USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Sixty-odd, a personal history > Part 11
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At that time a number of French Canadians had come into the valley, following an earlier deposit of Irish immigrants. The French were thrifty and made excellent farmers; many of them worked at Forty Acres from time to time. They raised broom-corn, for broom- making was a flourishing local industry. I rarely hear the strains of the Marseillaise without recalling an old fellow who used to drive past the farm on summer afternoons, with a load of broom-corn on his wagon. He walked his horses all the three miles from Hadley to North Hadley and back, and through the still, hot afternoon air one could hear him, a mile or more away, singing as he lay on his back atop of the corn-stalks. The inexact melody wavered, died down till I fancied he had dropped asleep; then I would hear, per- haps on the wings of some slight breath from the south, a revival of patriotic energy; a shrill, gusty bellow of
Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons.
But when he actually approached the fencing at Forty Acres, either slumber or shyness overtook him. The uncertain air died down, and, peeping from the branches of my apple-tree I could see a re- cumbent figure, a battered straw hat over its face and the thin
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leather reins grasped in a relaxed hand, while the horses sagaciously found their own path and pursued it at a funereal pace. Marchons! Marchons! Sometimes, when I wake after a nap on an August after- noon not quite arrived from the past, I still hear the Marseillaise meandering up the road!
No description of Hadley characters would be complete with- out some mention of our cousins, the Phelpses, who lived a quarter of a mile from us in a big weathered structure guarded by two beautiful tulip trees. The House of Mystery, as we called it, was built by my grandmother's only brother, Charles Porter Phelps, who in 1816 had suddenly determined to give up his legal practice and profitable importing business in Boston and take to farming at Forty Acres. Possibly he may not have intended that the house he built should be more than a summer residence. But after it was built and furnished, the lure to reclaim ancestral ground became irresistible. Apparently he did not consider the implications of this change for his wife, the daughter of Justice Theophilus Par- sons, in whose famous office he had studied law, or for his five children. The blow fell hardest upon the oldest son and daughter, Charles the fourth and Sarah, who were already moving in Boston society. The latter, by the death of her mother in 1817, became housekeeper for her father and guardian of the younger children. I remember "Cousin Sarah" as a white-haired old lady in a lilac print gown, moving about her garden, or driving in her hooded chaise wearing a long cloak and little bonnet. Later her father married his first wife's sister, Charlotte Parsons. Five more children came to that union and grew up under the now weathered roof-tree.
At various times Charles Porter Phelps's ten children came back as visitors to their childhood home. I can just remember Susan, a curley-headed, vivacious creature whose heart was broken by the death of her lover; and her less attractive sister, Charlotte, married most unhappily, and practically lost to her family. There was. Cousin Francis, a teacher for many years in a Boston school, and his next younger brother, Cousin Arthur, our ideal of a gentleman of the olden time. And finally there was Cousin Caroline, the widowed daughter-in-law of Thomas Bulfinch the historian, who
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came up from Cambridge with her daughter Ellen. Ellen Bulfinch had all the attributes of a New England spinster, square-built, tall but not angular, a combination of practicality and forethought with creative artistic ability and a shrewd, sympathetic appreciation of the interests which animated her young relatives. I like to call up her sensible face-a little cold the casual observer would say, with a slight cast in one of the gray eyes, but responsive alike to a flash of humor or a daring departure from precedent. I remember I longed for the time to come when I could really claim companionship with Cousin Ellen.
But we children at Forty Acres were naturally most curious about the three peculiar brothers who lived all the year round in the old Phelps Place with Cousin Sarah. The bowed figure of old Cousin Charles was little more than a moving object against a sombre background. Looking across from our house, we used to see his bent old figure driving the cows, wheeling the wheelbarrow, swinging the scythe in his north meadow. He never smiled, never seemed to be holding conversation with his helper, a strong younger man. Even Father had merely an occasional, infrequent word with him, although we believed that a recognition of kinship existed between the two.
Theophilus, the "crazy" brother, whose figure also appeared in the panorama of the gray house, was white-haired, with an uneven short beard which concealed his mouth. His locks had been so long uncut that they had matted themselves into a woven fabric, which hung in a flat sheet at the back of his head. We knew that he had been a college student in his young days, and had broken down, allegedly from overstudy. He wandered about, sometimes by night, and often slept on the coarse grass by the river bank; he had also an appetite for uncommon or forbidden drinks, contents of medicine- chests. He was reported to have swallowed without disaster a whole bottle of "Lixy Pro," a popular physic which every family kept on hand and which was a nauseating mixture of aloes and myrrh. Paregoric he simply slept off, even huge doses of it; he "smacked it down" with a child's love of the sugary taste. It was impossible to keep these potent nostrums from him, till the medicine-chest of
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green-painted wood was finally hidden on a high shelf. We children felt no fear of Theophilus, but watched him from afar as he came and went with unflagging punctuality in the process of exercising a family of some seventeen or eighteen cats who marched after him in single file. Nature took care of him somehow, and in the end made him into a measurably normal old man who even produced and published a poem before his death in the eighties!
The last of the "uncommon Phelps Brothers," our cousin Billy, was the best known to us. On the road, on the bench in front of the Post-Office, in farm-house kitchens, in our own house or on the stoop, might be seen a strange, and to the uninitiated, frightening apparition: a man with a shaggy beard and vacant eyes, a narrow forehead and a lank, slack figure, which shambled about, its long arms swinging, uttering a jargon of unnatural sounds and syllables; no smile, no direct response, nor sign of observation; without teeth, without palate. Cousin Billy was born in the same year as my father, Frederic Huntington, who became the idol of the handi- capped child. He followed him about as they grew older, wistfully watching the progress he made in school, and calling him "Soo'boy" (School-boy). His eternal question, "What Soo'boy say?" was ap- plied to every problem that presented itself to his frustrated intelli- gence.
He had to make a language for himself, impotent as he was to utter most of the words which he heard spoken around him. Chil- dren and natives of the village learned to catch the meaning of his harsh and discordant sounds, and to appreciate the ingenuity with which he made them intelligible. Some of his expressions were poetic. If he arrived in a shower, for instance, he announced it as "high dew hush the dust." Receiving a guest hospitably, that is, giv- ing the right hand of fellowship, was "hold up gee hand and say 'welcome in' to Billy." He knew his "gee hand" from his "haw hand," too. A happy disposition was "cheerful sun in mind"; to talk was "tell idea." Many expressions reflected a Biblical association, as his description of kissing-"Mercy and Truth," taken from the Psalm. Best of all he loved reading aloud, especially Shakespeare ("Billy Bow") and the Bible. He carried in his pocket a little worn
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Episcopal Prayerbook which he would shyly hand to some of us children with the request "Read Dust-to-Dust!" There was a mark at the page containing the burial service, which he knew by sight even without power to decipher printed words. Some of us were rather bored by the frequency of this plea, but our brother James never lost patience, and would go over and over the sombre text as often as Billy requested it.
Billy was the village gossip, and wandered into various kitchens, spreading news in his jabbering vernacular. The farmer's wives saved triangles of apple pie for him, his favorite food. At our house he was usually surrounded by a group of young people who took proud satisfaction in discovering the meanings of his phrases, and their shouts of laughter delighted him; it troubled him to be mis- understood when he had anything important to communicate. Every afternoon precisely at four-and there was no striking clock within hearing-Billy repaired to the old red barn and closed its doors tight. Then he walked up and down the aisle between the haymows, "preaching to the spirits." Even when driving by on the road, one could hear the harsh voice raised almost to a scream, then lowered to a mumbling monotone.
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James sometimes took the corn to the North Hadley mill to be ground, and we often rode on the corn-bags beside him. It was amazing how eventful a drive of one mile could be. Our young ears were trained to catch every new note of a bird's song and our eyes to spy a bluebird, scarlet tanager, or oriole as it flashed past or lighted on a near branch. There were flocks of tiny yellow butter- flies which kept just ahead of us all the way and settled in a cloud on the dusty road, waiting till the horses' hoofs nearly reached them before flying saucily up into the air again. Then there was the wa- tering-trough by the roadside, where someone must always climb out and let down the horses' check-reins that they might be free to get deep draughts of cold water. We let them go slowly up the low hill which followed, and in descending held them up well, bracing our feet firmly and pulling with elbows tense if we were allowed to drive. Each child was taught in turn to manage horses, and we were very proud when permitted to hold the reins in one hand. Slapping them up and down on the horses' backs was considered most unscientific, but our steeds were all rather leisurely, because they had been allowed to choose their own gait; and when there was no whip we used now and then in desperation to gather the leather straps into a loop and lean over, holding to the dashboard with one hand while we applied it vigorously to their haunches, the result of which was usually a more or less abrupt start. While it was not supposed to be done in public, it expedited matters.
The road descended steeply as we entered the village, crossing a short bridge beneath which the mill-stream splashed over its peb- bly bed. And then came the mill: such a mill one never finds now,
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when corn is ground up into ensilage on the farms and meal and "middlings" come already pulverized from the West. Now the an- cient stones are lying about idle and moss-covered, or tumbled into streams. But our mill ground all day long, and when the wind was north we heard it a mile away. The miller, powdered white from lead to foot, stood at liis door as we drove up and backed round. We slipped down from the pile of bags and dashed inside, pursued by the warning, "Keep away from the wheels, children!" That was merely a matter of form; we kept away from nothing and rushed all over the place, watching the golden stream of corn- kernels go into the hopper and the soft yellow meal emerge from below. We were everywhere at once: round the machinery, up- stairs into the loft, at the wide dangerous door which stood open above the dam, from which we could watch the falls go roaring over and see people driving across the bridge beyond.
If the corn was long in grinding, we ran across to the village store. Inside it one perceived the composite smell to which cheese, molasses, codfish, onions, fertilizers, vinegar and kerosene con- tributed. It was apparent on entering, but did not impair our ap- petites for a kind of large soda-flavored cooky which we considered a rare dainty, as well as the pink or white peppermints, which were occasionally bought and dealt out to us. Our domestic code did not allow us to buy sweets for ourselves, but the paternal principle it- self was not proof against those little peppermints, crude of flavor and heartening in times of fatigue, dissolved thriftily against the roof of the mouth. What matter if the jar that contained them was a bit fly-specked? The molasses-barrel diverted the attention of the flies somewhat.
After the store came a visit to the blacksmith. His smithy was close to the pond. Very often the horses were brought over to have a shoe set, which prolonged our stay in the village. The paring of their hoofs delighted us, it made their feet so trim and tidy, and I am conscious at this moment of the strong smell of scorched bone when the red-hot shoe was taken with tongs from a bed of coals and fitted against the foot. Then it was hammered and fitted again, put back, heated more and hammered more, till at last the smith was
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ready to take the leg between his knees and, bending over, finish nailing the shoe with quick, pertinent strokes, a nail at a time taken from his leather apron-pocket. We loved the moderate, re- laxed way with which he swung his arm to pull the handle of the big bellows slowly downward, sending a shower of sparks over the top of the fire. He was not so loquacious or jocose a person as the miller and addressed his conversation chiefly to the horses, as, "Hey! stand over there! Back up!" and so forth. The assistant stood by, swishing a horse-tail brush back and forth over their damp backs to keep teasing flies away. Now and then mysterious signs and syl- lables passed between the two, too technical for us to understand. Their processes were faithfully reproduced in our play at home on rainy days with a tack-hammer and an old pair of bellows from some fireplace.
As we grew bigger we were given the afternoon duty of going to the Post Office. Three families of neighbors took turns carrying the daily mail. I was taught to ride our little mare Maggie, who superseded old Max, and galloped joyously back and forth with the ' full mail-bag over my saddle-pommel. We sat on an antique one- pommel saddle, and had brown linsey riding-skirts to wear over our ginghams. Maggie was a clever and lively little horse, who enjoyed our informal way of leaving the road and willingly scrambled up a hillside or jumped a low fence-rail, even forded a brook if necessary.
We liked to see the stage come in from Northampton and dash past our post office, throwing off the letter-bags in its flight. In those days it was the only public conveyance between the towns. It was worth seeing, drawn by four horses with gay groups on its top, a veritable garden-bed of flower-wreathed hats. There was a glimpse, we felt, of the great world outside our Paradise. It roused one's imagination, the vision of those buoyant young females and attend- ant swains whom we saw afterward on the croquet-grounds of the Orient Hotel when we drove past it up Pelham Hill. I thought as I . cantered home with my letter-bag to the simple farm life that per- . haps my own future romance would come in that way; maybe some day a handsome person with a brown moustache would alight from that very stage and climb into a phaeton beside me. The phaeton
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would be like that of a stunning New York girl, Miss Talbot, a friend of my sister Arria, who spent her summer at the old Talbot mansion in Northampton. She had a graceful black horse with white reins and whip, and a footman in the rumble, and she drove her admirers about while they held parasols over her head. That was grandeur indeed to the eyes of a tanned country child in a linsey riding-petticoat. She was a princess, we thought, when she rode through the villages. So I put my future lover into that setting, but he reappeared in other picturesque roles at the time when I was reading Mrs. A. T. Whitney's stories for girls.
When Father drove to Northampton, we were sometimes al- lowed to go with him. We were put at short notice into fresh white stockings with round-toed slippers buttoned at the ankles, and a pique or red cloth "sacque." After the dusty trip across the Hadley meadows, through the long covered bridge on which the horses' feet clattered mechanically on its worn wooden floor, we stopped to pay toll on the Northampton side. The one-armed man who came out to collect it had replaced his arm with a wooden one, which had a kid glove on its rigid hand. We used to speculate on the probable color of that glove, which was perennially new. The year it was dark green, we considered it very handsome. The bridge was finally carried away by a wind-storm, and its successor has never had the same charm.
Northampton was very different from the town of my father's youth. The old canal no longer existed; the Mansion House still remained, but it entertained a less lively public than in former years. Up on Elm Street near the present site of the Hospital stood a water-cure, to which various friends of our family came for a sum- mer stay. There was another cure and hotel on Round Hill from which one obtained a view of the Holyoke range. People ticd their horses to posts on Shop Row and we used to watch them and my father as he stopped to chat with one and another on the shady sidewalk. In those days elderly gentlemen wore suits of white linen or striped seersucker with broad-brimmed leghorn hats. The mer- chants looked cool and leisurely in their doorways, never pressed for time. Mr. Bridgman at the door of his bookshop had always
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some humorous greeting for his friends, and well-known people from all parts of the world came to buy books of him and were en- tertained at his house, a gambrel-roofed mansion on Elm Street.
Those visits to town were always long, especially when various members of the family went. Our funny little open carriage would hardly hold the bundles of all kinds packed away under its seats. When it was well filled with paper bags, tin pails, kerosene cans and dry goods bundles, Father might decide to call upon some friend at the Mansion House. We drove up to the hotel entrance and he alighted in his shabby old coat and joined a cordial group on the piazza, making himself genially at home with the city-dwel- lers. Everyone knew him and paid him respect. It was only when he and his wife went calling in the afternoon that they had the black carryall, a more formal carriage which was polished up and equipped with our best harnesses. The Bishop's penchant for old clothes was the subject of mild joking. He wore seersucker coats and trousers long after they had been superseded by other fashions, and a story was told of his call upon a lady in Amherst one day in that costume. She was out, and when she returned home she was told by her maid that she had had a visit from "th'ould gintleman in the calico pants."
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THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
One of our greatest delights was a drive into the hills on fine days-"northwest days" we called them. There had to be a partic- ular kind of weather for mountain excursions, and thunderstorms were apt to be the precursors of a really perfect one.
A thunderstorm in Hadley was an overwhelming event. I think it brought out more than any other manifestation of nature, the traces of old Puritan beliefs and fears which were inherent in Fa- ther's make-up and to some extent our own. Thunder and lightning always seemed to us the direct voice of God, and a storm the visita- tion of His wrath. Father did not attempt to conceal the fact that he dreaded it. The showers practically always took a fixed course, coming down from the northwest along the line of hills to Sunder- land or Hatfield and then crossing the river on a broad line over Mount Toby to the Pelham hills, moving southeast to Belchertown and leaving a cloud behind which the shower pursued its way from Hatfield to Northampton and Holyoke.
We always know when a big thunderstorm was coming. Early in the sultry forenoon great copperheads of cloud, at first dim against the lead-blue sky, would begin to pile up above the north- west hills. They hung there ominous and menacing, always mount- iug a little higher, till after noonday. Then came faint, sullen rumbles, far away and only discernible at first to the sharpened, anxious ears of fearful souls. Father said little, but dinner was hur- ried somewhat so that he might get into the hayfield if there was a mowing to be brought in. Afternoon quiet reigned in the house, but down in the meadow the men worked furiously, the boys rid- ing the hayrake, the horses stepping more rapidly than was their
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wont. The clouds in the northwest began to grow gray, blending into a misty horizon; long, growling rolls of thunder, still subdued, grew more frequent. We could see the Rector standing at the horses' heads, perspiration streaming from his face, looking anxiously at the advancing cloud. By three o'clock a gigantic black monster cross- ing eastward from the Vermont hills loomed behind Mount Toby. Even with the sun still shining we could see a narrow zigzag of lightning shoot downward from its center. Father pointed toward it with his rake. "That's not coming here, it's going round to the north. But there'll be another one later."
The haymakers were in a hurry. As the cloud grew more dense guests, maids and children would gather on the stoop to see those last loads come up; horses straining, wagon swaying, men tossing the hay frantically into the lofts. Then back again in the rattling, empty rack, the boys jumping from its sides to the ground and plunging forks into the remaining haycocks, the treader on the load manfully stamping down the masses which flew at him from all sides. And all the time more blackness, stronger peals of thunder. The sun seemed to be holding out till the very last moment, sending great rays down athwart the purple vapor. Father's courage seemed to grow stronger as the climax approached. "We can do it!" somebody shouted. Oh, could they? The onlookers shivered. "Hadn't you better come up?" Mother would call at last. Father would wave his hand toward the wagon, almost filled, a purple mist behind him. The sun plunged at last into that thunderous vapor. Then came the final stretch. Groaning, creaking, the hay hanging over its sides, the horses' hoofs gripping the steep bank, the men hastening after, that last load rode triumphantly up into the farmyard and round the elm-tree just as the tempest broke. A roaring of wind and swishing and cracking branches, a sharp rattle of raindrops striking the river, and the shower leaped across it with a crash and bolt over the very spot where five minutes ago the haymakers had been standing. Be- tween big drops everybody hurried to cover and the furies and floods engulfed us all. There was a hasty shutting of windows and . banging of shutters; mad whirls of paper, slamming doors.
Mother's room, on the northeast corner, was our gathering-
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place in those storms. She sat there calmly sewing or knitting till the room grew dark, then laid down her needles. Father always re- moved his watch, his glasses and any other metal which he had about him and laid them on the dressing-table. The darkness was intense because no lights were lit, and the incessant flashes revealed a circle of awed faces. A few hardy people remained downstairs or sat on the stairway, but we felt that they were tempting Providence. Somebody invariably counted the time that elapsed between fiash and crash, guessing at the location of the cloud. Then, bang! would come an unexpected explosion which seemed to split the earth asunder.
Prone on a bed or sofa, hidden under pillows with which I tried to stifte the din, I felt that the vials of God's wrath were being poured out upon us. There seemed to be no world, nothing but the thunders of Omnipotence. After a tremendous crash I could hear some voice saying, "Oh, that must have struck!"-and thought, "I shall go next-we all shall." Would it be the head of the family who would be lying there unconscious, or Mother, or my venturesome brothers and sisters who always insisted on going too near the win- dows? Then even as terror reached its height the rattling would echo a little farther away. "That was in the cast," Father would say confidently. "It's gone over; they must be getting it in Belcher- town now."
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