USA > New York > Onondaga County > Syracuse > Sixty-odd, a personal history > Part 7
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We had transcriptions of Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schu- mann, the songs of Schubert, the overtures of Weber, and gained happy associations which to this day make orchestral performances of them a greater joy. I smile involuntarily when the Vorspiel to Rosamunde, or the Beethoven Septett, come over the radio; or when the Barber of Seville recalls a species of trio which usually opened a school soirée, three girls performing on one keyboard with elbows in uncomfortable proximity, and with a danger of stepping on one's neighbor's slippered toes by mistake in reaching for the pedal. Then we had a club which met and gave performances to itself, now and again inviting a select public. Semi-social music-affairs were frequent in those days when accomplishment was our musica! goal.
We had better and better concerts, too, with the years; Theodore Thomas's orchestra, the Mendelssohn Quintet club from Boston, plenty of noted soloists, now and then a good chorus from our own German Liederkranz, still a figure in the musical history of the city. Most large towns, east and west, had their local choruses, and sang the oratorios, the Elijah and the Hymn of Praise, the Creation and the Messiah.
We played games on warm evenings, in the big back yard under the four oaks, which stood in perfect juxtaposition for Pris- oners' Base. The boys in the neighborhood played with us, and
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while they were better sports, we considered ourselves superior strategists. A slender boy, tall for his twelve years, would race past the oaks, springing lithely between the box-borders in the garden to dodge his breathless opponent who was more familiar with the little twisting paths between the flower-beds, which might not be stepped on, even in dire exigency. But his elastic muscles out- stripped mine in the game of Prisoners' Base, just as his mental agility outstripped that of his fellows forty years later when he was the genial Judge before whom the Roosevelt-Barnes case was tried in the Syracuse courts. Judge William Andrews' scholarliness, matching that of the litigant, who ostentatiously buried himself in a volume of Thucydides when not occupied on the witness-stand, came to the fore in some bits of inimitable dialogue which delighted the Court and the public. But we did not dream in those games of Prisoners' Base that one day he and I would be colleagues in grand- parenthood, and share a measure of family pride in another young- ster, also slim and fleet-footed and tall for his age, who would be working out an inheritance from bishops and jurists.
While those games we played taught us a much needed coordina- tion and balance, they held none of the dignity of a new undertaking which was begun the year I was twelve. At that time I began to substitute at the afternoon organ playing during Lent. I had prac- tically to stand on the pedals to get enough air into them to sustain the tones. My legs were provokingly short. I must have been a funny little figure, in my red and black plaid cloak, with my gray astra- khan cap, the crown lifted in front. It was interesting to be an organist; I imagined myself a Saint Cecilia. Not the Cecilia of the Raphael variety, but the more modern and sentimental one at the pipe-organ, with cherubs looking down at her. After a few gusty the short-winded efforts from the bellows, I became sure-footed enough to manage the tread-mill motion.
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5
RELIEF AND WELFARE
The civic problem in the 70's which most pressed upon Syracuse citizens was one of relief and welfare. For help in its solution the Bishop looked to his older daughter and the friends she had gath- ered about her. They were of the same calibre-among them the Sedgwicks, Wilkinsons, Burnets, Townsends, Millses, Calthrops; others as well. The girls studied and read together. (They did not all read Mazzini's essays, as my sister did, but it was the age when young people read Carlyle and Browning, and discussed the latter exhaustively in many clubs.)
The Bishop had already begun to experiment with remedies for the door-to-door begging, which was demoralizing both beggars and givers. He made an arrangement with a cheap lodging-house and restaurant to accept tickets given to beggars in lieu of money. These were received with dissatisfaction by the mendicants, sometimes actually refused. It was found before long that they were sold for the price of a drink, on the street, and presented at the eating- houses by respectable people. Meantime a room in the Bishop's house had been opened for the reception of used clothing, which the women of two large Church societies collected or donated. This was a departure from previous charitable methods. When it became known to the householders of the city all manner of donations poured in. People evidently felt it a relief to turn out the contents of attics and wardrobes
The incongruity of some gifts was amusing. Odd rubbers and gloves abounded. A prominent widow innocently disclosed her in- tention of marrying again by sending her coachman with an armful of boxes which were found to contain seven black crepe bonnets,
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with heavy mourning-veils attached. We all enjoyed watching for the announcement which followed a few days later in the news- papers. We had thought the offering a somewhat unpractical one, but found it, on the contrary, extremely useful, since deep mourn- ing was so fashionable in those days that the poorest of widows could be consoled by the acquisition of really effective black. We raided the collection occasionally for costumes, when we gave dra- matic entertainments.
The first efforts of the newly organized welfare societies were directed toward a separation of the worthy from the unworthy, a difficult matter at all times. No machinery existed for investigation, and no standards of respectability were possible without classifica- tion. All work of that sort had to be accomplished by amateurs. The Huntingtons were by no means alone in these beginnings. A num- ber of men and women with real aptitude for social service came to the fore: the time was ripe for progress. Arria Huntington started combining methods already in use. Boards of Health had not been established in some states; the care of the insane was being looked into here and there; there were terrible discoveries made in private institutions of all sorts: lying-in homes, baby farms, orphan asylums. The young reformers were always trying to strike a true balance between patience and consent, necessity and waste, the psychology of reform-movements.
Our sister's activities in all branches of civic work were aided and abetted by the family. But probably the most appealing one, the cause of the "fallen" girl, was more familiar than any other to her younger sisters. She had become interested in a class of women, court cases at the penitentiary. They were mostly drunkards and prostitutes, pathetic when they finished their terms and came out of captivity into a world of old temptations, with no prospect of friends or decent homes. Arria had begun at the most difficult end in an attempt to start them in happy and improved conditions of living, and the work had proved fruitless. They began, with release from their jail terms, to try to reclaim themselves; but habit was too strong for them, and respectable earning too difficult. Gradually the ardent young women began to realize that any enduring work
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must make its appeal to the young rather than to the middle-aged. Arria Huntington took up the saving of these girls as her life-work. She built a school, The Shelter, to which first offenders could be sent, and where they might be trained for a self-supporting, normal ex- istence. There was much difficulty in the enterprise; the opposition of certain political forces, hitherto the protectors of vice; wealthy patrons of the houses of prostitution which crowded certain sec- tions of the city. The work was attacked from within and without. But the girl who had undertaken it met these disheartening condi- tions with a bravery which won the admiration even of its enemies. The powers which controlled the vice traffic deemed it best to lie low, and leave their henchmen to make what defense they could. They felt a rather unusual confidence in a personality who, with her youthful appearance and her ease of manner would, they knew, pursue her course with discretion and with entire absence of per- sonal ambition.
We younger ones had always taken our sister's superiority for granted, but had never really appreciated it as we came to do in those early days of Syracuse experience. We knew all about that particular work, and it was discussed quite freely in the family; no one could take the time to banish us from general conversation or to practice very much secrecy.
I did a good deal of wondering. I overheard talk of "houses," of court cases, of babies which seemed to have been unlucky, and for which homes had to be found; of "bad" women and girls, of feeble- mindedness, of penitentiaries, of prisons, of prostitution; the last word bothered me. I imagined it as meaning some sort of in-stitu- tion. The dictionary got my understanding involved with still more incomprehensible language; strumpet, harlot, lewdness; all syno- nyms for badness apparently. The people I heard talking did not define the words, in fact did not use them very much; they talked more about "lost" and "fallen" women. And yet after all there was sonie mystery, I felt. Men were connected in some way with the question.
Often we saw a handsomely upholstered carriage and inside it a vacant female face with skin like parchment, eyes staring straight
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ahead; no youth, no life, no color; a face like a mask, jewels hanging from the tense neck. That solitary figure passed and re-passed the living beings like a wandering ghost, never seeming to move, never heard to speak; let go on her weary way. People whispered; that was Diamond Nell. She was bad, they said. Some rich men had given her the horses and the jewels. We did not of course know what that particular brand of bad meant; to us she looked plain lonesome. Why did she always drive by herself? But the horses were lovely, and her jewels glittered if her face did not.
Another little girl had heard things. She imparted the fact that Diamond Nell had a "house"; a girl who sewed for her mother had told her. She knew the street and the number. She and I went there one day. The house was near a big church; it was painted a sort of cream-color, and it had lace curtains, drawn tight, in all the win- dows; sometimes closed blinds too. But the sewing-woman had said there were lights there all night long, and that men were always there. Both of us felt a little scared and a little guilty. A carriage and pair of horses was standing in front of the house, but it was not Nell's. A coachman in livery sat perfectly still on the box and waited, his face inscrutable. We hurried away, and talked about it all the way home. In one of the heavy, faded old volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica I had seen an article on zoology. I con- tinued my research, which led me to the heading Mammalia, a de- partnient that included cats, dogs, cows and people. I knew about cats and dogs, and partly about cows, but had made only vague guesses about people. It was a fascinating subject. The young Eve ate quite happily some of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and as she ate the feeling of guilt dropped from mind and conscience.
The encyclopedia, in its faded red binding, lay innocently upon the chair-seat, not alluring but revealing. When I had really fath- omed its depths of information I did not, it is true, feel that I per- fectly understood the whole matter. But there was a dignity and authority about the Latin ternis which allayed my impatient curi- osity. By and by I closed the book, and thought a bit. There was still something to know. Yet it would not fit into the discussions with other girls; the newly acquired equipment was my personal posses-
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sion, not to be talked over. I could do my own observing and think- ing now. It was not silly kindergarten stuff, either. And it was not romantic, I reflected, perhaps with a slight disappointment-it was scientific. And my sister, who knew everything possible to know, undoubtedly knew too. So I waited from that time on, without any sense of hurry, for further information to come to me instead of seeking it. Something or somebody would have to shake the branches of the knowledge-tree. Then I would pick up the fruit.
Later I overheard a conversation which added to my slim knowl- edge of the matter. An announcement through a half-opened door aroused my attention.
"What do you think. Amelia Hallett has had a baby!"
"A baby? Amelia? Is she married?"
"No; she had made up her mind she wanted a child, even though she could never hope to have a husband, with that scar on her face. She said she had a right to, because she had money enough to bring it up."
"But there must be a man. Who is he?"
"She won't tell. Says it isn't important. She's gone with the baby to a farm in Idaho."
Then I heard a voice say, "But it's awful. She ought to be ashamed." And an answer.
"I think it's better not to judge her. I'm sure she'll make a lovely mother."
From my youthful point of view, it seemed unnatural to prefer a baby to a husband. The world was still very incomprehensible, and I could not ask my parents for an explanation.
There were other projects beside our sister's work, and one of them offered a new opportunity for community-cooperation. Syra- cuse had but one public hospital, which was much over-crowded. Better care for the sick was imperative. The Bishop had become more and more aware of this need. It was debated and weighed by a group of the more thoughtful minds of the city. Foremost among them was Dr. John Van Duyn, then in the prime of life; young, enthusiastic, tremendously absorbed in his profession, already known as an expert. His fine eyes, keen and penetrating, looked
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farther than symptoms or megrims. He knew what to do with a nervous patient, a broken bone, a strained back, or a "situation" that was physically upsetting and debilitating. He had science for a weapon, and judgment for a guide. His organizing power was as inherent as his penetration, or his understanding of materia medica. His patients adored him, and as one of them when quite a young girl, I can remember how I looked for the cheery and prompt diagnosis which restored confidence in my own physique, and the masterful orders he gave in his bright, brusque fashion for the right maintenance of that physique. Sometimes his prescription would be a tonic, of which he would observe that it had a lot of things in it so that one of them would be sure to "hit"; sometimes he would say to a mother, "That girl needs something to do to keep her nerves busy"; sometimes he would ask "What time do you get to bed?" and follow the answer with, "Now mind, ten hours a night, honor bright, till you get some life in you."
But his professional popularity was the least of it; his scholarly habit, his philanthropy and his progressive spirit were strong fac- tors in starting a hospital with good-will and energy in place of an overflowing treasury. The only possible way was to begin it on a small scale, and let it grow. The courageous promoters, a few phy- sicians and interested citizens, leased and repaired an empty house, furnished it with stores from friends' attics, collecting funds as they went along; and put in charge a good sensible woman who had recommendations as a nurse but no real training. It was before the days of training-schools, antiseptics or dieticians. Everybody turned in, and worked for it. Near neighbors stood in little groups on their porches when an emergency case arrived at its doors, and some- times ran over with offers of help. Indeed it was a neighborhood af- fair. That dear, well-meaning, informal, mussy little hospital! It was filled with patients in no time, and more than filled with vis- itors, till it fairly cried to be delivered from its friends. Clergy, med- ical students, kind ladies came unannounced at all hours. I can't re- member that there was any way of keeping even a single-room patient quiet, nor protecting the four-bed "wards" from Bible- readers and exhorters. There may not have been many dangerously
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sick cases in those days. The doctors had a hard time to preserve proper precautions; rules were made as need dictated, but there was no one to enforce them. We children also raced in and out irreg- ularly, zealously, to entertain two crippled children, victims prob- ably of infantile paralysis. We must have been hopelessly under- foot, but could be sent on errands, and before the days of telephones it was helpful to have young runners. The evolution of the work was slow, and fraught with many problems. Superintendents of all sorts tried their hand at it; years passed before the training school, vitally necessary, took shape, and with fine women at its head brought the House of the Good Shepherd to strength and completion. It is one of the City hospitals still, now the property of Syracuse University. Started while antiseptics, bacteria, and many of the intricate proc- esses of surgery were unknown to the American physician, it made unbelievable progress. Of course it was following and learning from the hospitals of the larger cities. But I am glad to have learned something of the realities, pain and patience and devotion to the sick and weak, by experience rather than statistics. Dr. Van Duyn lived not only to see his own work grandly fruitful, but taken up and carried on by son and grandson.
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INVITATION TO THE WALTZ
With the arrival of the teens, and the new dignities to which one finds oneself committed, comes an inevitable change in codes of behavior. Having grown quite tall, I began to take an interest in clothes and hair-arrangements. Molly, at eleven, had had an attack of scarlet fever, and her curls had been shorn, so she was beginning again with a short curly crop like a boy's, and looked like a smaller edition of her brother Jim. But perfectly straight locks, not a twist in them, were discouraging. A long thick braid had to be turned up and tied in a "club" behind. And then came the lengthening of skirts. Spring dresses were more or less of a problem, and there was no influential Miss Balze to decide ahead upon the probable trend of the fashions. Our Syracuse mantua-maker was a young Irish seamstress named Maggie, with black eyes and rosy cheeks, very fond of trimming and furbishing, since it prolonged her days of work. She spent weeks on the family wardrobe, and I grieve to say that our busy mother was obliged to leave the cut of the gowns pretty much to her taste. Our older sister planned her own dresses, but the younger children were at Maggie's mercy. I remember one gown which was a real affliction-a light gray material with two skirts, bound with bright green silk in curious little triangular points. It was begun rather ahead of time, as it was supposed to be necessary to engage the sewing-force early. The combination of green and gray tried me, and I frankly doubted Maggie's assertion that it was the latest Paris touch. But the elders of the family seemed satisfied, so there was nothing to do but accept it, and wear it on an Easter morning in April, when Nature, it is true, was beginning to deck herself in green, but not in points. Alas! my joy was dimmed,
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that happy morning. The skirt was long; at least I had the consola- tion of looking a little more young-ladyfied than before. But though gray was the prevailing color that season, not one single gown was trimmed with green nor cut in triangles. It was hard to be cheer- ful under the circumstances. The outcome, however, almost atoned for this affliction. Our parents finally had an inspiration, and began to give me a dress-allowance, with permission to plan my own frocks. From a financial standpoint this was never quite satisfactory; there were deficits, extravagances, and inconsistencies which did not com- mend the scheme at all in its first years; but I was far more con- tented. Maggie was obliged to yield, and look up the modes in Harper's Bazaar, and I attired myself in garments which were pro- nounced "old for my age," but I certainly moved with more ease in the sphere which I was supposed to adorn. And then the beginnings of social experience opened up.
Through the winter the Cobleighs, a set of dances named for a popular dancing-master or master-of-ceremonies, met in a down- town hall. They entertained the younger set, reinforced by each year's debutantes-only they were not called by that name, since there were no formal comings-out like the Boston ones. I had now been attending a girls' dancing-class taught by a lovely young lady who was the idol of her pupils. We learned the polka and the schot- tische, rather jerky steps, and of course the waltz, a gliding and graceful variety, suited to the beautiful waltz-music of the time. One could make it even dreamy, redeemed from dizzy effects by constant reversing, which was difficult for the beginner. Then the square dances, alternating with the round ones, were so like games that they were very popular-the Lancers, the Quadrille, and the Virginia Reel, with which every dance ended.
But musical though I was, I could not manage to keep time with the orchestra. My companions tripped the light fantastic toe with abandon and grace. Perhaps I tried too hard. I was invited now to parties, and was much excited when the invitations came. They were early affairs, at private houses. The girls wore little silk frocks, and the boys were supposed to appear in white cotton gloves, but frequently tore them off. I had some pretty gowns of my sister's, inade over.
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You sometimes drove to the house in a hired vehicle, which gave you a sense of elegance. You were shown upstairs to take off your wraps, and the girls chattered noisily, giving touches to hair and neck as they had seen their sisters do. You had a card given you for partners to write their names on, with a diminutive pencil at- tached to it by a colored cord.
The popular girls had their cards filled very quickly; one should have been prepared for that, of course. Only you weren't; and yours was not asked for, probably. Possibly one or two boys, brought up to you by the hostess if she was a thoughtful lady, would put their names down for one dance, but it was quite certain that they would clain it, and it seemed to be always near the end, be- yond the time-limit of an early dance. You held your card out of sight, and went and sat down on one of the chairs which were ranged round the wall of the dance-room, getting as far from the chaperons as possible. Then the music began, and the boys came rushing up to the girls on the other chairs, and danced off with them. You thought there might be some boys left over, but there were left-over girls instead; and they, too, came and sat down in the empty chairs. Wall-flowers. The hateful epithet ran in your head. The girls were dull company. All of them were absent-minded, somehow. I felt deadened and my muscles were affected by it; they were stiff all over; my head ached dully, and I almost wanted to cry. If a boy finally appeared and asked me to dance, however, I blushed and said:
"Oh, thank you! Yes, I'd like to ever so much." But after I was on my feet I realized that it was not one of the best dancers who had sought this honor; they were all dancing with the popular girls. This one was usually knock-kneed and bashful. We hitched along unevenly, not keeping with the music, the boy breathing hard, and perspiring sometimes in the effort to catch up. Toiling once or twice round the room seemed to tire us both out.
"We don't go together very well," I would suggest.
"No," answered the boy. "I can't seem to keep step with you." Then we would mutually succumb and sit down. By that time I found my throat swelling a little in spite of heroic efforts to be cheer- ful, and my eyes getting damp. There was a horrid feeling that if
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any better dancer tried to go on with me it would be as a last resort. Why had I come? But why shouldn't I? And why couldn't I chatter and giggle in the fetching way the other girls did? It quenched my usual enthusiasm completely.
After swallowing a good many potential sobs, grinning inanely the while and repeatedly vowing never to go to a party again, I de- cided that there must be a technique for becoming a ball-room belle. I took close observation of the successful girl. It appeared that one should not jump up with ecstatic thanks when a partner offered himself. Evidently he ought not to be made to think he was desir- able. I noted that the girl with real poise just giggled gently-the little simper was clearly a part of the ritual-and if she made any remark at all when approached, it was merely to murmur good-na- turedly, "All right," at the same time rising with leisurely accept- ance of the honor, or the air of conferring one herself. I practised that at home before a glass, and got into a fit of laughter in imagin- ing the suppliant partner. It was Dickens-y, and my own attempts at smirking and simpering were irresistibly funny. But that was apparently the principal thing to be studied. Real success, however, would not be achieved by artificial methods alone. Yet why worry about success anyway? After all, the dancing-party was only one way of having a good time. The thing was, I decided, to become a jovial wall-flower. Of course it is hard to be jocund when one has just been through that awful waiting-in-the-hall experience; you do get pretty hopeless over it. "But never mind, make the most of what you do have," I admonished myself.
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