Three generations

While these words are slowly chanted, the other children scatter and hide. The moment “It” pronounces the final “wack”, the chase begins. Never were such wonderful houses for hiding as those in Louisburg Square and Mount Vernon Street. The Thayer, Sears, Hemenway, Warren, Paine, and Gray houses have fine vestibules, with outer doors hospitably ajar, or at least unlocked. Their owners are ranked as public benefactors. It is a matter of honor that their hospitality must never be abused, and no crumb of bread or scrap of orange peel be allowed to drop on their immaculate steps. One child in one hiding place is the rule of the game, and the competition is keen for certain favorite “hidey holes.”

Up and down the steep streets, we tore and ramped, in all weathers, gathering Miss Julia’s roses. On zero days, when the sidewalks were sheets of glare ice, sliding in a row, with hands on each other’s shoulders, took the place of all other games. When spring came, and the melancholy black trees in Louisburg Square broke out of bounds and waved their slender branches in the world-ecstasy of the new birth, skipping ropes appeared, as if by magic, governed by the same occult law that on a certain day produces marbles among men children. With April, when the streets were finally clear of ice and snow, mysterious hieroglyphics in white chalk were sketched upon the sidewalks, and hop-scotch became the only sport worthy of the name.

I am often asked in these days to subscribe money for a playground, attendant guardians and new-fangled apparatus for play. At such times I am glad that I was young when I was! No playground could ever make up for the splendid freedom of those old Boston streets, where the children of my time were turned loose to amuse themselves. When the old games, played by the girls of Athens and Rome, grew stale, we invented new games of our own.

Certain bolder spirits formed a secret society, called “the Rovers of Boston.” Dinner, at this time, was commonly eaten at two or half-past two o’clock, though some “fashionable” families dined at three. After dinner the Rovers met at the Joy Street entrance of the Common, to plan the afternoon adventures. At the time I am now speaking of, we were living in Boston in one of the various houses my father either rented or owned. The elder children were growing up and, for their sakes, he reluctantly closed the Green Peace home and moved into the city, which my mother greatly preferred. We enjoyed for several seasons the Sargent house, Number 13 Chestnut Street, for many years the home of the Radical Club.

As founder and leader of the Rovers, I had a sense of responsibility for the afternoon’s fun. Life has brought me few sensations more thrilling than the peculiar musical sound that, on certain cold winter mornings, roused me from sleep. Metallic, muffled, rhythmic, all-pervading, a solo under my window, and a distant chorus thundering from every street and alley on Beacon Hill.

“The Snow Shovels!”

Out of bed in a flash and to the window, to see if it has stopped snowing yet; or whether the snow is coming down in sharp small crystals, which mean intense cold, or in great kindly flakes that settle gently upon the earth and transform it into a wonderful white paradise. The little spiteful flakes make the best sleighing and coasting, for they pack harder and firmer; but for fortifications, snowballing, snow statues, and snow ice cream, give me the big gentle flakes, that oftenest bring a peculiar bracing ecstatic thrill to the air, without the sting of extreme cold. On such a day as this, the Rovers’ best sport was to see how many “rides behind” they could coax from the good-natured hackmen, as the great booby-hucks swung slowly up and down the hill of Chestnut Street, a secluded thoroughfare between Mount Vernon and Beacon streets, which the children were allowed to make their very own. The people who lived there seemed all to be parents, or grandparents, and mothered and fathered each other’s children.

The Reverend Cyrus Bartol, of whom Phillips Brooks once spoke as “that little old moth-eaten angel”, lived just below us, and Mr. Patrick Grant a few doors above. On the opposite side of the street was the fine old double house, with wide brownstone steps, divided by the families of Mr. Patrick Jackson and Doctor Luther Parks. Doctor Lothrop lived a few doors off, and the Jere Abbotts next door but one. The Grant boys, Pat, Harry, and Bob, probably had no idea with what longing eyes the little girl at Number 13 watched them, wishing above all else to be invited to join their play. They took no more notice of me than if I had not existed, looking through me as if I had been glass. They were merry lads and famous snow architects. The moment the snow stopped, they were out with their shovels, clearing the steps and the sidewalk. That duty over, they were free for snowballing, building snow bastions, coasting on great “double-runners”, or hiking off to Jamaica Pond with their skates under their arms. Like many other little girls, I wanted to be a boy and play with boys. I did not like dolls, doll houses, or any of the pleasures which at that time little girls were supposed to content themselves with. Later in life, I grew to have a pleasant acquaintance with Judge Robert Grant, distinguished as a jurist and author.

My mother felt an old-fashioned obligation of courtesy toward her neighbors. Just because they were neighbors, they had an almost sacred claim that must never be neglected. They were always included in her entertainments; and as they often had little in common with the other guests, it came about that there was great variety in the people who came to our parties. We did not belong to any set, while people from every set came to our house. I have always been grateful to my parents for this catholicity, for I have felt at home in whatever company I have found myself. I had a smiling acquaintance with most of the neighbors, not only in our own, but in the adjacent streets. One figure, however, filled me with a blind panic, a pale man, who wore black-rimmed spectacles and used two stout canes when he walked. I can see him now, tramping with a sort of desperate energy for a few blocks, and then sitting down to rest. To come upon him unexpectedly, lying in wait for me on a doorstep, or walking along at a terrific clip as if some demon were after him, curdled my blood. I have never feared any mortal as I feared that pale specter. The terror lay far too deep for words, like that other fear of the hangman that haunted my youth. One day, walking with my mother, my heart stood still, for she stopped and spoke to the sinister figure.

“I am glad to see you out again, Mr. Parkman. You look much better than when I last saw you.”

They shook hands, he remaining seated, she leaning over him with gentle friendliness in face and voice.

“You know him?” I whispered, as we walked on together.

“Very well. That is the father of your friend Katie. He has been so ill that he can only walk a little distance without resting. He is writing a very important book, but he can only work at it twenty minutes at a time.”

Years afterward, I learned that the man with the two sticks was Francis Parkman, the great historian, who at that time was at work upon his “Pioneers of France in the New World.”

At the time I am writing of, the early sixties, the houses of Beacon Street extended only a short distance beyond the Public Garden. We went for long walks, across what is now the Back Bay, to the Milldam. The Brighton Road was the stretch where the Boston horse fanciers showed the paces of their famous trotters. When the sleighing was good, it was crowded of an afternoon with stately family sleighs, filled with young people, old people, and children. A prettier carnival scene it would be hard to imagine than a bright Saturday afternoon on the Brighton Road in sleighing season. Up and down the middle, the jaunty cutters raced back and forth, to the delight of the youngsters, and to the scandal of the elders; for many of them were driven by sporting characters, who had no relation with good society, as represented by the wealthy merchants and manufacturers and their families, who kept demurely to the outer edges of the “Road.” I owe these glimpses of the sleighing carnival to kind Mrs. William Gray, the mother of my playmate, Ellen, who sometimes took me in her handsome sleigh, filled with buffalo robes and children. I never remember taking a mere pleasure drive with either of my own parents. We kept horses and were all taught to ride; my father rode every day for his health, taking one of his daughters with him. He found that he could get the greatest amount of exercise in the shortest time on horseback. When he drove, it was to get somewhere, to accomplish some specific thing. I have been thankful all my life that I was not born of the class to whom the afternoon drive is as much a part of life’s daily routine as eating or sleeping.

“The Rovers of Boston” was not a long-lived society; its membership was fluctuating, but it was extremely active during the few years of its life. How the city streets belonged to us! How jealously we watched any change or innovation! How we raged when the noble old Hancock House was torn down. How faithfully we reported to our elders any over vigorous pruning of city trees, or any abuse of city property. We had a sense of citizenship, of holding a stake in the community, sometimes lacking in “grown-ups.” Arlington and Berkeley streets already existed, and we waited impatiently for the naming of the other streets, which were to follow an alphabetical sequence. To us, there was something romantic in the plan. We hailed every new name as each street came into being,—Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Hereford, Gloucester; each one brought a new thrill. They were such distinguished names, familiar too, if one had studied English history, and so well suited to the population that was to inhabit them.

On Monday and Thursday afternoon, I went to Papanti’s dancing school, on Tremont Street, nearly opposite the old Boston Museum. You entered a narrow door, walked past a dentist’s showcase filled with dreadful grinning false teeth, mounted two flights of stairs, and made your way into the ladies’ dressing room. Here you took off your wraps, hung them up, put your snow boots in the locker below, and waited your turn before the long cheval glass to see if your curls were in order, your guimpe straight, your sash properly spread out. I remember my first dancing lesson well. Clinging to my mother’s hand, I was led into the most magnificent ballroom in the world. It was surrounded on two sides with raised benches; the third was filled with long gilded mirrors, the fourth by a “Minstrel’s Gallery.” The benches and hangings were neatly covered with brown holland, the great crystal chandelier veiled by a bag sheer enough to give a glimpse of its glories. Kitty Alger held my hand as we were presented to that distinguished Neapolitan Maestro di Ballo, Signor Lorenzo Papanti.

He was in evening dress, with black silk stockings, patent-leather pumps, and his historic snuff-colored wig. He laid his hand on his heart, as he bowed low to my mother, greeting her in Italian:

“Signora, è un honore di farla, la benvenuta!” Then turning to the two trembling children, he said:

“And these I shall call my leetle vite mice!”

One little white mouse was frightened as she rarely remembers having been.

If Papanti’s biography has not been written, it should be. He was the Czar of dancing masters, a stern but beneficent despot; the inventor of the classic Boston waltz, the best of all round dances. While he lived and ruled, Boston girls and boys had the name of being the best dancers in the country; he taught at least five generations of us, and is gratefully remembered by many elderly beaux and belles. With shy, heavy-footed, or awkward children, he was satirical to the verge of cruelty,—a cruelty that was really kindness, for he labored with that biting satire of his to make the children committed to his care little ladies and gentlemen with good manners, as well as twinkling feet. I cannot remember Mr. Papanti without the fiddle, on which he played for us beginners. I can feel the tip of his bow against my toes, as he tapped my feet into the “first position.” How he labored to teach Kitty and me to make a proper courtesy.

“’Eels together, slide ze right foot to ze right, left foot out be’ind, one, two, t’ree; one, two, t’ree; one, two, t’ree!”

We were taught the waltz, galop, polka, lancers, and quadrille. The best dancers learned the gavotte and shawl dance, to the secret envy of the others. The Burgess boys, Sydney and Edward (the famous yacht builder) and one or two more brothers, wonderfully turned out lads, with immaculate clothes and tightly curling hair, were the champion dancers among the boys; Annie Merwin, Susie Spring, and Fannie Bartlett among the girls. On the wonderful “last day”, the dancing class was transformed into a real party. The boys wore white kid gloves—on ordinary days only the girls sported them. The brown holland disappeared from benches and wall hangings, revealing a handsome dark-blue brocade. The crystal chandelier came out of its chrysalis and became a blaze of glory. There was a real orchestra in the “Minstrel’s Gallery”; the mysterious double doors leading to the supper room were thrown wide, the boys coerced into offering ice cream and cake to their partners before falling-to themselves. The benches were crowded with admiring parents; some, to encourage the youngsters, “took a turn” with the dancing master or his assistant, Miss Hunt, a correct lady in brown silk, gloves to match, and bronze slippers!

Most of the children came from the exclusive quarter known as “Beacon Street” and belonged to the conservative class called by the Young Whigs, “Hunkers.” On a certain afternoon, soon after my introduction to Papanti’s, I came running home, weeping bitterly, and threw myself into my mother’s arms, crying out:

“Mama, Mama! What is an abolitionist? Are we that sort of thing? The big girls at the dancing school wouldn’t speak to the Andrew children and me; they said we were nasty little abolitionists.”

This was the first, but not the last time that I have been made to suffer for holding a minority opinion. I connect this incident with General McClellan’s visit to Boston, in the year of emancipation, 1862. Feeling ran very high over the question of McClellan’s loyalty. My father, Governor Andrew, and Charles Sumner thought little of him, but the Hunkers made much of him, invited him to Boston, where they held a great reception for him and presented him with a sword, though he had but lately been relieved from his last command in the Union Army; and from a military point of view, at least, his career was over.

My last school was Miss Wilby’s, on Bowdoin Street. During my time, the old régime changed, Miss Wilby retiring, full of honors, after a long useful career, and Miss Hubbard taking over the school. The teacher I remember with the most affection here was Mr. Theodore Weld, with whom we read Shakespeare. We prepared for our lessons by marking in the text lines that, for us, contained passages of especial beauty, or references we did not understand. Among my fellow students were Effie Bird, later Mrs. Linzee Tilden, and Alice Kent Robertson-Quimby. Alice Kent became a professional reader and Effie an amateur of distinction. Often in after years, while enjoying the acting of these two friends, I have remembered our old master with gratitude.

Mr. George Bradford, who taught me history and astronomy, was a Transcendentalist and, I believe, a member of the Brook Farm Colony. I once overheard my mother say that he was “Bourbon faced.” His features certainly did suggest an affectionate sheep. His clothes were unlike any I have ever seen. On reading Thoreau’s account of a conversation between himself and his tailoress, the mystery of Mr. Bradford’s garments was explained; I believe that, like Thoreau, he employed a tailoress. The dear quaint old pedagogue succeeded in interesting me more in my work than most of my teachers. His method of teaching ancient history had one feature that I hope survives in some educational backwater.

“You will find in this,” he said at our first lesson, handing me a long, narrow, green volume, “charts of all the centuries. Each page stands for one century and is subdivided with a space for every year. After each lesson you will make an illustration in water color, with the tints indicated, of the events that have most impressed you, using your own fancy and judgment.”

At our next lesson I submitted the book to Mr. Bradford, who ran over my illustrations encouragingly:

“Here we have the siege of Troy, 1180 B.C., a walled town well indicated. This illustrates the Passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, quite clear, well colored and striking. This marks the year when Tiglath-Pileser was at the height of his power and suggests Hosea’s bribe of gold and silver talents, happily thought out!”

If I were asked to name the man with whom I had most enjoyed “star-gazing”, I could not hesitate for one moment,—George Bradford, of course!

With great patience he strove to give me some knowledge of astronomy, and, because he so loved his subject, succeeded in imparting a rudimentary understanding of the science. The indoor lessons, with books and plates of the firmament, had a romantic interest; we believed in the Nebular Hypothesis then; it has doubtless long since been superseded. Mr. Bradford was at his best in the lessons in practical star-gazing. At night he wore a curious close-fitting cap. If the weather were cool, he wrapped a green knitted scarf about his neck and buttoned the tailoress’s coat over it. Walking by his side, up and down the garden at Green Peace, I made those lifelong friends, Sagittarius, Corona, Aquila, Cassiopeia, the greater and the lesser Dipper.

In spite of my affection for several of my teachers, I did not love my lessons; life was so tremendously interesting, such great affairs were always going on about me! Much as I regret the wasted hours, I cannot think it strange that I began to live at a period when I ought to have been learning how to live.

Writing of his own childhood, Henry James the elder says:

Our home was the exact opposite of this. A swift current of the world’s life flowed through our house. Great public questions, the causes of freedom, education, and the succoring of the weak and afflicted of our own and other lands took precedence over all private affairs. Among our guests were distinguished European travelers, political exiles, Greeks, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, who had sought refuge in our country and were made welcome at our table.

“To ride the errand of the hour,” is a phrase my mother used in speaking of my father’s restless activity. Whether the errand took him to President Lincoln in Washington with a message from John Andrew, or to Crete with a shipload of food and clothing from Boston to help the Cretans in their fight for liberty, he was ready, booted and spurred for action. In his youth, he was given a Greek decoration, carrying the title of Chevalier. His friends gave him the nickname of “Chev”; I never heard my mother address him by any other name.

In thinking back over my first decade, I realize that my best teachers were my father, my mother, and my sister Julia. One of my early memories is of an evening when I was allowed to sit up to see Julia dressed for a party. She wore a white tarletan dress; Madame Canagalli, the Italian hairdresser, and my mother had a discussion as to which camellia they should place in her beautiful black hair, fine as a baby’s and softer than any other! I remember noticing that the white camellia was the same color as her smooth forehead “that looked like marble and smelt like myrrh”, that the red camellia matched the color in her cheeks and lips. This is the first impression I have of personal beauty. The vision persists, clear-cut as it was that night, when I first realized that some people are better to look at than others.

Julia read me all the Waverley novels and all of Dickens. I have often read them since, but that first impression remains the strongest. Julia, who introduced me to this company, was the intimate of my childhood, but I remember a curious withdrawal the moment my feet touched the threshold of girlhood. She had been the beneficient and adored elder sister of my childhood, but when I braided my tawny mane and “put up” my hair like a big girl, I lost something that had been an intrinsic part of our comradeship. I understand it all now, I could not then.

In the evening my father read us the poems of Byron, Scott, and Macaulay. He had a fine voice and read—recited rather, for he knew them by heart—many a stirring poem in the hour of rest he allowed himself after the evening meal. I can hear his voice now, reciting a line he always gave with great spirit:

“Roderick Vich Alpin Dhu, ho ieroe!”

While my father was teaching me to love poetry, my mother was teaching me to love good music. At dusk we gathered around the Chickering grand piano, while Mama sang to us. She had a beautiful, cultivated voice, and the flexible hands of the trained pianist, which she kept to the end of her life. Her repertoire was immense; she sang the florid arias of Bellini, the grand recitatives of Handel, folk-songs of France and Italy, Scotch and English ballads, German lieder, plantation melodies. We all joined in the chorus of these polyglot songs,—Irish, Polish, and Russian!

Beside a taste for poetry and music, the most valuable life asset I acquired in these days was a love of art. Our house was filled with pictures and statuary. While I do not remember either parent talking to me about them, their influence was none the less powerful. A copy of the Greek Clytie stood on the stairs; I loved her so much that on going up to bed, after having kissed all the family good night, I would pause and, if nobody were looking, reach up and kiss the cold lips of the marble woman. A set of engravings of the Greek temples hung in my father’s study; long before I knew what they were, I had learned to love the Parthenon, the Temple of Victory, the Erectheum, so that when I first saw the Acropolis at Athens I was well prepared for its glories. Mama had inherited a number of old masters from her father’s gallery, remembered as the first private picture gallery in the country. Of these I liked best the Velasquez portrait of the Little Prince. There were a dozen good Italian and Dutch pictures, all of which I studied thoroughly, if unconsciously, for when I went to live in Italy, I found no difficulty in attributing these pictures to their proper schools.

CHAPTER V

Uncle Sam Ward

Uncle John was adored by my mother and her sisters, to whom he was a second father; to me he is but a shadowy memory, not so distinct as his brother, Uncle Richard, who lived with him. Both were very tall men; Uncle Richard was slender, Uncle John heavily built, with a clean-shaven face, rare in those days when the moustache was almost universal. He was the President of the New York Stock Exchange, where his portrait by Wensler may still be seen. Did I hear Uncle Richard say to my mother, speaking of himself and his five brothers, all men over six feet tall?

“They were fine men, dearie! I am the least of them!”

“The Corner”, the house Grandfather Ward built on the corner of Bond Street, with the picture gallery extension running along Broadway, was still standing, a handsome house of soft-toned brick with white marble “trimmings.” The gallery had no windows, the lighting being from the top. The other day a gentleman said to me à prôpos of the extension:

“When I was a boy, I thought that was the city treasury and that all the money in New York was kept there, because there were no doors or windows for robbers to break in!”

“The Corner” was now owned by Mr. Sampson, from whom my mother got permission to show me the home of her youth. I received an impression of greater state than I had before known; it pleased me to think of my mother as a girl receiving her guests in the long drawing-rooms, one hung with blue, one with yellow, brocade. I admired the mantelpieces, with graceful sculptured figures, the work of Thomas Crawford, while still the marble cutter’s apprentice. There was ample space in the entrance hall and well-balanced stairway, that might have been planned by our own Boston architect, Bulfinch. We were not asked to go upstairs; I never saw the room where my mother sat “tied to her chair”, studying hour after hour. Was she thinking of that time of severe study when she wrote?

At Number 23 Bond Street lived Aunt Henry, widow of my mother’s uncle, Henry Ward, and mother of Cousin Henry.

“Mis’ Henry Ward will be pleased to see ye, Mis’ Julia,” the old negro butler exclaimed, as he opened the door, grinning until he showed all his ivories. In the darkened parlor I was startled by a savage cry:

“Good-by!”

“You shut up,” said the darkey, raising the blind. “It’s only the parrot, Missie; dat bird is most one hundred years old.”

There was something depressing about Number 23—the gloom deepened when I saw Aunt Henry—it is all too intangible to put into words. I was to hear much about her later, and to read in her biography that she was “noted for a remarkable talent for painting, intellectual power and great benevolence!” I never heard her spoken of by her own name, she was always “Aunt Henry” the widow of Mama’s Uncle Henry. He must have been a delightful person; whenever the Three Graces of Bond Street, my mother and her two sisters, wanted to dance or sing, they always sent across the street for Uncle Henry to play for them. All that was long ago, when the parrot, the butler, Aunt Henry herself were young. Uncle Henry had long been dead; Cousin Henry, his son, now lived with Aunt Henry at Number 23. I was curious enough about him. I had heard him spoken of as a “club man”; none of the people who came to our house were exactly “club men”, and I wanted to see one badly. Mama, who was possessed to nickname all her intimates, spoke of him as “poor dear Hutie.”

Did I ever see the heroine of Number 23? I cannot be sure! She was the affianced of Cousin Henry. Their union was opposed by Aunt Henry, though some people believed them to be secretly married. Every day at two o’clock Cousin Henry called upon the lady and passed the afternoon with her. For many years, twenty—perhaps thirty—the lovers were faithful to each other. In Spain such romances are common enough. Cousin Henry was more like a Spanish novio than an American lover. I have known one other such case, of two lives that should have been passed together, divided by the opposition of the lover’s mother: in both cases the mother was able to control the son’s action, not his affections!

When Aunt Henry died at the age of eighty-five the family supposed the lovers would marry, but Cousin Henry, as if still controlled by the stronger will, followed his mother almost immediately. He left Number 23 and all his property to the lady. Then a strange thing happened. My uncle had kept open house; even after he was gone Number 23 was a friendly house, like all the Ward dwellings,—the family has strong traditions of hospitality. The day the house came into the lady’s hands, the family and friends were refused admittance. The old servants were kept on with the parrot and the lap-dogs; everything was maintained exactly as it had been in the lifetime of Aunt and Cousin Henry. At two o’clock, every day in the year, the lady came to the house and spent the afternoon alone there. She lived to be an old woman; when she died she left Number 23 and all the property—even the family miniatures—to her own relations. Perhaps it is not wonderful that to a child, Number 23 was already, in 1863, a house of mystery with a certain creeping sense of hidden secrets, perhaps half divined, between mother and son.

The figures of my grandfather’s generation—even those I have known—glimmer faintly in the background of my memory; they are hardly more real than Grandfather Ward himself, who died before my mother’s marriage and was the most important personage in the family. He was a banker of the firm of Prime, Ward and King, founder and president of the Bank of Commerce, patron of artists, literati, political exiles, and poor relations to the third, fourth and fifth degree.

In calling up the memories of this, my first visit to New York, I touch more solid ground, for I now met for the first time in my memory, my own uncle, Sam Ward, my mother’s only surviving brother, “uncle to half the human race”, as some one once called him. He was so universal and generous a soul that I long confounded him with that greater national figure, “Uncle Sam”, and applied all references in the comic papers to him. My chagrin was poignant on finding out my mistake.

My first impression of Uncle Sam is characteristic of the man. We had come to New York in the hope of distracting my mother from the black grief that consumed her after little Sam’s death. She received a message from her brother that we must all be ready at a certain hour when he would call for us and take us down to Islip, Long Island, to pass a few days at an hotel,—a new experience for me!

Punctual to the minute he arrived in a smart carriage, with a large bouquet for Mama and a small bouquet for me. I have forgotten the name of the hotel, but I remember certain splendors of the table, certain luxuries in the way of handsome carriages, fine horses, and a confusing number of servants. All these seemed in some magical manner to be attached to Uncle Sam, to come and

go at his nod, purvey flowers, afternoon tea, sparkling wines, and other luxuries unknown at home, which give to this memory of my first hotel a rich flavor of careless expenditure in strong contrast to the New England thrift I knew.

Uncle Sam was the most agreeable man I have ever known. He threw a spell over me in those days at Islip that still holds, though he has been dead more than thirty years. I knew, even then, that on most subjects his views were directly opposed to my father’s. He was suspected of having southern sympathies, and if not an out-and-out “copperhead”, he was equally far from being an abolitionist.

He was rather French than American in appearance and manner, sparkling, effervescent, full of laughter, motion, gesture. His dress was striking. He wore handsome rings and scarfpins, checked trousers, superb waistcoats, an overcoat of pale gray box cloth with large white pearl buttons, unmistakably from London. I have heard men of fashion say that his brilliant cravats suited him to a T, but could not have been worn by any other living man.

On the train a gentleman spoke to him, calling him by name.

“You must excuse me, Sir,” said my uncle, “if I cannot remember your name.”

“I am ——, to whom you were so kind in London.”

Still Uncle Sam could not remember.

“But, Mr. Ward, you must remember me—you saved my life!”

This was no help. Embarrassed and annoyed, the stranger pulled a gold watch from his pocket.

“If you don’t remember me—you may remember this watch that you gave me.”

Uncle Sam patted him on the shoulder and nodded with his wonderful smile:

“Well, well! I shall know you next time: may it not be so many years between meetings.”

“I can’t remember anything about that man!” he told us later. The scene was characteristic of Uncle Sam: he seemed under some compulsion to give, give, give,—expensive watches to strangers, jewels to all his female relatives, flowers to every pretty woman he met, golden smiles to all the world!

Uncle Sam was twice married. His first wife was Emily Astor, with whom he lived happily during her short life. She died soon after the marriage, leaving him one daughter, Emily Margaret Ward. Later he married Medora Grimes. At that time I am now writing of, he was already separated from his second wife, who with their two sons lived in Paris. I knew vaguely that here was a mystery and unhappiness I must not ask about. The two boys died young; I never saw either of them. My mother neither criticized nor tolerated criticism of Uncle Sam’s second wife. The marriage had not been happy—it was a case of incompatibility; that was all there was to say about it. His first wife’s death was his greatest misfortune. For posterity that brief union with Emily Astor was a fortunate one, for from it sprang the Clan Chanler, those interesting younger cousins of ours, Uncle Sam’s only descendants, who have inherited much of his charm, many of his gifts, and are among the marked men and women of their time. Their mother, my Cousin Maddie, married Winthrop Chanler, and became the mother of eleven children, eight of whom are now living. I remember Cousin Maddie as a gracious, delightful woman and can see her now in fancy with her fine, red-gold hair and beautifully shaped head, her little brood of children clustered about her, at their Newport villa on the cliffs overlooking the first beach.

Was it on this, my first visit to New York, or a later one, that some reckless New York relative took me to Niblo’s Garden to see the “Black Crook”? It was a dazzling performance, revealing undreamed-of theatrical possibilities. The shame which, I afterwards learned, I should have felt at the sight of the lightly clad corps de ballet was entirely lacking. I only felt wonderment at their agility, at the flexibility of their pink satin toes. The normal healthy child recognized instinctively the art, the labor, the long training that enabled those nymphs, fairies, and amazons to fly from wing to wing, rise on tiptoe, sink to earth, whirl on one foot, the other extended at right angles! Far from being shocked, I was delighted and spent hours in trying to copy the agility, the poetry of motion of those poor coryphées of the “Black Crook.” My fixed resolve to become a bareback circus rider was shaken. Would it not be even better than vaulting lightly through paper rings held up by a clown, to shoot up from the stage in an enormous rose, descend lightly and caper to hidden music?

There was a flying trip to Washington during the New York visit. To have been in the Capital and have no memory of the great events and famous men of the time is distressing. What I do remember is so trivial. We stopped at Wilmington, Delaware, where a powerful negro dressed in white boarded the train and passed through the cars calling out:

“Here’s your hot fried oysters! You, Miss? You, Sah?”

At home we had our oysters stewed or, as a rare concession, escalloped. There was something worldly, sophisticated even, about these crisp fried oysters that sustained us on our trip to Washington. This, like the visit to Islip, was “seeing life.”

We arrived at night. Congress was in session; my mother pointed out from the train the great dome glowing, its welcoming windows all aflame. The next morning I received my first impression of the Capitol. Mixed with awe and admiration was the sense that it was all mine, as no other Capitol, palace, or temple could ever be mine.

“Look up!” said Mama, pointing to the Indian on the summit of the dome. “That statue was made by your Uncle Crawford, whose fireplaces you saw at the Corner.”

Either on this visit or a later one, my mother, going early to some function at the Capitol, was obliged to stand for some time before the closed doors. A panel of sculptured bronze in one of the doors caught her eye.

“Why, this is my family!” she exclaimed. “That is Louisa with Frank, Annie, and Mimoli.”

In the bronze bas-relief Crawford had put portraits of his wife and children. Frank was later to become famous as Marion Crawford the novelist.

The contrast between the fine government buildings and the shabby Washington streets and down-at-heel houses was startling, even to a child. The manners and dress of the law-makers of the land were not those of Mr. Sumner or Governor Andrew. The hotel was thronged with men in black frock coats and tall hats worn at an acute angle. The corridors and even the richly furnished parlors were provided with spittoons, which were in constant use. The man who did not chew tobacco smoked long black cigars. We stayed at Wormley’s Hotel, where Uncle Sam seemed more at home than any one else, ruling the proprietor, an intelligent mulatto, the servants, and the guests, with his persuasive authority. Though at home we heard constant talk about the negroes, my parents being forever busy in their interests, I had until now seen very few of them and was much interested in the black servants at the hotel.

Uncle Sam’s rooms were near Wormley’s, and here I passed the happiest hours of that Washington visit. My father, who had joined us, was occupied with Sanitary Commission business, leaving my mother free to enjoy Uncle Sam’s companionship.

“What do you think I saw?” a sharp-faced woman was heard to say to a friend, “Mrs. Howe—the Mrs. Howe—being kissed in the parlor of Wormley’s hotel by Sam Ward—what is more, she kissed him back. What do you think of that?”

“I think that if Sam Ward were my brother, I should have done the same thing!” was the answer.

The gossiping woman did not know of the relationship between the two well-known figures, though she knew both by sight. I have often remembered this incident, which justifies the wise old saw:

“Believe nothing that you hear, and half that you see!”

Uncle Sam had the remains of a lovely tenor voice. He and Mama sang together the songs of many countries. We owe to him the Heidelberg lieder, the Polish drinking song, and the Russian chorus which still resound in the nurseries of my nieces and nephews.

On one of our visits to his rooms Mama took with us a pretty young friend, who sang for Uncle Sam. He applauded generously until she began the song,

“Si tu savais comme je t’aime.”

“That song again!” he cried. “I have heard it once too often.”

It must have been on this trip that I made my first visit to Bordentown, the home of my mother’s sister Annie Ward, married to the handsome Frenchman, Adolph Mailliard, called by us children “Uncle Do.” They lived on a large estate in Bordentown with their four children,—Louisa, Joseph, Cora, and John. Uncle Do raised thoroughbred colts and race horses and grew the finest peaches that could be raised outside of Green Peace. He was a man of great beauty and charm. His eyes were among the most remarkable I have seen, and I did not wonder that my aunt had a miniature painted of one of them which she always wore in a locket. I was afraid of Uncle Do, but from first to last Aunt Annie was a loving and loyal friend. She was a saint, but such a witty, gay, unconscious saint that nobody could hold her sainthood against her. We had family prayers at Bordentown, a new experience to me. I gave some offense by refusing to repeat part of the Lord’s Prayer. My aunt asked my reason for this.

“I do not forgive those who trespass against me, and I will not say that I do!” I exclaimed. My aunt somehow made my scruples disappear.

Bordentown is associated with some of our most cherished family possessions, the Gobelin carpet at Green Peace and the pair of bronze candelabra at Oak Glen. Some years before the time of which I am writing Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, lived here in such state as an ex-king could then find in the United States. When he returned to Europe the house was broken up, the furniture sold at auction, and these articles were secured for us by my aunt. Uncle Do’s father, Père Mailliard, had been attached to King Joseph’s suite at Madrid and followed him into exile; that is how the Mailliards came to settle in Bordentown.

At my aunt’s house were many Bonaparte relics,—Napoleon’s camp equipage with gold knives, forks, and spoons, a locket with some of his hair, and most precious of all, a manuscript diary kept by his physician at Elba, giving a minute account of the daily happenings. One of the members of the suite contrived a process by which ice cream could be made. Napoleon was very much interested in the experiment, and for many days the chronicler puts down what the emperor said on the subject. The pathos of this deeply impressed me, that the mind that had planned the subjugation of Europe should occupy itself with the petty contrivances of an ice-cream freezer!

Inextricably confused with my reminiscences of Bordentown and the Mailliards are memories of the Gilder family, their friends and neighbors. Did I really see Richard Watson Gilder there, a romantic looking boy in a short jacket with a round collar, or is the impression received from an old daguerreotype? I can’t quite recover this faintest impression, but it will not “down.” The Gilders, Richard, Joseph, and Jeanette, were the playmates of my cousins, and in the chance meetings of later years the word “Bordentown” opened for them and for me a long vista peopled by the same figures; my aunt with her white teeth and smoothly parted dark hair, Uncle Do, and the lovely Louisa, one of the most distinguished looking girls I ever saw. The atmosphere of my aunt’s house was unlike any other. The children were repressed and demure, the language was French, the point of view European. Slight as was my contact with Uncle Do, he gave me fresh ideas, and my experience under his roof threw out a new wing to my house of life. It is fortunate that aunts and uncles, especially “in laws”, rarely realize their influence upon nieces and nephews. It would be more than they could bear. It is bad enough to be responsible for your own children; to be responsible for other people’s is out of the question. And yet, next to our parents, some of us are influenced more by uncles and aunts than by any other people.

When I returned to Boston after this wonder trip, I had gained a deal of experience and had opened two accounts in the bank of family affection upon which I was henceforward to draw heavily. One stood in the name of my Uncle Sam Ward, the other of my Aunt Annie Mailliard.

During the World War I received from a stranger a request for an autograph letter of Uncle Sam’s for a private collection. I chose one from my treasured correspondence full of the warm charm of the man. It described a breakfast he had given for Sara Bernhardt and dwelt on his last gift to me, a certain web of glimmering yellow satin, reminding me that a blonde need not fear to wear yellow, as Paul Veronese and Rubens both painted fair-haired women in golden satins.

Shortly after I sent the letter off, I received two epistles from England, both bearing coronets. I quote from one of them.