CHAPTER III.GREEN PEACE.

“Ups with her heels,And smothers her squeals”

in the clear, cold water.

Laura came up gasping and puffing, her hair streaming all over her round face, her eyes staring with wonder and fright!

By the time help arrived, as it fortunately did, in the person of Thomas the gardener, poor Laura was in a deplorable condition, half choked with water, and frightened nearly out of her wits.

Thomas carried the dripping child to thehouse and put her into Mary’s kind arms, and then reported to our mother what Harry had done.

We were almost never whipped; but for this misdeed Harry was put to bed at once, and our mother, sitting beside him, gave him what we used to call a “talking to,” which he did not soon forget.

Nurse Mary probably thought it would gratify Laura to know that naughty Harry was being punished for his misdoings; but she had mistaken her child. When the mother came back to the nursery from Harry’s room, she found Laura (in dry raiment, but with cheeks still crimson and shining) sitting in the middle of the floor, with clenched fists and flashing eyes, and roaring at the top of her lungs, “I’ll tumble my mudder down wid a ’tick!”

Not many children can boast of having two homes; some, alas! have hardly one. But we actually had two abiding-places, both of which were so dear to us that we loved them equally. First, there was Green Peace. When our mother first came to the place, and saw the fair garden, and the house with its lawn and its shadowing trees, she gave it this name, half in sport; and the title clung to it always.

The house itself was pleasant. The original building, nearly two hundred years old, was low and squat, with low-studded rooms, and great posts in the corners, and small many-paned windows. As I recall it now, it consisted largely of cupboards,—the queerest cupboards that ever were; some square and some three-cornered, and others of no shape

Maud.

at all. They were squeezed into staircase walls, they lurked beside chimneys, they were down near the floor, they were close beneath the ceiling. It was as if a child had built the house for the express purpose of playing hide-and-seek in it. Ah, how we children did play hide-and-seek there! To lie curled up in the darkest corner of the “twisty” cupboard, that went burrowing in under the front stairs,—to lie curled up there, eating an apple, and hear the chase go clattering and thumping by, that was a sensation!

Then the stairs! There was not very much of them, for a tall man standing on the ground floor could touch the top step with his hand. But they had a great deal of variety; no two steps went the same way: they seemed to have fallen out with one another, and never to have “made up” again. When you had once learned how to go up and down, it was very well, except in the dark; and even then you had only to remember that you must tread on the farther side of the first two steps, and on the hither side of the next three, and in the middle of fourafter, and then you were near the top or the bottom, as the case might be, and could scramble or jump for it. But it was not well for strangers to go up and down those stairs.

There was another flight that was even more perilous, but our father had it boarded over, as he thought it unsafe for any one to use. One always had a shiver in passing through a certain dark passage, when one felt boards instead of plaster under one’s hand, and knew that behind those boards lurked the hidden staircase. There was something uncanny about it,—

“O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear;A sense of mystery the spirit daunted.”

Perhaps the legend of the hidden staircase was all the more awful because it was never told.

Just to the right of the school-room, a door opened into the new part of the house which our father had built. The first room was the great dining-room; and very great it was. On the floor was a wonderful carpet, all in one piece, which was made in France,and had belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, a brother of the great Emperor. In the middle was a medallion of Napoleon and Marie Louise, with sun-rays about them; then came a great circle, with strange beasts on it ramping and roaring (only they roared silently); and then a plain space, and in the corners birds and fishes such as never were seen in air or sea. Yes, thatwasa carpet! It was here we danced the wonderful dances. We hopped round and round the circle, and we stamped on the beasts and the fishes; but it was not good manners to step on the Emperor and Empress,—one must go round them. Here our mother sang to us; but the singing belongs to another chapter.

The great dining-room had a roof all to itself,—a flat roof, covered with tar and gravel, and railed in; so that one could lie on one’s face and kick one’s heels, pick out white pebbles, and punch the bubbles of tar all hot in the sun.

But, after all, we did not stay in the house much. Why should we, with the garden calling us out with its thousand voices? Oneach side of the house lay an oval lawn, green as emerald. One lawn had the laburnum-tree, where at the right time of year we sat under a shower of fragrant gold; the other had the three hawthorn-trees, one with white blossoms, another with pink, and a third with deep red, rose-like flowers. Other trees were there, but I do not remember them. Directly in front of the house stood two giant Balm-of-Gilead trees, towering over the low-roofed dwelling. These trees were favorites of ours, for at a certain time they dropped down to us thousands and thousands of sticky catkins, full of the most charming, silky cotton. We called them the “cottonwool-trees,” and loved them tenderly. Then, between the trees, a flight of steps plunged down to the green-house. A curious place this was,—summer-house, hot-house, and bowling-alley, all in one. The summer-house part was not very interesting, being all filled with seeds and pots and dry bulbs, and the like. But from it a swing-door opened into Elysium! Here the air was soft and balmy, and full of the smell of roses. One wentdown two steps, and there were the roses themselves! Great vines trained along the walls, heavy with long white or yellow or tea-colored buds,—I remember no red ones. Mr. Arrow, the gardener, never let us touch the roses, and he never gave us a bud; but when a rose was fully open, showing its golden heart, he would often pick it for us, with a sigh, but a kind look too. Mr. Arrow was an Englishman, stout and red-faced. Julia made a rhyme about him once, beginning,—

“Poor Mr. Arrow, he once was narrow,But that was a long time ago.”

Midway in the long glass-covered building was a tiny oval pond, lined with green moss. I think it once had goldfish in it, but they did not thrive. When Mr. Arrow was gone to dinner, it was pleasant to fill the brass syringe with water from this pond, and squirt at the roses, and feel the heavy drops plashing back in one’s upturned face. Sometimes a child fell into the pond; but as the water was only four or five inches deep, no harm was done, save to stockings and petticoats.

The bowling-alley was divided by a low partition from the hot-house, so that when we went to play at planets we breathed the same soft, perfumed air. The planets were the balls. The biggest one was Uranus; then came Saturn, and so on down to Mercury, a little dot of a ball. They were of some dark, hard, foreign wood, very smooth, with a dusky polish. It was a great delight to roll them, either over the smooth floor, against the ninepins, or along the rack at the side. When one rolled Uranus or Jupiter, it sounded like thunder,—Olympian thunder, suggestive of angry gods. Then the musical tinkle of the pins, as they clinked and fell together! Sometimes they were British soldiers, and we the Continentals, firing the “iron six-pounder” from the other end of the battle-field. Sometimes, regardless of dates, we introduced artillery into the Trojan war, and Hector bowled Achilles off his legs, orvice versa.

The bowling-alley was also used for other sports. It was here that Flossy gave a grand party for Cotchy, her precious Maltese cat.All the cat-owning little girls in the neighborhood were invited, and about twelve came, each bringing her pet in a basket. Cotchy was beautifully dressed in a cherry-colored ribbon, which set off her gray, satiny coat to perfection. She received her guests with much dignity, but was not inclined to do much toward entertaining them. Flossy tried to make the twelve cats play with one another, but they were shy on first acquaintance, and a little stiff. Perhaps Flossy did not in those days know the proper etiquette for introducing cats, though since then she has studied all kinds of etiquette thoroughly. But the little girls enjoyed themselves, if the cats did not, and there was a great deal of chattering and comparing notes. Then came the feast, which consisted of milk and fish-bones; and next every cat had her nose buttered by way of dessert. Altogether, the party was voted a great success.

Below, and on both sides of the green-house, the fertile ground was set thick with fruit-trees, our father’s special pride. The pears and peaches of Green Peace wereknown far and wide; I have never seen such peaches since, nor is it only the halo of childish recollection that shines around them, for others bear the same testimony. Crimson-glowing, golden-hearted, smooth and perfect as a baby’s cheek, each one was a thing of wonder and beauty; and when you ate one, you ate summer and sunshine. Our father gave us a great deal of fruit, but we were never allowed to take it ourselves without permission; indeed, I doubt if it ever occurred to us to do so. One of us still remembers the thrill of horror she felt when a little girl who had come to spend the afternoon picked up a fallen peach and ate it, without asking leave. It seemed a dreadful thing not to know that the garden was a field of honor. As to the proverbial sweetness of stolen fruit, we knew nothing about it. The fruit was sweet enough from our dear father’s hand, and, as I said, he gave us plenty of it.

How was it, I wonder, that this sense of honor seemed sometimes to stay in the garden and not always to come into the house?

Laura was found in the Sugar-Barrel.

For as I write, the thought comes to me of a day when Laura was found with her feet sticking out of the sugar-barrel, into which she had fallen head foremost while trying to get a lump of sugar. She has never eaten a lump of sugar, save in her tea, since that day. Also, it is recorded of Flossy and Julia, that, being one day at the Institution, they found the store-room open, and went in, against the law. There was a beautiful polished tank, which appeared to be full of rich brown syrup. Julia and Flossy liked syrup; so each filled a mug, and then they counted one, two, three, and each took a good draught,—and it was train-oil!

But in both these cases the culprits were hardly out of babyhood; so perhaps they had not yet learned about the “broad stone of honor,” on which it is good to set one’s feet.

I must not leave the garden without speaking of the cherry-trees. These must have been planted by early settlers, perhaps by the same hand that planned the crooked stairs and quaint cupboards of the old house,—enormous trees, gnarled and twisted likeancient apple-trees, and as sturdy as they. They had been grafted—whether by our father’s or some earlier hand I know not—with the finest varieties of “white-hearts” and “black-hearts,” and they bore amazing quantities of cherries. These attracted flocks of birds, which our father in vain tried to frighten away with scarecrows. Once he put the cat in a bird-cage, and hung her up in the white-heart tree; but the birds soon found that she could not get at them, and poor pussy was so miserable that she was quickly released.

I perceive that we shall not get to the summer home in this chapter; but I must say a word about the Institution for the Blind, which was within a few minutes’ walk of Green Peace.

Many of our happiest hours were spent in this pleasant place, the home of patient cheerfulness and earnest work. We often went to play with the blind children when our lessons and theirs were over, and they came trooping out into the sunny playground. I do not think it occurred to us to pity theseboys and girls deprived of one of the chief sources of pleasure in life; they were so happy, so merry, that we took their blindness as a matter of course.

Our father often gave us baskets of fruit to take to them. That was a great pleasure. We loved to turn the great globe in the hall, and, shutting our eyes, pass our fingers over the raised surfaces, trying to find different places. We often “played blind,” and tried to read the great books with raised print, but never succeeded that I remember. The printing-office was a wonderful place to linger in; and one could often get pieces of marbled paper, which was valuable in the paper-doll world. Then there was the gymnasium, with its hanging rings, and its wonderful tilt, which went up so high that it took one’s breath away. Just beyond the gymnasium, were some small rooms, in which were stored worn-out pianos, disabled after years of service under practising fingers. It was very good fun to play on a worn-out piano. There were always a good many notes that really sounded, and they had quite individualsounds, not like those of common pianos; then there were some notes that buzzed, and some that growled, and some that made no noise at all; and one could poke in under the cover, and twang the strings, and play with the chamois-leather things that went flop (we have since learned that they are called hammers), and sometimes pull them out, though that seemed wicked.

Then there was the matron’s room, where we were always made welcome by the sweet and gracious woman who still makes sunshine in that place by her lovely presence. Dear Miss M—— was never out of patience with our pranks, had always a picture-book or a flower or a curiosity to show us, and often a story to tell when a spare half-hour came. For her did Flossy and Julia act their most thrilling tragedies, no other spectators being admitted. To her did Harry and Laura confide their infant joys and woes. Other friends will have a chapter to themselves, but it seems most fitting to speak of this friend here, in telling of the home she has made bright for over fifty years.

Over the way from the Institution stood the workshop, where blind men and women, many of them graduates of the Institution, made mattresses and pillows, mats and brooms. This was another favorite haunt of ours. There was a stuffy but not unpleasant smell of feathers and hemp about the place. I should know that smell if I met it in Siberia! There were coils of rope, sometimes so large that one could squat down and hide in the middle, piles of hemp, and dark mysterious bins full of curled hair, white and black. There was a dreadful mystery about the black-hair bin; the little ones ran past it, with their heads turned away. But they never told what it was, and one of them never knew.

But the crowning joy of the workshop was the feather-room,—a long room, with smooth, clean floor; along one side of it were divisions, like the stalls in a stable, and each division was half filled with feathers. Boy and girl readers will understand what a joy this must have been,—to sit down in the feathers, and let them cover you up to the neck,and be a setting hen! or to lie at full length, and be a traveller lost in the snow,—Harry making it snow feathers till you were all covered up, and then turning into the faithful hound and dragging you out! or to play the game of “Winds,” and blow the feathers about the room! But old Margaret did not allow this last game, and we could do it only when she happened to go out for a moment, which was not very often. Old Margaret was the presiding genius of the feather-room, a half-blind woman, who kept the feathers in order and helped to sew up the pillows and mattresses. She was always kind to us, and let us rake feathers with the great wooden rake as much as we would. Later, when Laura was perhaps ten years old, she used to go and read to old Margaret. Mrs. Browning’s poems were making a new world for the child at that time, and she never felt a moment’s doubt about the old woman’s enjoying them: in after years doubts did occur to her.

It was probably a quaint picture, if any one had looked in upon it: the long, lowroom, with the feather-heaps, white and dusky gray; the half-blind, withered crone, nodding over her knitting, and the little earnest child, throwing her whole soul into “The Romaunt of the Page,” or the “Rhyme of the Duchess May.”

“Oh! the little birds sang east,And the little birds sang west,Toll slowly!”

The first sound of the words carries me back through the years to the feather-room and old blind Margaret.

The time of our summer flitting varied. Sometimes we stayed at Green Peace till after strawberry-time, and lingered late at the Valley; sometimes we went early, and came back in time for the peaches. But in one month or another there came a season of great business and bustle. Woollen dresses were put away in the great cedar-lined camphor-chests studded with brass nails; calico dresses were lengthened, and joyfully assumed; trunks were packed, and boxes and barrels; carpets were taken up and laid away; and white covers were put over pictures and mirrors. Finally we departed, generally in more or less confusion.

I remember one occasion when our rear column reached the Old Colony Station just as the train was starting. Theadvance-guard, consisting of our mother and the older children, was already on board; and Harry and Laura have a vivid recollection of being caught up by our father and tumbled into the moving baggage-car, he flashing in after us, and all sitting on trunks, panting, till we were sufficiently revived to pass through to our seats in the passenger-car. In those days the railway ran no farther than Fall River. There we must take a carriage and drive twelve miles to our home in the Island of Rest. Twelve long and weary miles they were, much dreaded by us all. The trip was made in a large old-fashioned vehicle, half hack, half stage. The red cushions were hard and uncomfortable; the horses were aged; their driver, good, snuff-colored Mr. Anthony, felt keenly his duty to spare them, and considered the passengers a minor affair. So we five children were cramped and cooped up, I know not how long. It seemed hours that we must sit there, while the ancient horses crawled up the sandy hills, or jogged meditatively along the level spaces. Every jointdeveloped a separate ache; our legs were cramped,—the short ones from hanging over the seat, the long ones because the floor of the coach was piled with baskets and bandboxes. It was hot, hot! The flies buzzed, and would not let one go to sleep; the dust rolled in thick yellow clouds from under the wheels, and filled eyes and mouth, and set all a-sneezing. Decidedly, it was a most tiresome jaunt. But all the more delightful was the arrival! To drive in under the apple-trees, just as the evening was falling cool and sweet; to tumble out of the stuffy prison-coach, and race through the orchard, and out to the barn, and up the hill behind the house,—ah, that was worth all the miseries of the journey!

From the hill behind the house we could see the sunset; and that was one thing we did not have at Green Peace, shut in by its great trees. Here, before our eyes, still aching from the dust of the road, lay the great bay, all a sheet of silver, with white sails here and there; beyond it Conanicut, a long island, brown in the noon-light, now softened intowonderful shades of amethyst and violet; and the great sun going down in a glory of gold and flame! Nowhere else are such sunsets. Sometimes the sky was all strewn with fiery flakes and long delicate flame-feathers, glowing with rosy light; sometimes there were purple cloud-islands, edged with crimson, and between them and the real island a space of delicate green, so pure, so cold, that there is nothing to compare with it save a certain chrysoprase our mother had.

Gazing at these wonders, the children would stand, full of vague delight, not knowing what they thought, till the tea-bell summoned them to the house for a merry picnic supper. Then there was clattering upstairs, washing of hands in the great basin with purple grapes on it (it belonged in the guest-chamber, and we were not allowed to use it save on special occasions like this), hasty smoothing of hair and straightening of collars, and then clatter! clatter! down again.

There was nothing remarkable about the house at the Valley. It was just a pleasant cottage, with plenty of sunny windows andsquare, comfortable rooms. But we were seldom in the house, save at meal-times or when it rained; and our real home was under the blue sky. First, there was the orchard. It was an ideal orchard, with the queerest old apple-trees that ever were seen. They did not bear many apples, but they were delightful to climb in, with trunks slanting so that one could easily run up them, and branches that curled round so as to make a comfortable back to lean against. There are few pleasanter things than to sit in an apple-tree and read poetry, with birds twittering undismayed beside you, and green leaves whispering over your head. Laura was generally doing this when she ought to have been mending her stockings.

Then there was the joggling-board, under the two biggest trees. The delight of a joggling-board is hardly to be explained to children who have never known it; but I trust many children do know it. The board is long and smooth and springy, supported at both ends on stands; and one can play all sorts of things on it. Many a circushas been held on the board at the Valley! We danced the tight-rope on it; we leaped through imaginary rings, coming down on the tips of our toes; we hopped its whole length on one foot; we wriggled along it on our stomachs, on our backs; we bumped along it on hands and knees. Dear old joggling-board! it is not probable that any other was ever quite so good as ours.

Near by was the pump, a never-failing wonder to us when we were little. The well over which it stood was very deep, and it took a long time to bring the bucket up. It was a chain-pump, and the chain went rattlety-clank! rattlety-clank! round and round; and the handle creaked and groaned,—“Ah-ho! ah-ho!” When you had turned a good while there came out of the spout a stream of—water? No! of daddy-long-legses! They lived, apparently, in the spout, and they did not like the water; so when they heard the bucket coming up, with the water going “lip! lap!” as it swung to and fro, they came running out, dozens and dozens of them, probably thinking whatunreasonable people we were to disturb them. When the water did finally come, it was wonderfully cold, and clear as crystal.

The hill behind the house was perhaps our favorite play-room. It was a low, rocky hill, covered with “prostrate juniper” bushes, which bore blue berries very useful in our housekeeping. At the top of the rise the bare rock cropped out, dark gray, covered with flat, dry lichens. This was our house. It had several rooms: the drawing-room was really palatial,—a broad floor of rock, with flights of steps leading up to it. The state stairway was used for kings and queens, conquerors, and the like; the smaller was really more convenient, as the steps were more sharply defined, and you were not so apt to fall down them. Then there was the dining-room rock, where meals were served,—daisy pudding and similar delicacies; and the kitchen rock, which had a real oven, and the most charming cupboards imaginable. Here were stored hollyhock cheeses, and sorrel leaves, and twigs of black birch, fragrant and spicy, and many other good things.

On this hill was celebrated, on the first of August, the annual festival of “Yeller’s Day.” This custom was begun by Flossy, and adhered to for many years. Immediately after breakfast on the appointed day, all the children assembled on the top of the hill and yelled. Oh, how we yelled! It was a point of honor to make as much noise as possible. We roared and shrieked and howled, till we were too hoarse to make a sound; then we rested, and played something else, perhaps, till our voices were restored, and then—yelled again! Yeller’s Day was regarded as one of the great days of the summer. By afternoon we were generally quite exhausted, and we were hoarse for several days afterward. I cannot recommend this practice. In fact, I sincerely hope that no child will attempt to introduce it; for it is very bad for the voice, and might in some cases do real injury.

Almost every morning we went down to the bay to bathe. It was a walk of nearly a mile through the fields,—such a pleasant walk! The fields were not green, but of asoft russet, the grass being thin and dry, with great quantities of a little pinkish fuzzy plant whose name we never knew.[1]They were divided by stone walls, which we were skilful in climbing. In some places there were bars which must be let down, or climbed over, or crawled through, as fancy suggested. There were many blackberries, of the lowbush variety, bearing great clusters of berries, glossy, beautiful, delicious. We were not allowed to eat them on the way down, but only when coming home. Some of these fields belonged to the Cross Farmer, who had once been rude to us. We regarded him as a manner of devil, and were always looking round to see if his round-shouldered, blue-shirted figure were in sight. At last the shore was reached, and soon we were all in the clear water, shrieking with delight, paddling about, puffing and blowing like a school of young porpoises.

At high-tide the beach was pebbled; at low-tide we went far out, the ground sloping very gradually, to a delightful place wherethe bottom was of fine white sand, sparkling as if mixed with diamond dust. Starfish crawled about on it, and other creatures,—crabs, too, sometimes, that would nip an unwary toe if they got a chance. Sometimes the water was full of jelly-fish, which we did not like, in spite of their beauty. Beyond the white sand was a bed of eel-grass, very dreadful, not to be approached. If a person went into it, he was instantly seized and entangled, and drowned before the eyes of his companions. This was our firm belief. It was probably partly due to Andersen’s story of the “Little Sea-Maid,” which had made a deep impression on us all, with its clutching polyps and other submarine terrors.

We all learned to swim more or less, but Flossy was the best swimmer.

Sometimes we went to bathe in the afternoon instead of the morning, if the tide suited better. I remember one such time when we came delightfully near having an adventure. It was full moon, and the tide was very high. We had loitered along the beach after our bath, gathering mussels toboil for tea, picking up gold-shells or scallop-shells, and punching seaweed bladders, which pop charmingly if you do them right.

German Mary, the good, stupid nurse who was supposed to be taking care of us, knew nothing about tides; and when we came back to the little creek which we must cross on leaving the beach, lo! the creek was a deep, broad stream, the like of which we had never seen. What was to be done? Valiant Flossy proposed to swim across and get help, but Mary shrieked and would not hear of it, and we all protested that it was impossible. Then we perceived that we must spend the night on the beach; and when we were once accustomed to the idea, it was not without attraction for us. The sand was warm and dry, and full of shells and pleasant things; it was August, and the night would be just cool enough for comfort after the hot day; we had a pailful of blackberries which we had picked on the way down, meaning to eat them during our homeward walk; Julia could tell us stories. Altogether it would be a very pleasant occasion.And then to think of the romance of it! “The Deserted Children!” “Alone on a Sandbank!” “The Watchers of the Tide!” There was no end to the things that could be made out of it. So, though poor Mary wept and wrung her hands, mindful (which I cannot remember that we were) of our mother waiting for us at home, we were all very happy.

The sun went down in golden state. Then, turning to the land, we watched the moon rising, in softer radiance, but no less wonderful and glorious. Slowly the great orb rose, turning from pale gold to purest silver. The sea darkened, and presently a little wind came up, and began to sing with the murmuring waves. We sang, too, some of the old German student-songs which our mother had taught us, and which were our favorite ditties. They rang out merrily over the water:—

Die Binschgauer wollten wallfahrten geh’n!(The Binschgauer would on a pilgrimage go!)

or,—

Was kommt dort von der Hoh’?(What comes there over the hill?)

Then Julia told us a story. Perhaps it was the wonderful story of Red-cap,—a boy who met a giant in the forest, and did something to help him, I cannot remember what. Whereupon the grateful giant gave Red-cap a covered silver dish, with a hunter and a hare engraved upon it. When the boy wanted anything he must put the cover on, and ask the hunter and hare to give him what he desired; but there must be a rhyme in the request, else it could not be granted. Red-cap thanked the giant, and as soon as he was alone put the cover on the dish and said,—

“Silver hunter, silver hare,Give me a ripe and juicy pear!”

Taking off the cover, he found the finest pear that ever was seen, shining like pure gold, with a crimson patch on one side. It was so delicious that it made Red-cap hungry; so he covered the dish again and said:

“Silver hunter, silver rabbit,Give me an apple, and I’ll grab it!”

Off came the cover, and, lo! there was an apple the very smell of which was too goodfor any one save the truly virtuous. It was so large that it filled the dish, and its flavor was not to be described, so wonderful was it! A third time the happy Red-cap covered his dish, and cried,—

“Hunter and hare, of silver each,Give me a soft and velvet peach!”

And when he saw the peach he cried out for joy, for it was like the peaches that grew on the crooked tree just by the south door of the greenhouse at Green Peace; and those were the best trees in the garden, and therefore the best in the world.

The trouble about this story is that I never can remember any more of it, and I cannot find the book that contains it. But it must have been about this time that we were hailed from the opposite side of the creek; and presently a boat was run out, and came over to the sand beach and took us off. The people at the Poor Farm, which was on a hill close by, had seen the group of Crusoes and come to our rescue. They greeted us with words of pity (which were quite unnecessary), rowed us to the shore, and thenkindly harnessed the farm-horse and drove us home. German Mary was loud in her thanks and expressions of relief; our mother also was grateful to the good people; but from us they received scant and grudging thanks. If they had only minded their own business and let us alone, we could have spent the night on a sandbank. Now it was not likely that we ever should! And, indeed, we never did.

There is so much to tell about our father that I hardly know where to begin. First, you must know something of his appearance. He was tall and very erect, with the carriage and walk of a soldier. His hair was black, with silver threads in it; his eyes were of the deepest and brightest blue I ever saw. They were eyes full of light: to us it was the soft, beaming light of love and tenderness, but sometimes to others it was the flash of a sword. He was very handsome; in his youth he had been thought one of the handsomest men of his day. It was a gallant time, this youth of our father. When hardly more than a lad, he went out to help the brave Greeks who were fighting to freetheir country from the cruel yoke of the Turks. At an age when most young men were thinking how they could make money, and how they could best advance themselves in the world, our father thought only how he could do most good, be of most help to others. So he went out to Greece, and fought in many a battle beside the brave mountaineers. Dressed like them in the “snowy chemise and the shaggy capote,” he shared their toils and their hardships; slept, rolled in his cloak, under the open stars, or sat over the camp-fire, roasting wasps strung on a stick like dried cherries. The old Greek chieftains called him “the beautiful youth,” and loved him. Once he saved the life of a wounded Greek, at the risk of his own, as you shall read by and by in Whittier’s beautiful words; and the rescued man followed him afterward like a dog, not wishing to lose sight of him for an hour, and would even sleep at his feet at night.

Our father’s letters and journals give vivid pictures of the wild life among the rugged Greek mountains. Now he describes his

Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe.

lodging in a village, which he has reached late at night, in a pouring rain:—

“Squatted down upon a sort of straw pillow placed on the ground, I enjoy all the luxury of a Grecian hut; which in point of elegance, ease, and comfort, although not equal to the meanest of our negro huts, is nevertheless somewhat superior to the naked rock. We have two apartments, but no partitions between them, the different rooms being constituted by the inequality of the ground,—we living up the hill, while the servants and horses live down in the lower part; and the smoke of our fires, rising to the roof and seeking in vain for some hole to escape, comes back again to me.”

Again, he gives a pleasant account of his visit to a good old Greek priest, who lived with his family in a tiny cottage, the best house in the village. He found the good old man just sitting down to supper with his wife and children, and was invited most cordially to join them. The supper consisted of a huge beet, boiled, and served with butter and black bread. This was enough for the whole family, and the guest too; and after describing the perfect contentment andcheerfulness which reigned in the humble dwelling, our father makes some reflections on the different things which go to make up a pleasant meal, and decides that the old “Papa” (as a Greek priest is called) had a much better supper than many rich people he remembered at home, who feasted three times a day on all that money could furnish in the way of good cheer, and found neither joy nor comfort in their victuals.

Once our father and his comrades lay hidden for hours in the hollow of an ancient wall (built thousands of years ago, perhaps in Homer’s day), while the Turks, scimitar in hand, scoured the fields in search of them. Many years after, he showed this hollow to Julia and Laura, who went with him on his fourth journey to Greece, and told them the story.

When our father saw the terrible sufferings of the Greek women and children, who were starving while their husbands and fathers were fighting for life and freedom, he thought that he could help best by helping them; so, though I know he loved the fighting,for he was a born soldier, he came back to this country, and told all that he had seen, and asked for money and clothes and food for the perishing wives and mothers and children. He told the story well, and put his whole heart into it; and people listen to a story so told. Many hearts beat in answer to his, and in a short time he sailed for Greece again, with a good ship full of rice and flour, and cloth to make into garments, and money to buy whatever else might be needed. When he landed in Greece, the women came flocking about him by thousands, crying for bread, and praying God to bless him. He felt blessed enough when he saw the children eating bread, and saw the naked backs covered, and the sad, hungry faces smiling again. So he went about doing good, and helping whenever he saw need. Perhaps many a poor woman may have thought that the beautiful youth was almost like an angel sent by God to relieve her; and she may not have been far wrong.

When the war was over, and Greece was a free country, our father came home, andlooked about him again to see what he could do to help others. He talked with a friend of his, Dr. Fisher, and they decided that they would give their time to helping the blind, who needed help greatly. There were no schools for them in those days; and if a child was blind, it must sit with folded hands and learn nothing.

Our father found several blind children, and took them to his home and taught them. By and by some kind friends gave money, and one—Colonel Perkins—gave a fine house to be a school for these children and others; and that was the beginning of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, now a great school where many blind boys and girls learn to read and study, and to play on various instruments, and to help themselves and others in the world.

Our father always said, “Help people to help themselves; don’t accustom them to being helped by others.” Another saying of his, perhaps his favorite one, next to the familiar “Let justice be done, if the heavens fall!” was this: “Obstacles are thingsto be overcome.” Indeed, this was one of the governing principles of his life; and there were few obstacles that did not go down before that keen lance of his, always in rest and ready for a charge.

When our father first began his work in philanthropy, some of his friends used to laugh at him, and call him Don Quixote. Especially was this the case when he took up the cause of the idiotic and weak-minded, and vowed that instead of being condemned to live like animals, and be treated as such, they should have their rights as human beings, and should be taught all the more carefully and tenderly because their minds were weak and helpless.

“What do you think Howe is going to do now?” cried one gentleman to another, merrily. “He is going to teach the idiots, ha, ha, ha!” and they both laughed heartily, and thought it a very good joke. But people soon ceased to laugh when they saw the helpless creatures beginning to help themselves; saw the girls learning to sew and the boys to work; saw light gradually come intothe vacant eyes (dim and uncertain light it might be, but how much better than blank darkness!), and strength and purpose to the nerveless fingers.

So the School for Feeble-minded Children was founded, and has been ever since a pleasant place, full of hope and cheer; and when people found that this Don Quixote knew very well the difference between a giant and a windmill, and that he always brought down his giants, they soon ceased to laugh, and began to wonder and admire.

All my readers have probably heard about Laura Bridgman, whom he found a little child, deaf, dumb, and blind, knowing no more than an animal, and how he taught her to read and write, to talk with her fingers, and to become an earnest, thoughtful, industrious woman. It is a wonderful story; but it has already been told, and will soon be still more fully told, so I will not dwell upon it now.

But I hope you will all read, some day, a Life of our father, and learn about all thethings he did, for it needs a whole volume to tell them.

But it is especially as our father that I want to describe this great and good man. I suppose there never was a tenderer or kinder father. He liked to make companions of his children, and was never weary of having us “tagging” at his heels. We followed him about the garden like so many little dogs, watching the pruning or grafting which were his special tasks. We followed him up into the wonderful pear-room, where were many chests of drawers, every drawer full of pears lying on cotton-wool. Our father watched their ripening with careful heed, and told us many things about their growth and habits. We learned about the Curé pear, which, one fancied, had been named for an old gentleman with a long and waving nose; and about the Duchesse d’Angoulême, which suggested, in appearance as in name, a splendid dame in gold and crimson velvet. Then there were all the Beurrés, from the pale beauty of the Beurré Diel to the Beurré Bosc in its coat of richrusset, and the Easter Beurré, latest of all. There, too, was the Winter Nelis,—which we persisted in calling “Winter Nelly,” and regarded as a friend of our own age, though this never prevented us from eating her with delight whenever occasion offered,—and the Glout Morceau, and the Doyenne d’Eté, and hundreds more. Julia’s favorite was always the Bartlett, which appealed to her both by its beauty and its sweetness; but Flossy always held, and Laura held with her, and does hold, and will hold till she dies, that no pear is to be named in the same breath with the Louise Bonne de Jersey.

Oh good Louise, you admirable woman, for whom this green-coated ambrosia was named! what a delightful person you must have been! How sweetness and piquancy must have mingled in your adorable disposition! Happy was the man who called you his! happy was the island of Jersey, which saw you and your pears ripening and mellowing side by side!

I must not leave the pear-room without mentioning the beloved Strawberry Book,which was usually to be found there, and over which we children used to pore by the hour together. “Fruits of America” was its real name, but we did not care for that; we loved it for its brilliant pictures of strawberries and all other fruits, and perhaps even more for the wonderful descriptions which were really as satisfying as many an actual feast. Was it not almost as good as eating a pear, to read these words about it:—

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