USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Sixty-odd, a personal history > Part 2
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the mother was sad and lonely, while her child grew up to be a very bright, energetic young person, much interested in her village neighbors, and in the great farm to which she fell heir.
Her daughter, Elizabeth Phelps, (for there were five successive Elizabeths, mothers and daughters) had grown up in Hadley too. She, the third Elizabeth, married Dan Huntington, from Con- necticut, and had eleven children, of whom our father was the youngest. We loved to hear him tell stories of his boyhood; of the stern regimen in the household, although his father, a genial re- tired clergyman of the orthodox church, was not as strict a dis- ciplinarian as his mother. Her children loved her in spite of it, and one episode in her life made a deep impression upon them, espe- cially on the little boy who had grown up to tell the story to his children.
My father's mother was a Calvinist. We had a curious impres- sion of Calvinism and could not make out whether it was really a religion or not, with its references to hell-fire and devils, which we mentally illustrated by association with the Doré pictures. My father spoke of a far milder interpretation of the Bible by a preacher named Channing, whose books his mother read and who persuaded her to believe no longer in devils or eternal punishment. But the pastor of the village church had told Grandmother she must not believe such a doctrine as Channing's Unitarianism, and that she would be put out of the Calvinist society if she did not give it up. He sent the deacons of the church to ask her questions about it, and they went to Grandmother and spent whole afternoons arguing with her, which made her children frightened and unhappy.
From Father's vivid story we could picture the farmyard at Forty Acres, the shadow of great elms and the still summer after- noons. The men were away in the fields, and the blinds closed. There was the sinister portent of two high-springed, stiff buggies, with their horses tied to hooks in the wall of the shed.
They had brought a delegation from the orthodox society to labor with a heretic. The swishing of flies and the fretful pawing of hoofs kept up a steady accompaniment as hours wore away and the orthodox dignitaries prolonged their attempts to dislodge the
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demons of unbelief from our grandmother's soul. The boy Fred- eric would hang about, miserably, watching those grim scouts go in by the south door and seat themselves on high-back chairs in the darkness of the "long room." Elizabeth would come down the stairs, tall and dignified in her Sunday garb. Through the syringa-bushes which grew against the windows, the child could hear querulous voices of old men and crisp, laconic answers from their victim. The argument lasted long. Toward supper-time the visitors would emerge, blinking at the late sun-rays as they left the darkness of the shaded room behind them, and silently untic their impatient horses, back them round and drive away with vacant, sullen faces and reins lax over the dashboards. Our grandmother, white and manifestly wearied, but with victory after siege apparent in her shining eyes, would watch them climb into the high seats of their chariots, bidding them a grave "good-afternoon." Little whirls of dust followed the retreating wheels. Her husband, returning from the fields, would take the affair with easy, semi-amused temper of mind, his habitual attitude. He was as firm as she, but confident of her loyalty and poise, proud of the uncompromising front she was able to maintain in the face of antagonism. They came again and again, however, and finally cut both wife and husband off from communion with the Hadley congregation. It was a grief to be denied the sharing of that privilege with neighbors and relatives. Peace and serenity had nevertheless been gained through their change of faith, and they never relinquished it. There is no doubt that to their descendants they have bequeathed a measure of inde- pendent conviction and fearlessness of departure from time-hon- ored or accustomed dogmas, as also a revolt against religious perse- cution which has shown itself more than once in the family history.
Of course these stories were not actually brought to the nursery for the entertainment of small children, but we listened when they were told to grown-ups, and they made a lasting impression. We loved the story of our father's courtship and marriage to Hannah Sargent. She was a very pretty Boston girl, only twenty when she became the wife of Frederic Huntington, who had graduated from Amherst in 1839, and was a popular young Unitarian minister.
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After their wedding journey to Niagara Falls they went to Forty Acres, so that Frederic might show his wife the river and hills, and the old house. Perhaps at first Hannah found the Puritan household stern and reserved, but she grew to be very happy there, and made lifelong friendships in Northampton and Hadley.
I was born in Cambridge, on a November day in 1859. At that time Father was Phummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard College, and the family was settled in the old house afterward oc- cupied by Professors Palmer and Peabody, on the corner of Quincy Street and Massachusetts Avenue, overlooking the Yard. The town was a country-like suburb then, connected with the city of Boston by a long bridge, and its inhabitants a rare company: a concentra- tion of some of the best minds of the time.
This delightful community of intellectuals (would. that I could find a less-worked term for them!) had opened its doors to the new professor and made an ideal place for the rearing of his children. Mr. Agassiz's school for girls, a progressive school with various original methods, was a matchless educational opportunity for our sister Arria. The Danas, the Nortons, the Lowells, the Longfellows, the Loverings, the Eliots, the Palfreys, the Agassizs and many others with their fine old houses and their gracious and ready hos- pitality and informal courtesy, made for a rare and delightful neigh- borhood life.
It was into this circle that the fourth child came, and for two years looked upon the faces of Cambridge friends and basked in their smiles as a new baby. The students, on excellent terms with their Professor, whose sympathy with their athletic pursuits was a work of supererogation so far as requirements of the Plummer Chair was concerned, ran in and out of the house at all times of day. It was owing to his efforts that the first Harvard Gymnasium was built, and boys came to him with their enthusiasms as well as prob- lems. His wife welcomed them also, and made them at home in the family circle, even letting them rock the cradle on occasions, when it had to be brought down into the family sitting-room in winter weather. How many celebrated characters may have jogged those
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short wooden rockers we do not know. Jogged they were, however, sometimes with absent-minded jerks, and again quite slowly with concentrated attention.
But the child was too young when removed from the house of her birth to know that the pleasant life on Quincy Street was aban- doned because her father had discovered a Trinitarian trend in his theology and had eventually felt his position at Harvard to be an equivocal one. It was then a trying time; a time of struggle for the nation, of doubt and questioning, of passion and political conflict. War was in the offing. When Frederic Huntington, counted upon by the men who stood for their idea of the one enlightened and ra- tional theological position, announced his intention of embracing the Episcopal faith, it was received with active dismay. His many Unitarian friends felt hurt, puzzled, and some of them indignant. With many of his more intimate companions the relation was never quite the same. Deep underneath lay stores of affection and loyalty which survived the shock, but when he accepted the rectorship of Emmanuel Church, Boston, and was confirmed, as were his wife and oldest son, there was a severance of many ties. He always, however, acknowledged his deep respect and admiration for the high type of Christian manhood represented by those Unitarian men of the time, and their influence in the community. The rest of the family kept their Cambridge friendships and contacts. We chil- dren grew up to love those friends of our mother's, and never knew that there could be any difference in the matter of religious belief between ourselves and the many relatives and comrades about us.
There were five Huntington children. Our oldest brother, George, had graduated from Harvard and was spending his winters at a theological school in Minnesota for the sake of its climatic ef- fect upon a chronic affection of the throat. He had spent many weeks at home, sometimes tutoring with our mother whose clas- sical foundation enabled her to help him as she had her own brothers. This had given him a love of research, and the out- of-door life during succeeding summers at our old farm brought out his bent for natural history and botany. Added to this, an artistic sense and a love of music and poetry rounded out a resourceful per-
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sonality, fascinating to his younger brother and sisters. I owe to him and to his contagious enthusiasm the most satisfying associa- tions of my life. He was especially fond of Italian verse and a stu- dent of Dante, and his rhythmic intonation of the Divina Com- media caught our youthful ears like song. Recitations of Greek hexameter also stirred us, and fired the enthusiasm of all three juniors, who vied with one another in repeating the lines with him, sometimes moving to the swing of it as we listened. In his company we also came into companionship with nature; the sort of compan- ionship, along with comradeship, which we try today to bring to our young children in nursery schools, recognizing it as a first step in education. And yet our brother never lectured. It was an almost casual unfolding, an opening of magic doors, to disclose wonders of which we might have been dumbly unaware. His own children, grown now to manhood, pay fervent tribute to that quiet, rich in- fluence on their early lives.
Next came our one older sister, Arria, just growing up into young ladyhood. She had a profile like a cameo and a low brow around which her hair waved in delicate ringlets. Her eyes were like our mother's, deep blue with dark lashes; a face which ex- pressed in every line the forceful character that made her a level- headed reasoner, a leader among her mates, and even in the days of her girlhood an altruist with constructive vision. After we had moved from Cambridge she studied at Miss Wilby's private school on Beacon Hill, an institution through which the higher educa- tion of women was made available, without any discussion as to its worth, to the privileged girls of Boston. Their mothers had been able to obtain the same advantages, and Arria Huntington prob- ably took for granted, as her friends did, the belief of educators and social leaders in a literary and classical equipment for the well-born. My sister studied Latin, and supplemented her Greek lessons by taking a Testament to church on Sundays, to follow the Bible read- ings in that language. We still remember the little gray-brown vol- ume with red edges to its leaves, tucked under her arm. She spoke French with ease and a good accent; Italian she read with our older brother; history had always a special interest for her.
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The child next younger was a curly-headed schoolboy, very at- tractive, with a good development of the filial virtues and a natural amiability that brought him many friends. A Sunday child accord- ing to the calendar, James bore out the tradition connected with that distinction. Endowments seemed to have been showered upon him; if I say in the language of the past that they came "from the hands of the Graces," it is not, be sure, because that mythological beneficence was believed to have been really potent in the provision of talent. Versatility kept him too busy to be spoiled by adulation, and along with it went a spiritual quality of mind which fore- shadowed the deeper claims to which he was eventually devoted. From our point of view he was an ordinary, active youngster, pop- ular at school and at home, absorbed in making experiments of a mechanical or chemical sort with his particular friends on the upper floor of the house. Girls were barred from these processes. There were things burning in crucibles up there (I remember that in early days I got the word crucible mixed up with crucifer and was rather muddled as to the religious significance of both) and mysterious strings and wires, pinchers, saws and pulleys and otherwise danger- ous implements, weirdly attractive to pryers, but too damaging to clothes for feminine participation.
The families, however, maintained a sympathetic point of view and looked for great achievement in the little hall bedroom. We lived for some time on the hope of owning a cart that could be wound up and would travel across the nursery floor. Such things could not then be bought at five-cent-stores. But beyond a few quite useful little contraptions which our parents enjoyed, these creative attempts came to naught, and as Darius Green and His Flying Ma- chine had appeared about that time from Trowbridge's pen, the boys came in for much raillery in verse. But Jamie took his share with the equanimity of a person who can well afford to enjoy a joke on himself. His taste ran to legerdemain after that and the role of wizard compensated the disappointed mechanic. And his remark- able memory furnished the family with much entertainment. It was from him that we in the nursery learned to rattle off the Greek al- phabet as a sort of voluntary exercise, and rivalled him in repeating
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Horatius at the Bridge, getting credit for precocious achievement which we did not deserve. We were merely small parrots, copying his intonations and gestures automatically.
The fourth child found herself wedged in between her brilliant elders, whose superiority was luckily taken for granted, and her little sister, who, though too small to have developed any special brand of precocity, was much loved and petted as the youngest of the family. Molly was a good and dear child, but independent and almost uncannily discerning. No amount of flattery could make her vain, nor did she ever betray the boredom which attentions from interested visitors brought upon her, but sat on their laps quite patiently and waited for release. It was the price paid for many pretty gifts; toys and beads and other adornments which did not come the next older sister's way. I cannot remember any com- mendations of my behavior or appearance except an occasional compliment bestowed upon my substantial and active legs, clothed in the scarlet wool stockings that were then worn by small girls. "Those red legs!" old ladies would exclaim sentimentally in after years. "How they did fly up and down Boylston Street!" Mean- time I would have vastly preferred my little sister's golden curls, brushed around a polished stick each morning by the adoring Har- riet. Yes, curls and a real locket, one that would open-these were the fabric of my dreams and the burden of my nightly prayers.
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Our household was by no means a segregated one. Possibly the elders of the family cherished that elusive vision, which many de- voted families do, of some day "having a nice time all by them- selves," without realizing that it is about the most severe strain to which the nerves of any group of relatives can be subjected. At all events that was never achieved. There were all types of visitors at the rectory. Queer, tiresome people turned up with bags in hand and quondam introductions from strangers, and stayed till it taxed all the family resources to get them away. Forlorn people who had nowhere else to go drifted in and accepted, with a sort of blank alacrity, the slightest cordiality. There were "Jerusalem Crickets," so-called because they chirped perseveringly on the hearths of clergymen, all over Boston. Guests came who recommended ini- proved parental methods for our upbringing. It amused us to see our mother's handling of them. We never caught her put about in any way; she was serene, executive and attentive. There was how- ever a certain dry politeness in her 'manner which subdued the forthputting visitor marvelously. She had a less easy-going tendency than my father, who was apt to invite in haste and repent at leisure. The fine inclusive spirit of Forty Acres had clung to him but could not be worked successfully in pastoral hospitality. Yet he had a passion for helping people and his door was open to everyone who needed advice or a listening ear. His wife welcomed them warmly and fed them graciously.
They were rewarded, these two, by many delightful friendships. Thinkers, writers, and travelers gathered about them. We children were fascinated by discussions, often over our heads, which went on
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in such assemblages. Our mother's friends whom we adopted as relatives, brought in a cheery atmosphere. Many of them were Cam- bridge women who had begun their married life when our parents were at Harvard, and whom we adopted as aunts because of their close associations with the family. One, I recollect, was aunt Mary Cooke, the young wife of a brilliant scientist, Professor Josiah P. Cooke. She was a distant relative, as a matter of fact, and her visits were events.
All the "aunts" came at times to spend the day, and married ones brought their pretty lace caps, which matrons young and old wore then, neatly folded in bags. The Boston bag had a special place in the universe. Sometimes it was "worked," in cross-stitch with quite an intricate design, having handles of black patent leather and a bottom rather like a shoe sole. Or else it was made of beads or of silk with little bead mountings. But despite these exterior varia- tions it was unique, and none but New England women carried it. Aunt Mary always breezed in with an especially capacious and in- teresting one: interesting because it was worth one's while to be lingering about when she opened it. One tried not to seem anxious for the ceremony to take place, and Mother forestalled any such eagerness if she could. Still, it was hard work to manage the proper detachment when you knew there might be a package of big white peppermints or maybe a string of beads. Once she brought two real silk parasols, brown-checked and blue-ruffled, with fold-up handles -wonderful acquisitions. She had a hearty laugh and a demonstra- tive grace of manner; she talked so fast and told so much exciting news that we listened breathlessly. We never minded the fact that she corrected us quite as frankly as Mother did and told us to stand up straight, all in the same easy, interesting sort of way which never stung us with mortification. Aunt Mary Cooke lived to be a most delightful old lady and was aunt to my children as she had been to me, sheltering, mothering and managing my daughter at Radcliffe with the innate psychological perception which made her leader- ship universally potent.
Other visitors came. Guests from abroad brought letters of in- troduction to the Rector and were taken quite simply into the
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family circle. Mrs. Wedgewood, wife of one of the famous pottery- makers of England, came to make a prolonged stay. She was a very attractive, albeit thoroughly Victorian, type, quite ample and rotund, with a pronounced manner and such a grand cap, up- standing in the front and accentuated by long lappets which she used to toss back over her shoulders as she sat talking. Her full skirts spread out into a train on the floor. She was entertained by a good many Boston people, and her comments on American life were greatly relished. Weeks after her departure, a truckload of barrels arrived at the door of Ninety-eight. The Rector and his wife were dazed, their family on tiptoe, as this stupendous cargo was landed and unpacked. The casks were from overseas and contained breakfast and dinner sets of real Wedgewood manufacture, pro- vision for dozens of guests. The dinner set bore the familiar old trefoil, or rather strawberry leaf, a design still used. I saw it some years ago in a Swiss shop. The color of it can never be quite settled, as between blue and green. And the breakfast set was also of a de- sign still in vogue, folksy little brown figures and tiny roses. Then there were some wonderful vases of the finer ware with the white cameo reliefs on a blue-violet background. It kept us reminded of Mrs. Wedgewood for many years and we have some of those delight- ful plates still in use.
There were other visitors from abroad whom I recollect less vividly, but I know we learned to understand the British accent in very early years and can remember saying over to myself, with a child's fascination for new expressions, "oh!"-that short-cut little "eoh" which puckers one's lips a bit, "how virry kind of you!" and "Fancy that!" The mellow, throaty voices of men and women alike made our Yankee intonation seem thin and nasal.
But after all, Bostonian speech had less of that than we were to experience later in districts farther west. A good many of the more travelled women of the time were fond of cultivating a for- eign accent, and while it amounted sometimes to affectation, there were purely indigenous customs which made the society of Beacon Hill and its neighbors less distinctively Yankee than that of other places. Aristocratic old ladies dropped their final g's :- talked of
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comin', talkin', feelin', chopped off their syllables with precision and called "pleasant" plesunt, with a slight hyphenization after the sibilant. If you accepted an invitation you said "I should ad- mire to come." Going out to tea meant going out to supper; there were no afternoon teas as we have them. We talked of going visit- ing when we made visits longer than formal calls. We addressed our parents as Papa and Mamma. Dad was an appellation supposed to be used only by the British working class, and we spoke very freely of classes then, but not of masses. Social limitations were taken quite as much for granted by the lower classes as the higher.
Some of the rules governing the behavior of children rested upon subtleties that have since disappeared. Comments on the pos- sessions, customs, or appearance of other people were discouraged. One might neither disparage nor compliment the cut of a lady's gown, her china or her silver, her latest ornament, or anything in her house or on her person; such attentions came under the head of personal remarks; the very sound of which words I still remember with more or less perturbation. If one chose to exhibit one's treas- ures and invite appreciation, it was different, but display, we were . told, might border on vulgarity. Great diplomacy must be used, in fact, in connection with such little matters.
Another great impropriety consisted in divulging the fact that one had had and refused an offer of marriage. Naturally small girls were not tempted to commit this indiscretion, but our older sister was the recipient of many proposals, far more than we little ones imagined. They were practically always made by letter, since a suitor rarely saw the object of his affections alone for a long enough time to make an avowal of love by word of mouth. There were end- less little ways of insinuating it, subtleties quite unknown in the twentieth century, and very exciting. But the actual proposal ar- rived with a postage-stamp on it, or was left at the door by special messenger. A very slight stir followed one of these events. Intimate girl-friends, of course, heard about it in strictest confidence.
Arria was beautiful to look at, clever, and attractive to all kinds of swains, from the shy and dull to the fascinating and bril- liant. A very curious little sister could glean something of such
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happenings, but the object of these multiplied affections seemed entirely unruffled, and apparently had not the slightest desire for matrimony. And one did not ask about those things. Curiosity was vulgar. Under no circumstances niust one ever probe into the contents of a letter, a travelling-bag, or even the simplest of brown- paper parcels. Better wait till one could have a moment alone with a bundle and poke a hole in it with a sharp finger-nail. That was not really quite as offensive as the questioning.
Reproofs of these breaches of etiquette did not often come from either our mother or our father, neither of whom was a nagger. They really emanated from the surveillance of the watchful Har- riet, or filtered down to us from admonitions and discussions of young people who visited us or front the occasional applications of a general code, and the directions issued to us when we went visiting by ourselves. The young Victorian was much more anxious to com- port herself with due respect to form than are our children of today. That was the Boston of it. There were no comparisons with other places or customs. Country villages were naturally outside the pale; one took for granted that their inhabitants were untutored. But we had not the slightest doubt, we children, that we were living in the exact centre of the universe, or that the standards applied to our Boston life and manners were of primordial origin, fixed like the habits of the moon and the tide and the equinoxes.
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