USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Sixty-odd, a personal history > Part 14
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Final days of that October were mournful. Even the animals sensed it; the great Leonberg would steal off when the hour of de- parture came, and hide till the carriages had driven away. It was a sad moment when the wagons full of people and trunks stood at thic horseblock, while someone, left behind to fasten the great south door, slid the bar of oak, smooth as a paper-knife from long use, in between the irons of its latch.
We said always, "Next summer we shall come back again." We go on saying it, year by year, knowing that, like the chimney swal- lows we may be called to take our turn and go fearlessly down into the dark. The hills and the sunsets, the meadows and the river, will stay on with their eternal welcome.
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End of Childhood
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A VISIT TO HINGHAM
The many summers at Forty Acres had made a peaceful pattern of life for childhood and adolescence. The place teems with vital associations, with history and character; an inheritance which every descendant feels when he crosses the threshold of the old house. We absorbed it unconsciously in our early days, and carried it with us into the busier life to which growing experience brought us. One by one, the older and then the younger, met the claims of an im- patient world, and broke in upon the summer stillness by temporary flittings.
A departure from custom came to me in my sixteenth year, when a depleted nervous system had called for change of air and sea- bathing. "Salt and tan," prescribed Dr. Van Duyn. After much de- liberation my family decided that I should be sent to Hingham, the home of our Lincoln ancestors, and live at a pleasant boarding- house where my young married cousin Clara Bryant could act as my chaperon. To go away quite by myself was a thrilling prospect. Although I had visited friends in Central New York, the Hadley life had been my only background in the summer. I wondered whether the people at the boarding-house would think me too much of a westerner to fit in well, or guess that I was only sixteen. My mother and older sister took an active share in preparations. A suit- able wardrobe was provided. Skirts were let down to young-lady length, close to the floor. I was tall and large for my age, and must live up to my proportions. I had fresh white lawns for mornings, and what now would be called a "sport dress" of creamy flannel, tight-fitting. Flummery had been prevalent in the middle of the century; hoop-skirts, for instance; but these were out now and
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bustles had not yet come in, so the human forin was left more to it- self than the mantua-makers were wont to allow. Hats were not striking either; my best one was a turban of white chip that perched with a forward slant on the top of my head, with long black velvet streamers which curled unmanageably at the ends and had to be cut off gradually. These clothes and more were packed in a brand new trunk, which made me feel especially responsible.
The journey to Hingham was broken by a visit to Cedar Square, where my two uncles, James and Epes Sargent, made it particularly pleasant. Uncle Epes was at that time greatly interested in spirit- ualistic manifestations, and was going to many seances, of which he had surprising tales to relate. He was fond of his nieces, and an in- vitation to dine with him and our aunt brought out various disclo- sures of magic achievements, beside his collection of written com- munications from departed friends. These were not especially thrilling, however. Either through the fault of the medium, or perhaps his or her inferiority as a transmitter, they were expressed in extremely poor English, totally unlike the style of those bright and particular spirits who were supposed to have sent them back to earth. My uncle had entertained the famous Madame Blavatsky at his house during her visit to this country, however, and she had per- formed a few miraculous feats and captivated a good many people. Exclusive Boston groups were given over to the entertainment of titled orientals and studies in occultism, so the lady had been warmly received and though a little strange and wild, according to accounts, was a magnetic personality. Uncle Epes had written sev- eral books on esoterics and theosophy, as well as an essay entitled Planchette; The Despair of Science. Planchette, the forerunner of the Ouija-board, had been a pastime at Forty Acres, so I became fas- cinated with these works for the moment, perusing them in Grand- mother's cool, dark, drawing-room.
The place had a decided atmosphere, made slightly foreign by its touches of European art and treasures from the far East. I loved to be alone there with the old square piano whose yellow keys and thin strings sent out sounds like a harpsichord and suited certain stately bits of Handel, Gluck and the old Italians, which Grand-
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mother Sargent loved and listened to from her sewing-chair. One day I got a bawdy old English novel from the library shelves, prob- ably Tom Jones. The Fielding and Smollett type of fiction had not appeared among our virtuous volumes at Forty Acres. I recollect that I was absorbed by the novelty of it and felt quite superior and emancipated, not to say surprised at being able to assimilate that particular variety of realistic literature. It was with just a shade of disappointment that I found my grandmother did not consider it pernicious for youth, as I had thought she might. I remember her remarking that it was an excellent picture of certain phases of - English life at that time, and that gentlemen were accustomed to curse quite frankly in her own youthful days, even in the presence of ladies, and make jokes which savored of the stables.
"It was the fashion of some young men to be horsey, you know," she explained; "In England there was a great deal of that." I was beginning to realize that in spite of the freedom of our Syracuse life and pursuits, I had enjoyed a "sheltered" youth, and that now I was called upon to contemplate the follies of the past and present world without being shocked. I longed to try out for myself the code which prevailed in my immediate social circle, and I found my Grandmother Sargent, the product of an earlier and simpler cul- ture, very keen and understanding.
"What are known as advantages," she said, "include travel and a knowledge of the world through meeting many people. Your father and mother will want you to have them so far as they can af- ford it. For my own part, I hope it will give you a broader outlook and teach you to understand people who have been brought up dif- ferently from yourself. But you are not hide-bound as it is, and not prim, I hope. That would be a pity."
Prim !- no. Almost better be ordinary than that. "But do you think I shall get along all right, Grandma? You know in Syracuse we do meet all kinds of people. There's much more freedom there; I'll probably show it."
"I don't know why you shouldn't," said Mary Lincoln. "Enjoy yourself as much as you can. And be sure to go to the old Lincoln house. Your great-great-grandfather was a brave soldier and, more
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than that, a statesman." With this and still more advice as ballast, I parted next day from my grandmother and from Cedar Square.
It was exciting to embark, in charge of my uncle, on the Rose Standish, an old steamer which plied for many years between Bos- ton and Nantasket. We made the trip on a bright afternoon from the very port whence my grandfather Sargent had set sail again and again. We glided gently into old Hingham Harbor, coming nearer to quaint spires and narrow streets, with low hills beyond and pretty country houses overlooking the bay. Here, in this sedate setting, I felt, destiny and adventure awaited me. My lovely cousin was a part of it. I had never seen her before; she was a Lincoln, a direct descendant of Grandfather General, brought up in the old family mansion there at Hingham. She was a girl not so much older than myself, married at seventeen and already the mother of two babies. Such a sweet, and shrewd, young woman she was, perfectly competent to assume the duties of chaperonage, but with a fund of sympathetic understanding and a sense of humor which helped to make us friends at once. The big white house kept by two typical New England spinsters was as solid and dignified as Hingham itself. My little upper window looked off toward the sea. Nantasket beach was over there, its long, glorious roll of surf breaking upon sands then unmarred by tawdry sheds and advertisements.
The inhabitants of the boarding-house were typical Bostonians; most of them good old stock with familiar names, comfortable couples with young children, who liked to spend their summers out of town where their husbands could go to and from their offices daily. Knowing my family connections, these matrons were very sympathetic about our having to live in Syracuse-such a Western sort of place, they had heard-and thought my manners had borne up well. They had a strict code of behavior for young girls, but I found the question with regard to any particular departure from it was not so much whether it was proper as whether it was Boston. Since I never could look forward to "coming out," the indispen- sable finish to a young lady's breeding, they apparently thought it less necessary to preserve me for appearance in society by extra limitations, and gave me various unconventional privileges.
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One of the matrons' husbands asked me to drive him to the boat every morning in his wife's phaeton, a stunning carriage with a rumble behind. She did not like horses, and was quite amenable to this arrangement, so I had all the joys of the gay scene at the pier. At that time I was somebody else; not the erstwhile tomboy, but a young lady in a crisp white gown, with a beautiful black horse fol- lowing every lead of the white webbing reins in my hand, and a whip so long and tapering that one could almost have threaded a needle with its silken tip. I had in a week's time become absolutely at home with these luxuries-things never even dreamed of on a New England farm.
I found myself tossing repartee like the other young women, waving a jaunty farewell as the men lifted their hats from the deck of the Rose Standish, sniffing the refined cigar-smoke which lin- gered in the air, and feeling easy, with a coming sense of power, as I drove back to the feminine group at the boarding-house.
In the weeks that passed, I amused myself by taking the board- ing-house children to the beach in the pretty rig which was mine for six weeks, or driving my new friends along the Jerusalem Road to Cohasset. When cold fog dropped upon us, we sat at home and read aloud Trevelyan's Life of Lord Macaulay, which had just been published. On many afternoons I rode with my married cousins and John A. Mitchell, who was later editor of Life, behind a dis- tinguished looking animal who had a trick of stopping to stretch his long neck, with legs braced, refusing to move. Mr. Mitchell would get out to argue with him solemnly until logic took effect, and we would finish the drive, helpless with laughter at Mr. Mitchell's verbal handling of the horse. The four of us made an in- timate quartet.
During the conversations with my cousin Clara, while she was caring for her babies in the nursery, I found that I could ask ques- tions that had long seethed in my mind. She answered them so can- nily that mysteries turned into commonplaces, and the long-feared serpent of Adamic legend became harmless as a dove. As we grew more confidential I ventured to ask the thing that was most per- sonal.
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"Would you be willing to tell me just exactly the truth about something?" I ventured. "Can one be pretty, really beautiful, you know, without knowing it? I want so awfully to be beautiful; I've wanted it ever since I was a little child, and sometimes I've hoped that maybe I didn't look to other people as I did to myself in the glass. Anı I pretty, or is there any way to make myself so? Enougli so that men would fall in love with me?"
She hesitated, smiling with a little embarrassment. "I think you're going to make a fine-looking woman when you grow up, my dear. As to the men, you have a perfectly good knack with them; you'll get on with them all right."
"But that's not it," I persisted. "You've made me brush my liair back and coil it behind, because you say it's more becoming; does that mean that it is one way of being pretty?"
"Now I'll tell you," the wise person continued. "You need not expect compliments. Now and then you will get one; everybody does. Someone will tell you you liave nice eyes, another person that they like your smile; another that your complexion is clear; an- other that you look best in brown or blue or some other color. That is all the average person can reasonably expect. If people like you they like to look at you. Don't try to be attractive and don't worry about the looking-glass except to get your hair or your collar straight. You're going to liave a good time because you like all sorts of people; that's the secret of getting on with them. One doesn't have to be beautiful." That was all that came of my probing.
It was hard to part with them all when the end of that visit came. The train journey was a jumble of images which passed and re- passed before me all day long. My thoughts were incoherent, but I lived over again, to the rhythm of the rolling train-wheels, every hour of the six weeks. The simple life at the farm was a bleak pros- pect; nothing ahead, no coming drives or dances or strolls along the beach, no plunges into the surf, no companions to draw out one's best points.
The train slowed down, stopped. There in the dark in the queer little open carriage, my father sat waiting for me, wondering to himself if his child had returned to him unaltered. I forgot every-
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one else as I climbed happily in beside him, knowing instinctively what would appeal to him most in my outpourings of experience. The meetings with his earlier friends, the Old Ship church, the Lincoln house and letters from Washington to Grandfather Gen- eral, the rocks at Coliasset and the thunder of the waters at Nan- tasket; these were the things we talked about during our drive across the Hadley meadows.
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A MARK AND A MEANING
It was a more sophisticated young woman who came back to Forty Acres that night. I had grown up during the six weeks. Not only had I played at being another person and thereby found a hitherto undiscovered side to my own personality, but I had gained in power and poise. No doubt my family realized it to some extent, but they did not make it apparent. They were only politely inter- ested in information about the life in Hingham or the special events that had made it interesting. Even Molly asked few ques- tions.
My feeling of mental isolation was at first very strong, and prob- ably iny relatives tacitly concluded to let me indulge it in peace. Perhaps they had had similar experiences, and knew the adjustment that must take place after a separation from the accustomed family pattern. I felt that I must get away alone and face up squarely with the situation. A chance came to climb Mount Warner one Septem- ber afternoon, with the dog for company. It was the high hill east of the farm, beyond the woods, so I rambled up through clumps of sweet fern and huckleberry bushes and patches of yellow grass, to "Jolin's Rock" where I could get a view of the valley and its encircling hills. There was a cool, even gray sky, neither damp nor dark; a "brooding day" the Bishop would call it. The river, catch- ing every point of soft light, was brighter than the sky; a smooth surface curving and twisting as it passed on and out through the village lands from which late crops had been gathered, between Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom to the busy cities beyond.
To eastward the Amherst College buildings stood out sharply against their background of wooded hills; the old chapel with its
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tower and clock, and a cluster of dormitories. The Agricultural College, much younger, had already made its impress on acres of surrounding field and forest through scientific cultivation. Across the valley, to westward, Northampton was just beginning her venture in the higher education of women, and girls from the towns of New Hampshire and Vermont and Massachusetts were at that moment arriving, eager and ready to enter classes at Smith College and find homes in the old houses of the town. Mount Holyoke Seminary was just out of sight behind the southern range.
I leaned back against the rock, looking off. The stillness was profound, save the sharp tap of a carpenter's hammer below. From a pasture on a slope came the dull, continuous tinkle of a cow-bell. The dog sat up beside me, ears alert. He let his forefeet slide down along the slippery grass, and laid his head between them, near enough to be patted. It was calming to be up there again, among the soft browns and olive-greens, gazing at the outlines of the hills, and getting once more a sense of limitless horizons. This was real- ity; the past weeks away from it were already becoming blurred. But something was left to be gathered up.
What could be done with experience? Surely those weeks at Hingham had been more than just pleasurable. Responsibility, freedom, people-all of these must have left a meaning and a mark on me. What had my cousin meant when she spoke of "liking all sorts of people"? Did that require a flat good nature and a lack of discrimination? It was the person who had well-defined likes and dislikes who was more often considered strong, and that seemed infinitely better than the dead level of acquiescence.
Perhaps, I thought, there might be a way of liking all sorts of people without sharing their views or habits. There might be something in the "fine art of liking people," if done advisedly by finding out the things one had in common with others and letting these point the way. It would be less easy to slip into the habit of liking or disliking if one understood "all sorts of people," and in- terpreted their likes and dislikes.
It was a new idea to the sixteen year old girl who had thought
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it more elegant to have a few, selected "loved ones"; it was worth- while as a principle, if nothing more.
I moved, and the dog started to his feet. I took one more long look, north, south, east and west, while I breathed the crushed sweet-fern that was in my hand. We climbed down over the slippery rock, through pine thickets to the pasture, below which the Hadley millpond lay. I came upon a group of blind gentians in a hollow; they were the last flowers in the wood.
I went in by the farmyard gate, along with the loitering cows. Harriet was pottering over the supper-table, putting china cups into saucers with gentle clicks; 'Arria was coming up from the river, the oars over her shoulder. And the mail bag was full of letters.
Just before bedtime the kitchen was shut up, dark and still. The old settle stood there, its seat worn but still strong enough for potential "Zekels and Huldys. The tavern table stretchied along under the windows, and on it a great pan of bread-dough had been set to raise against tomorrow's baking, covered with a warm cloth and sending out a yeasty, nourishing smell. The great skillet hung beside the fireplace by the ring in its three-foot handle. The brass saucer-candlestick stood on the shelf by the wooden clock. In the stove lay a remaining bit of burning wood. I lifted the lid and tucked in two thick blank-books, their covers wedged apart by many dried flowers, programmes and other mementoes. The little flame caught a dry corner, and blazed, sending out a red glow across the room. The Letters to Turnip had vanished from sight. Only a little heap of white ashes was left for posterity. The fourth-child-grown- older had begun to put away childish things.
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THE YOUNG VICTORIAN
Partisanship ran higher and higher after 1876; at every elec- tion federal or municipal scandals were revealed, vituperation raged; cautious promises of reform were used as incentives to win the ballots of the better class of voters. President Hayes, succeeding Grant at the White House, had not the hearty support of either party, a fact which actually produced a slightly calming effect upon the country. Silver had gone out and come in again; greenbackers controlled a large popular vote; the question of pensions for veter- ans was still, ten years after the war, perennially under discussion. And national issues, brought continually before both parties, in- terfered more or less with a citizen's contemplation of affairs in his home town.
Some of us read of the doings of Arnold Toynbee, the dawn of Socialism, the growth of the trades-unions. In the large cities, be- ginnings were being made in organization and research. We younger ones read the works and speeches of European statesmen, even when we neglected the daily bulletin. With the avidity of youth for mental stimulation unaccompanied by hard work, we absorbed the idealism of Ruskin, the pungent, restless gloom of Carlyle, the quiet philosophy of our own Emerson; we discussed Browning; we raved over Matthew Arnold's poetry.
We were enthusiastic over each of these writers in turn, taking on new views as young chameleons change their color.
The Hingham visit had succeeded in putting an end to my idea that an exciting love-affair was the aim of life, but in spite of an interest in politics, church work and music, my life in Syracuse dur- ing the following years was not devoid of the normal number of ac-
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quaintances among young men. Mr. Andrew D. White and his family had gone to Ithaca to live, since he was now President of Cornell University, and his daughter, a merry comrade of our childhood, often invited her friends there.
Those visits to a man's college were very exciting to us. The fun of getting off; the reenforcement of one's wardrobe to meet special requirements; the arrival just in time to dress and whisk off to a dinner or dance; the eager partners; the assumption that one would be popular and gay; the boxes of flowers; the repartée; and the certainty that one's actual social value would be augmented after one's return.
After one of my gayest visits at Cornell, I returned from Ithaca to find that my father was away, and I gave my glowing account to the rest of the family. A few days later Mother handed me a letter that the Bishop had sent on receipt of their report, in which he said,
"From all accounts R's visit in Ithaca was a very gay one. I have no doubt she enjoyed it, but with her weakness for admiration and pleasure, to which such experiences pander, I fear it may not have been a helpful influence."
I was furious. Father had always given sympathetic attention to any account of his children's pleasures, and it was disconcerting to be put in such an unfavorable light. When I suggested that Father liked praise and admiration himself, Mother smiled and said,
"We all do. It's only when people compete for admiration that there's any harm done."
"But it spoils everything when it's called a weakness to enjoy being liked." My hitherto assertive voice shook with wounded pride.
"Some people have pet weaknesses which they enjoy confessing. I don't think your father was seriously disturbed about you. Re- member that there's still a little of the Puritan in him. It will take at least one more generation to eradicate it. His mother had much more of it, and you know how Aunt Bethia seems sometimes al. most afraid to have a good time."
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Like Grandmother Sargent, mother could preserve an entente with a person of any age.
In spite of Father's verbal check on my enthusiasm, nothing less than presentation at the Court of St. James could have assumed so great a social importance as an invitation to the Cornell Com- mencement ball. I spent two months' dress allowance for my ball gown and gloves and fan, and stayed at the home of a charming woman of the world who was interested in the young men and my prospect of a social success.
The ball itself was a blur; I recollect only lights and music and men; men dancing, men fanning, men bringing ice cream; a sheaf of pink roses to be carried on one arm while the other hand held up a train; and the unworthy little triumph of knowing that one of the Syracuse belles who carried all before her at home was not having quite so much attention, or half as attractive a partner, as I.
My hostess assured me the next morning that my partner was not only rich, but clean-cut and clever, and quite wild over me. I looked forward to our dinner engagement at an inn a good many miles from town, chosen because we were likely to be alone there, my partner said, looking directly into my eyes. When we started, I was appalled at the young man's handling of the horse, and once I expostulated, "You really must hold him in when you're going down hill, you know; he might stumble and fall down any time." What would Maggie have done under such a lax hand? I wanted desperately to take the reins, but according to buggy-driving eti- quette, that would have invited the encircling idle arm of the driver. I was immeasurably relieved to drive up at last in front of the hotel. But where was the easy, confidential attitude of the last twenty-four hours? Instead there were two embarrassed young peo- ple, the man puzzled, and the girl mortified at her own obdurate im- patience.
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