USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Picturesque Hampden : 1500 illustrations > Part 5
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LOGMEN AT WORK.
On the road back to the city we pass through Elmwood, a populous suburban village on high ground, well above the mills of the city and the lower valley. Many well-built cottages and fine mansions here congregate and make scattering connection with the city to the north. On the borders of the village is an interesting old burying ground, overlooking the leagues and leagues of fertile valley spreading away to the south and enlivened here and there with bright reaches of the Connecticut. The gray, moss-grown old stones seem like a part of nature, so quiet and harmo- nious is their coloring, and they give to eye and mind a soothing sense of fitness which the white marbles of to-day entirely lack.
THE RIVER AND SHORES AT THE SAWMILLS.
were found, and after the overseer had gotten out what stone he wanted, the work lagged and was discontinued. Was this humbug or not? One good old lady used to say :
" Where folks believe in witches, witches are
But when they don't believe, there are none there."
In this case there was wide belief that Tim was murdered, and that his ghost really did appear.
From Back street it is only a short ways to Ashley ponds, Holyoke's chief source of water supply. You catch glimpses of the gleaming water from the crests of the rolling hills as you approach, and the look across the ponds on a bright afternoon, as they shine in the sunlight and link away into the distance, is very pleasing.
Farther down the valley is the prettily named district of Ingleside. It is a strip of meadow land along the river, rising a little way back into low lines of hills, where are many clustering fields of ap- ple orchards. It is a beauti- ful region at any season, but is especially so in blossom time, when the orchards are mists of white petals and the fresh green of the grass fields is everywhere broken
28
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN
A LYMAN STREET CORNER.
with the golden flecks of the dandelions and buttercups. The lowland here is a famous region for market gardening, and several large dairy farms have here a home. The road in the valley is more than ordinarily smooth and well kept, and is, therefore, a favorite resort for driving and bicycling, both of Holyoke and Springfield people. Evenings, in particular, there is a busy passing of every variety of four-wheeled vehicle, and an almost continual flitting of cyclers. The pleasant- est evenings are those when the moon shines full above the low hills in the east and floods all the landscape with its soft light.
In following this road northward, one comes upon the borders of Holyoke again at the village of Springdale, where, under the high sand bluffs along the west, is quite a well-grown hamlet. Elmwood is on the height above, and some of its houses are on the very edge of the declivity and loom up oddly in bare outline against the sky.
The mills of the city are now within sight, across a little meadow with a bordering of fine elms on its other edge. For miles along the canals is one great brick mill after another, each with one or more towering chimneys. The level below is filled with the crowding tenements of the help. It is a region in the main barren of trees, save where one or two
A BASHFUL COUPLE.
many in the family dependent on the workers, as to make any saving next to impossible ; again, the wages received are so low as to keep the family all the time on the verge of want. But lack of thrift - and by thrift I mean habits which bring a saving above expenses - can be traced, in not a few cases, to lack of brains or lack of forethought. There is about humanity a great deal of the grasshopper of the old fable. He has a gay time while summer lasts. He eats and drinks, and follows every pleasure that chances to attract him ; but when winter comes, with its cold and hunger, he goes begging to the door of the thriftier ant.
Those workers who have saved a little ahead, are able to tide over a spell of slack work or a season of illness. When work fails or sickness invades a family, it is a serious
THE FAMILY GOATS.
matter, even among the more thrifty; but with those who spend each week all their income, suffering, unless outside aid is prompt, is inevitable. It is an important matter that such families shall receive at such times friendly help. But the assistance must be judicious or it works harm. City aid brings with it a certain loss of self-respect. Independence is impaired, and there is less personal effort afterwards and a readiness to go begging to the city when necessity does not compel. If self- respect is gone and begging, either of the city or of individ- uals seems to pay, then is there danger that the family will not take up work again, but will become chronic paupers. For the purpose of giving this temporary help to those in need, the city has the use of the income of the Whiting Street fund, left for that purpose. In October of each year, $1,400 is at the disposal of the committee in charge. Each case of want is investigated, and food, clothing and fuel is provided to suit he need. No money payments are made. Wise expenditure of money entrusted to the needy is not to be depended on, and the effect is not good. All the clothing called for is readily found among the well-to-do of the city, so that food and fuel are chief items of expense. The $1,400 is exhausted before the winter is through ; but where there is real want there is quick response, and there is no suffering because of lack of funds.
It may be added that in case of sickness, the mills where the worker was employed generally render some aid. How much the charity and its form depends on the character of the manager who dispenses it. This leads to the consideration of certain phases of the relation of employer to employed. The following story, though commonplace in its details, illustrates some points very well. A man went to one of the mills seeking work. He said : 'I've been a drinking man and that's the way I lost my last place. I've been everywhere for a job and can't get one. I have a family and 1 must have work or starve."
The employer called in the su- perintendent of a department. "Have you a va- cancy this man can fill?" he asked.
The reply was " No." The em- ployer sent for a second superin- tendent and re- peated the ques- tion to him, and received a like answer.
" Well," said he, "one of you two must find something for this man to do. He
DOORSTEP FRIENDS.
little parks occupy the angles at the meeting of the streets. The district is densely populated. In fact, there is enough tenement life in Holyoke to bring the average number of persons in each house up to over eleven the city through, a number which few cities in the whole country exceed. It is to be hoped that as time goes on, cottage life will become more general.
As a rule, the workers in the mills spend, day by day or week by week, the full amount of their incomes. There are the thrifty exceptions, who start accounts with the savings banks and little by little win a growing competence and independence; but these are comparatively few. Often there are so
AN ALLEY-UPPER DWIGHT STREET.
29
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
LYMAN STREET-OUT OF WORK.
can't find work, and he and his family must live. But, remember, just as soon as he gets drunk, turn him off."
The result was the man had a place once more; but the sequel is another unhappy story of weakness. In the course of time the man had to have his spree, and in consequence he was at once turned adrift. It is certain that while drinking habits may not often prevent a man from getting a place or prevent his keeping it, they do count against him.
One of the mill workers presents an- other aspect of mill life, in the words which I shall try to put down as I heard them: "There are some of the mills treat their help just like machines. They don't seem to think of them as human beings at all. They don't think of their comfort, and they seem never to think of their having feelings. They don't care a cent whether the help live or die, come or go. And the help get a sort of don't care feeling, too, in such mills. They have no, interest in doing well for their employers but only in getting their pay and keeping their places. Of course a too easy man will be imposed on. He has to have some energy and firmness. But where a man is hard on his help, and always pushing them to get just as much out of them as he can, they will return just as little. The agent who is both kind and considerate as well as firm, awakens a friendly feeling among the help, and an interest that gives better returns than the hard master secures. I know of one agent who used to remember all his help,
PLAYING MARBLES.
and bow to them when he met them on the street. You don't know how much happiness that gave us, and we did better work for it, too. I know of one mill which always takes pains to inquire after sick help, and those whom sickness keeps out always have their places again when they recover if it takes them a year. That is one of the best mills I know of. They are kind and they give good pay, and the result is they can get the most skilled workers and they stay with them many years."
South Holyoke used to be known as " Tiger Town." It was not built up then as it is now with close brick blocks, but was occupied by little scattering houses. It was notable in those days as the home of a lot of "toughs." There was a good deal of the rough, drinking element, and it is said a man couldn't go down there to sell a load of apples without losing two-thirds of them. Happily it has outgrown this old reputation, but I can say that to-day one needs a guard to go through there with a camera. There are sure
A REAR VIEW.
to be crowds of children in the doorways and about the streets and alleys, and they at once recognize the instrument and its uses and the air begins to resound with cries of " Please take my picture, mister ? " A procession begins to follow me there- upon, and when I stop to set up the cam- era, the crowd quite hedges me in, and it requires no small effort to make them scatter from before it when I get ready to take off the cap. More than once I had to give up entirely, for the crowd insisted on being in the picture and blankly refused to move.
As I wandered about there would be incidents like the following : "Come, Jimmy, and have your pitcher taken!" cries a little girl.
"You have to take your hat off," says
A HOLYOKE MEAT CART.
A LYMAN STREET VIEW OF ST. JEROME'S CHURCH.
30
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
A VIEW OF THE CITY FROM MONEY-HOLE HILL.
Jimmy, who, I suppose, recollects some experience in a photograph gallery.
"No, you have not," affirms the little girl.
"Oh, Artie, Artie," cries another, " come here and get yer pitcher taken for nothin'. He'll take it for you for nothin.' Oh, but he'll make a dandy pitcher."
"Is there a bird in there?" asked a small boy, pointing at the camera. " You got a bird in there, ain't you? I had my pitcher taken once. The man had a big thing like what you got. He said there was a bird in there. I heard him squealin'. Gosh, but I was skeered." Children in their photo- graphs often have a pop-eyed look of fright on their faces, but I never knew what the matter was before.
THE CLEARY HOUSE -DWIGHT STREET.
In the tenement districts I was pretty sure to have a mob of children following me, questioning, advising and disputing, and offering aid of various sorts. They felt it an honor if I would allow one of them to take hold of the end of my tripod. Then I was many times accosted with, "Want me to carry your box, mister?" The boy was ready to do the carrying for a dime, or if I
RESIDENCE OF CASPER RANGER.
wouldn't pay that, for five cents, and if I wouldn't pay that, for nothing. If he made no financial gain, he had won a position of honor in the procession.
Whenever I informed a group that I had taken a picture, there were at once cries of, "Let me see it; let me have one," etc. I explained that it spoiled the picture to take it out, but this was not understood, and there were reproachful cries of, "Aw, you ought to leave me see it," and " He didn't take no pitcher, he's makin' fun of yer." At times those who wanted their pictures taken, agreed to pay me if I would only undertake the job. 1 had many offers of one cent, two cents and five cents, rarely more, and though
it is said there is profit in doing a very large business, I did not see my way clear to accepting those offers. Many older people asked me to take their pictures, but almost invariably affirmed a timidity about it, saying that they were afraid they would break the glass. I don't suppose there is a photograph studio in our land where this remark about breaking the glass is not heard one or more times every day. It seems to be a standard joke, and I have heard it so many times in preparing "Picturesque Hampden," that it has grown quite wearisome.
It so happened that I went into the lower districts of Holyoke on April Fool's day. I had to use care not to respond hastily to the
THE HIGHLAND ENGINE HOUSE.
remarks fired at me, and proceeded about my business in a con- siderable state of uncertainty. Attractive parcels on the sidewalk, and even fat purses with no owners in sight, I passed with scarce a glance.
" Mister, you dropped your handkerchief," calls a voice. "Mis- ter, your shoe's all tored." I feared there might be truth in the assertions, but dared not betray the weakness to look and see.
At noon I happened to be opposite the Lyman mills, and waited a few moments to watch the help flock out. Last of all came three girls, who noted my camera and began to chatter at me. " Here, take our pictures. Right this way. Here, take mine. Ain't I good look- in' enough?" etc., etc. When they had passed, I noticed that a big sheet of paper was pinned to the back of the middle one, whereon was this motto, "MUSICAL BOXES." It seemed very appro- priate.
The best view of the lower city is to be ob- tained from Depot Hill, now being remodeled into a park. It is a high,
ARCHITECTS Sina .JU Am
THE CITY HOSPITAL.
PINE STREET-A FIRE OF LEAVES.
31
HAMPDEN.
PICTURESQUE
great rate. The man seemed disturbed, and as I passed him he cast a glance in the girl's direc- tion and said, sarcastic- ally, "You'll never be lonesome while that kid's around."
One more will end this list of street incidents. I was in a narrow alley below High street, getting a group of children into order, when a back door opened and forth came a man. He looked over my group and began talking with me. "There," said he, singling out one of the little fellows, "that boy
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
sandy knoll, just east of the railroad station, crowned by a few tall pines and chestnuts and growths of bushes, and crossed by several well-worn footpaths. This, at least, is what it has been. But I sup- pose it will be a case where "the desert shall blossom like the rose " when the park idea is completely realized.
Easterly are many acres of lowland still unoccupied, and there are various open squares in the more thickly populated districts vacant, except for a shed or two and some mammoth sign- boards. These fields are utilized by the children as playgrounds. Last fall there was a grand drill of soldiers in Holyoke, and play at soldiering at once became the fashion among the small boys. I made a picture of one little company drilling with their wooden guns and swords. 1 had hardly fin- ished when a youth informed me that those fellows I'd taken a picture of were "kids." He said, " I'll get you out an army that's something like, if you'll take 'em." He expressed great contempt for the "kids," and for me, too, when I would not agree to his proposition.
It was on a near street, one frosty autumn morning, that I met a stumpy, red-faced little man, followed by a small dog. In the far distance, up the almost de- serted street, was a little girl, her arms filled with grocery parcels, yipping and calling to the dog at a
A FIRE ON THE HIGHLANDS.
seems alive - like some mighty giant bound to toil, who would be free and chafes beneath his burden. Inside the gatehouse is an apart- ment where is a big boiler, and a small room containing a bed and a few chairs, and decorated on its walls with a few photographs and theatri- cal posters, and a long cor- ridor where is the machinery to shut the twelve great gates. A gateman occupies the building. There is not a great deal to do ordinarily, but a pile of floodwood on the northern platform of the building shows him to be industriously inclined, and in the season he catches lamper eels. The gateman has a monopoly of this eel business, and with nets, hands or prong he secures great quantities of them. They are repulsive looking creatures, but no doubt taste better than they look.
Holyoke is famed ; the
keeps his face clean. He's all right. I don't know about those others. I'd rather not have them around here." It was a little odd to measure character by the dirt or lack of it on a boy's face, and yet, after all, there is some sense in the idea.
The dam is the source of the city's prosperity and the most striking feature of the city's sur- roundings, and one more visit to it before clos- ing this article seems fitting. We will enter the picket gate and follow the narrow plank walk leading to the brick build- ing over the gate where the water is let into the canal. From beneath the building the waters come in a surging, boiling flood. There is a dash of big waves and a spiteful plunging about the arches of the gatehouse, that greatly impresses one with the power of water. It almost
THE BURNING HOUSE.
world over as the "Paper City." For the size and number of its paper mills no other city is its equal. About two hundred tons of paper are manufactured there each day, and in its various forms there is hardly a nook or a corner of the globe where civilized man has penetrated but that this reaches. But the city's inter- ests are not confined to paper making. The center of the place is filled with factory after factory, foundries and machine shops, all teeming with active, bustling
THE OLD FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
HIGHLAND METHODIST CHURCH.
32
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN
NORTHAMPTON STREET -THE OLD FAIRFIELD HOMESTEAD.
life. Silk, cotton, woolen and worsted fabrics, thread, iron and steel wire, screws, tools and machinery in great variety, lumber, wood pulp, files, cutlery-this is but a partial list of its industrial enterprises. An impression of the business done may be strongly illustrated by the fact of its being the second place in the state in regard to its freight tonnage. It has a delightful situation on the long semicircle of the hills, and all its upper portion is a charming residence region. As to the business sections where the big mills line the canals, that means prosperity, and in the rippling waterways with the high-walled attendant factories looming above them, the imaginative will catch hints of Venice. May the city's prosperity be long continued, and its attractiveness multiply with the passing years. CLIFTON JOHNSON.
A TALK TO CITY BOYS.
I have taken to thinking much of late about the boys of our cities. For one who lives in a city, that is not a very strange thing to do. A good many boys are in sight as one walks about. You find them not only in the schoolhouses and the school-yards, but on the corners of the streets, and in the alleys and the vacant lots; and wherever a ball-match is about to begin in the park, you see crowds of them faring eagerly that way.
Here and there you find boys at work. There are cashboys, and news- MOUNT TOM, FROM NORTHAMPTON STREET, boys, and office boys, and messenger boys, and shopboys, and bootblacks, and garbage boys -some very honest and manly little chaps, too, in that unpoetic branch of business. Indeed, there are quite a good many boys in every city who are hard at work every day, helping to support themselves, and perhaps their mothers, too.
CRAFTS' TAVERN.
But, besides those boys who work, there are not a few who have a great deal of time on their hands. Some of the schoolboys study out of school, but most of them, I fear, do not; and these, especially the high school boys, have much the largest portion of their waking hours to spend either in play or in idleness, or in what is much worse than either play or idleness. Many of these are the sons of wealthy or well-to-do people; many others are children of the poor. They sleep say eight hours of the twenty-four, and this part of their time is well improved; when they are asleep they are all very good boys. Then they are in
THE BEEHIVE.
school four and a half or five hours. That makes say thirteen hours. And they spend, perhaps, two hours at their meals and on their way to and from school, making fifteen hours. And that leaves nine hours which those of them who do not study out of school have to spend in amusing themselves. One whole workday in every week is a holiday, and that is devoted wholly to play or idleness. About thirteen weeks of every year are vacation weeks, and in these there is nothing at all to do. If you figure this up, you will find
NORTHAMPTON STREET HOMES.
there is three-quarters of the working time of every year spent in fun or in idleness. Even those boys who study an hour or two out of school, on school days, but who have no other work to do, have fully half of the working time in every year for their own amusement.
Now, I like to see boys playing, and I would deny myself a great many things rather than have my boys forced to work as constantly as I did, and with so little respite for fun as I had when I was a boy; but, after all, it seems to me that it is a grave question whether a boy who spends three-quarters, or even half of the
33
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
working time of every year in amusing himself is not carrying it a little too far; whether, indeed, such a life as this is the kind of life that a boy ought to be leading from his tenth to his eighteenth year; whether this is the best way for him to fit himself for the serious work of life. And because this seemed to me so grave a question, I thought I would see what light could be thrown upon it by experience. "If this is the best kind of life to fit a boy for success," I said to myself, " then, doubtless, we shall find that the men who now stand at the head of affairs lived this kind of life when they were boys." Inquiry among one hundred men who could fairly be said to stand at the head of the financial, com- mercial, professional and educational interests of my home city, revealed the fact that four-fifths of all these men had the training of farm life. It is the testimony of two-thirds of the remaining fifth that they were poor boys-not paupers by any means, but children of the humbler classes, many of them in narrow and needy circumstances - and though
AN OLD HOMESTEAD ON NORTHAMPTON STREET.
they lived in cities or villages, they were accustomed from their earliest years to hard work.
And what is farm life for a boy ? I can tell you very shortly about what it means. It means work - steady work, hard work-all the year round, with few holidays and few leisure hours. From about seven to ten years of age, these farmers' boys, who are now bank presidents, and merchants, and lawyers, and doc- tors, were accustomed to go to school about three months in the winter and three in the summer; but out of school hours and during vacations, there was always work for them to do: gardens to work, cattle and sheep and pigs and chickens to care
RESIDENCE OF GEORGE W. PRENTISS
A CRAFTS' HILL PASTURE.
LOOKING DOWN CRAFTS' HILL ..
for, firewood to saw and split and pile and carry into the house, hay to stir and rake, corn to husk and shell-plenty of work, and they were set at it and kept at it, most of them, from the time that they were seven or eight years old. After they were about ten, they stopped going to school sum- mers ; they were wanted at home to work; so that from about ten to fifteen they had three or four months of schooling every winter, during which time they did many chores mornings and evenings, while all the other nine months of the year were devoted to work, with little respite.
Now, why is it that these farmers' boys and these poor men's sons have gone right up to the front, and taken the places that by inheritance belonged to those of the town? Is it because farmers' boys have more brains than city boys ? Is it because poor men's sons are smarter than rich men's sons? No; we are not going to admit anything of the kind.
Is it because the farmers' boys and the poor men's sons are morally superior to the sons of the well-to-do people in the cities? No; 1 do not think that is true either.
The city boys of whom I am talking are not, in their earlier years. exceptionally immoral. There are bad specimens among them, of
THE OLD CHURCH -NORTHAMPTON STREET.
course; but there are quite as many, in proportion, in those classes out of which these successful men have come. There is a great deal of vice and animalism and iniquity among country boys. And many of these fellows who grow up in the homes of the well-to-do people of the cities, are as manly and ingenious and right-hearted as any boys in the world. Why is it, then, that the great majority of them fall behind in the race of life?
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