answer methods, were producing parrots--not scholars. + +On one occasion, when I substituted a trained normal school graduate +for a useless dancing doll who had made herself popular by flattering +parents and coddling their children, all pupils were withdrawn from +the school. I told the new teacher to ring the bell, take in sewing +if she wished, and draw her salary even if she was left alone in her +glory; then I notified the parents that unless they at once sent their +children to the school, I should have the pupils arrested for truancy, +and themselves fined for violating the laws of the state. Moral +suasion had failed; but the strong arm of the law prevailed, and they +soon acknowledged that the new instruction was the best they had ever +had in the district. + +Much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds +with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains, +descriptions of all the frog ponds in Ethiopia, and other useless +trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete +rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic; +long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc. + +I issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study, +substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles, +and in this, also, I met with opposition from the "moss-backs," who +insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough +for their children; they wanted no "new-fangled" notions. + +They reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book +had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser +sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, +read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing +together the one thousand three hundred and forty 'leventh hime." + + "'All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the + weasel--'" + +He was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded. Taking off his +spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again, +gazed at the book in consternation: "Well," said he, "I never seed +that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the Lord put it in, and +we'll sing it whir or no," and proceeded: + + "'The preacher kissed the cobbler's wife, pop goes the weasel.'" + +As I have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get +progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used +freely by me, and I had the satisfaction as well as the odium of +infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my +two years' service as school superintendent in this town. + +A few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to +the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the +people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the +"little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump" of the ancient +hell fire theology. + +It is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous +and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and +reviled by your neighbors whose feeble intellects fail to appreciate +your strenuous efforts to push forward the car of progress in their +midst; but the consolations expressed in this poem bring balm to every +wounded spirit. + + "I know as my life grows older, + And mine eyes have clearer sight, + That under each rank wrong, somewhere, + There lies the root of right. + That each sorrow has its purpose + By the suffering oft unguessed; + But as sure as the sun brings morning, + Whatever is, is best. + + "I know that each sinful action, + As sure as the night brings shade, + Is some time, somewhere punished, + Though the hour be long delayed. + I know that the soul is aided + Sometimes, by the heart's unrest, + And to grow, means often to suffer; + But whatever is, is best. + + "I know there are no errors + In the great eternal plan, + And all things work together + For the final good of man. + And I know when my soul speeds onward + In the grand eternal quest, + I shall say, as I look earthward, + Whatever is, is best." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE ANGELS OF LIFE AND DEATH. + + +By and by unwonted silence and anxiety reigned in our house. The +family doctor remained all night, then a faint cry was heard, and +little baby May came into this world of ours, + + "The gates of heaven were left ajar; + With clasping hands and dreamy eyes, + Wandering out of paradise, + She saw this planet, like a star; + We felt we had a link between + This real world and that unseen." + +These beautiful lines of one of the sweetest of earth's singers, came +to us like a new revelation at the advent of our first-born, as also +those other immortal words-- + + "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, + The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting, + And cometh from afar. + Not in entire forgetfulness + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory do we come + From heaven, which is our home." + +Our little vocalist commenced rehearsing for her chosen profession the +very minute that she first saw the light, and she certainly continued +the development of her lungs with marvelous persistency. Then her +numerous grandparents, uncles, and aunts all vied with each other in +petting and spoiling the one pet lamb of the several families, and she +basked in the sunshine of unlimited affection. + +A few bright years sped by, all roseate with love, prosperity and +contentment in this happy valley. Then two little cherubs, just alike +as "two peas in a pod" came to us at dawn of day, like twin rays +from the rising sun, their blue eyes beaming with smiles which have +continued ever since. + +We named them Ada and Ida: but were obliged to label them to tell +"which was which," and said label is essential for distinguishment to +this very day, though twenty-four bright summers have passed since the +sight of them first gladdened our hearts. + +But almost with the sunbeams came the terrible cloud overspreading all +our lives. The mother had scarcely welcomed the twin buds of promise, +when she faded away like a flower and was + + "Gone beyond the darksome river, + Only left us by the way; + Gone beyond the night forever, + Only gone to endless day; + + Gone to meet the angel faces, + Where our lovely treasures are; + Gone awhile from our embraces, + Gone within the gates ajar." + +There seemed to be no light left on earth; the sun was blotted out +forever, + + Oh glory of our youth that so suddenly decays! + Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze! + Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air + Scatters a moment's sweetness, and flies we know not where! + + "A boat at midnight sent alone + To drift upon the moonless sea; + A lute whose leading chord is gone; + A wounded bird that hath but one + Imperfect wing to soar upon, + Are like me + Oh loved one, without thee;" + +but the pitiful wailings of the twin girl babies called me back to +earth again, and I took up the cares of existence, though they seemed +greater than I could bear. + +The largest church in the village was filled to overflowing with +sincere mourners, for the sweet face of the departed had brought +good cheer into many darkened households in our town. All sectarian +barriers were for the time burned away by the flame of sympathy, and +wonderful to tell, the Universalist clergyman who married us was +allowed to pronounce the eulogy in an orthodox Congregational church. + +When the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear +words of the hymn-- + + "Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown," + +and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it +required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through +the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir +from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way +thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied +spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore. + +"Faith sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing." +Infinitely sad was the passing of our beloved, to those left in the +earth-life; but soothingly comes to us the song chanted by the choir +invisible whenever a soul escapes the mortal coil: + + "Passing out of the shadow, + Into a purer light; + Stepping behind the curtain, + Getting a clearer sight. + + "Laying aside a burden, + This weary mortal coil; + Done with the world's vexations-- + Done with its tears and toil. + + "Tired of all earth's playthings, + Heartsick and ready to sleep-- + Ready to bid our friends farewell, + Wondering why they weep. + + "Passing out of the shadow + Into eternal day-- + Why do we call it dying, + This sweet going away?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +TRIBULATIONS OF A WIDOWER. + + +But we must descend from the sublime to the stern realities of this +workaday world. Of all the people on this earth, a lone, lorn widower +with three babies on his hands, is the most forlorn and miserable. +Take care of them himself he cannot, and if he hires the ordinary +woman to do so, she immediately sets her cap for him, and leaves +no stone unturned to secure him for a husband, especially if he is +possessed of some of this world's goods which she covets with all her +mind and soul. + +Words are inadequate to describe the annoyances I endured for two +weary years from this class of women, who seemed to be the only +ones who would come to a lonely country home to assume such +responsibilities and endless labors. The world seemed full of these +anxious but not aimless women, who claimed to adore little children; +but who really cared for nothing except to capture a "widower with +means." + +One nurse carelessly slipped on the stairs, and the twins went flying +from her arms through the air down the long passageway, apparently +to their death; only a miracle saved them. I picked up the little +wingless cherubs, scarcely bigger than my fist, and their blue eyes +smiled at me, as if they had really enjoyed their aerial flight. + +They seemed to have a charmed and charming existence; they were the +admiration of all the people far and wide who flocked to our house to +see and fondle the really "heavenly twins." My business kept me +from home nearly all the time; but my father, mother, brother, and +sister-in-law kindly watched my caretakers with argus eyes, and the +so-called triplets throve wonderfully day by day. + +Whenever in my absence, my good childless brother and his wife found +one of my hired women unworthy, he would tell her to pack her trunk, +then he would drive her to the depot, banish her from the town +over which he long reigned as chairman of the selectmen and State +representative, telegraph me to hunt up another one, and thus the road +to the station was nearly worn out, and the railroad receipts were +greatly augmented. + +One of these women, while I was far away, greatly scandalized the +whole town by leaving the "light infantry" to their fate one Sunday, +and indulging in the pious delights of shooting wood-chucks. My +indignant brother and his father-in-law deacon disarmed the jezabel, +made her sleep in the barn that night, sent her off flying the next +morning, and personally, tenderly as mothers, watched over the +children until I arrived with another nurse. + +One woman whipped little May secretly with a stick; but the victim's +wonderful lungs aroused my mother who, reinforced by the entire +family, overpowered the virago, and sent her off on the next train. +It is evident from these thrilling recitals that I was not a good +mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when +I was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus +appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight. + +I vowed in my wrath that I would never again speak to a woman outside +my own immediate family. I tried in vain to hire men nurses, and I +sympathized with Paolo Orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck +of Isabella di Medici, and strangled her; I almost envied Curzon of +Simopetra who had never seen a woman. But I soon found that this +misanthropy was unjust, that I misjudged the pure depths of life's +river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface. + +Women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can +be. There is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between +the extremes marked by Miriam beating her timbrels, and Cleopatra +applying the asp; Cornelia, caring for nothing but her Roman jewels; +Guyon, rapt in God; Lucrezia Borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and +Florence Nightingale sweetening the memory of the Crimean war with +philanthropic deeds. + +What group of men can be brought together more distinct in +individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny, +than such women as Eve in the garden of Eden, Mary at the foot of the +cross, Rebecca by the well, Semiramis on her throne, Ruth among the +corn, Jezabel in her chariot, Lais at a banquet, Joan of Arc in +battle, Tomyris striding over the field with the head of Cyrus in +a bag of blood, Perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre, +Martha cumbered with many cares, Pocahontas under the shadow of the +woods, Saint Theresa in the Convent, Madame Roland on the scaffold, +Mother Agnes at Port Royal, exiled DeStael wielding her pen as a +sceptre, and Mrs. Fry lavishing her existence on outcasts? + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +FAITH SEES A STAR. + + +One day I was introduced by a friend to a very attractive lady +school-teacher, who combined with superior domestic training, +elocutionary and musical accomplishments. She was so sincere and +sympathetic that I found myself almost unconsciously expressing the +same sentiments that I had spoken to another long ago in the city by +the sea. + +The love which I supposed had passed on forever to the other world, +seemed to be sent back to me through the opening clouds of evening by +my self-sacrificing spirit bride, to give to another who would love +and cherish the helpless little ones who so needed a mother's care. + +I poured forth all my sorrows, troubles, perplexities and needs to a +congenial, sympathetic spirit, and she consented to go to my home and +take up the burdens which the ascended mother had been required by the +angel-world to lay down. + +On the arrival of the new housekeeper, order was evolved out of chaos; +the children received the best of care, and the horse a much needed +rest after his arduous labors in carting to and from the depot the +numerous hired women who had been "weighed in the balance and found +wanting." In the following month of roses, Lillian concluded that my +"first glance" attachment was reciprocated; we were married in her +father's house at Allston; we enjoyed a brief tour of the White +Mountains, and then settled down in our cottage to our life work. The +peace of God, which always comes, sooner or later to those who strive +to do their duty, was ours, and the inspiration of Whittier's sweet +poem "My Psalm" brought infinite consolation to our blended lives. + + "I mourn no more my vanished years; + Beneath a tender rain, + An April rain of smiles and tears, + My heart is young again. + + "All as God wills, who wisely heeds + To give or to withhold, + And knoweth more of all my needs + Than all my prayers have told. + + "All the jarring notes of life + Seem blending in a psalm, + And all the angles of its strife + Slow rounding into calm. + + "And so the shadows fall apart, + And so the sunbeams play; + And all the windows of my heart + I open to the day." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ON THE POLITICAL STUMP. + + +I had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being President of +the Republican Club in our town, and that autumn I was hired by +Dr. George B. Loring to conduct his campaign for the position of +Representative in Congress; this I accomplished so successfully that +Judge Thayer, the chairman of the State Committee, hired me to stump +the Commonwealth against General Butler and in favor of the Hon. +George D. Robinson as candidate for Governor. This campaign will long +be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the +political history of Massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as +a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the +endurance. One will suffice by way of illustration. + +Free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and +stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican +orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to +combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. At a meeting +of our state committee in Boston, Judge Thayer announced that General +Hall of Maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach +Rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that +evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours. +Rockport was almost solid for Butler, and his friends had declared +that no Republican should speak there, consequently no one +volunteered. At last, the Judge, in despair, said: + +"Foss, will you go?" + +"I shall obey orders," was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved +shirkers, and I bolted for the train. + +On arriving at my destination, I found the station crowded with a +howling mob, and the Republican town committee were frantically +shouting: "General Hall, General Hall!" "Here," said I, and only by +the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the +embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on +the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which +I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost +physical and mental collapse. + +The "hail to the chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: +"Put him out!"--"Duck him!"--"Ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., Yells +of the Butlerites who had packed the hall. At last I got my "mad up," +and rising, I lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon +my uproarious foes. This astonished the "great unwashed," and a big +Irishman jumped on the stage, shouting: + +"Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a +cool un." + +There was silence. Taking out my cigar, I laughed long and loud. + +"What you laughing at?" howled the mob. + +"This reminds me," said I, very slowly, "of a little story." + +"Out with it," was the response. + +"When I was a teacher in Marblehead," drawled I, "I had occasion +to wallop a boy with a cowhide. I made him touch his toes with his +fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the +more I whaled him the more he laughed. I laid on Macduff with a +'damned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet +he laughed. 'What you laughing at?' cried I. 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're +licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. It's just that +way here. You gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; I am not General +Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant." The crowd +roared: "He's a good un, let's hear him--ha, ha, ha, he's a good un," +and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw. + +"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound +money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, +brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to +have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and +nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to +door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. Do you want that kind +of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and +everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your +money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you +bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?" + +"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it +well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is." + +"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in +the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his +bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog +who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt +him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his +knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've +gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to +death.' + +"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll +freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have +plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you +for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and +drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the +bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that +soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the +world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me +of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in +his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they +actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had +stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by +such windy effigies?" + +Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave +them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest +political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers, +as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief +authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next +election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this +I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, +having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to +trade money for fame. + +Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry +winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over +the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often +hazardous. + +I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides +for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous +colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer +to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and +fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N----. + +We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, +letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other +diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for +new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and +so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. + +Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the +agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the +hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me +about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness +and much hard-earned cash. We made the old place to bud and blossom +like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an +ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon +the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when +ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, +came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good +salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped +resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers. I +gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for-- + + Somewhere the sun is shining, + I thought as I toiled along + In the freezing cold of the winter, + Yes, somewhere the sun is shining + Though here I shiver and sigh, + Not a breath of warmth is stirring + Not a beam in the arctic sky. + + Somewhere the thing we long for + Exists on earth's wide bound, + Somewhere the heat is cheering + While here winter nips the ground. + Somewhere the flowers are springing, + Somewhere the corn is brown, + And is ready unto the harvest + To feed the hungry town. + + Somewhere the twilight gathers, + And weary men lay by + The burdens of the daytime, + And wrapped in slumber lie. + + Somewhere the day is breaking, + And gloom and darkness flee; + Though storms our bark are tossing, + There's somewhere a placid sea. + + And thus, I thought, 'tis always + In this mysterious life, + There's always gladness somewhere + In spite of its pain and strife; + And somewhere the sin and sorrow + Of earth are known no more; + Somewhere our weary spirits + Shall find a peaceful shore. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THAT _EDDYFYING_ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. + + +This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has +always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty +creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more +appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its +Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career +of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every +principle of modern science. + +This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied +"Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon +became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, +posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble +intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a +lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their +eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey +upon the weak minded. + +Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a +regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving +benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion +that said mummery affected a miraculous cure. + +As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted +the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science" +doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her +soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady +was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a +copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the +opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make +me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever. + +I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and +prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a +heterogeneous conglomeration of words--mere words, a hodge podge of +all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of +the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to +find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their +comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being +called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great. + +One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the +sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million +dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew +Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. +Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or +obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal +mind in solution." + +Like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems +to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of +folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess +the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired +with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling +in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the +thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure. +Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the +anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it +is a sin." + +I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have +been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith +required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure +all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give +my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong +contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and +health" is _multum in parvo_. Here it is: + +Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old +world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin, +means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so +discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G--noa; +but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the gods saw her with the +olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall +receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from +unrest and from war forevermore." + +Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian +Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its +many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but +sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient +for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new +gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Selah_. + +[Illustration: We Steamed up the Lordly St. John's River of Florida.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +IN THE LAND OF FLOWERS. + + +After these scientific investigations, my wife and I left New England +covered with snow and swept by fierce, freezing winds to find this +far-famed peninsular basking in delicious sunshine, the air full of +the exquisite perfume of orange blossoms and the songs of rejoicing +birds. It was an enchanted land, the balsamic odors from the beautiful +evergreen pine forests starred by the fragrant magnolia blossoms of +spotless white, exorcised the ulceratic demons from throat and lungs. + +We feasted upon the delicious fruits and vegetables fresh from the +trees and earth, and the returning healthy appetite was refreshed by +tender venison, wild turkeys and quails from the woods, nutritious and +abundant fish and ducks from the lakes and rivers. It was a new heaven +and a new earth, full of gladness and semi-tropical luxuries. + +As soon as the hospitable people learned that I represented our +beloved Uncle Sam, I was overwhelmed with free passes and free hotels, +anywhere and everywhere. + +The Count De Barry, who had amassed a vast fortune as the American +representative of "Mum's Extra Dry," and who had received numerous +valuable seeds and shrubs from our generous department, took us on his +palatial steamer for hundreds of miles up the lordly St. John's River, +where we feasted our eyes upon acres of wild ducks, pelicans, cranes +and many huge, lazy alligators floating on the waves, rejoicing in the +life-giving beams of the sun. + +The stately trees along the banks, old when Adam was a baby, were +covered with flowering vines of wondrous beauty and fragrance; then +vast orange groves appeared covered with blossoms, small and ripe +fruit all at the same time; numerous herds of cattle standing knee +deep in the water, leisurely browsing upon the river plants both on +the surface and under the shallow river. + +We would anchor, and throwing a clasp-net which spread out on the +bottom and then closed like a purse, we pulled in excellent fish by +the hundreds; sitting on the canopied deck we shot ducks which the +negroes captured in small boats, and soon served cooked for our +delectation; pineapples and berries were brought from the shore, in +fact, it was a lotus-eater's dream of paradise, and seemed to be a +land and a river "flowing with milk and honey." + +The words from Willis' confessional came floating to our minds. + + "On ocean many a gladsome night, + When heaved the long and sullen sea, + With only waves and stars in sight, + We stole along by isles of balm; + We furled before the coming gale, + We slept amid the breathless calm, + We flew beneath the straining sail. + + Oh, softly on these banks of haze + Her rosy face the summer lays, + Becalmed along the azure sky + The argosies of cloudland lie; + The holy silence is God's voice + We look, and listen, and rejoice." + +When the night fell, and one by one, in the infinite meadows of +heaven, blossomed out the beautiful stars, the forget-me-nots of the +angels, they seemed so near that you almost expected to touch them +with the hand, and the silver moon arising, set the clouds on fire +with gladness and "left upon the level water one long track and trail +of splendor, down whose stream we sailed into the purple vapors, to +the islands of the blessed, to the kingdom of Ponemah to the land of +the hereafter." + +While thus we dreamed, the balmy zephyr brings from the forecastle to +our delighted hearing, the tinkling music of the banjo and guitar, the +melody of the singing voices and dancing feet of our freedmen boat's +crew. The lines of Whittier were resurrected in our thoughts. + + "Dear, the black man holds his gifts + Of music and of song, + The gold that kindly nature sifts + Among his sands of wrong, + The power to make his toiling days + And poor home comforts please; + The quaint relief of mirth that plays + With sorrow's minor keys." + +For they sang among others the identical words of the poet's +expressive song, + + "Ole massa on he trabbels gone, + He leaf de land behind: + De Lord's breff blow him furder on, + Like corn-shuck in de wind: + We own de hoe, we own de plow, + We own de hans dat hold, + We sell de pig, we sell de cow, + But nebber chile be sold. + + De norf wind tell it to de pines, + De wild-duck to de sea, + We tink it when de church-bell ring, + We dream it in de dream, + De rice-bird mean it when he sing, + De eagle when he scream, + De yam will grow, de cotton blow, + We'll hab de rice and corn; + Nebber you fear, if nebber you hear + De driber blow his horn." + +And so all too quickly passed that ideal night, without thought of +sleep, till the rising sun shot his radiant beams over the great +river, when we steamed slowly up to the long pier, and walked under +an arch of stately palms to our host's beautiful home, embowered in +orange trees and luxuriant trumpet creepers in this summer land of +perpetual bloom. + +Close by the Count's residence was a lake of sulphur water, gushing +from deep down in the earth. Into this we plunged and swam until we +seemed to be born again into immortal youth, then on the broad piazza +we enjoyed a feast which would have delighted Jupiter and all his +gods, every course of which was taken from the adjoining trees, +grounds and waters. + +We then inspected the great plantation, where was found growing in +profusion, everything essential to the wants of the most fastidious +of mortals, while the surrounding woods and river teemed with a great +variety of fish and game. + + I roam as in a waking dream + The garden of the Hesperides, + And see the golden fruitage gleam + Amid the stately orange-trees. + + Unfading green is on the hill, + The vales are decked with countless flowers, + While hums the bee, the song birds trill + Sweet music through the sunny hours. + + The moss is waving in the gale + From live oak, hickory, and pine, + And draping like a bridal-veil + The beauteous yellow jessamine. + + Through countless vistas in the wood + I see the windows of the morn + Ope to the world a glowing flood + Of glory when the day is born. + + And when, with robes of Tyrian dye, + The evening comes when day is done, + I see around the radiant sky + A hundred sunsets blent in one. + +We parted from our genial entertainer with much reluctance when the +superintendent of the railroad claimed us as his guests, and with +him, we inspected the famous orange groves along his line, resting on +Sunday at a palatial hotel where the St. John's River broadens into +the great Lake Munroe. + +While at church we were much entertained by the lively, frolicsome +manoeuvres of the numerous beautiful chameleons of rapidly changing +colors, who greatly distracted the attention of the congregation from +the service by their pranks on the walls and decorations. + +Directly in front of us was a sleepy, bald-headed man upon whose +shining, nodding, snoring pate several flies were resting in quiet +enjoyment of the sermon. All at once, this toothsome collection +attracted the attention of a very large bright-eyed chameleon admirer +who launched himself through the air upon said bald head in pursuit of +his dinner. With a yell of fear, the sleeper struck the animal with +his huge hand, sending the long tailed frolicsome creature heels +over head directly upon the clergyman's manuscript, and the alarmed +preacher, in turn, with a smothered imprecation and a sweeping blow, +hurled the sprawling legs and elongated tail down upon some frightened +children who screamed and tumbled over each other upon the floor in a +struggling heap. + +This was too much for the pent-up risibilities of the audience who +laughed long and loud, greatly to the disturbance of the solemnity of +the occasion. The witty minister remarked that this addition to his +flock, like some church members, seemed to care more for the carnal +than the spiritual, and proceeded to the thirteenthly division of his +discourse. + +From here we traveled for hundreds of miles over the flat, monotonous, +arid sands of south Florida, where green grass and fresh garden +vegetables were unknown, frequently remarking that if we owned these +localities and hades, we would give away the former and live in the +latter place. But when we retraced our steps, and reached the rich +highlands of the northern counties of Marion, Bradford, and Clay, +found the earth covered with green grass in winter, the trees +beautiful with blossoms and luscious oranges, the air fragrant with +rare flowers, and resonant with songs of birds, saw the planters +shipping thousands of crates of fruit and vegetables, and finally +arrived at the far-famed Silver Springs, it seemed as if we had found +Ponce de Leon's fountain of immortal youth. + +The crystal clear waters of this wonderful spring, or more properly +called lake, gush in immense volumes seemingly from the very centre of +the earth, spreading out until wide and deep enough to float a great +navy, and are so transparent that multitudes of fishes are seen +disporting among marine plants and shells plainly discernible hundreds +of feet below. + +Here we embarked on a comfortable steamer, and sailed nearly +twenty-four hours down the incomparable Ocklawaha River, through +scenes that are indescribably picturesque; under arches of gigantic +trees covered with sombrely beautiful Spanish mosses and trumpet +creeper vines, where all day long are heard the ecstatic songs of +mockingbirds, and where flutter the plumages of all the colors of the +rainbow. + +[Illustration: The Indiscribably Picturesque Ocklawaha River of +Florida.] + +Swiftly the golden hours fly, as we float over this marvelous river; +softly the dusky boatmen chant their love songs, the fires from their +"fatwood" cauldron on the upper deck illuminates the stately trees, +and the strains of the poet, Butterworth, come plaintively to our +mental hearing. + + "We have passed funereal glooms, + Cypress caverns, haunted rooms, + Halls of gray moss starred with blooms-- + Slowly, slowly, in these straits, + Drifting towards the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "In the towers of green o'erhead + Watch the vultures for the dead, + And below the egrets red + Eye the mossy pools like fates, + In the shadowy cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Clouds of palm crowns lie behind, + Clouds of gray moss in the wind, + Crumbling oaks with jessamines twined, + Where the ring-doves meet their mates, + Cooing in the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "High the silver ibis flies-- + Silver wings in silver skies; + In the sun the Saurian lies: + Comes the mockingbird and prates + To the boatman at the gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Now the broader waters gleam-- + Seems my voyage upon the stream + Like a semblance of a dream, + And the dream my Soul elates; + Life flows through the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha. + + "Ibis, thou wilt fly again, + Ring-dove, thou wilt sigh again, + Jessamines bloom in golden rain; + And a loving song-bird waits + Me beyond the cypress gates + Of the Ocklawaha." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +SUNBEAM, THE SEMINOLE. + + +When I had concluded the recitation of the poem which closes the +preceding chapter, a fine-looking gentleman sitting near us arose, and +lifting his hat very gracefully, said: + +"Pardon me. As a native Floridian, I have much enjoyed hearing you +repeat that poem relating to my State." + +This led to a pleasant conversation, during which he introduced us to +his wife as being one of the aborigines. We expressed much interest in +this statement, and finally persuaded him to give us an account of +his courtship, which, with some amplifications, was substantially as +follows: + +It is midnight in the vast everglades of Florida. The mammoth forest +trees seem to support the arch of heaven as the pillars uphold the +great dome of the nation's capitol. Here and there the century-old +orange trees are resplendent with the golden globes of the luscious +fruit, and millions of flowering vines beautify even the dead monarchs +of the woods. + +All these tropical splendors are illumined by the rays of the full +hunter's moon, which transforms the trailing streamers of dewy Spanish +moss into long-drawn chains of sparkling silver. From swamp and +foliage the voices of the night fill the balmy air with quavering +wailings, punctured by the occasional screams of wild-cats and +hootings of the melancholy owls. Here in this forest primeval, mid +the murmuring pines and star-eyed magnolias, nature rules supreme, +uncontaminated by the trammels of civilization. + +But what is that? Surely human forms swinging noiselessly from limb +to limb over dark pools where the deadly moccasins and ferocious +alligators slumber, over stagnant lagoons beautified by great lilies, +and densely populated with rainbow colored fishes, and gaily decorated +by water-fowl now all motionless in the embrace of sleep, the brother +of death. + +The moonbeams reveal a band of broad-shouldered, copper-colored +aborigines, who once ruled over the whole of this fair peninsular. +They are returning, with packs of supplies strapped upon their backs, +from a trading journey to the city of Kissimmee, where they have +exchanged the fruits of their hunting for many-colored calicos, +ammunition, and alas for the once-noble red men! fire-water. They had +left their canoes when they could no longer be floated, and are now +returning in this, the only possible manner, to their fertile oasis, +protected from the white men by many miles of bogs into which all foot +travelers would sink to unknown slimy depths and death. + +On they come in single file, hand over hand from tree to tree, their +long legs dangling in the air, led by Tiger-tail, the chief of the +survivors of the most intelligent and powerful of all the Indian +tribes. Suddenly the leader stops, gives the low cry of the Ring-dove, +which halts his followers, and suspended in air, gazes at the sleeping +form of a young white man, reclining, with his rifle beside him, on +a hammock which rises dry and grass-covered above the surrounding +morasses. + +Motioning his band to follow, the chief drops noiselessly beside the +sleeper, stealthily seizes the gun, revolver, and bowie-knife of the +helpless victim, hands them to others, and shouts "Humph, wake up!" +The pale-face reaches for his weapons, and finding them gone, jumps to +his feet, gazing without flinching at his stalwart captors. + +"Who you be?" grunted the chief. "What for you here?" + +"I am Henry Lee of Lawtey," was the calm reply, "and I am hunting." + +"Humph, you white man hunt Seminole from earth. You no right here. You +my prisoner; follow me, my slave." + +As resistance was useless, the youth silently obeys, climbing hour +after hour until his arms seemed about to be wrenched from their +sockets. At last, just as the rising sun shot his lances of light +through the forest's gloom, the chief drops to solid earth, followed +by all. + +A romantically beautiful scene lies before them. No longer the +styx-like waters; the funereal realms of Pluto have vanished, and an +elevated plateau appears, partially cleared. Here and there graceful +palms, tall, slender cocoanut and orange trees laden with fruit; +sparkling springs; abundant harvests of varied crops; picturesque +wigwams and huts, fair as the garden of the Lord. A pack of dogs +started to yelp, but at once slunk away at a word from the chieftain, +who points to a hut, quietly saying: "Go in there till I call you." + +Henry obeyed, and exhausted with his journey, sank quickly to sleep +upon the straw-covered floor. At length, when the sun was high in the +heavens, he was awakened by a black man, who placed before him some +venison and corn bread, then silently withdrew. After satisfying his +hunger, he went out to explore. + +It was an ideal scene of tropical luxuriance; cattle and sheep were +feeding upon the abundant grasses; but they suddenly took to their +heels, with uplifted tails and terrified eyes, at the sight of his +white face, a spectacle never before seen on this oasis, peopled +hitherto exclusively by "Copperheads." Swarms of children were +shooting their arrows at deer-skin targets; groups of braves, +fantastically attired, lounged under the shade of the wide-spreading +umbrella trees, smoking fragrant tobacco in long-stemmed pipes, but +they did not deign to give the visitor even an inquiring glance. + +Henry interviewed a number of negroes hoeing corn and sweet potatoes, +who informed him in broken English that they were the slaves of the +Indians; that they had never heard of the civil war, nor of Abraham +Lincoln. They claimed to be well treated, and were contented, having +plenty to eat and no very severe labor. They cast anxious glances +towards the village, and seemed glad when he walked away, saying +they had never before seen a white man and thought he must be "big +medicine." + +The birds were singing gaily, all nature smiled complacently, and he +strolled over the flower-bedecked fields into the recesses of the +forest, where he seated himself under a blossom-covered magnolia +around which twined the fragrant jessamine. He gave himself up to +day-dreams. All at once a light, moccasined footfall is heard, and +there stepped from the woods an Indian girl, graceful as a fawn, with +her head crowned with flowers, and softly singing a strange, sweet +song in an unknown tongue. When the stranger was seen she started to +flee, but with a smile he beckoned her to stop, which she did, as +though hypnotized. + +"Oh," she whispered, "you are the pale-face my father has captured; +but if Tiger-tail should see me speaking to you, he would kill us +both. Such is the law of the Seminoles. No Indian maiden must speak to +a white man; but I never saw such as you before." + +"But, how happens it," said he, in astonishment, "that you speak my +language?" + +"My father taught me," was the reply, "he is a scholar; we all speak +some American." + +"May I know your name?" asked our hero. + +"I am Sunbeam, daughter of the Seminole chief." + +"And mine is Henry Lee," he replied to her inquiring look. "You +are well named," he continued. "I have seen many daughters of the +pale-faces; but none so fair and bright as you. Sunbeam, at this my +first glance, I love you; can you sometime love me?" + +"I do love you now," replied the artless girl; "the Great Spirit tells +me to do so; but we must not be seen together; they will kill us, we +must part at once." + +"Dearest," cried Henry, "when can we meet again?" + +"To-morrow at noon," came the impulsive reply. "In my cave there back +of that cypress; no one is allowed to enter but me; there I say my +prayers, and my father says it is sacred to me alone. Good-bye, +Henry," and she sped like a deer into the shades of the forest. + +The youth was sincere, for it had flashed upon him like an inspiration +when their eyes first met, that she was born for him, and he for her. +They were married in heaven, ages ago. It came like a word from the +Infinite to these kindred souls. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness +which surrounds us manifests things unseen. Such visions sometimes +effect a transformation in those whom they visit, converting a poor +camel driver into a Mohammed, a peasant girl tending goats, into a +Joan of Arc. + +This love-flash from the invisible blent these two hitherto widely +separated souls into one, even as the positive electricity leaps +through the spaces to find the negative, and when met, dissolves the +separateness into a harmonious oneness which can never be sundered. +The unsophisticated Indian maiden went her way, thrilling with the +thought that her heart is in his bosom, and his in hers, useless one +without the other. + +The white youth was suddenly changed from an idle, wandering, +purposeless dreamer, into a fearless lover, ready to face death itself +to secure the object of his worship, and he sauntered back to his hut +with no flinching from the many dangers which surrounded him. + +There a black slave met him, bearing an abundant feast. "Eat," said +the negro, "and then go to the lodge of Tiger-tail, the largest in the +village, with the skin of a tiger stretched on the door." + +As soon as Henry had assuaged his hunger, he hastened to obey the +summons. As before, no human being noticed him, and he walked to +the wigwam, knocked on the door-post, and answering the "come" from +within, entered. To his astonishment, the giant leader was evidently +trying to read a newspaper, but took no notice of his entrance for +some minutes, when he suddenly said: + +"What is this?" pointing to a line of what Henry saw was the message +to Congress of the President of the United States. The chief watched +closely as his captive slowly read: + +"The Seminole Indians have been driven by our troops to their +fastnesses in the swamps of the Everglades, and it is for Congress to +decide whether they shall be further punished for their outbreak." + +The chief slowly rose to his frill height, and walked in silence for a +long time, when he turned to our hero, and fastened upon him his eagle +eyes. "Humph," at length he muttered, "the pale-face rob Seminole of +everything else, now he follow us here:--no, the great father must +know the truth, you teach me to write him, no white man ever come here +and go away to tell, you stay here always; you no speak to any one +here but me, you set down, teach me." + +For a long time Henry labored hard to show this remarkable savage how +to read and write. No teacher ever had a more attentive pupil; but it +was very difficult for his untutored mind to master these, to him, +puzzling hieroglyphics. At length, Tiger-tail arose, and saying in an +exasperated tone: + +"Humph! Damn! Me kill something, me mad! You come here every day when +I send for you," and seizing his rifle, and pointing the youth to go, +he strode savagely away into the woods. + +The youth returned to his hut, and wearied with his unusual labors, +was soon asleep, dreaming all night of the loved Sunbeam, whom he +hoped would soon irradiate the darkness of his life. The hours of the +next day dragged away on leaden wings, and the trysting hour drew +near; but to his utter disgust, just as he was on the point of going +to his beloved, the negro appeared summoning him once more to the +chief, and his heart sank with fear that their secret was discovered. + +Tiger-tail betrayed no emotion, and for a long time teacher and pupil +struggled with their tasks as before, until the Indian, unable to +restrain his pent-up restlessness longer, strode away to seek relief +in the chase, leaving Henry to wend his way with many watchful glances +to the shrine of his worship. + +While walking slowly and circuitously to avoid suspicion, and closely +scrutinizing the trunks and tops of trees for any spy who might be +watching, he noticed a slight movement of the tall grass around a +fallen cypress, and rushing to reconnoitre, a warrior leaped to his +feet and dashed into the underbrush. Then the youth realized that +suspicious eyes were following him, and that he was risking his life +to meet the daughter of the chief. + +He dared not enter the mouth of the cave; but walked through the thick +bushes above it much depressed in spirit, when suddenly he heard his +name softly called, and looking downward, saw an opening into the +earth large enough to admit his body. "Drop down this way," was +whispered, and after assuring himself that no spy was in sight, he +obeyed, falling into the arms of the waiting girl. + +"Henry," said she, "I was followed; but no one knows of this entrance +but myself; close it with this shrub. We are watched, and must never +meet here again." + +"But, dearest," sobbed the youth, "life is not worth living without +you; we must escape together this very night." + +"I will go with you to the ends of the earth," was the reply. "I loved +you long before you came here; I have the gift of second sight. Months +ago I saw you coming to me. I have explored the way to the great +river. At midnight, meet me under the great cypress, throw this +perfume to the dogs and they will not bark;" she handed him a small +vial. "I must go; you follow when you hear the King-dove coo; go to +your hut." She embraced him, and was gone. + +Soon, he heard the signal, and he cautiously raised himself to the +upper air, returned to his wigwam, and was soon enjoying rapturous +dreams with his head resting where he knew the rays of the moon would +shine into his face to awaken him at the appointed time for flight. +When he peered anxiously through the entrance of his wigwam at a +little before midnight, he was appalled at the sight. A multitude of +dogs surrounded the hut, ready, evidently by their yelpings, to bring +down upon him the whole tribe of Indians, should he try to escape. + +"Alas," thought he, "there are battles with fate which can never be +won," and for a moment he seemed paralyzed at his doom. Then came +to mind a recollection of the perfume given him by his thoughtful +Sunbeam, and he resolved to do or die. + +Noiselessly as a shadow, he stepped out, hoping to escape the +attention of his canine guards; but in a moment, every cur was on his +feet and were about to make the welkin ring, when he threw at the +leader the contents of his vial. Instantly, all fawned at his feet, +and he hastened to his rendezvous. + +Not a sound was heard save an occasional snore from some sleeper, and +soon he found his faithful sweetheart in the shadow of the century-old +cypress. She quickly slung his rifle across his back, fastened about +him the revolver and bowie-knife, bound over her own shoulder a bag of +provisions; "follow me," she whispered, and away they sped into the +vast primeval forest. + +For hours they hastened in silence, then the maiden halted at the edge +of a dark morass, and whispered: "Here we leave the earth; I know +the way," and they launched themselves into the limbs of the trees, +clambered hand over hand for a long, long time; when well-nigh +exhausted, they dropped down into a little brook, carefully avoiding +any contact with the tell-tale earth. + +"Quick," said Sunbeam; "we must hasten up this stream which will +conceal our footsteps, to the great river, where we can hide and rest +in a great hollow tree which I found there," and on they went with +their feeble remnant of strength. + +At last, just as the rising sun was dispersing the vapors of night, +our elopers swung themselves from the brook into the branches of an +overarching hollow tree, helped each other to the bottom of this house +not made with hands, and soon slept the slumber of utter exhaustion. +It was many hours before tired nature's sweet restorer released these +two loving children from its embraces, and then it seemed as if all +the fiends from heaven that fell had pealed the banner-cry of hell. + +The howls of dogs, and the savage war-whoops announced that their +enemies were upon them; but undismayed by the terrible dangers, they +resolved to die together rather than endure separation. + +"My father never loved me," whispered Sunbeam, "because I am a girl, +while he hoped for a warrior child; if they find us, kill me; I cannot +live without you." + +"We will go to the Great Spirit together, beloved," was the calm +reply. + +Soon they heard the voice of Tiger-tail close to them, talking to his +braves. "They no cross river," he said; "all canoes here, dogs no get +scent, all back to swamp, we find um there, you, War-Eagle, watch +canoes." Again the air resounds with the yells of dogs and warriors, +then all was silent. + +"War-Eagle hate me," whispered the maiden, "cos I no be his squaw; but +we must go before they return." Slowly the lovers pulled themselves +upward by the ingrown stumps of limbs, and, concealed in the thick +branches, looked around; no one was in sight except the Indian left +to guard the canoes, and he was reclining on the bank of the river, +evidently exhausted. + +Noiselessly they lowered themselves to the ground and approached the +recumbent brave, when a loud snore showed that their enemy was in the +land of nod. "Take my revolver," said Henry, "and shoot--if we must," +then, making a slip-noose of the stout thongs which had bound the +provision bag, he deftly slipped it around the arms of the Indian, and +with a quick jerk he was firmly bound. + +The savage tried to grasp his gun, but, unable, was about to give the +whoop of alarm, when the youth clapped his hand over the vast mouth; +the red man subsided, was quickly gagged and tied to a tree. + +"Now, darling, to our boat," and into it they jumped, and Henry bent +to his oars with all his might. On they sped in their light canoe, +these two hearts beating as one, towards liberty and the loved ones +waiting to welcome them in the white man's home. "Dearest Sunbeam," +said Henry, resting for a moment on his oars, "soon you will be the +fairest flower in my garden of home." + +"Oh, Henry," was the faint reply, "I am but a simple Indian girl, and +I know so little." + +"But it will be our delight to live and learn together," said Henry, +"for-- + + "'Thou art all to me, love, for which my heart did pine, + A green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine.'" + +On they glided, out of that paradise of nature, where every prospect +pleases, and naught but man is vile. Sunbeam left the place of her +nativity without a lingering glance behind, for there she had been +nothing but an unwelcome girl. + +In a pretty cottage in Lawtey, you may now see Sunbeam, the Seminole, +wife of a successful planter, Henry Lee, beloved by all who know her, +surrounded by orange groves and fragrant flowers in that land of +perpetual bloom. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +A FOUNDER OF TOWNS AND CLUBS. + + +My ship of life was laden to the water's edge with labors of +varying utility. We founded the Apollo Club, a musical and literary +organization including in its membership the most prominent men and +women of the city; we gave entertainments with our orchestra, singing +society, and costumed dramatic stars, which gave us ample funds to +pay for numerous delightful steamboat excursions, sleigh-rides and +picnics, while developing our latent talents, and greatly enhancing +the social life of our community. + +I refer to this with much pleasure, as it led to the formation of +similar societies in many surrounding towns, much to the benefit of +all concerned. I made an elaborate report of my Florida observations +which was printed entire by the United States Department of +Agriculture, widely distributed, and stimulated many to benefit their +condition by securing comfortable homes in that land of fruits, +flowers and delightful climate. + +That year the angel world sent us our bright-eyed, smiling little +Elizabeth, thus making our trio of sweet singers a quartette to share +our joys and lessen our sorrows, coming like the dews from that heaven +to which we all return when our mission to refresh and inspire the +earth life is ended. It is interesting to note the varying definitions +of the word, baby, which have floated down to us in the literature of +all nations. Here are some of them which I have culled from various +authors: + + "A tiny feather from the wing of love, dropped into the sacred lap + of motherhood." + + "The bachelor's horror, the mother's treasure, and the despotic + tyrant of the most republican household." + + "A human flower untouched by the finger of care." + + "The morning caller, noonday crawler, midnight brawler." + + "The magic spell by which the gods transform a house into a home." + + "A bursting bud on the tree of life." + + "A bold asserter of the rights of free speech." + + "A tiny, useless mortal, but without which the world would soon be + at a standstill." + + "A native of all countries who speaks the language of none." + + "A mite of a thing that requires a mighty lot of attention." + + "A daylight charmer and a midnight alarmer." + + "A wee little specimen of humanity, whose winsome smile makes a + good man think of the angels." + + "A curious bud of uncertain blossom." + + "The most extensive employer of female labor." + + "That which increases the mother's toil, decreases the father's + cash, and serves as an alarm clock to the neighbors." + + "It's a sweet and tiny treasure." + + "A torment and a tease," + + "It's an autocrat and anarchist," + + "Two awful things to please." + + "It's a rest and peace disturber," + + "With little laughing ways," + + "It's a wailing human night alarm," + + "A terror of your days." + +And this final definition which exactly describes each of our +quartette, + + "The sweetest thing God ever made + And forgot to give wings to." + +To crown the honors which this year were thrust upon me, my political +party tendered me the nomination for mayor of the city; but when I +ascertained the fact that I would be obliged to bribe the 300 roosters +on the fence who held the balance of power, and who must be paid two +dollars each to persuade them to come off their perch and vote, I +preferred the $600 to the empty honor, and declined. + +It is said that dame fortune knocks once at every man's door, but +the old woman sent to mine later, her ugly-faced unmarried daughter, +mis-fortune. At the request of some of the Boston newspapers, I wrote +an account for the press of my Florida journey and observations, which +attracted much attention and many callers, among whom were the F---- +brothers, of Boston, who painted the attractions of a town of Orange +County in such glowing colors, that I was induced to visit said place +in summer accompanied by my friend, lawyer S---- of Newburyport. + +We found even the summer climate very agreeable the location very +attractive, and the general prospects for a northern colony there +quite promising. We wandered through the woods far and wide, shooting +quail, an occasional wild turkey, caught fish from the numerous +beautiful lakes, sleeping sometimes under the pines, then in houses, +whose owners were away visiting with no thought of locking their doors +in this land where thieving was unknown. We led a real Bohemian life +in Arcady, quietly bonding hundreds of acres of land, and having +located a hotel and townsite between two charming lakes, leaving a +Mr. G---- W---- a friend of the F---- brothers, as superintendent, to +secure more lands and to cut avenues, we went home, where we formed a +syndicate stock company of which I was elected general manager, with +full powers to sell $50,000 of stock with which to pay for the bonded +lands and the building of a hotel. + +I sold the stock at $100 per share, giving one acre of land with each +share of said stock. This would have been a very successful +enterprise had it not been for the cunning duplicity and greed of our +superintendent, who proceeded diligently to "feather his own nest" +at our expense. I accomplished my task of raising funds very +successfully, and the next winter moved with my family to A----, +taking with us a competent engineer, a Mr. H----, to survey and stake +the lands. + +Here I unearthed the rascality of the superintendent, who, beside +taking our salary and commission for buying lands, had extorted large +commissions and bonuses from the sellers, which came out of our funds +in increasing the prices for which the lands were charged to our +company. In addition to this he had hired a large force of negroes +at high wages, on which he drew a secret commission, opened a store, +selling so called canned peaches,--which really contained much whiskey +and few peaches--to his workmen, and thus getting all their wages. + +I at once discharged all the superfluous negroes, built a fine hotel +which was soon filled with a superior class of people from the north, +set out orange groves for non-resident stockholders, and all would +have been well, had it not been for the extraordinary action at the +annual meeting of the stockholders. + +While I was engrossed with my many duties, the superintendent +cunningly went north and secured proxies in his name, and returning, +beat me by two votes, secured for himself my position as general +manager, and then proceeded to wreck the whole enterprise, much to +his own pecuniary benefit, while my friends who had invested on my +representations, blamed me for their losses though I was entirely +innocent of any wrong whatever. + +To cap the climax, this superintendent refused to make an accounting +for several thousand dollars with which I had entrusted him to make +purchases of lands on my personal account. I secured a warrant for his +arrest, chased him half over the county with a sheriff, and brought +him to the city for trial. On our way to the hotel, I was set upon by +a crowd of roughs who had been dined and wined by said W----, and who +threatened to lynch me. I backed up into a corner of the hotel piazza, +laid my hand on an imaginary revolver, threatening to shoot, and was +defending myself with a whirling chair, when the sheriff's posse +rushed to my deliverance in the nick of time, and W---- was forced to +hand over my money. + +He then made life unbearable by sending negroes at night in my absence +to annoy my family, who escaped injury only by the vigorous use of a +revolver by my wife who defended the little ones by numerous shots +which sent the tormentors flying to the woods. This unscrupulous +superintendent secured by his cunning a large amount of our funds; but +it was a curse to him for he squandered it in riotous living. + +When he married he chartered a large steamer and brass band, took on +board a crowd of guests, champagne flowed like water, every luxury was +furnished liberally, and the excursion was a prolonged debauch. + +To-day this fellow is a fugitive from justice, forsaken by wife and +fair weather friends, and thus really, if not literally, is fulfilled +the prophecy of the poet, + + "Her dark wing shall the raven flap + O'er the false-hearted, + His warm blood the wolf shall lap + E'er life be parted, + Shame and dishonor sit + O'er his grave ever, + Blessing shall hallow it + Never, no never." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +A MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS WITH A ONE DOLLAR CAPITAL. + + +Soon after my encounter at S---- with the unspeakable W----, I met +Major St. A----, who gave a cordial invitation to myself and family to +become his guests in his new town of T----, with a view to securing +our cooperation in the development of his multitudinous schemes. This +invitation we accepted, and very early one beautiful morning in March, +my wife, four children and myself, with driver and guide, embarked on +a "prairie schooner," drawn by three horses, for the promised land. + +It was an ideal drive through many miles of fragrant, towering pine +trees, fording beautiful lakes, catching fish, shooting game, camping +for refreshment on the banks of crystal clear brooks. The oldest girls +would ride on the horses' backs, chase quails, pluck the wayside +flowers, occasionally watching the flight of paroquettes flashing like +diamonds through the air, listening to the mockingbirds filling the +woods with their exquisite songs, and inhaling as it were the ether of +the immortal Gods, the matchless, perfumed, life-giving Florida air. + +All at once, with little warning, as is usual in semi-tropical lands, +the night fell, and our learned guide suddenly found that he had lost +the trail. The owls hooted, the wild-cats screamed, likewise the +"kids," with overpowering fear. We plunged ahead at random, when we +suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner." +The horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near +approach of some water snake or alligator. + +We might have been all drowned, had we not discovered a lantern hung +in a tree by our expectant friends, towards which we steered our +course to dry land. By the aid of the light we found the trail, and at +length reached the Major's hotel, hungry and tired. Here we found our +embarrassed host haggling and swearing with a bearer of provisions who +refused to leave the goods until he received his payment therefor. + +Our landlord appeared to be "dead broke," but finally persuaded the +reluctant provision-dealer to go away with his pockets filled with +"I.O.U.'s" instead of cash, and about midnight on the verge of +starvation we fully appreciated an abundant feast. We soon found that +our, enthusiastic friend was trying to do a million dollar business +on a one dollar capital. He was building two railroads, running a +steamboat line, a hotel, a sawmill, building a town and a fifty +thousand dollar opera house for a one hundred population town, with +not a dollar in his pocket. + +[Illustration: Flight of the Governor and Staff.] + +The next day we sailed on his steamer to meet the governor of the +state, and his staff who were invited to attend a ball in his honor. +The crew was mutinous on account of receiving no pay, the antiquated +machinery broke down every few minutes, and the Major had a fierce +quarrel with a negro minister who had paid first-class fare and +refused to take second-class quarters, to which all colored folks were +forced at the muzzle of the revolver, and a bloody race battle was +only avoided by the fact that the negroes were entirely unarmed. + +At length, loading the deck with wild ducks, and fish that fairly +jumped into the little boat to avoid their enemies, the ferocious +gar-fish, we took the governor and staff on board, and floundered back +at a snail's pace to T----. At the landing, we boarded a dilapidated +street car drawn by mules, for the hotel. + +Soon--crash! bang, a rail gave way, sending the dignified +governor,--stove-pipe hat flying in the air, coat-tails covering his +head,--into a ditch, his long legs kicking frantically to extricate +his head from the mud. We rescued him and staff with difficulty from +the filth, looking like a bedraggled pack of half-drowned rats. + +Finally we reached the hotel, when the colored orchestra from +Jacksonville rushed upon our host demanding their pay in advance, +with furious oaths and unclassical imprecations. In some way, the +embarrassed diplomat silenced their clamors; then the colored waiters +struck for their pay, and "razors were flying in the air." The furious +landlord at last quieted their clamor with a shotgun, and at about +midnight the grand march was sounded, and a nearly famished crowd made +desperate efforts to look cheerful and "trip the light fantastic toe." +All earthly horrors have an end, and in the wee small hours a starving +multitude was treated to a barbacue by our half-crazed host. + +Almost every white man in this town sold chain-lightning whiskey, and +in our short walk from dance hall to hotel we were obliged to jump +over the prostrate forms of drunken darkies. + +As in the lowlands, bordering upon large bodies of water, in all +tropical and semi-tropical countries, we found, to our horror and +dismay, the mosquitoes in ferocious, bloodthirsty swarms which +rendered life not worth the living; so, as soon as we could, without +seriously offending our host, we took our flight, at least what little +there was left of us, to the delightful highlands of Marion County. + +Here, free from the horrors of mosquitoes, we recruited our attenuated +bodies at the elegant Ocala House, thence by rail to Jacksonville +where we took the steamer for home. Off Hatteras we encountered a wild +storm which sent our great boat well-nigh to the stars, then with an +almost perpendicular plunge, almost to Davy Jones' locker, until, with +the nauseating sea-sickness, we were afraid, first that we should die +and later we only feared lest we should not die. + +At last the young cyclone subsided, and we sailed over a tranquil +sea into Boston harbor, thence by rail to our Bay state home. At +Jacksonville, by the way, we had an experience quite characteristic of +those ante-free-delivery days of old. I went to the post-office for +our mail, having but a few minutes to spare before the departure of +the north-bound train. To my disgust, I found a line of negroes nearly +half a mile in length waiting their turns for calling for letters. One +would step to the window and in an exasperatingly in-no-hurry way, +say: "Anything for Andrew Jackson, sah?" After a long delay--"no!" + +"Do yer 'spect dere may be soon, sah?" + +"Did you expect any?" came the reply. + +"No sah, but sumbudy might write, sah." + +"Gwan, next!" Then some white man in a hurry would step up to +next--"here's a quarter for your place, git aout!" The darky would +pocket his money with a broad grin, and but for his ears, the top of +his head would be an island. + +I could not wait, and would not bribe, so went to the door of the +office, and kicked and banged furiously. "G'way fum de doo'! What de +hell you do on de doo'?" came from the inside. + +"I'm a government officer from Washington," I shouted. "Open the door +or I'll knock it down." Out popped the "cullud pusson" profuse in +apologies. I grabbed my mail and rushed for the train in the very nick +of time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +PENDULUM 'TWIXT SMILES AND TEARS. + + +In many particulars this year of our Lord, 1883, was a sad one for us +all. The pecuniary loss, resultant upon the town-building disaster, +was severe; but the revelation which came to me of the innate meanness +of human nature in matters of money, was the more depressing by far. + +It was amazing to hear wealthy people, who had bought of me a few +hundred dollars' worth of stock, and who really felt the loss of it +much less than they would suffer from a fly bite, whine as if this had +reduced them to the direst poverty, and insinuate that I, who had lost +manifold more than they, should refund, though the loss was entirely +the result of their own stupidity in failing to send me the proxies I +had asked for by mail. + +We consoled ourselves, as usual, with the knowledge that we had acted +honestly and conscientiously towards all, and that the miseries of +this short life are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which +shall be revealed in us in the near future of the life eternal." + +The blue arch above us, ever changing like the sea, has always +possessed a peculiar fascination for me, and I never let slip a +convenient opportunity to feast my eyes upon it. I was pursuing this +favorite occupation one day this year, when an unusually beautiful +cloud attracted my attention, and as I watched its rapidly changing +forms, there was slowly evolved from it the kindly loving face of my +mother. It was no fancy, no distorted figment of a dream. The dear +face smiled upon me with angelic sweetness, glanced upward, and was +gone; then I knew that I had another guardian angel in heaven. + +In a short time, news came from R---- that she who had gladly devoted +her life to self-sacrifice for her children, had been relieved from +the always weak and suffering body. + +Dear, good mother! Her highest and only ambition was to do good; not +a selfish thought ever even flitted across her horizon. Frank as the +day, constant as the sun, pure as the dew; like our Lord himself, she +sacrificed herself for the good of others. Her sons, Richard and Mark, +welcomed her at the gates ajar, and she was at rest. + + What is death but a journey home? + A perfect rest when the work is done, + A gentle sleep for earth-weary eyes, + And the soul ascends to the azure skies. + +We in the earth life went on as best we could. My only brother Joshua +sold the old homestead with its burdens, too heavy for him to bear +alone, bought our former home for one-half it had cost us, which was +much more than any other would pay for it; while we sold our castle +and farm which had become a mountain on our shoulders, and went to +live with my wife's parents in Boston, where I continued my work of +introducing the school text-books which had been sold, and myself with +them, to a New York publishing firm. + +When the winter winds and snows began to blow, I longed for the balmy +zephyrs of fair Florida, and like the summer birds, I once more +journeyed southward; there, after a long search for the best +throughout the land of flowers, journeying in steam yachts, row-boats, +on horseback, and sometimes hand over hand on the branches of trees, +over tracks inaccessible in any other manner, I formed another stock +company consisting of several financiers who had spent all their lives +in Florida, and secured many thousands of acres of excellent lands +in the highlands of Marion County, hoping to do good and get good by +inducing the surplus population of our cities to go back to the bosom +of Mother Earth, where a moderate amount of labor will give them an +independent livelihood free from the snow and cold which infest the +wintry north, free from the heart-breaking demoralization of +begging for work in our overcrowded cities where scores of the +poverty-stricken are tumbling over each other in the frantic grabbing +for every job of work and every crumb of charity. + +Were a mere modicum of the vast sums now worse than wasted in +pauperizing the unemployed; a tithe of the money squandered on +building palaces for our numberless, ever-begging colleges, devoted to +settling the poor upon the unimproved lands in Florida, the dangerous +flood of ever-increasing crime, and physical and mental suffering +which now threatens the very existence of our republic, would soon +vanish from our cities, and thousands of the dangerous classes would +become self-supporting, self-respecting, independent men and women. + +Were a tithe of the vast sums lavished by our millionaires upon the +pictured walls, gorgeously embellished ceilings, overcrowded book +shelves of our numerous libraries, and upon the unchristlike towers +of unfrequented cathedrals, be even loaned to those who would gladly +cultivate the thousands of acres of untilled soil in fair Florida, +all the suffering hangers-on for jobs would become successful +agriculturists, owning their own farms, buying their own books, and +sufficiently educating their own children. + +If the money spent every winter in pauperizing the unemployed by +giving them free soup, could be devoted to settling colonies upon our +uncultivated lands, the vexing problems and contests between labor and +capital would be easily solved and obliterated; the unskilled poor +would be at once enabled to respond to the call of the poet-- + + "Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame, + Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! + With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, + She calls you to feast from her beautiful lap. + + Come out from your alleys, your courts and your lanes, + And breathe like your eagles, the air of our plains! + Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives + Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYED: THEN DEPOSED. + + +Here on elevated lands around a pretty clearwater lake, directly on +the Florida Central and Peninsula Railroad, and near a famous grotto +extending deep into the earth, at the bottom of which, like a well, +was an abundance of water containing peculiar fish, near the noted +Eichelburger cave, and vast forests of gigantic trees with sloping +hills around, we founded the town of B----. + +I was elected general manager, and went north to sell the $100,000 of +capital stock, convertible at the option of the holder into our lands +at schedule price, leaving a Mr. B---- as superintendent to cut +avenues, build a hotel, and conduct the general affairs in my absence. + +For several years I devoted all my energies very successfully to +selling the stock and organizing colonies of settlers. I paid ten per +cent. dividend on the stock while I was manager, besides furnishing +thousands of dollars to defray expenses of building a handsome railway +station, a fine commodious schoolhouse and town hall, a good hotel, +and providing good roads. + +I went to Tallahassee, and log rolled through the state legislature a +bill enabling us to form a city government, and statutory prohibition +of all liquor selling in our new town by incorporating said +prohibition into all our deeds. After securing these funds and many +settlers, also Ex-Governor Chamberlain of Maine as president of our +board of directors, I moved to the new town with my family, there to +reside permanently. + +Here our duties were in many respects agreeable, because useful, for +quite a long time. My wife was mother of the town, going from house to +house ministering to the wants of the newcomers who had become sick +by their carelessness in exposing themselves by night and day while +intoxicated with the delights of this incomparable climate. She formed +a union church, sang in the choir, and sometimes played the organ. I +was the father of the town in many senses of the word, being the only +person having any legal authority, and was expected to settle all +disputes whether between man and man or between man and wife. + +Our town was overrun by hungry clergymen of many denominations and +from nearly every state, all clamoring for the lucre to be obtained by +preaching in our union church. I might have obtained the friendship of +one by appointing him as pastor; but I made malicious enemies of all +by insisting upon each one officiating in turn and taking therefor the +contents of the contribution box on his day. + +The air resounded with the prayer-meeting shouts of these +ecclesiastics who all secretly worked against me, because I would not +allow them to found as many churches as there were inhabitants. + +Many of the impecunious newcomers schemed against me because I could +not furnish them all with light work and heavy pay. Some would persist +in drinking surface water, ignoring all sanitary laws, became unwell +and then cursed the climate and my so-called misrepresentations; +others would ignore all instructions as to the agricultural methods +essential to success in this climate, and then denounce me on the sly +because their crops were not satisfactory. + +Many wished to act as real estate agents on commission, and when +one succeeded, the rest, fired with jealousy, would accuse me of +favoritism because their own incompetency did not secure for them +these prizes. Our house was besieged by day and night, so that we +had to cut a hole in the outside door to talk with them when we were +seeking a little sleep. + +We formed a temperance, literary and musical club which every one in +the town attended, and at this, at least, we spent many pleasant and +useful hours. I was president of this club, and performed all the +drudgery necessary to its success. I established a general store at +which goods were sold at about cost, but many complained because they +could not have unlimited credit. + +One oasis in this fault-finding desert, was the outside colony of +freedmen. I employed many of them to do the heavy work of clearing +avenues, and the air resounded with their cheerful songs, and I had +the pleasure, with much labor, to save from the rapacious white +robbers, the farms which these colored men had received from generous +Uncle Sam. One case will illustrate the many instances in which I +appeared as umpire. + +Uncle and Aunty Peter Gooden owned a fertile farm, and made a good +living and more by diligent labor thereon. A white "cracker" coveted +this property, and told the ignorant aunty that he would let her have +$300 on mortgage at two per cent. per week, so that she could buy +a new yellow wagon, silver-mounted harness and prancing mules, a +gorgeous red silk dress with much finery, with which she could +outshine all her neighbors. These unsophisticated, honest "coons," +thinking it meant that they would have to pay only two cents per week, +accepted the offer, affixed their X marks to his unknown papers, and +not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like this simple couple. + +In a short time they came to me broken-hearted, sobbing, and wailing, +telling me that the "cracker shylock" had foreclosed, ordering them +out of their house and home. I at once notified the avaricious shark +that he was guilty of violating the laws of the state by defrauding +and by false pretenses, tendered him the principal with legal +interest, and threatened punishment by law if he did not accept. He +said, like the fabled raccoon in the tree, "Don't shoot, I'll come +down." I paid the money for which, in due time, Uncle Peter reimbursed +me. + +I secured the hatred of the "crackers," but the undying gratitude +of the negroes, who vied with each other in bringing us game in +profusion, the first fruits of their crops, and shedding tears if +we offered payment therefor, begging to be allowed to show their +thankfulness by these free gifts. If one of them heard a threat +against us he would guard our house all night with a shotgun, and +would shadow me as I went about in the night, ready to spring upon any +of my assailants. + +[Illustration: Ups and Downs in the Wild Woods.] + +I provided a school and church for these loving, dusky children, +and it was pathetic and cheering to see them all, from the tiny +pickaninnies to the tottering gray heads, going regularly with their +primers and Bibles, trying to learn to read and write. + +Many pleasant evenings in midwinter we sat on our vine-clad piazza, +enjoying the balmy breezes, perfumed with the delicious orange +blossoms, looking at the stately pines glorified by moonlight and +starlight; listening to the songs of these dark-faced but white-souled +serenaders, the whites of whose eyes and perfect teeth could be seen +beaming upon us through the dusky shades of the forest. + +On the evening of the day when news arrived of the first election of +Grover Cleveland to the Presidency, we were sitting as usual on our +piazza, when, suddenly, I saw a flash of fire in the woods, followed +by the report of a rifle, then others in quick succession. Rushing to +the scene I found a few Southern whites armed with repeating rifles, +facing a large band of negroes carrying a motley array of pitchforks, +scythes, razors, clubs, and a few ancient shotguns. Yelling: "Hold +up!" I sprang between the embattled hosts, and demanded to know what +was the row. + +"Get out of the way, you damned Yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or +we'll riddle you with bullets." Then they gave the far-reaching, +fiendish, rebel yell. + +"Shoot," I replied, "if you want to be hung." + +--"Boys," I said, turning to the darkies, "what's the matter?" + +"Oh, boss, massa Linkum's dead, de Dimikrat am Presidunt, und we poo' +niggers be slabes agin. We fight, we die, but we won't be slabes agin, +neber." + +Again came the roar of rifles behind me and the minnie balls went +shrieking over our heads. "Boys," I shouted, "you are mistaken. A +million Northern soldiers will march down here if necessary to prevent +that; go at once to your homes; I will take care of you." Slowly the +colored men, who trusted me implicitly, melted away in the darkness. +Again the rebel yell, again the rifle shots high in the air. +"Gentlemen," said I, to the menacing whites, "come with me to the +Hall, I want to talk with you." + +"To hell with you!" they yelled, but followed me into the building. + +When they had sullenly taken seats, with guns threateningly at the +ready, they glared at me like tigers ready to spring. Soon a man, I +had, on my way, sent to the store, arrived with a box of good Florida +cigars, and I quietly passed them around to my "lions couchant," +took a seat on the platform facing them, lit up, and commenced the +enjoyment of a silent smoke, they following suit. + +The tender of a cigar in the South is a recognition of comradeship +which is a most potent mollifier. At last they brought their guns +to the ground arms, parade rest, and the leader, an ex-Confederate +officer, drawled out, "Wall, Yank, what do you want of we uns?" + +"Just as you please, gentlemen, peace or war?" + +"We are smoking the pipe, or cigar, of peace, Yank." + +"So mote it be, brothers," said I, knowing that they were all members +of the mystic tie. "We meet on the level, let us part on the square." + +"So mote it be," was the response in a regular lodge room chorus. + +A few quick signs were exchanged between chair and settees, the ice +was broken, the "lodge was opened in due form;" there was no longer +any restraint, for we were all members of the most ancient fraternal +order on earth, of which the wisest man who ever lived was founder. +They had not known this before. The white dove descended, and they +promised on the sacred oath which makes all men brothers, to molest +the negroes no more. We had a jolly good time, gave each other the +Grand Masonic grip and departed to our homes. + +As I walked, I saw several dark figures dodging from tree to tree, +and all that night my dusky-hued friends kept vigilant watch and ward +about our cottage. The next morning many valiant war-men in time of +peace, but peace-men in time of war, told me what brave fighting they +would have done for my protection had I but called upon them to do so. + +I stocked the lake with excellent food fish obtained from the National +Fish Commissioner, built good sidewalks, arched by beautiful shade +trees; and many prominent men bought lands in our town. We passed an +ordinance forbidding the use of our public thoroughfares to cattle +and hogs, and for a while the air quivered with the squealings of +infuriated razor backs. + +Our valiant city marshal would pounce upon each one of these +long-snouted swine; then came the tug-of-war, amid clouds of dust; +down went marshal and razor-back, the nose as long and sharp as a +ploughshare cleaving the earth near the sidewalks lined with laughing +people. Our great Floridian always triumphed, and his pig-ship was +incarcerated in the town "pound" until owner paid charges and penned +his property outside city limits. + +Once I saw a terrific contest between one of these long-legged, +long-nosed porkers and the lone, pet alligator of our lake. His +pig-ship was enjoying a drink when Mr. 'Gator seized him by the snout, +the porcine braced and yelled; the 'gator let go in amazement; the pig +turned to run; 'gator seized him by the leg, then Greek met Greek, +teeth met teeth, till' the saurian struck him with his mighty tail, +and all was over; the alligator and the porker lay down in peace +together with the pig inside the 'gator. + +One day, one of our fishermen brought in a string of trout which far +overshadowed the miraculous draught of fishes in the Sea of Galilee. +On being questioned as to how he did it, he said he got one bite and +pulled for three hours. The fish kept catching hold of each others' +tails in their eagerness to be caught, until he had landed four +barrels of the toothsome fat trout. + +Our champion brought from a few hours' hunt, enough quail for the +entire town; and when asked how he did it, he replied: "Oh, I saw +three thousand quail roosting on the limb of a tree. I had only my +rifle with one ball; I shot at the limb, cracked it, their legs fell +through the crack which closed when the bullet went through, and +chained them all hard and fast. All I had to do was to cut off the +limb with my jack-knife and bag the whole lot." + +One day this mighty Nimrod brought home three bears and four deer. +"How did you do it?" asked the envious multitude. "I was asleep in my +wigwam, was waked up by a rumpus outside, rushed out with my gun, and +chased the crowd around the hut till I was dead beat, then I bent my +rifle across my knee into the exact circumference shape of my house, +and fired. The bullet whistled by me for half an hour, chasing the +varmints who were chasing each other; bum by, the bullet caught up, +went through the whole crowd, and by gum; that 'ere bullet is chasing +round that wigwam naouw." + +On another occasion, this same man brought in a lot of wild turkeys +all ready for the table. As usual we expressed our wonderment. "Wall, +by gum," said he, "'twas the beatemest thing you ever heered on. I +was waked up by these critters squawkin' over my haouse; I fired up +chimbly, and daown tumbled the whole gang; the fire burnt off the +feathers and roasted um up braown afore I could get at um." + +"But how about the stuffing?" + +"Oh, that's nothin'; they'd stuffed themselves afore I shot um." + +We had often congratulated ourselves upon our immunity from snakes, +never having seen even one in our Bailiwick; but our sweet dreams of +peace were rudely disturbed by this Baron Munchausen who horrified our +ladies one day, by saying that he went into our church to make some +repairs, and there met a rattle-snake which swallowed him whole at one +full swoop; at once he recalled the Sunday-school lesson of Jonah in +the whale's belly, took courage, struck a match, made a bonfire of his +hat, and by its light cut his way out with his hatchet, ran to his +house, got his gun and shot the snake, which was so large that he had +not noticed the man's cutting, nor his escape, but was vastly enjoying +his after dinner nap. This man long bore the honors of being the +champion liar and champion hunter of the universe. + +Thus, rapidly, sped away our days replete with alternating smiles and +tears until arrived the time for our annual stockholders' election. On +our way to Ocala to attend this important event, I conversed at length +with the Rev. W----, upon whom I had conferred many and profitable +favors. This ostentatiously pious individual expressed much gratitude +for my kindness to him, assured me that my administration of affairs +had been a grand success, that I had gained the merited respect and +confidence of all the people in the town and that he would urge my +reelection as general manager, with all his strength. + +The conference progressed very harmoniously for awhile, when I was +called out to see a man on some important business, and on reentering +the room, I noticed some excitement among the members, when General +Chamberlain, the president, called me to his chair and frankly told +me, in the hearing of all, that the Rev. W---- had, as soon as I left, +denounced me fiercely as a fraud and a liar, stating that I had the +respect of no one in B----; that the town would be ruined were I +reelected; that he himself would take my position without any salary, +relying solely upon commission from land sales, as compensation, and +that he made this statement at the unanimous request of the citizens +of the town. + +All eyes were turned to me for an explanation. I looked for awhile +at the hypocritical clergyman very steadily, until he cringed like a +viper, and turned pale as a ghost. I then narrated the statements made +to me scarcely an hour before, called upon him for some proof of his +accusations, and closed by saying that I would not accept a reelection +unless it came to me unanimously. The craven reverend left the room +without a word; I was reelected without a dissenting vote, and thus +closed one of the most revolting revelations of depravity that I ever +witnessed. + +This "wolf in sheep's clothing," after an extraordinary career in +endeavoring to "fleece" others, finally lost every dollar of his +property, fled from the town with his family, and I have never been +able to hear from him since. I wish for the sake of faith in human +nature that this had been the only case of "fall from grace," but +alas, there were others! + +But let the curtain fall. Moral--have no confidence in the man who +wears his religion on his coat sleeve or necktie; but try the spirits +whether they are of Christ. + +At this time, a party of prominent people arrived at B----, from +the North, to consider the feasibility of investing quite largely +somewhere in Florida. As they wished to visit the southern part of the +state before deciding, I procured free passes for all, and escorted +them via steamer, down the entire Gulf coast, touching at all +attractive points, exploring coral islands where myriads of sea birds +nested, encircling us with wild screams till the clouds of them +well-nigh shut out the sun; then we collected rare shells and flotsam +and jetsam from far away lands; one hour, floating over the calm Gulf +of Mexico, as smooth as a mirror, then tossed by a sudden tempest +far towards the stars, and tumbling down to Davy Jones' locker; now +enjoying the lotos-eaters' paradise, then, as we reached the lowlands, +well-nigh devoured by millions of mosquitoes and sand flies. + +Then we crossed the peninsular, traveling under hammock-woods and +century-old wild-orange trees, whose "twilight dim hallowed the +noonday," regaled with unlimited fish and game to the far-famed Indian +River,--delightful recreation-spots for a few weeks in winter, but too +hot, damp, and mosquitoey for colonies. Then we were guests of the +millionaires' club at Cape Canaveral, where were acres of wild ducks, +droves of screaming catamounts, and huge-billed, fish-devouring +pelicans. We drove over many miles of hard, firm sea-beaches--delightful +brief winter homes for the rich, then back to our fertile piny woods +highlands, convinced that the "backbone" of the peninsular was the only +desirable locality for permanent settlers who must get a living from the +bosom of mother earth. + +Soon after, leaving Mr. B----, the superintendent, in charge of the +company's interests in our new town, which now contained over one +hundred houses, and had elected a Mayor and Alderman, I returned with +my family to Boston, devoting my time to lecturing on Florida in +general, and B---- in particular, in nearly all the cities of New +England, distributing illustrated books which I had prepared, and +which were approved as true, by many prominent people who had lived +for many years among the scenes which were therein described. + +My labors were very successful, and a great success for our enterprise +seemed assured, when I received a letter from our directors, stating +that a Dr. K---- had offered to accept my position as general manager, +without salary; pay his own expenses, relying on his commissions on +land sales, and that as I had declined to serve on this basis they +had felt compelled to accept his services. As I was obliged to have +a regular income for the support of my family, I acquiesced in the +directors' decision, and soon, under the new incompetent management, +the company failed; so another of my business enterprises, on the very +verge of a grand success, became a defeat, and again the innocent were +blamed for the acts of the guilty. I converted my stock in the M.L.&I. +Co., into lands of the company at a great loss to me, as I took the +lands at company's schedule values instead of at the cost prices, +while the stock cost me--the full price of $100 per share. Blessed is +he who expecteth nothing, for he alone shall not be disappointed. + + Our varying days pass on and on, + Our hopes fade unfulfilled away, + And things which seem the life of life + Are taken from us day by day. + + Our little dramas all may fail, + And naught may issue as we planned, + Our costliest ships refuse to sail, + Our firmest castles fall to sand. + + But God lives on, and with our woe + Weaves golden threads of joy and peace, + And somewhere we will surely know + From sorrow and pain the glad release. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. + + +This year of our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow +than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in +connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while +alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper: +"James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the +news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding me +farewell. + +My father was an honest man, the noblest work of God; he had gained +none of what the world calls the great prizes of life, but he had what +was better far, a conscience void of offense towards God and man. In +the words of Thoreau--"If a man does not keep pace with his fellows, +perhaps it is because he hears a different drum beat; he should step +to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." This my +father always did, though the music of his life-march came not from +earth, but from the sky, and without a shadow of fear, sustained by a +deathless faith, he passed within the gateway of eternal life. + +The winter at last retreated sullenly and reluctantly to his arctic +home, and when the first harbingers of spring appeared, singing the +memorial songs of the Resurrection, the old country fever, inherited +from many generations of farmer ancestors, seized me, and we bought a +small plantation for $4,200, in N----, Mass., to which we moved April +28, 1887. Here, as usual, much money was expended on improvements and +for horse, carriages, cow, pigs, hens, also for scanty harvests of +vegetables, and our only returns therefor consisted of large crops +of backaches, nasal hemorrhages, and rheumatism incurred in frantic +attempts to coax from the reluctant soil, some slight compensation for +excessive labor. + +Here, as usual, I was busied with many cares, lecturing in various +places on the subject of Florida and selling our private lands in that +state. Like Mr. Pickwick, I was founder of many societies, notably the +N---- club, which, with a fine orchestra and much dramatic talent +soon became the social and literary attraction of the town; also the +Republican club, which conducted a vigorous campaign for protective +tariff and sound money, attracting large audiences by political +debates. I was president of both these flourishing organizations, was +chairman of the parish committee of the Unitarian Church, leading +to its enlargement and extended usefulness, was a member of the +congressional committee of the district which wrested a congressman +from the Democrats, electing, after a desperate struggle, John W. +Candler, to the National Legislature in place of Russell, "the +sheepless Shepherd." + +On the 16th of June of this year, Rebecca, the wife of my only +surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen +shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, +my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had +long gone before. She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet +to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the +best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she +found it. + + One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear, + One by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear. + +On the evening of the 16th of August in this year, an experience +came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious +thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called +death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence. + +My brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a +week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the +gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw +a notice posted on a tree stating that the B---- sisters would give +a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. We were all +skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the +contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded +to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity. +Here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of +intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed +figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly +elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called +to meet them. + +This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form +whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the +platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. On responding to the +invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor, +kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister," +informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in +loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had +exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her +to help. Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one +dazed. + +"James," she said, "I am Mary, your wife." She embraced me with many +kisses as in the long ago, and continued: "I am so glad to see you +and Lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her +goodness to our children; my time here is so short." Then turning; +"Jot," she whispered to my brother, "come here;" she kissed him, said: +"Rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak +to come out. We give you all our love and blessing; good-bye," and +disappeared through the floor at our feet. + +There was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the +unseen world. We had "felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had +heard the sound of the voice that is still," and henceforth we knew +that we walked hand in hand with angels. We realized unmistakably the +truth of the words of the poet Longfellow: + + "The forms of the departed enter at the open door, + The beloved, the true hearted come to visit us once more, + And with them the being beauteous, who unto my youth was given + More than all things else to love me, and is now a saint in Heaven. + Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside, + If I but remember only such as these have lived and died." + +The pages of the Bible, the testimony of all the sweet singers of all +the ages, confirm indisputably our certain knowledge of spirit return, +and _we know_ the truth of what the saints and sages of all time have +dreamed, and by faith have believed, all religions have taught, it is +now demonstrated beyond all doubt and we can say most joyfully-- + + "Oh land, oh land + For all the broken-hearted, + The mildest herald by our fate allotted + Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand + To lead us with a gentle hand + Into the land of the great departed, + Into the silent land." + +We turned to our duties, inspired by the knowledge that we were guided +and assisted by the loved ones gone before. After living on the +flat-as-pan-cake plain of N---- for three years, again was I +disenchanted; all the poetic illusions of farm life vanished, all the +oxygen seemed to be exhausted from the air, the romance of raising +potatoes at a cost of five dollars a peck disappeared, the old farm +hung like a millstone round my neck, we sold it and hired a pretty +cottage in the lucre-worshipping town of B----, on the 29th of March, +1890, where we led uneventful lives for one year, until my fickle +fancy was captivated by a fine new house on the hilltop overlooking +the sea, in the town of W----, Mass. This we bought and entered on the +14th of May, 1891. + +Here at last we thought we had found the Mecca towards which, all our +lives we had been drifting. Once more came the passion for beautifying +our own, and we made our lawns to bud and blossom like the roses; +worshipping at the shrine of the majestic ocean, + + "Its waves were kneeling on the strand, + As kneels the human knee, + Their white locks bowing to the sand + The priesthood of the sea." + +Here we passed four very pleasant and useful years; consciously near +to us, though unseen, were all our loved ones of the spirit world. +Almost every night our angel friends communicated with us unmistakably +through the ouija, and planchette; they would draw caricature pictures +of us all, and give us conundrums and jokes that we had never known +before. One evening in particular, Mary wrote us to give her children +the best possible musical instruction, stating that May would become a +great singer and flute player, and that Ada would be a fine organist +and pianist, as well as singer; that Ida would do well with violin and +voice. + +We were incredulous, as they had inherited no musical talent, neither +had they manifested any inclination in these directions; but Mary was +so persistent and strenuous in her appeals, that we heeded the advice, +gave the girls good teachers along these lines, and soon, their +spirit-mother's predictions were fulfilled to the very letter, and the +so-called "Foss triplets" became a veritable inspiration to thousands +of delighted listeners to their rendition of instrumental and vocal +strains of music. + +The dews of heaven descend upon all the flowers of the field, some +open their petals, welcome the refreshment and are blessed thereby; +while others close their buds, refusing the blessing, and as a result, +wither and die. Even so come to all souls the spirits of the departed, +and they inspire or fail in their mission of love according to whether +we open or close to them the doors of our inner sanctuaries. + + The departed, the departed, + They visit us in dreams, + They glide above our memories + Like sunlight over streams. + + The melody of summer waves, + The thrilling notes of birds + Can never be so dear to me + As their softly-whispered words. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +A PRACTICAL SOCIALIST AND COLONIZER. + + +We found in this town of W----, a moribund Unitarian Church, with +scarcely a handful of attendants, listening once a week to a lifeless +minister and an asthmatic harmonium accompanied by a few feeble, +inharmonious voices. + +Our sympathies were aroused for this expiring infant, and we resolved +to rescue it if possible from its open grave. My wife and I, +accompanied by the "Triplets," on the front seat of our carriage +as drivers, canvassed the entire town, asking all we met to lay up +treasures in heaven by "rescuing the perishing," and we soon secured +money to buy a fine toned organ and to hire a wideawake pastor. Ada +played the new organ; May formed a quartette with herself as soprano, +Ida often accompanying with her violin; my wife teaching in the +Sunday-school, myself serving as chairman of the Parish Committee, and +soon our church was filled with attentive and much edified listeners +and helpers. I organized the Channing Club, which soon included in its +membership all the leading musical and dramatic talent of the town. We +met weekly in the church vestry which was soon decorated by handsome +pictures, scenery and bric-a-brac, the gifts of our members, making a +very spacious and attractive resort. + +This club over which I presided, developed to a remarkable degree the +latent talents of many who had never before thought themselves capable +of entertaining and instructing the public. We had an orchestra of +stringed and brass instruments, in which May played the flute, Ada +the piano and organ, Ida second violin, while all our four girls sang +solos, duets, trios, and quartettes. Many elderly people paid generous +fees for honorary membership, while the large, active membership, +responded regularly when called upon with musical, literary, or +dramatic renditions individually or in combination as they might +prefer. It was a delightful and instructive symposium which ought to +be found in every town. + +The Channing Club soon became famous, and gave first-class +entertainments to very large audiences at high admission fees in our +own and surrounding towns as well as in Boston, thus replenishing the +church treasury and greatly promoting sociability and friendship by +regular dances and suppers which made hundreds seem like one large +family, bound together by many friendly ties, each one readily +responding to the call of the president to render his or her full +share of entertainment and good cheer for the good of all. + +It was an ideal socialistic order, and we truly "sat together in +heavenly places." All gladly contributed to the needs of the poor +or the sick; we chartered steamers and went on picnic excursions to +attractive island resorts in our beautiful harbor; class distinctions +were banished, envy and jealousy disappeared like snow before the sun, +and good fellowship reigned supreme. Our rich and poor met together as +brothers and sisters. + +Such an organization in churches would soon banish class hatreds, and +do much to make this world a paradise like to that above. + +The winter of 1892 was a red-letter season in the history of us all. +We rented our house in W----, to a friend, and lived in Florida, +our four girls attending Rollins College at Winter Park, where they +enjoyed life immensely in the incomparable climate which, with their +studies in this excellent school, was of great benefit to them, +physically and mentally. I was favored with free passes all over the +state, and devoted my time to a careful examination of large tracts +of land in various counties, but found none to my liking until on +our return trip, we spent several weeks at Lawtey, in the county of +Bradford. + +Florida, within its vast area, contains a great variety of land and +climates, and the person who has traversed only the beaten track +of the tourist knows nothing of the fertile tracts and delightful +temperatures of these green-grassed and Piny-woods Highlands. Here, as +nowhere else in the world, nature has provided all the essentials to +agricultural success; there was but one mortgaged homestead in the +entire township; it is the greatest strawberry mart in the world; the +abundance of nutritious wild grasses render cattle and sheep raising +throughout the year a source of great revenue, and the maximum of crop +returns is secured with a minimum of labor. + +At last, after years of search throughout the state, we found our +ideal location for a colony, and I bonded over 6,000 acres of fertile, +well-wooded lands, returned home, formed a syndicate, and paid for our +tract, to which we gave the appropriate suggestive name of "Woodlawn." +I successfully pursued my avocation of advertising and selling our +lands, having an office in Boston and cooperating agents in several +states. + +On June 11th, 1894, my brother Joshua, the last of my father's family +except myself, was suddenly called to join our many loved ones in the +spirit world. All our lives we had been as David and Jonathan, and not +a cloud had swept across the azure of our sky of mutual affection, +until the advent of his second wife. He was one of the best men that +ever lived, and nearly everyone in his town had been benefited by his +well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and he found awaiting him, +many treasures in the grand bank of heaven. + + "I cannot say, and I will not say + That he is dead--he is just away, + With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, + He has wandered into an unknown land, + And left us dreaming how very fair + It needs must be, since he lingers there; + We think of him faring on, as dear + In the love of there as the love of here, + Think of him still as the same, I say, + He is not dead--he is just away." + +Soon after the departure of my brother to the better land, our +spirit-band informed us very plainly through "Ouija," that it was our +duty to remove to Boston in order that our children might have better +educational facilities, and be admitted to the "musical swim" of the +"Hub of the Universe." We obeyed their mandate, and the predictions of +our angel friends were fully verified. In our new home the older girls +met those to whom they were married in Heaven, and to whom they +gave their hands and hearts. I now look back over a half century of +existence on this earth, and my muse inspires me to record that: + + I have ships that went to sea + More than fifty years ago. + None have yet come back to me, + But keep sailing to and fro, + Plunging through the shoreless deep, + With tattered sails and battered hulls + While around them scream the gulls. + + I have wondered why they stayed + From me, sailing round the world + And I've said, "I'm half afraid + That their sails will ne'er be furled." + Great the treasures that they hold, + Silks, and plumes, and bars of gold, + While the spices which they bear + Fill with fragrance all the air. + + I have waited on the piers + Gazing for them down the bay, + Days and nights, for many years, + Till I turned heart-sick away. + But the pilots, when they land, + Kindly take me by the hand, + Saying, "Surely they will come to thee, + Thy proud vessels from the sea." + + So I never quite despair, + Nor let hope or courage fail, + And some day, when skies are fair, + Up the bay my ships will sail. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +HAND IN HAND WITH ANGELS. + + +In our Boston home, there came to us one of the most wonderful and +inspiring experiences ever vouchsafed to mortals beneath the stars; +an experience which solved forever for us the problem of immortality, +which all the religious teachings of all the ages had been powerless +to accomplish. It confirmed beyond a shadow of doubt, our knowledge +of the future life obtained previously at Onset Bay, as the following +named events transpired in our own house in the presence of witnesses +under test circumstances which precluded all possibility of deception. + +Mrs. B----, of Boston, came to our house alone, gratuitously, on her +own volition, sat within a few feet of our entire family and two of +our neighbors, having no cabinet or any paraphernalia which are always +required by those charlatans who have associated the fair name of +spiritualism with fraud and chicanery. In about one hour there +appeared in our parlor, in full view of us all, more than thirty +forms; some tall as were ever seen on earth, others little children, +the forms of our offspring who were "still born"; my brother Joshua, +who had been in spirit life a little over one year came fully +materialized and was clearly recognized by my entire family. + +He gave me, while I was standing within two feet of the medium, the +firm grip of a Master Mason; his hand was like that of a living human +being; he whispered a few intelligible words, saying that we should +have no fear if trouble came, that all would turn out for our ultimate +good, and disappeared at my feet; then a tall, finely-formed young man +with dark moustache came, beating his breast with his hand. "You see, +I am all here," he said; "I am John Mansfield, formerly of New Jersey. +I was attracted to your house by the music. I am guardian of your +girls; I am going to try to help in your father and mother." He +vanished; then returned, trying to bring the half-materialized but +recognizable forms as he had promised; but they were weak, and seen +but dimly. + +Then came the clearly defined form of the children's aunt, and the +girls, who were somewhat timid, recognized her at once. She kissed +each one several times in rapid succession just as she used to do when +she met them in the long ago; called them and my wife by name, and +disappeared, apparently through the floor. Then appeared Mary, my +spirit-wife, and many others whom we could not recognize. + +Little Blue Bell, one of the medium's cabinet spirits, them came, +pointing to the door, saying: "See that little fat snoozer?" we looked +around and saw the wondering eyes of our Bessie, who we supposed was +"snoozing" in bed; she had come down in her night-dress. Finally, +Nellie, our hired girl, who, being a Catholic, had been warned by the +priest never to countenance spiritualism, and had locked herself in +her room, came into the parlor, wild-eyed and with her hair streaming +over her shoulders, saying she was compelled to come in. At once the +form of a young Irish girl clad in peasant costume, with hair to her +waist, appeared, and clasped Nellie in her arms; they talked a few +minutes, and the form vanished in air. Nellie told us that it was a +schoolmate of hers who died in Ireland fifteen years before, that they +had been great friends, and vied with each other in growing the longer +hair. + +These facts may seem incredible to those who have never received +visitations from the other world; but we know that we saw and felt the +forms of our spirit friends on that occasion, as surely as we know +that we ever saw them when they were with us daily in the body on +earth. + +When alone that night, I "dropped into poetry," and here is what my +spirit-guided hand wrote, February 4th, 1895. + + Out of the darkness cometh a light, + Out of the silence cometh a voice, + The pathway of life grows suddenly bright, + And as never before we all rejoice. + + The dearly beloved who have gone before + Come back to bless from the beautiful shore; + They speak to us words of lofty cheer, + That banish the clouds of darksome fear. + + How sweet to _know_ that there is no death, + That the soul outlives the fleeting breath; + That guardian angels surround us ever + With a deathless love no power can sever. + + We mourn no more the vanished youth, + We are nearing the heaven of eternal truth; + We lament no more the earthly ills, + For their power will cease on the heavenly hills. + + We grieve no more for the wrinkled brow, + Nor for withering locks as white as snow, + For soon will we greet what is unseen now, + Soon to the sunlit heights will we go. + + For many years doubt's saddening shade + On our hearts its pall has laid: + But a gleam comes from the bright forever, + And gloom and fear shall haunt us never. + + We have felt the touch of the vanished hand, + We have heard the sound of the voice that is still; + They have come to us from the better land, + Their cheering words our spirits thrill. + + "We will know the loved who have gone before, + And joyfully sweet will the meeting be + When over the river, the beautiful river, + The angel of death shall carry me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +AMONG THE LAW-SHARKS. + + +It seems to be an unwritten law of human life that every great joy +shall be quickly followed by a great sorrow. The materialized forms +of our spirit loved-ones had scarcely vanished from sight, when the +trouble of which my brother had forewarned us fell like a thunderbolt +from a cloudless sky. + +We had, without a thought of deception, and at prices which then +prevailed, sold to many persons, lands in Florida, some for +settlement, some as investments. Phosphate had been discovered in +the immediate vicinity of some of our tracts, and this fact had led +speculators to buy our lands, hoping that these deposits might greatly +enhance values; but the usual competition to sell this valuable +fertilizer had for the time reduced prices to a non-paying basis; +then, too, an unprecedented freeze, which once in about a hundred +years visits all semi-tropical countries, had destroyed many orange +groves in the State, and so frightened short-sighted, timid people, +that Florida lands were at a great discount, and, as when a panic +sweeps over Wall Street, many frantically hastened to sell, and there +were but few buyers. + +This led several of my customers to conspire to frighten me into +paying them large sums as hush money, pretending that I had secured +their purchases under false pretenses; but the Yankee spirit of +our fathers, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," +prompted me to defy their infamous demands. + +Under the lead of a fiendishly "smart" lawyer, they declared that I +told them their lands were full of phosphate, and within city limits, +although my published circulars and maps stated nothing of the kind. +They denounced me as a fraud in the newspapers, brought lawsuits +against me, attached property, and proceeded in a most brutal manner +to compel payment of their unjust claims. + +My word for half a century had everywhere been as good as my bond, +and my bond as good as gold. I had never before had a lawsuit or any +trouble with any one, and so in my inexperience I employed a lawyer +friend, who was no match for my enemies' human tiger. They testified +unfairly in court, and after many crushing annoyances from the law's +delays, my lawyer, putting in no defense, in order, as he said, +to save his ammunition for use in the Superior Court, to which he +appealed, they secured judgment. + +All these slanders broke my never firm health; I was soon on the verge +of nervous prostration, and was ordered by my physician to at once +secure a change of climate to save my life. My innocent lawyer +supposed that a court of justice would postpone my trial until my +return; but we have now some "courts of injustice." + +Some lawyers are worse than highway robbers; they make the laws as +legislators to suit their own iniquitous, selfish purposes, so worded +that they are susceptible of almost any interpretation, thus +leading to endless litigations by which these cannibal devourers of +reputations are robbing the public of their possessions. They employ +spies to stir up strife, and some lawyers and judges seem to be banded +together to fleece the confiding lambs of the public. The judge not +only refused to postpone the trial until I was able to attend, but +refused to have the jury informed that I was absent on account of +serious sickness. + +We are bound hand and foot, the slaves of these law-sharks, and it +seems as if nothing but revolution and the banishing of these tyrants, +will ever deliver the public from the worse than African slavery to +which some lawyers subject us. We have seen innocent, modest lady +witnesses subjected to bull-dozing and abuse by barbarous lawyers, +until they suffered tortures to which those of the Spanish Inquisition +were merciful. + +As I was obliged to go or die, I accepted the offer of my wife's +brother, a member of the publishing firm of Webster's Dictionaries, +and went to California to fight their battles against the new Standard +Dictionary which was rapidly driving the Webster books out of the +markets of the entire Pacific slope. + +The trial took place during my enforced absence; my enemies' crafty +attorney told the jury that my failure to appear was a sure evidence +of guilt; my doctor's affidavit that he sent me away to save my life +was not allowed to be presented in court; each plaintiff claimed to +have heard the statements imputed to have been made by me to the +others, one of them making love to, and afterwards marrying one of my +most important witnesses, and so the verdict was against me. + +But curses often "come home to roost," and my enemies were ultimately +not benefited at all, as the lawyer-sharks devoured all they received +from me. + +In the meanwhile, during their worrying and falsifying, I was speeding +away in a palace-car, confident that my spirit brother's declaration +would prove true that truth is mighty and will prevail, if not in the +brief here, yet surely in the eternal hereafter. It is very saddening +to see how many, who claim to be your friends while you are +prosperous, are the first to assail with poisoned arrows when you are +attacked in the courts or in the public prints; but my conscience is +clear, and + + Serene, I fold my hands and wait, + Nor care for wind, or tide or sea. + I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, + For soon my own shall come to me. + + Asleep, awake, by night or day, + The friends I seek are seeking me; + No wind can drive my bark astray, + Nor change the tide of destiny. + + The stars come nightly to the sky; + The tidal wave into the sea; + Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, + Can keep my own away from me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +CAMPAIGNING IN WONDERLAND. + + +This delightful journey was a wonderful revelation of the greatness, +power, and grandeur of this glorious republic in which we live. I +gazed with amazement for many hours as we flew over the marvelously +fertile and beautiful prairies of Kansas; here miles upon miles of +wheat, corn, and alfalfa waving like vast seas, irrigated by means of +numberless windmills; there, herds of cattle, numerous as the leaves +of autumn; here, long lines of steam plows breaking thousands of acres +of virgin soil; there mammoth steam reapers devouring vast areas of +gold mines of grain; the food of the nations pouring into bags at one +end, while the stalks were bound midway ready for the fattening of +cattle. The chaff flew in clouds, and quickly, from these machines, +millions of bushels of wheat were soon on their way to the markets of +the world. What wonder that our country now has in Washington over +five hundred millions of gold dollars; the richest treasury ever known +on earth? + +Now we catch glimpses of vast mines of coal and salt; then of great +cities which have sprung up as by magic; and soon my eyes were greeted +with a vision of heavenly splendor in Colorado. Three hundred miles +of the Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak towering 14,000 feet towards the +stars; great clouds of snow blowing from the summit into the valleys; +there cascades of mighty rivers flowing to irrigate lovely valleys; +here the great city of Denver, having 125,000 population, and one mile +higher up in the air than Boston. + +In this city I met my former college professor, now the +multi-millionaire United States senator, burdened with many crushing +cares, knowing about as much peace and quietness as a toad under a +two-forty-gait harrow. + +Then on went the mighty train; here a glimpse at Manitou of the +"Garden of the Gods," with cathedral spires of old red sandstone +towering hundreds of feet towards the clouds which capped their +summits with halos; on through the grand canyon of the Arkansas River, +in places two miles nearer heaven than Boston; here we see gigantic +natural castles with battlements, bastions and fortresses whose +leveled cannon you almost instinctively dodge to escape their +imaginary bomb-shells. Now we climb almost perpendicular heights, +thousands of feet; now we slide down into chasms barely escaping the +rushing waters; then we shoot through a tunnel two miles long under +1,500 feet of solid rock; now we rush over vast plateaus 10,000 feet +above the sea; then we catch glimpses of herds of cattle, now of great +caves, lone trees with not a bit of earth visible about their roots; +now we rush into Leadville, a mining camp of 10,000 people. At +midnight a huge stone rolled down the mountainside onto the track, +delaying us for two hours. Had it fallen a minute later we would have +been crushed into nothingness. + +In the morning I awoke in Utah, rode all the forenoon over arid +plains; gaunt, hungry wolves scud away, cayotes ran yelping, and jack +rabbits hopped out of sight for dear life; then we arrive at Salt Lake +City, which the Mormons have transformed from a howling wilderness +into a fine city, with a surrounding country budding and blossoming +with bounteous harvests. The peak towers aloft where the United States +Regulars halted after their terrible march over the mountains, near +where the famous Nauvoo Legion of the Mormons surrendered, after their +rebellion to make Brigham Young their king, though he said that by a +wave of his hand he could hurl back the balls of the national cannon +to annihilate the soldiers of the republic. + +I drank in with delight the music of the grand organ and the four +hundred trained singers of the Mormon choir in the vast tabernacle. + +Then on thundered the train by the great Salt Lake, one hundred miles +long and forty miles wide, so salt that it buoys you up on its surface +like a feather; then on over the sage-brush desert to Reno, Nevada, +where is the world-renowned Comstock mine, from which over one hundred +millions of dollars' worth of silver has already been taken. + +Then we climbed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, around and around in a +circle, shot through a snow shed forty miles long; then lumber chutes +appear many miles in length, through which enormous logs are shot down +by water power from the mountain lake. Four billion feet of lumber are +cut here in a year. + +Then on we go past Lake Tahoe, twenty-two miles long, surrounded by +mountains two miles in height; then past Cape Horn, along precipices +down which I threw a stone which fell 2,500 feet into the American +River. + +We slide down the mountains to Auburn, California, and find fruit +trees in blossom, grass green, and crops several inches high. A sudden +change in a few minutes from deep snow and severe cold to blossoms and +roses. On we go to Sacramento, surrounded by great ranches with vast +herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the wild grasses; then on to San +Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the unpacified Pacific. + +The principal occupation of the street cars in 'Frisco, is climbing +almost perpendicular heights, and then sliding down hill. All very +pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part +and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all passengers tumbling over and +on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the +bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, +and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit +slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the +crowd. + +Here you can get a good meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for +"two bits" (twenty-five cents), you can buy three different kinds of +newspapers for the same price as one, as they have no coins smaller +than a nickel. For a nickel you can ride for miles to the Cliff House +which is at the Golden Gate, where are acres of giant flowers of every +conceivable variety, all beautiful, but odorless; you watch the sea +lions nearly the size of oxen, and who roar and fight on the boulders. +Then we enter a bath-house, acres in extent, covered with glass, where +you can swim in sea water warmed by steam-pipes, listen to the band, +examine the multitude of wild animals and curiosities collected from +all parts of the world. + +[Illustration: The Golden Gate of the Unpacified Pacific.] + +Then we visit the city park of twelve hundred acres, once nothing but +flying sand. At first they planted on these dunes, grass roots from +South America; these fastened themselves to the sand and formed a +little soil; then were planted shrubs to stop the sand storms, then +trees, and now the real estate is not all in the air. + +This little nickel will take you to a mountaintop overlooking city and +ocean, where you can sit under the Eucalyptus trees which shed +their bark instead of their leaves, and enjoy the music and the not +overmodest dramas, without extra charge. + +The saloons, stores and theatres are open seven days and nights in +the week, and multitudes of all nationalities, clad in their peculiar +costumes, hobnob with each other in the most free and easy manner +imaginable, without waiting for introductions, in this the most +cosmopolitan city on earth. + +Sometimes you will see the harbor literally covered with the most +delicious fruits and vegetables, dumped into the water, because the +transportation charges to market would more than eat up the proceeds +of their sale. I visited at San Jose, the large flourishing fruit +orchard of a college classmate who had spent years of hard labor and +the earnings of a lifetime, to bring his trees into bearing; but I +found he had deserted his ranch because he could not make a living +thereon, and had gone to preach for a little church far away, at five +hundred dollars per annum. + +I saw at Riverside large crops of oranges frozen upon the trees; +but the real estate sharks never allow these facts to be published, +because they fatten on the profits made by selling lands to the +gullible "tender feet" from the east, who, when they have bought these +farms at enormous prices, find to their utter discouragement, that +they must also buy water for irrigation from monopolists, at ruinous +rates, else the soil is worthless. Here as nowhere else is illustrated +the truth of the Scriptural adage: "To him that hath shall be given, +but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he +hath." + +When you go to a place scarcely thirty miles distant, which, in New +England, you would reach in an hour, you are obliged to travel all +night, as you must climb cloud-touching mountains, going many miles to +cover what would be only one mile in a straight line; now you glide +along close to the long, lazy waves of the great Pacific Ocean, where +the grass kisses the salt lips of the sea; now from the tops of the +Santa Cruz mountains, you survey the world at your feet; now you rush +through the red-wood primeval forests, giants touching the clouds with +their tops, while in the hollow trunk of one of these trees a family +of twelve can live quite comfortably; then on to Los Angeles,--"City +of the angels," they call it--a beautiful city for those possessed of +means or who are dispossessed of bodies which must be clothed and fed. + +[Illustration: The Dome of Mount Shasta Gleams like "the Great White +Throne."] + +Some have "struck oil" here, and the stench and grime from the +spouting wells have ruined the houses of hundreds who have reaped no +profit from the petroleum, because they did not own the adjoining lots +where it was found; then on we go to lovely Passadena on a table-land +surrounded by snow-capped mountains; but the winds from the cold +summits come suddenly when you are melting with the heat, bringing +plenty of catarrh for all; then on to San Diego on the hill by the +sea, where the fog is sometimes so thick you can cut it into blocks +with an axe; then on to the far-famed Coronado Hotel, close by the +sea. + +In the boom-time, this was claimed to be the veritable "Garden of +Eden," and soil was considered worth its weight in gold, but now my +guide offered me six house lots which cost him three thousand dollars, +for two hundred dollars; the bubble had burst, a few had become rich, +while hundreds of speculators had lost their all. + +I swam in the spacious warmed-water sea-baths, communed with the wild +ducks, cormorants and pelicans, looked with amazement at the giant +ostriches, and sympathized with their seeming wonderment as to why we +were all sent into this sad, bewildering maze of life. + +At National City the refluent wave of the boom had left many of the +houses and business blocks dilapidated and unoccupied save by bats, +spiders and flies. You could occupy free of rent many buildings with +none to molest or make you afraid. + +Thence on dashes the train to the celebrated Hotel Delmonte, at +Monterey, the show place of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, by +its extortionate transportation charges, has ruined many struggling +fruit raisers in this state where monopoly holds such mighty sway. + +There are many hotels in Florida which far surpass this as far as +the buildings are concerned; but the grounds are extensive and very +beautiful, and the wide piazzas are embowered in a profusion of +all kinds of climbing vines covered with the loveliest blossoms. +Stretching away until earth and sky meet, is an imperial domain, +covered with noble trees which were giants when Adam was a baby, many +festooned with English ivy and flowering trumpet creepers almost to +the stars. Then we walked under long Gothic arches, cool and fragrant. + +Here is every arrangement conceivable for entertainment; on one side +the Pacific ocean; on the other the Coast Range Mountains, a very +pleasant resort for the very rich; but we found there at this time +more servants than guests. + +The town of Monterey is interesting only for its ruins of ancient +monasteries and convents, where a few lazy half-breeds alone remain +to tell the tale of multitudes over whom the Catholic priests reigned +supreme, reducing their dupes to beggary by their extortions. Once +these mountains were covered with vast flocks of sheep, but the +foolish reduction of the tariff on wool by the Wilson bill, destroyed +all profits, and the flocks disappeared into the hungry mouths of the +people. + +Thence the iron horse took us back to 'Frisco, and we sailed all day +and all night to Sacramento. The scenery was grand, but the cold +weather chilled us to the very bones. Islands of old red sandstone +loom like sentinels along the coast, covered with lighthouses to warn +the mariners. The twin peaks of Montepueblo covered with perpetual +snow, seemed to support the heavens as do the pillars the dome of the +capitol. + +Swarms of screaming sea gulls fill the air, some of which, benumbed by +cold alighted on the steamer's deck. Lonely ranches are seen, hemmed +in by the everlasting hills. + +Our great, lazy boat, propelled by a stern wheel as big as a barn, +paddled slowly over the muddy waters of the great Sacramento River, +made yellow by the turbid waters sent to it from scores of hydraulic +mines on the mountains. On one island is an immense smelting furnace, +the tall chimneys of which send forth volumes of poisonous smoke, +dangerous to breathe, and covering everything with a coating black as +soot. Inhaling this, some of the operators die of lead poisoning. Many +islands are here scarcely above the water's edge, having little houses +built on stilts occupied by the salmon fishers who are seen pulling +their nets, and around whose heads whirl and scream flocks of fish +hawks, ravenous for their prey. + +After a successful book fight at the capital city, I went to Red Bluff +where I was broiled and roasted in a day and night temperature of a +hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. I survived only by keeping +my head wrapped in ice water; I could neither eat nor sleep, and like +Dickens, I longed to "take off my flesh, and sit in my bones." It was +a veritable hell on earth. + +The county superintendent of schools here, told me he sold his prune +crop that year for five thousand dollars, and went away leaving the +purchaser to pick the fruit. On his return, he found that the red +spiders had anticipated the pickers, and destroyed the entire crop, so +that his work of years came to naught, as the buyers of course refused +to pay to feed the spiders. + +Thence I went to San Luis Obispo, and on the way we struck the Coast +Range Mountains. The tortuous upclimbing and downsliding of the train +disclosed scenery imposing and grand. You looked down the precipitous +rock-ribbed sides thousands of feet to the narrow, beautiful valleys, +made productive by the irrigation from many foaming waterfalls. We +circle the mountains many times before reaching the valleys, traveling +many hours to gain a straight-line mile. + +These valleys are lovely to look down upon; but the fogs much of the +time hang over them like a pall, and catarrh and rheumatism render +life one of misery to many of the people. + +[Illustration: Above the Clouds.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +AMONG THE CLOUDS. + + +In the following May, 1896, I took a sky-scraping journey to the great +states of Washington and Oregon. The climbing of Mt. Shasta and the +Siskyo range by train presented sublime views that no language can +even feebly describe. At the summits we were at least two miles in +the air higher than the dome of the Massachusetts State House. As +we climbed, I could see from the window of the palace car, the two +engines of our train puffing for all they were worth around the +curves, far ahead. + +We looked down from the narrow rim of the railroad, thousands of feet +perpendicular upon foaming rivers dashing themselves into rainbows +and cataracts against the everlasting boulders in their courses. +Here cascades, miles in length, came rushing down the mountainsides, +shooting hundreds of feet into the air as they struck the giant rocks, +and at one place we stopped for half an hour to drink from the soda +springs pure, delicious soda water, huge geysers of it effervescing, +scintillating, silvery in the sunbeams, caught in a rocky basin from +which it is sent all over the world. + +Above, the mighty Sacramento River has its source in a little spring, +almost touching the stars--so emblematical of our human life, which +begins in the infinite on high; is enveloped in a dust of earth; +expands in its evolution into the angel back into the eternity from +whence it came; for science reveals that the springs come from the +clouds as dew and rain, run their courses, and by evaporation are +taken back into their first home in the vapors of the heavens. + +There are enormous log-shoots seeming like Jacob's ladder to reach +from earth to heaven, and in which, the giants of the vast mountain +forests are carried by water with almost lightning speed to the mills +on the river; there the splendid snow-covered dome of Shasta gleams +above the clouds like the great white throne described by St. John in +Revelation. + +Now come glimpses of little green valleys; here and there, a few small +houses and flocks of sheep show that these cases are peopled "far from +the maddening crowd's ignoble strife." + +These vast solitudes of forests are very impressive and solemn as +the day of judgment; giant fir-trees, pines and spruces, beautifully +clothed in perpetual green even to the lower dead limbs which nature +has covered with a verdure of moss--like our dead hopes, blasted +by the fires of adversity but made radiant by the fore-gleams of +immortality. There the bright mistletoe is suspended from dead +tree-tops, like beauteous crowns adorning the heads of those who have +died rather than surrender to the low and base; there deep canyons, +brilliant with the diamonds made by the sun from the scintillating +drops from dashing torrents--so from the unseen heights come the dews +of heaven to refresh those who walk by faith and not by sight "looking +not at the things seen which are temporal, but at the things not seen +which are eternal." + +Here comes a dense white cloud of snow through the air, covering our +train with a pearly shroud, through the rifts of which, far below, we +have glimpses of lovely vales and white ranch-houses, smiling up at +us, above the clouds. + +Dearly beloved--all seems to say it becometh us, not to sorrow for the +dead hopes, broken promises, and bitter disappointments of this mortal +life, remembering that this is not our home, that we tarry here for +a few fleeting days, that our true home is with the good beyond the +infinite azure of the heavens, where dear ones are Waiting to welcome +us to the endless rest and peace awaiting all who fight the good +fight, and who keep themselves unspotted from the world. + +At times, while the train was dashing along over the seemingly +interminable plains, green and productive during the rainy season, but +now parched and arid by the terrible heat, we were almost suffocated +by the dense dust clouds, and well-nigh withered by the winds which +seem to come from the very jaws of Dante's Inferno; then the shifting +young cyclone would suddenly envelop us with chilling snows from +Shasta, and so we oscillated like pendulums 'twixt torrid heats and +arctic colds. + +At last, almost dazed by the unspeakable, lightning-like, climatic +transformations, the great iron steeds brought us to Portland, the +metropolis of the great state of Oregon. Here, as in many places on +the Pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season +to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape +the merciless peltings of the clouds of shot-like dust. The dampness +in this valley, hemmed in by the now dripping, then brook covered +mountains, is far from pleasant, and covers many of the buildings +with unsightly mosses. In Washington and Oregon those who survive the +climatic trials are a strong, energetic race, rapidly building up +powerful empires in the great aggregation of states of our grandest +nation the world has ever known. + +The broad-minded, generous-hearted people of this great far west, make +no distinctions as to sex in apportioning their salaries for +school work, and this, coupled with their numerous co-educational +universities and normal schools, has given them an army of lady +teachers and superintendents unequaled elsewhere in the world. + +The county superintendents of schools are elected by the popular vote, +and the women take to the stump-speaking and the usual kissing of +voters' babies as naturally as ducks take to the water. Result,--the +ladies secure the political plums, and the men are rapidly being +driven to manual labor, their natural sphere of action, though +not without vigorous kicking against the inevitable. These +ex-men-superintendents buttonhole you at every turn, reciting the +outrages perpetrated upon them by their successful women competitors. + +At an election in a California town, one of these men sufferers, +mistaking me for a voter, took me by a button of my coat, and poured +forth a tale of woe so long that, unable to endure it longer, I cut +off the button and fled. He did not notice my departure, and two hours +later, there he was holding on to the button, all alone, gesticulating +frantically, and beseeching me to vote for him to save his wife and +ten children from starvation. For aught I know, he has not missed me +to this day; but is still sounding forth his wild appeals. + +Should I describe fully all the wonderful scenes beheld by me in this +wonderland, I should exhaust time and trench upon eternity. Suffice it +to state that I returned to 'Frisco, fought a successful dictionary +battle there, formed the acquaintance of many distinguished men, among +them the great Irving Scott, who built the famous battleship Oregon. +He was president of the city school-board, head of the vast Union Iron +Works, and besides performing many herculean labors, was stumping the +state nightly in favor of the election of William McKinley to the +presidency of the United States. + +I was fairly driven from this city by the ferocious fleas, which +seemed to render life almost unendurable in hovel and palace. I could +get no rest day or night in many parts of the state, on account of the +savage attacks of these unspeakable, insatiate biters, more terrible +than an army with Gatling guns. + +Crossing the beautiful bay in the floating palace ferry-boat, I was +for a time enchanted with Highland Park, Oakland. In front, through a +vista of Eucalyptus, oak and elm trees, appear the glistening waters +of the famed inland sea; on the right are seen the domes and spires +of Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco; across the valley loom the +mountains, in the rainy season green to their summits, on which rest +the serene blue of the heavens, except when, the frequent fogs bury +everything from sight. On one side of the house, at the same time, +the trade winds from the Pacific chill you to your very bones, on the +other side the burning heat is unbearable. Afar off the humble home of +Joaquin Miller, poet of the Sierras, clearly appears. + +There are many beautiful homes on this lofty hilltop, but they were +all for sale at bargains, for their occupants have grown weary of the +cloud bursts of the long dreary rainy season, then of the parching +heats of the equally dreary dry season, when a pickaxe and crowbar are +required to dig a potato unless you keep water running from the hose +day and night. These people long to return to their old homes in New +England where the varying seasons are not so monotonous. + +I was invited to accompany a religious society on a week's camp in +a romantic canyon; but I was glad I did not when they returned in a +couple of days, narrating an adventure which daunted the stoutest +hearts. On the second night of their camping, the men were aroused +from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing +out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten +the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes, +hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. The men fought +desperately all night with shotguns and clubs. Life is scarcely worth +the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the +horrible tarantulas. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +DISENCHANTED.--HOME AGAIN. + + +I had secured the adoption of our dictionaries in every county visited +by me, and now the publishers desired me to remain on the Pacific +coast permanently, without salary, relying on commissions on sales of +their books made by me and my sub-agents by canvassing, from house to +house. This financial proposition was far from being alluring, for the +laws enacted by a national democratic rule of four years had ruined +many of the principal industries of this section, and the larger +cities required a license fee of twenty dollars per week from all +canvassing agents. Many houses displayed large signs, "No book agents +allowed here," and they kept ferocious dogs to enforce the rule. The +majority of the people were poor; the rich were already supplied with +dictionaries; and the schools would have no funds available with which +to buy reference books for nearly a year. Competing agents had visited +every house before my arrival on the coast, and I therefore resigned +my worthless position, and took the Eastern agency for a Tonic Port +which had, by its wonderful efficacy, delivered many from the horrors +of nervous prostration, anaemia, and kindred diseases which afflict so +many of the human race. + +Another disenchantment,--another Eden becomes a Sahara. I had reached +the Pacific coast just when the departing rainy season had left all +nature fair as a poet's dream of love, and, vainly dreaming that this +was perpetual, it seemed as if I would sigh for no other heaven. But +the scorching heat and Siroccoes from the Mohave Desert followed close +upon the rear-guard of the retreating, life-giving rain-clouds, and +soon the lovely flowers died; the enchanting green grass withered; the +soul of the beautiful vanished, and the suffocating dust storms buried +the earth in a ghostly shroud, save where wealth was sufficient to +bring the mountain streams for irrigation. + +I had for a time reveled in the dreams which fleetingly haunt all +mortals, that there I had found the lost Arcadia, where balmy zephyrs +fan the brow into ecstasy forever; but, alas! After a brief respite +I had, in that land which the real estate sharks called "Paradise," +suffered more from alternating chilling winds and withering heat than +ever before; one day sweltering in the thinnest of seersuckers, and +perhaps the very next shivering in all the woolens I could command. + +Without a shadow of regret or even a backward look, I bade farewell to +the Pacific and returned to the Atlantic of my youth, until the day +dawns and the shadows flee away. + +I sojourned for some months in the cities of Richmond, Baltimore, +Providence, and Philadelphia, endeavoring to impress upon the minds of +the physicians the importance of prescribing my remedy, but with no +glittering financial success, lingering for weeks in the last named +city, on the very verge of the grave to which I was brought by the +filthy water of that grotesquely misnamed "City of Brotherly Love." + +I had been, in former years, the champion school-book agent of New +England, and publishers had often told me that if I ever returned to +this vocation, they would gladly employ me. I applied to one of these +for a position, requesting a man who owed his success in business +entirely to my friendly aid and instructions, to speak a good word for +me, but he at once showed his gratitude by securing the appointment +for himself, being aided and abetted by an influential bald-headed +man who hated me, simply because I had sent to him a friend who +represented a hair restorer. Said bald-headed man had many reasons +to, and had often claimed to be, a friend of mine; but was foolishly +sensitive about his lack of hirsute adornment, and said I insulted him +by referring to his billiard-ball caput. Truly, gratitude is a lost +art, and some friends immediately become enemies when they can secure +from you no more plunder. + +It is exceedingly difficult for a man who has passed the "death line" +of the half century, to find a place where he can do good and get +good; the hustling crowd of younger and stronger competitors push +him to the wall or trample him beneath their feet, in the terrific +scramble for the bare necessities of life. He drifts into the +depressing occupation of book or life insurance agency, and at once +every so-called friend, who pretended to worship him when he was +prosperous, gives him the cold shoulder, and "poor devil" is the most +complimentary epithet with which he is greeted. + +Analogous with that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth, still a +mystery, the strange current of human existence bears each and all +of us with a strong, steady sweep from the tropic lands of sunny +childhood, enameled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the +temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful or fruitless as +the case may be; on to the often frigid, lonely shores of old age, +snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble +the tangled drift on those broad gulf billows, strewn on barren +beaches, stranded upon icebergs, some to be scorched under equatorial +heats, some to perish by polar perils; a few to take root and +flourish, building imperishable landmarks; and many to stagnate in the +long inglorious rest of the Sargasso Sea. + +But really to the faithful soul nothing is lost; though the great +prizes of earth are denied us, every heroic endeavor, every struggle +to benefit the world sends treasures on high to our credit in the +grand bank of heaven. + + There are the thoughts that one by one died 'ere we gave them birth, + The songs we tried in vain to sing, too sweet, too beautiful for earth. + No endeavor is in vain; + Its reward is in the doing, + And the rapture of pursuing, + Is the prize the vanquished gain. + +We are all conscious of these songs we have tried in vain to sing, and +we are confident we will yet sing them when the bodily impediments are +swept away, and, as the earthly shadows lengthen, as the chill winds +of old age strengthen, we more and more appreciate the wonderful +expression of this thought, in that sweetest of all poems of the minor +key, called "The voiceless." + + "We count the broken lyres that rest + Where the sweet wailing singers slumber; + But o'er the silent brother's breast, + The wild flowers who will stoop to number. + + "A few can touch the magic string, + And noisy fame is proud to win them; + Alas for those who never sing, + But die with all their music in them. + + "Not where Leucadian breezes sweep + O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow; + But where the glistening night dews weep + O'er nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. + + "If singing breath or echoing chord + To every hidden pang were given, + What endless melodies were poured, + As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven." + +We have done our best according to the light that has been given; we +will continue to do so until the end, and we are soothed and sustained +by the inspiring thought so sweetly expressed by one of our greatest +poets. + + "I know not where God's islands lift + Their fronded palms in air, + I only know I cannot drift + Beyond His love and care. + + "And so beside the silent sea, + I wait the muffled oar: + No harm from Him can come to me + On ocean or on shore." + + Only waiting till the angels + Open wide the mystic gate, + At whose feet I long have lingered, + Weary, sad, and desolate; + Even now I hear their footsteps, + And their voices far away-- + When they call me, I am waiting, + Only waiting to obey. + + + + +AFTERMATH + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +THE FLORIDA CRACKERS. + + +When the previous thirty chapters were in press, the conviction was +forced upon me that any book which touched upon Florida without a +description of its poor whites called "Crackers," would be like the +play of "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out, and I gladly pay +this tribute of grateful remembrance to the most unique, and the only +truly contented people that I have ever met on earth. + +So far forth as history enlightens us, the ancestors of these peculiar +specimens of the human race were never born anywhere in particular, +but like Topsy, they "simply growed." + +Why these usually long, lean, lank, saffron-hued, erst-while +clay-eaters have received such an unromantic name has been variously +accounted for. Some say the name was suggested by the fact that when +not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which +swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent +cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their +game or drive their cattle. An ex-slave of one of them tells me that +they are called "Crackers," because they are all "cracked as to their +cocoanuts." + +Although the faces of many of these children of nature are usually as +expressionless as a cast-iron cook-stove, they are far from being as +stupid as they look; for even General Jackson, "the man of blood +and iron," would have won but few, if any, laurels in his campaigns +against the Seminoles, had it not been for his advanced guard of the +warlike "Crackers." + +"Out there in history" we see him and his army, while recklessly +rushing the redskins, become lost and bewildered in the vast primeval +forest. Day after day, they marched, but always in a circle; and +each nightfall found them near where they broke camp in the morning. +Provisions failed, and hunger and thirst drove the soldiers frantic. +Every night they were pelted by bullets from unseen foes; stabbed and +stung by innumerable insects; death for all stared them in the face; +myriads of buzzards whirled above them, anxious for their prey. + +While Jackson and his men, prostrated by heat, fruitless marching and +discouragement, were praying for succor, suddenly the air seemed to +be filled with human forms, which to their dazed minds appeared to be +angels sent in answer to their fervent petitions. Grotesque looking +angels were these, swinging from limb to limb of the forest trees; but +heavenly in their beneficence were the solemn-faced "Crackers," as +hundreds of them dropped to the ground and fed the exhausted warriors +with "hog, hominy," and water from packs strapped with their rifles to +their dirty, sturdy shoulders--"'nough sight better work for angels +to do than loafin' around the throne." While the feasting was in +full swing, suddenly the haggard and careworn face of "Old Hickory" +appeared in their midst. "Boys," said he, in his quick, incisive +tones, "don't eat any more, 'twill make you sick, stow it away in your +haversacks." Then, turning to the Floridians, he quietly remarked, +"Gentlemen, you saved our lives; many thanks! Now we will do as +much for you. Where are the Injuns?" All the tree-climbers arose +respectfully, saluted, and a tall, cadaverous-looking, long-haired, +coon-skin-capped leader advanced, took the general by the hand, and +slowly drawled,-- + +"Ginrul, the red niggers air skulkin' yender to the river, waitin' to +chaw up you uns tonight. + +"Colonel Tompkins," came the quick command, "_climb_ your forces to +the river, pour a volley into the red-skins at sundown, yell for all +you're worth, we'll do the rest." + +"All right, Ginrul, we uns will be thar," and away went the "flying +Crackers," facing unspeakable dangers as calmly as a child looks into +the loving eyes of its mother. + +Sometimes they glided noiselessly as the autumn leaves cleave the +air over the pine-needle carpet of the forest, and when this was +impossible on account of the bogs and morasses, which would swallow +them down to unknown depths, they swung through the tops of the +sighing pines until they had flanked their unsuspecting foes; then, +just as the sun was setting, they struck terror to the hearts of the +Seminoles by an unexpected volley from their rifles and by frightful +yells, + + "As if all the fiends from heaven that fell, + Had pealed the banner-cry of hell." + +The red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps +and river straight upon the ambushed army of Jackson, who mowed them +down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes. The spirits +of the Indians were crushed, and the remnant of a once powerful tribe +fled into the vast, to the whites, inaccessible everglades, where +their descendants now live on their fertile oasis, which is cultivated +by their negro slaves, who never heard of Abraham Lincoln, or his +proclamation of emancipation. "Old Hickory" and his gallant soldiers +have all the glory; but their heroic allies returned quietly to their +huts, their "hog and hominy," as unconcernedly as if they had done +nothing more important than catching a trout or shooting a quail. + +The stolidity and patience of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that +of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for +twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being +encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of +a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in +scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable composure as before. + +Although almost invariably poor so far as money is concerned, owing +to their love of ease, these children of nature are proverbially +hospitable, and you are welcome as his guest until you eat his last +bit of food unless you offer him compensation therefor; if you do that +his wrath knows no bounds, as I once found to my sorrow. + +I had been wandering with three other horseback riders for a day and +night lost in the woods; we were hungry and tired to the verge of +collapse, when suddenly up went the heads and tails of our quadruped +friends, who neighed with delight, and dashed pell mell toward a huge +building or rather connected aggregation of buildings which loomed +up on a hill in the pines. We made the welkin ring with our saluting +shouts, but there was no response, the settlement was deserted; we +stabled and fed our horses in the near-by barn, and led by a Floridian +friend entered the largest house. Had manna fallen to us from heaven +our surprise could not have been greater; a huge table was before us +covered with enormous quantities of roasted meats,--venison, quail, +wild turkey, hoe-cakes and fruits galore. We fell upon the provisions +like famished wolves, and when at last our "aching voids" were filled, +we were appalled at the havoc we had wrought; still no hosts appeared +to welcome or rebuke. + +On the wide mantel was a quantity of homemade cigars from which those +of us who were "slaves to the filthy weed" made selections, and on the +broad piazza were illustrating the wise man's definition of a cigar, +"a roll of nausea with fire on one end and a fool on the other," when +the air resounded with loud reports like pistol-shots and shouts of +"whoa, whe, gee," rebel yells and barking of dogs; then a multitude +of cattle dashed into view urged on by a cavalcade of men, women and +children. The drivers gave us only casual glances until the round-up +was completed and the enclosing gates shut, when the rollicking crowd +came trooping toward us, and our guilty consciences made us fearful +of dire punishment for our peculations. Then a tall, long-haired +patriarch saluted us with "Howdy, strangers, howdy," shook hands with +us heartily, and with a wave of his hand, "my wife and children, +gents," glanced at the impoverished table, when he shouted "glad you +had good appetites, strangers, mother, guess you'll have to tune up +some more cooking." + +The whole crowd gave us a marching salute, and made the water fly in +a big tub where they performed much-needed ablutions, and soon, +hoe-cakes were smoking, pork and sausages sizzling, doughnuts +swelling, manipulated by the many willing hands: then the whole army +"fell to" the abundant feast. It was wonderful and laughable to see +that crowd of sons, daughters, grand-sons, grand-daughters--fifty in +number--all one family, "stow away the prog." + +Each one reminded you of the Irishman's pig who was said to devour a +half-bushel of boiled potatoes, and when he was outside of all that, +he, himself, would not fill a two quart measure. What a clatter of +dishes as the buxom girls helped mother "clear up"! Then we had fun at +the milking; it required a dozen strong men to hold one kicking cow +while a woman, squeezed out a little milk from the reluctant udders, +though she gave down freely later when the ravenous calf took hold. If +the men relaxed for a minute, up goes the irate cow's heels, away goes +the pail "dowsing" the maid with the foaming milk from head to foot, +anon the wild-eyed brute would down horns and charge, the milkeress +takes to her heels, then a flight of lassoos, over goes the frantic +animal onto her back, the ropes tighten until she was conquered and +forced to "give down some of her juice." One dose of this medicine +was usually sufficient for any wild cow, and forever after she would +"stand and deliver in peace." + +Shall we ever forget the feeding of the pigs? Oh, the wild charge they +made when they saw the feed troughs filled! "Everyone for himself, and +the devil take the hindermost;" one huge razor-back stretches himself +at full length on the "dough" in his generous attempt to prevent the +rest from "making hogs of themselves"; an indignant young Cracker +lassoos the hind legs, and by a dextrous pull sends his swine-ship +whirling and rending high heaven with his lamentations. + +At last all are stuffed as full as our "grandmother's sassingers," and +then reclining in the sun, they express by their contented grunts and +snores, ecstatic rapture as they pile on flesh for the stuffing of +their carniverous owners. Then we watched a giant Crackeress feeding +what she called her "feathered hogs." With frenzied eyes, whirring +wings and waring beaks, all rushed to cheat the others and to secure +the whole earth, each for himself, very like many "two-legged hogs +without feathers"; a hen seizes a hoe-cake of her own size and +frantically rushes away in the vain hope of devouring it in peace in +some sequestered nook; but argus, envious eyes are watching, and her +uncles and her aunts pursue, striking with beaks and claws to rob her +of her big all. It was a minature Wall Street and stock-exchange, +where human hogs and foul birds of prey fight to the death to plunder +their own brothers. + +And now gently the night stole o'er us-- + + "Night, so holy and so calm, + That the moonbeams hushed the spirit, + Like the voice of prayer or psalm" + +and until the "wee sma hours," while three generations listened +intently, we swapped stories with our generous "Crackers." + +Our patriarch host had been a captain in the rebel army until he had +his "belly full of fight," as he quaintly termed it. His wife had +blest him with an even score of boys and girls, all now living in this +delightful climate, where he said, "no one ever died; they simply +dried up and blowed away into the happy hunting-grounds beyond the +stars." When a baby was born or a child married, this chief of the +tribe "hitched on" another house, until now the one-story dwellings +covered an acre of his vast lands. + +He and his tribe raised on his great farm here in Bradford County +everything he needed to eat, drink, or to wear: his wife and daughters +spun and wove their clothing from the cotton grown and ginned on his +own fields; the delicious syrup and sugar which adorned and sweetened +the mountains of rye pancakes and floods of home-raised coffee, was +made from the cane which was grown, and ground on his own soil. +He grew his own tobacco, tea, peanuts, oranges, figs, pineapples, +bananas; he fattened his cattle and hogs on his own cassava and the +abundant wild grasses; his flocks of sheep "cut their own fodder," and +the wool and mutton was all clear profit. This "Cracker" family was +the happiest and most independent I ever saw on earth. + +All around this plantation are millions of uncultivated acres where +the wretches of our city slums could be equally happy if our Carnegies +and Rockefellers would only loan the funds to colonize them there. +The millions of dollars, now worse than wasted by our selfish +millionaires? could thus soon make this earth a paradise like to that +above. After enjoying this free delightful life for several days, and +we were on the point of departing, I said to our host, "Captain, we +have enjoyed your hospitality immensely, and I hope you will allow me +to reciprocate," holding toward him a bank-note. + +Instantly his eyes flashed angry fire, he shot out his fist to strike +me, when a neighbor said, "Don't hit him Cap, he don't know no better, +he's a Yank." "Wall Yank," drawled this six feet of fighting man, +"seein' ye don't know no better, I'll let ye off this time; but I +don't keep no tarvern, and when me and my family come yure way, we'll +all stop with yew, that'll even it up." As I looked at the fifty +yawning caverns of chewing mouths, and reflected upon the cost of +feeding them in Boston for even one day, I thanked God that I had not +given him my card, and we rode away amid ear-splitting cheers and +waving of hands, each one of which resembled in size the tail-board of +a coal-cart. + +On another occasion while scouring the Florida country for lands for +colonizing purposes in company with a native, the night caught us in +the dense forest; our horses stumbled over immense fallen trees, the +owls hooted, the wild cats screamed, the thunder roared, occasionally +a pine fell splintered by the lightning, the rain fell in torrents, +and we seemed destined to shiver all the long black hours supperless +and comfortless, when our eyes were greeted by the cheerful light +shining through the open door of a log hut; a dozen curs gave tongue +and went for our legs till a sharp yell from within sent them yelping +away. A genuine Cracker appeared, and seeing our dripping forms in the +electric flash, he quietly said, "Lite strangers, lite, jest in time, +plenty of hog and hominy." He led our tired steeds into the leanto, +fed them, and ushered us into his one-room shanty, where his lank wife +and a dozen children silently made room for us around a rough board +table. "Mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and +the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of +a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it +browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking +skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in +a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering +appetite. Then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to +satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the +wild wood. "Come, chilluns, to bed," said our host, and they were all +stacked one over the other on the one corn-shuck couch where a chorus +of snores proved they were in the land of dreams. + +Our host relapsed into silence and seemed to be pondering some +profound problem in his mind; but suddenly blurted out, "Strangers, +reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice +pison nor nuthin'? reckon I was born dry!" My guide in reply produced +a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that +Kunnel." There was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out, +but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his +cavernlike mouth with a joyous "Ah, that's the rale stuff, have some +mother? The woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to +drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns. + +"Strangers," ejaculated this typical Cracker, "this is the dog-gondest +place ter git er drink yer ever seed. Aour caounty went dry last +'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum +fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't +let me hev it 'thout Doc's 'scripshun--went to Doc, wouldn't give me +'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed +on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke +for three weeks ahed. Dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum +erlong. Naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo." + +Then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs +to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his +den by declining, obeyed. The next morning we found ourselves set up +alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife +were snoring on the bed. Verily, "For ways that are dark and tricks +that are vain, the heathen 'Cracker' is peculiar." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +LOOKING FORWARD. + + +When I was writing the last words of the preceding chapter of this +book, and was about to + + "Heed my tired pen's entreaty, + And say, oh, friends, _valete_," + +I seemed to be trying to awake from a trance in which I had been the +unwilling instrument, compelled by an intelligence extraneous to +myself to expose to an incredulous public the most sacred scenes and +thoughts of a lifetime. + +I had decided to relieve the patience of my readers with the +thirty-first chapter; but when the retrospective kaleidoscope closed, +a vision rose before me so vivid, so real, that I am constrained to +describe it in the hope that the warning may prevent the tragic part +of the dream from becoming a reality. + +It is Christmas day in the year of our Lord, 1910; the thunder-cloud, +which for many years had been increasing in blackness, now surcharged +with pent-up lightnings, and overspreading our entire national +horizon, bursts with the fury of a cyclone. + +The great masses of the people had for a long time watched with +ever-increasing rage the seeming conspiracy of the employing and +professional classes to bind to their chariot-wheels those who labored +with their hands. Gigantic trusts had "cornered" all the necessaries +of life, and a few lily-fingered plutocrats in their marble palaces +dictated to the horny-handed sons of toil the amount of their beggarly +wages, and the prices they must pay for every needed article, until +every job of work and every bone of charity was fought for by +multitudes who mercilessly stabbed each other in their mad fury to +assuage the pangs of hunger. + +When the people rallied at the polls, and elected to the high offices +members of their own unions, the millionaires bribed these officials +to obey their every command, and these mercenary law-makers, as often +as chosen, joined the ever-growing ranks of the oppressors. + +Even the almost innumerable colleges throughout the Republic, whose +treasuries had absorbed countless millions of dollars, had proved +a measureless curse, as they had become mere cramming machines and +nurseries of lawlessness and brutality. The great universities had +long idolized plug-ugly football kickers and baseball sluggers to +the utter ignoring of scholarship, until the hordes of eleemosinary +prize-fighters among the so-called students created a reign of terror +where they were located, and far surpassed in ferocity even the +gladiators of ancient Rome. The annual "athletic contest" between the +two greatest universities was fought out with almost inconceivable +fury on "Soldiers' Field." + +Irresistible bodies met the immovable, cheered on by yelling legions, +each phalanx would conquer or die, and die they did by scores; they +kicked and slugged like maniacs until separated by the combined +police-forces of the surrounding cities, and more were killed and +wounded than in the entire Spanish War. When night fell, thousands of +collegians invaded the capitol of the State, and with savage yells and +wedge-rushes drove all citizens from the streets; they closed every +theatre, pelting the actors with whiskey bottles stolen from the +saloons in which they had smashed thousands of dollars' worth of +costly furniture; they stole every sign from stores, which caught +their fancy; no woman was respected, until their orgies were stopped +by the bayonets of the national guard. + +Such "scholars" as these had for many years been ground through these +educational mills by thousands, crowding the ranks of the professional +classes to suffocation. Legions of unscrupulous lawyers, more +heartless than pirates or brigands in Bulgaria, infested every city +and town, busy as demons stirring up strife, drilling witnesses to +perjury, bull-dozing the innocent even unto death with the full +connivance of the plunder-sharing judges, until the jails were crowded +with victims who could not pay their outrageous fees. + +These lawyer-sharks packed caucuses, stuffed ballot-boxes, and thereby +elected themselves to legislatures where they enacted unjust laws to +subserve their own iniquitous depredations. + +But this nefarious pillaging was not confined to the courts alone: +armies of patientless doctors must be fed at the expense of the +long-suffering public, and as all the people were not _naturally_ sick +all the time for the benefit of the quacks, these so-called doctors +prevailed upon their legislative college-chums to pass laws compelling +all to be innoculated with virus, ostensibly to render them immune to +various contagions, but really to furnish unlimited plunder to their +"family physicians." + +Even the women caught the craze for "higher education" to fit +themselves for "kid-glove" professional emoluments; they, too, tore +each other's hair, scratched each other's faces in frantic football +rushes, tumbling over each other in the wild scrimmage for fees, +leaving the kitchens to the ignorant foreigners, who ruined digestions +with preposterous cookery, which would have killed a nation of +ostriches. + +The great Republic might have survived even such horrors as these had +it not been for the out-breaking of another craze more terrible far +than an army with gattling guns, I refer to the most destructive of +all scourges, the mania for stock-gambling. The crafty, unscrupulous +managers of bucket-shops, stock-exchanges, and brokerages filled the +columns of the press with manufactured accounts of vast fortunes +made in an hour by imaginary investors of small sums, and at once +multitudes of farmers, mechanics, and even teachers abandoned their +honest pursuits to squander their hard earnings in the vain attempts +to "buck the tiger," and "beard the lion in his den." + +The inevitable result followed: the lion and the lamb lay down +together, with the lamb inside the lion, thousands of formerly +well-to-do people were pauperized. Thousands of farms were abandoned, +hundreds of factories were deserted, while the fiendish, cheating +boss-gambler sharks were gorged to repletion with their infamous +plunder; then followed a frenzy of hatred on the part of the masses +against the classes: city treasuries were depleted to feed the +starving with free soup, the cities were crowded with the desperate, +hungry multitudes who had lost their all, and bloody riots capped the +climax of a hell on earth. + +From the cupola of the State House in Boston, a little group of +citizens gazed upon a scene which would daunt the stoutest heart; +these five men standing motionless and speechless under the gilded +dome are of widely differing stations in life, as far apart as the +poles in culture, education, and creed, but their faces wore the same +expressions of profound sadness mingled with stern determination. + +The tall man on the right is the Governor of the State of +Massachusetts, a millionaire, a classic face showing his aristocratic +lineage in every feature, a scholarly, furrowed brow, dressed with +scrupulous care, and looking at the frightful scenes with the +dauntless eye of an eagle. He is the chosen leader of the Republican +party which for many years has controlled the destinies of the "Old +Bay State." Next stands a man in every way in strong contrast to his +refined companion, a short, stout, ruddy-faced son of Ireland, but +now Mayor of the city of Boston, a Democrat of Democrats, carelessly +dressed, a political boss, who under ordinary circumstances would +never have affiliated with his lordly neighbor. + +Next in the line is a smooth-faced portly man, clad in fine +broadcloth, unmistakably a Catholic Priest; next is a man of soldierly +bearing whose uniform and shoulder-straps proclaim him to be the +commander of the national guard of the State; close beside the +guardsman is the stalwart superintendent of the city police. For a few +minutes only, these men were spell-bound by the terrible scenes before +them. A mob of ragged wild-eyed men and women are straggling along the +street, some wearing the red caps of Anarchy, firing revolvers at the +windows of the houses and at every well-dressed person in sight, some +waved strange banners labelled "Bread or blood," "Down with the rich," +"Shoot the soldiers"; many blood-red flags are waved with demoniacal +yells. + +Directly in front of this howling mob is massed the First Corps of +Cadets, and the 9th Regiment of Irish militia; soldiers are seen +falling in the ranks, and blood crimsoned the snow, alarm bells are +clanging, flames are bursting from the elegant buildings, tremendous +explosions are heard which seemed to shake the foundations of the +city. Ferocious men and women are seen looting the stores, drinking +plundered liquors; the off-scouring of all nations are pillaging, +burning, murdering; the spirit of hell seems in full control on this +natal day of the Prince of Peace. Still the national guard did not +fire. + +"Father," cried the Governor, "will the 9th Regiment kill their own +brothers if ordered to shoot?" + +"My children will obey orders, sir," quietly replied the priest. + +"Then in heaven's name, General, Marconi the order; if we wait longer +everything is ruined." + +The Mayor's eyes flashed fire; he seemed about to countermand--the +priest lifted his hand, "Brother, we must," he said--the Mayor +hesitated; he saw many of his own constituents among the rioters; his +face was like that of a corpse, then, "Order," he gasped. + +The General touched the keys before him, the Colonel of the 9th +flinched as if struck by a bullet, then a quick command, the clear +notes of the bugle sounded, the Irish soldiers hesitated, glanced at +the cupola; the priest with outstretched arms confirmed the mandate; +the repeating rifles were levelled, and crash upon crash went the +volleys of bullets into the bosoms of the mob. Again pealed the bugle +note, and quick as a flash forward rushed the dandy Cadets and the +Irish soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in a wild bayonet charge. + +Screams, groans and curses rend the air, scores of the rioters are +weltering in their gore, the rest broke, fled, leaving the streets +strewn with the dead and wounded. + +"Marconi the hospitals," said the Governor; and in a trice the +ambulances are bearing away the sufferers to be tenderly cared for, as +if they were the best, instead of the worst of the human race. + +"Brothers," said the Governor, "shall we order the troops and police +in every city to fire? It will be merciful to end this horrible +suspense." "Amen," came the response from the bowed heads of his +companions; instantly the command was Marconied to every place which +was in a state of anarchy. + +Suddenly came the crash of musketry from many parts of the city, +accompanied by the grumbling bass of the gattling guns, then the +defiant yells ceased, and all was quiet. + +"Your Excellency," calmly spoke the General, "here are Marconis from +every city that the fight is over, the mobs have dispersed. + +"Thank God," came the chorus from each in this remarkable quintette +who had co-operated in the carefully-considered plans which had so +quickly brought peace to the distracted city and State. + +"Brothers," said the Governor, "we must feed the hungry, and give +work to the people of our overcrowded cities: there is but one way to +accomplish this, we must colonize the unemployed upon the Southern and +Western lands, the people must go back to the bosom of mother earth +where they can have independent homes of their own; there are no +public funds for this purpose, and the rich must furnish the necessary +money for transportation, or the Republic is dead. I will personally +guarantee the funds necessary to furnish homes for all who will go +from Massachusetts to cultivate the unimproved lands in Florida and +Colorado, which, with others, I purchased years ago to provide for +this crisis which many prophesied was sure to come. I will at once +telegraph to secure the co-operation of the Governors of all the +States in our Union; the evening papers will announce our plans to the +world." + +In a few minutes the lightnings were flashing full accounts of this, +the most important meeting ever held, throughout the length and +breadth of the nation; the responses were the most enthusiastic and +thrilling ever known in the history of mankind. Money in vast sums was +wired by the rich to every Governor, for the purpose of transforming +the poverty-stricken of the slums into self-supporting self-respecting +farmers; railroad presidents tendered free transportation; one touch +of nature made the whole world kin. + +In an uncompleted tunnel under the harbor of Boston was gathered a +vast crowd of wild-eyed Anarchists, and desperate hungry wretches from +the vilest dens, who had just sworn with unspeakable oaths to burn and +plunder the city that very night, to murder all the rich, to commit +outrages no fiend had ever dared to dream before. When they were about +to rush out and let loose the dogs of carnage and unspeakable horrors, +suddenly in the glare of their torches appeared the priest who an hour +before, had played such an important part in the State House cupola +conference. A hush fell upon the rabble as they recognized their +spiritual adviser; with a voice of almost super-human power, he +shouted, + +"Brothers, there is no excuse for murder, no cause for lawlessness, +money is flowing in like water to furnish homes for us all away from +these stifling factories out in God's pure air of the prairies and +fields of the great West and the sunny South. For the sake of your +wives and children do no violence; assemble all to-morrow morning in +the amphitheatre, where you will find food in abundance, until we are +located upon our own portion of God's green earth." + +The effect of these sympathetic words was wonderful; malice and frenzy +were driven from the minds of these children of the slums, even as the +devils were exorcised from the Magdalen of old, and inspired with new +hopes and holier aspirations they vanished into the shades of evening. + +All night long the Salvation Army, the Volunteers of America, hundreds +of every nationality and creed, labored strenuously in making +preparations to feed the hungry, clothe the shivering, and care for +the sick. When the morning dawned fair and balmy beyond all precedent +for this season of the year, the scene in the vast amphitheatre +baffled description, over which the heavenly host rejoiced as never +before. The united bands of the city discoursed sweet music from the +balcony, from steaming cauldrons the multitudes were fed to repletion +with nourishing delicious food; the sick, the weak, the women and +children were abundantly supplied in their homes, all seemed like one +great family, the rich and the poor clasped hands like brothers, and +the spirit of peace on earth good will toward men reigned supreme. +When all had been refreshed, while the bands played "Hail to the +Chief," the Governor, with a great number of the most prominent in +church, state, and philanthropy, filed in upon the rostrum, welcomed +by enthusiastic cheers. As the applause died away His Excellency said, + +"In the city hives are clustered far too many human bees, we must +swarm out into the country where there is honey enough and to spare, + + "'Go back to your mother, ye children, for shame, + Who have wandered like truants, for riches and fame! + With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, + She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + + Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, + And breathe, like your eagles, the air of our plains; + Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives + Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives.' + +"You, who are strong, and who delight in buffetting the cold and snows, +should go to the deserted New England farms or to the broad prairies +of the West, the graneries of the world; but you who shrivel in the +wintry blasts, and who are subject to rheumatism and coughs, should go +to the sunny southlands where you can work and rejoice in a climate of +perpetual summer. + +"We have funds in abundance to secure lands for all, build houses, +furnish essentials for tilling the soil, and provisions, until crops +can be raised; this money you can repay in easy installments to be +used to equip future applicants. All wishing to secure these homes +without money and without price can apply at the State House +to-morrow." + +A glad shout which reached the stars and gladdened the angelic hosts +was the immediate response to these tidings, and poverty was banished +forever from the Great Republic. + +The scene changes--from stygian darkness, desolation and gloom of +dingy, malodorous factories and streets, where ragged, hopeless +beggars-for-work delve and curse, to the glorious sunlight and balmy +air of the "Land of Flowers." Here we see pretty vine-clad cottages +embowered in orange groves, and surrounded by luxuriant harvests of +everything to make life worth the living. Here we see the murderous +villains of the Boston Christmas-day mobs, no longer blood-thirsty, +but smiling and happy as they listen to the songs of birds, the +bleating of their own flocks, the laughter of their delighted +children, while the prosperous fathers "tickle the bosom of their own +mother earth with the hoe to make it laugh with abundant crops for man +and beast." The grateful citizens have named their towns in honor of +their generous benefactors, thus establishing for Carneiges, Morgans +and Rockefellers monuments to their memories which will endure +forever. + +Thus was removed for all time the antagonism between labor and +capital; thus were envy and class hatreds banished from society, and +thus was our glorious Republic secured upon firm foundations, which +will endure "until the final day breaks and all earthly shadows flee +away." + +Thus at last the prophetic vision of the poet seemed to be realized in +"the land of the free and the home of the brave." + + "One dream through all the ages + Has led the world along: + The wise words of the sages, + The poet in his song, + The prophet in his vision,-- + All these have caught the gleam, + Have caught the light elysian, + Have told the haunting dream. + + This dream is that the story + The ages have unrolled + Shall blossom in the glory + Of one long age of gold; + That every man and woman + Shall find life glad and free, + That in whate'er is human + Is hid Divinity. + + The rod of old oppression + One day shall broken be; + Those held in night's possession + The light of hope shall see; + For tears there shall be laughing, + And peace shall be for strife, + And thirsty lips be quaffing + The wine of glorious life. + + The rage and noise of battle + Shall sink, and fall to peace, + The lowing of the cattle, + The fruit and corn increase; + No more the wide sky under + The rattle of the drum, + No more the cannon's thunder,-- + God's kingdom shall have come. + + Some day, dearest, where skies are bright, + We'll dwell in the beauty of love and light; + And sorrow will seem + Like a far-off dream, + And life shall be morning, that knows no night! + + Some day, dearest--that perfect day + For which we knelt in the dark to pray + We'll reap the rest + That God deems best-- + In the beautiful vales of the far-away!" + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman from Everywhere, by James Henry Foss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE *** + +***** This file should be named 12193.txt or 12193.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12193/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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