The boys standing, as it were, upon their father's shoulders, sympathizing with and aiding him to the utmost of their ability, early obtained a knowledge of working iron far beyond their years, and contracted a love for the occupation, especially Clem, who seemed to inherit all the patience, energy and originality of his father, together with an amiable disposition and strength of limb. Until Clem was nineteen they lived at home, doing nearly all the farming work, and at the same time helping their father in the shop. They were then desirous of going where a better quality of work was demanded than in their native place.
"Well, boys," said Richardson, "I'm entirely willing you should go. I began too late—had too little to do with, no tools, and poverty to struggle with—to accomplish much. I've done the best I could; but I want you to have a better chance. I think you've both got the mechanical principle in you, and had better go where you can work it out, have tools to work with, and learn all that comes up."
They went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where their father had relatives, and after working a week on trial, were both hired as journeymen. Clem never wanted to meddle with anything but edge tools, displaying remarkable ability for that kind of work, while Robert proved an excellent shoer, and had but few equals in wheel-tiring and all kinds of carriage work. He could also make a wheel as well as iron it, and manifested his father's ability for working in wood. Learning the use of hammer and file when mere children, and growing up to it, their work had a finish about it that is seldom attained by those who commence work in manhood, and when their habits are formed.
After perfecting their trade, they hired a shop and set up business for themselves, Clem devoting the greater part of his time to making edge tools, while Robert attended to the other portion of the work. Business was good, and they accumulated property, and frequently sent money to their parents, and cherished a strong affection for their native place, going home every year to Thanksgiving.
When the boys had been a year from home, their father went to visit them. At his leaving, the boys would have loaded him with tools,—"swages," "fullers," "screw-taps," "drills," and "shears," to cut iron,—but he refused to take them.
"You know, boys," said he, "I like to make things myself, and think as much again of anything I make myself. I'm just as much obliged to you as though I took them. I've seen all the tools you have here, and been round among the shops and seen all the ways they do their work, and I'll go home and make every one of these tools; and I think I can improve upon some of them. I've got help now, for Henry Bradford, John's boy, is coming to work with me, and learn the trade—that is, learn what little I know."
Finding he did not incline to take the tools, they put a lot of iron and steel on board the sloop in which he started to return by the way of Kennebunk, or, rather, Cape Porpoise, which was the landing-place then.
There was a little girl, Lucy Armstrong, who went to school with Clem when it was kept in David Montague's house, and they formed a childhood liking for each other which continued and strengthened as they grew older. Lucy was a girl of excellent abilities, the best scholar in the school, and as she grew up manifested qualities that are not often united. She possessed great energy of character, a robust constitution, and most affectionate disposition. Everybody loved and pitied Lucy; for her girlhood was embittered by many trials and sorrows.
Her father she never saw to recognize; he was killed by a bear when she was a babe, and her mother was taken away when she was four years old. Lucy, after her mother's death, went to live with an uncle—her father's brother. He was a hard, penurious man, and his wife resembled him, being a morose, griping woman, with no children of her own to draw out her affections and sweeten her disposition. She made poor Lucy serve with rigor. She was poorly clad, poorly fed, went barefoot in the summer and till late in the fall, was obliged to work both out doors and in. When dropping corn and potatoes in the spring, her feet were red as a pigeon's with cold, and in the fall they bled from being pricked with the stubble. In the cold nights of November she must sit in the barn and husk corn. The old folks did not intend to be cruel; but they had been hardly dealt by themselves in childhood and youth, and hard treatment renders people hard and callous in their treatment of others.
In one respect they faithfully discharged their duty—in sending her to school every day so long as it kept, which was at first but six weeks in the winter, but by the time Lucy was thirteen increased to fourteen weeks; and after the town was incorporated and the ordinances of the gospel established, she went to meeting every Sabbath. School days and Sundays were the green spots, and all the green spots, in Lucy's cheerless life of incessant toil, save the few moments when sent to hunt eggs; and hidden in the haymow from the eagle eye of her aunt, she read Clem's letters for the hundredth time. Clem seldom came to the house; a visit from him put her aunt into a perfect fury, as she was unwilling to lose so good a drudge.
"Get married!" she would say, "yes, that's all girls nowadays think of. Wonder what they expect to live on. Better get something ahead first."
Although how she was to get anything ahead while spending her youth and strength in their service did not appear, especially as her uncle had made his will, and left all his property to a nephew as close-fisted as himself. He often remarked "that he meant to leave what he had got by hard knocks to somebody who knew how to take kere of it."
"Clem," said Robert, when the time during which they had hired as journeymen had nearly expired, "if ever you mean to marry that girl, why don't you do it? What do you let her stay there for, suffer everything but death, slave herself, and dry up, working for that old skinflint and his woman? They'd move into a mustard seed, and then have rooms to let. If you don't, I'll go and court her myself."
"I mean to the moment I feel that I can support her comfortably. You know I'm like father—one of the kind to cut my garment according to the cloth. I don't want to make her worse off than she is now."
"That's impossible. Get along with you; go hire two rooms somewhere, and then go and get her. I'll board with you. Nothing comes amiss to her; she's a treasure of a girl, smart as steel, and pleasant as a May morning. What did father and mother have when they set up, and see where they are now."
Clem took his brother's advice. Lucy's aunt raved like a mad woman at first; but when she found that it was no use, and the neighbors were all against her, she calmed down, gave Lucy a bed and pillows stuffed with turkey feathers, and said they would be on the town before two years. She proved a false prophetess. In two years they were blessed with a nice baby. Clem and Robert had all the work they could do, the hammer going every evening till nine o'clock in the winter months, though they still lived in two rooms, with the privilege of another for occasional use. They continued to thrive till the war of 1812, when the brothers took a contract from the government to bore cannon, which, proving a very profitable job, left them with abundant means. Robert still continued to board with his brother, and, remaining single, put all his money into the firm.
William Richardson, accumulating property by his trade, bought a piece of timber land every year, and let it lie. In the latter part of his life the rise in the value of this land made him affluent. At his decease this portion of his property fell to the sons, his wife having died some years before him, and the daughters receiving their portion in money. The shop remained as it was; Clem would have nothing touched. It was not, to be sure, the original log hovel; but it was the same forge, and the building stood on the same spot. The old pine stump still formed the anvil block, and the hammer fashioned from the andirons still lay on the anvil, just as his father had left it after his last day's work. There also were the tongs made from the legs of the kitchen tongs, and the sledge forged from the churn-drill.
After the war business revived, and there was a great demand for lumber. The Richardsons sold out at Portsmouth, returned to their native place, bought the old mill privilege, and went to lumbering. Strange to say, Clement Richardson and his wife, although retaining their simple and industrious habits, felt that they did not want their children to work as hard as they had; and going to the other extreme, while affording them all the advantages of education and culture their altered circumstances enabled them to bestow, trained them up in a way that rendered them in all matters of practical life absolutely helpless.
This, as our readers know, was the character of Rich when he entered college; he could scarcely tie his own shoes. The good fortune of stumbling upon Morton for a while roused the energies that lay buried beneath this effeminate training; but after separating from his mates, he relapsed gradually into his former habits.
Thus passed the first year after leaving college; but with the succeeding spring came something that, like to the shock of an earthquake, effectually roused Rich from his poetic reveries and visions of high art, rent with a rude hand the tissue of the dream-robe fancy had woven, and set him face to face with the bitter, stern realities of life.
Clement Richardson was naturally a prudent man, averse to incurring risk of any kind; but uninterrupted success in all his plans for thirteen years had rendered him sanguine. He found, soon after engaging in lumbering, that very little was to be realized from small operations; that, to accumulate, a person must either possess the capital and risk it, or hire money and run the risk of losing that. He and his brother, stimulated by the high price of lumber at that time, and intoxicated by good fortune in lesser adventures, hired money largely, and expended every dollar of their own in land and logs. They had a good drive, early in the spring the logs were in the booms, and the mills running night and day to manufacture them, in order to meet demands that were fast maturing. The price of lumber was still high, future prospects were most flattering, and the Richardsons felt that a fortune was within their grasp, when rain began to fall while the water was still almost at freshet pitch, and there was much snow in the woods at the head waters of the river.
Clement concealed his anxiety from his children, and in some measure from his wife, who, although she knew that great loss would follow the breaking of the booms, was utterly ignorant of the extent of her husband's liabilities and of the crisis at hand.
Directly after supper the two brothers went out. Rich occupied a good portion of the evening in reciting to his mother and sisters a poem he had spent weeks in composing. After the children had retired, Lucy Richardson sat sewing, wondering at the continued absence of her husband and his brother, and listening to the roar of water. At length there came a crash; she with difficulty suppressed a scream. In a few moments a servant came to tell her one of the mills had gone.
"Where is my husband, Henry?"
"He and Mr. Robert are watching the boom."
Another weary hour passed, when Clement Richardson came in; he was pale, haggard, and dripping with water.
"Lucy," he said, "I am ruined and Robert with me. All the money we had outside of our real estate was in those logs, and they have gone into the Atlantic, the mills with them, and it will take all our real estate, furniture, and the house over our heads to pay the money we've borrowed." In those days creditors made a clean sweep, took everything worth taking, and the wife's property was held for the husband's debts.
"It's a great misfortune, husband; but it might have been much worse."
"Worse, Lucy? How can a man lose more than all?"
"It would have been worse to lose health,—worse to lose our love for each other, if such a thing could be,—worse to have a wicked, disobedient, or deformed child; and I am sure it would be worse to lose character, which you won't if you have property enough left to pay all you owe. It would certainly have been worse had it come when we were past labor; and I'm sure we were happier before we moved into this house, and when you were working at your trade, than we have ever been since."
"But the children, Lucy. I see it all now as one sees everything when it is too late. We thought we had enough for them and us, and have taught them everything except how to take care of themselves."
"They will learn that. They are not too old to learn."
The property of the brothers, very valuable, was sold, and the proceeds divided among the creditors, who all relinquished voluntarily the interest on their demands. This left the brothers, after paying everything, one hundred and fifty dollars, as the remnant of a large property. David Montague was dead; but his son Andrew inherited not only his father's property, but his principles. One of the creditors, he bid off the old Richardson homestead, house, shop, and outbuildings. As soon as the business was settled, he offered Clement Richardson money to go into business again. The latter thanked him for the offer, but said he intended, as soon as he could find a place to work, to go back to his anvil.
"Clem," said Andrew Montague, "our fathers come here and cut the first trees together, and lived and died fast friends; you and I have grown up together, and been just as good friends. I know you are proud-spirited, and I love you all the better for it; but I beg of you, let me do this much. There is the old shop; nothing has been disturbed; and there are the tools your father began with, and those more modern ones he used in his latter days. Take it, rent free, and I'll bring you a fortnight's work to-morrow morning. I will let you have the house as soon as Coleman, whose family are sick, leaves it."
"I'll take it, Andrew, in the spirit in which it is offered, and may God bless you. There's luck in that old hammer that lies on the anvil where father left it. The first blow I ever struck on iron I struck with that, and the first work I ever did was to make a pair of bow-pins for your father."
As soon as Morton could leave the scholars he was instructing in private, he set forward in the stage to see Rich, and well aware, by letters received, of what had occurred, made inquiries, on arriving, for the shop. Peering into the door around the corner of another building, he saw a tall, strong-built man, past middle age, fitting a horse-shoe at the anvil. Another person, of about the same age, but more slightly built, was tearing the shoe from a horse's foot. A bar of iron was heating in the fire, apparently to make a new shoe, and at the bellows stood Rich, the glory of Radcliffe, class poet, elegant scholar; those finely-cut and delicate features, that no one could look upon without interest, begrimed with smut, save where partially streaked with streams of sweat; for it was a warm afternoon in May. As he turned towards the fire, to look at the iron, Morton slipped behind him and laid his hand upon the shoulders of Rich.
The mingled expression of heart-felt delight, surprise, and consternation that pervaded the features of Rich, when, upon turning, he looked Morton in the face, was quite ludicrous.
"Mort!" he gasped.
"Yes, Mort," replied his visitor, grasping fervently the hand that was timidly extended to meet his own; "ain't you glad to see me?"
"Glad!" shouted Rich, grasping both the hands of Morton in his own, while the tears ran down his cheeks; "I hope you don't think I am not; but—"
"But you are in a working dress, and not in a state to receive me, who never cleaned out the president's barn, milked his cow, or dug his potatoes, and you are smutty."
Thus saying, Morton rubbed his hand on the top of the bellows, and made an awful smut spot across the whole side of his face.
"Will that remove your scruples, old chum? How are you?"
"O, Mort, I'm so glad to see you!"
"Expected you'd be; that's what I came for; didn't come for anything else; 'kalkerlated,' as Uncle Tim would say, to make you glad."
Rich now introduced Morton to his father and uncle, who received him without any of the embarrassment that had overwhelmed Rich, and in a most hearty manner.
"You must excuse, Mr. Morton," said Clement, "my son's constraint upon first seeing you; it was occasioned by the recollection of the change in our circumstances, in consequence of which he cannot entertain as he would wish the friend he loves so dearly, and whom we have all learned through him to love, even before meeting. If we have been unfortunate, it is no more than has overtaken more deserving persons than ourselves, and our losses have neither chilled our hearts nor discouraged us from effort."
"We think," said Robert, "that as we earned all we have lost by our own industry, we can, by the same means, better our condition."
"I am sorry, Mr. Morton," said Clement, "to be obliged to keep my son till this horse is shod, as the owner is waiting, and there is a new shoe to make; but after that he will be at liberty.—Strike, Robert."
Rich, eager to be released, struck with good will; the sparks flew all over the shop, and a second heat put the iron in such shape that Mr. Richardson required no further help. Rich flung off his leather apron, washed himself in a bucket, and wiped the smut from Mort's cheek with a towel that did not put on much more dirt than it took off, when they left to cleanse themselves more effectually at the house.
The dwelling was old, out of repair, and consisted of three rooms on the ground floor, but two of them plastered, and a low attic. If Morton felt depressed by finding his friends in such wretched quarters, he could not but admire and wonder at the energy and cheerfulness with which Rich, his father, mother, and uncle bore up under their reverses. The girls, however, appeared chagrined and depressed, and seemed to him completely heart-broken. They were considerably older than Rich, some children having died between them. Rich, and Morton, after supper went to walk, the former observing that by reason of their limited accommodations there was no opportunity for conversation in the house. Following a footpath that led along the bank of the river, they entered a noble orchard, just commencing to blossom. It lay upon a declivity sloping to the river. Passing through it, they came to a swale sprinkled with elms, and commanding a fine view of the river, and flung themselves on the grass side by side.
"Rich," said Morton, "do you know what has surprised me more than anything else I have met with here?"
"I should think the pickle you found me in when you came into the shop."
"No; it is to find yourself and your parents in such good spirits. Most men, after having met with so great and sudden a reverse, would have become entirely disheartened, and I expected to find you completely prostrated."
"The cheerfulness is not assumed for the occasion, Mort."
"I know that, you could not deceive me in such a matter."
"Believe me, as far as I am concerned, and were it not for my sisters, and seeing my parents compelled to renew in their old age the hardships of their youth, I should be happier to-day than for the last year and a half, for I have now a clear conscience."
"What have you done? What crime have you committed to set your conscience in arms?"
"The crime of doing nothing; of wasting myself. You know what fine speeches I used to make in college about effort, setting the standard high, and all that sort of thing, and how pat at my tongue's end I always had 'per angusta ad augusta' (I'm in a way to realize one part of it now, I think); and as long as I was neck and neck with you and Hill, I did do somewhat; but after I came home, I just fell right back into the old ruts; could not make up my mind in regard to a profession; didn't really want to. I was too comfortable; but I felt mean, felt guilty. When I went to Portland, and heard you argue that case, and saw how much labor it had cost you, and how nobly you came out of it, I felt meaner still, and was half inclined to return without seeing you, and resolved when I got home I would go to work; but I took it out in thinking so, till the trouble came like a flash of lightning; since then, I trust, I've done something, and been of some little use."
"Was it, then, so sudden? I knew that your father's difficulties came in consequence of his lumber and mills being carried away; but even a freshet gives some warning."
"None of us knew that father had every dollar invested in logs that were like to go down stream. He and uncle were anxious enough, but kept it to themselves; and the very night it came, when every man about the mills was out in the pouring rain watching for trouble, I was fooling—reciting a poem that I was going to deliver to a company of our young folks; and I'm ashamed to say, that what I am now going to tell you I had from Henry Alden, one of the men who was where I ought to have been, with my father at the time. You see that smooth, perpendicular ledge that makes out into the river?"
"Yes,"
"And that stake driven into a crack in the ledge?"
"Yes."
"When the water is up to that stake it is freshet pitch. All the morning and afternoon the water had been rising; in the evening, it was the same till it reached a fearful height, when one of the mills went. My father and Uncle Robert stood under that ledge with a lantern, watching the marks they had made on it with chalk. The rain had stopped, and for the last hour the water had not risen, the clouds had broken away overhead, and the stars came out. Every one of the men (all old river-drivers) thought the danger was over. 'Robert,' said my father, 'I think the booms will hold; the rain is over, and the river will soon fall.' The words were scarcely out of his mouth before there was a great cry from the bank above that the logs were coming. Henry said father turned pale, but never opened his mouth, or turned to look, but went straight home. When I came to the breakfast table the next morning, father was sitting there, a little paler than usual, but just as calm as ever, and told us what had taken place. You see now how sudden it must have been to me, mother, and the girls, and almost as much so to him, for he thought the crisis had passed."
"Why didn't the boom break before? and how came it to break after the water was done rising?"
"About two miles above this place is a large intervale, where a great quantity of hay is cut. Upon this flat stood a large barn, with no cattle in it, used for storing hay; half a mile below this was a toll-bridge. The water undermined the barn, and started it from its foundations, and down it came against the bridge with an awful crash. The toll-house stood on piles outside of the bridge. It struck the bridge within ten feet of the house, in which the toll-keeper, his wife, and three children, one a babe in arms, were sound asleep, they supposing, as did my father, that the danger was over. Awakened by the shock, and thinking, in their fright, the house was going, they ran out on to the bridge, the mother with the babe in her arms, all in their night clothes, and were swept off, with about twenty-five feet of the bridge. If they had staid in the house they would have been all right, for there it remained on its own foundation. The barn, bridge, a parcel of fences and drift stuff, all came down into our upper boom together, broke that and then the lower one. One mill had gone before. This vast mass, borne on the raging torrent, carried away another, half the grist mill, and a carding mill."
The breaking of the Boom. Page 119.
"What became of the family on the bridge?"
"The barn, being so big, and taking so much wind, went ahead of the bridge, that was low in the water, and when they got down where the river was narrower, some men went off in a canoe and took them ashore."
"Rich, I am going to hazard a supposition. Will you tell me if I am correct in it?"
"I'll tell you anything I know."
"You belong to a strong, resolute breed of men. Any person looking at your father as he stands at the anvil, and your uncle, can see where you came from. It is not in accordance with the make-up of persons having such blood in their veins to live without effort or object. It causes them to despise themselves—the meanest of all feelings, because the rugged nature craves hardship. When you exerted yourself to the utmost in college studies, chopped wood and hewed timber, although there was no necessity for it; when in that tremendous race at Brunswick, through gullies, thorns, coal kilns, dogs, and mires, you gave me, who had the advantage of years of training, all I could do, and distanced all the rest, that was the true nature asserting itself. I can understand why it was that, after crossing the Alps, settling down in Capua, and becoming effeminate, you lost your own self-respect, and were unhappy, and also how these feelings were all intensified when you found that while ruin was impending, your father's mind racked with agony, you were writing verses to school girls, wasting time and talents, and throwing away opportunities that would never come again. I can understand, likewise, why, when you took your portion of the load and felt that your father was encouraged by your aid and sympathy, you regained self-respect, and experienced relief and comparative happiness. But there is much more I cannot fathom."
"What is that, Mort?"
"Well, there is a light in your eye, and an expression of quiet, trustful happiness in your face, that were never there before, and that are not to be accounted for by anything you have yet told me, or that I have observed here. It seems to me that while summoning all your own resources to meet this exigency, you have gone out of yourself for aid; and that, to my mind, accounts perfectly for all the results, and renders happiness in untoward circumstances no mystery."
"Mort, I am going to answer your question, but not directly, because I don't feel quite sure of myself yet. When we were in college there was perfect sympathy between us. Perk, Hill, Savage, and the rest, had their ups and downs, fallings out and makings up; but between you and me there was never a shadow or a chill. We were as completely one in sentiment and affection as that mist that's rising over the river; but after you went to hear Mr. Sewall, and wrote me about it, there seemed to be a dark shadow between us. I couldn't tell what it was, and I didn't love you any the less, but somehow there was a difference. Mort, since this trouble came I've read your letters over, and understand them as I never did before. That shadow is gone, and the sun shines all over."
"I know what you mean, Rich; you need say no more."
"Now, Mort, this orchard, the swale, and all this land to the river, were part of our place. You have seen where we live now, and I suppose you would like to see the spot we left; if so, we had better go before it gets dark."
"Perhaps you don't care to go."
"Yes, I do. I don't dislike to go. Father might have put it into somebody's hands to cheat his creditors, and still lived there, as many have done; but he paid his debts with that and other property, and went behind the anvil; and every time I go there I consider what a temptation he resisted, and feel proud of him. I don't know how others may feel, neither do I care; but I had much rather have for my father a poor man of principle, than a wealthy rascal; blood-blisters on every finger, and earn my bread by hard blows on hot iron, than to feel the very clothes I wore, and the luxuries I enjoyed, were swift witnesses against me."
It was plain enough to Morton that the grindstone grit of poverty was fast cutting away the iron that overlaid the steel, and bringing out the true temper. So delighted was he, that he could not forbear shaking Rich. A playful scuffle followed, in which Morton by no means attained the usual advantage.
"I tell you what it is, Mort," said Rich, "let me work at the anvil and you study law a while longer, and I'll lay you on your back, and mud both shoulders."
"It is always a pleasure to me to see a young man ambitious, for even if he places his standard beyond the measure of his capacity, he is likely to make the most of himself. I've got something in view when I go back that will offset your sledge-hammer. See if I don't make your backbone crack the next time we take hold, old fellow."
"I should like to know what kind of exercise it is. I'm sure you can't hew timber there."
"A churn-drill, my boy. What do you think of that? Ain't that a good deal like work? Won't there be some misery to that? There's a man by the name of Noble, who blows rocks on Oak Street. He has two churn-drills. I am going to use one of them as soon as he gets it steeled."
"You please yourself with that idea, young man, will you? You can't start a hole with a churn-drill as it ought to be. I can tell you, it takes a workman to do that. Your drill will bind, and you'll get stuck."
"I know I can't at first, but he'll start the holes for me and then I can churn; and after a while I shall learn to start my own holes, and strike true."
"You'll get sick of it. It is the hardest work that is done."
"Did you ever know me to get sick of, or give up anything, I undertook?"
"Yes, I have."
"Name it, slanderer, name it. Don't think to escape by dealing in generalities. I demand date and place. When and where did I get sick of anything, and give it up?"
"On the twenty-fifth of December, Christmas night, quarter before seven, you got sick of eating pork pie at Uncle Tim Longley's, and Granny Longley gave you a dose of thoroughwort tea, and made you give it up."
"If we are going to see that house, it is time we were about it, for it is almost sundown, and will soon be dark."
They ascended the rising ground, passing along the edge of the orchard, till, upon gaining the height of land, they entered upon a broad, level field of twenty-five acres, smooth as a lawn, green in all the verdure of spring, and giving promise of an abundant yield of grass. A variety of forest trees were scattered over it, among which the walnut and white oak predominated. Here and there a clover head was seen, and bobolinks, balancing on spears of herd's grass, were exhibiting themselves to the best advantage, while now and then a forward apple tree on the warmer ground was covered with white and red blossoms.
"Your father never planted these trees," said Morton, gazing at the massive trunks, covered with moss and rough scaly bark; "who did?"
"I'm sure I don't know whether it was the wind, the crows, bears, or squirrels, but they were here when the white men came."
In the centre of the field stood the mansion house. It was painted white, with green blinds, and, seen through the mass of foliage by which the house was surrounded, the color produced a very pleasing effect, being scarcely more prominent than the streak of white peeping through the green folds of an opening rose-bud.
Several very large white birches were scattered in front of the buildings among other trees, that beautiful green peculiar to the leaves of this tree in the spring contrasting pleasantly with the white bark of the trunk and branches. The house, fronting the river, stood endwise to the main road, from which a broad avenue led to it, approaching by a gradual curve the front, a less spacious one conducting to the back portion and the out-buildings. Both of these avenues were lined with the Lombardy poplar, then highly prized throughout New England as an ornamental tree. They still linger, a few in nearly every town, often rising with decaying branches over some grass-grown cellar—sole memento of a departed generation.
The mansion, standing in the midst of this vast green, large on the ground, and high studded, without a fence to belittle the effect and obstruct the view, with abundant out-buildings, well arranged and in perfect repair, as seen through the mass of foliage, produced an impression better felt than described.
Morton, enraptured with the sight, stood long before the main entrance silent, his arm in that of his friend. At length his eyes moistened as he said,—
"Rich, I never saw anything like this spot; so grand and beautiful! Everything is fresh, in perfect repair, and yet these oaks and birches seem two hundred years old. I never saw such trees, except in the forest. I shouldn't be in the least surprised to see a black bear acorning in one of them."
"I've no doubt they have done it. I've heard my grandfather say that the whole of this land between us and the river was a heavy growth of such trees as you see here, except the low ground, where it was yellow birch, white maple, and elm; that a man by the name of Dingley, who was well off, came here from Salem, built this house, cleared the land, all but about two acres in front of the house; but his wife died, and his two boys didn't want to stay here—wanted to go to sea. He went back to Salem just before the embargo, and let the place to the halves. Then a friend of his—another Salem captain, who had made money going to the coast of Africa, when the embargo put a stop to his business—bought it. He also spent money at a great rate; made the house almost over, built stables, took away the fences, and as he was determined to have just what trees he wanted, and didn't mind expense, selected those he wished to remain, cut down the rest, and all the underbrush, and hauled the trunks and brush off, because he knew, if he put fire into it, he should kill the whole. That's the way, grandfather said, these old trees came to be left here.
"While Captain Norris was building, planting, clearing, and turning everything upside down, and making improvements, after some models he had seen abroad, and while the embargo and the war of 1812 lasted, he was contented; but when he had made about all the improvements his purse would allow, and maritime business began to revive after the war, he was as uneasy as a fish out of water, and sold the place to my father, with all his improvements, for half what it had cost him, and went back to Salem, and to sea again."
"It must have been a sad day to you, when you came to take leave of this home, and—"
"And go to the place where you found us, you mean. Well, it was a bitter day to all of us, but there were some reasons that made it especially so to me. Father and mother had known sorrow, and so had my sisters. I had a little brother and sister, neither of whom I ever saw. They died within a year of each other, and my sisters were old enough to realize it. But never since I can remember has there been a cloud in our sky till now. Father was prosperous, I was petted and indulged, had all I wanted, loved my books and my parents (never knew how much I did love them till now), and never had a sorrow, except when some pet animal died; but those tears were soon dried, and when I awoke the next morning the sorrow was all forgotten in some new pleasure, or some new pet. It seems to me now that I was just like one of the humming-birds that always come to the honeysuckle that hangs over that western window.—By the way, that was my room, Mort."
"I see it all, Rich; and now, let me tell you, I wasn't in a very cheerful frame when, on my way to college, I met you at Portland. I had left home, and was looking forward to a four years' course at college, with hardly any funds, and the prospect for the future was gloomy enough, when you came across my path, just like a gleam of sunshine, and appeared so buoyant, happy, and trustful, that I said to myself, 'There's a boy that's grown up in some happy home, without a care or sorrow.'"
"Just so, Mort. But there was another thing which gave to this place a charm for me that it did not possess for the rest of our family."
"What was that?"
"I'll tell you. The girls were born in Portsmouth, and their earliest associations were there. My father and mother also have had homes at other spots; but if I was not born here, I grew up among these great trees, and, I can tell you, the very roots of them were in my heart, and it was hard parting. One of the very first things I can remember is, crawling out of the front door, when mother's attention was turned, and making for dear life towards that birch with the hang-bird's nest on it. Sometimes in my haste, I'd tumble down the steps—roll from the top to the bottom. If it half killed me, I wouldn't cry, for fear mother would come and get me before I reached the tree; and when she did, O, didn't I yell some? Here I made my little gardens, dug wells, and put water in 'em; here I had my pets, hens and ducks, pigeons, and kittens, and birds; and when any of them died, I buried them under that walnut with the drooping branches, because I thought it felt sorry for me. I didn't have many playmates, for I was a shy boy, and so I loved the trees, birds, and flowers all the more, and played with them, and my sisters, and Uncle Robert. You see that large maple that stands next to the hemlock—the biggest tree in the field?"
"Yes, it is almost as large as the great pine in the glen at Brunswick."
"Don't you think, when I was a little thing, wore long clothes, red stockings, and red morocco shoes, my father tapped that tree, and used to give us the sap to drink. One washing day, when they were all busy, I got away, ran for the maple, and got down on my hands and knees to drink out of the trough. I was having the nicest time, putting down the sap, when a bee came whiz in my face, struck me on my upper lip, and ran his stinger in the whole length. I suppose he thought I was going to drink up all the sap, and he shouldn't get any. The girl was hanging out clothes, heard an outcry, and saw me flat on my back, kicking and screaming. She ran, and mother ran, and my sisters, and such a time as there was when mother pulled the stinger out. I tell you, Mort, no other place ever seems like the one where you played when you were little."
"That's so, Rich. The corn in the dish on the table don't taste half so good as that you roast out doors, and down with it, all over smut and ashes, and half raw; and the apples they carry round in the evening at home don't begin with the ones you've hid in the haymow, and eat when they are so full of frost it makes your teeth ache."
"We might have staid in the house through the summer. It is empty, and like to be; but father and mother said they had rather go at once than be dreading it. The neighbors were very kind, and helped us move (what little we had to move), as everything of any value went to the creditors, with the exception of my books and stock of tools; that father didn't give up, because he said they were my tools, with which to earn my bread. They had been given to me by him when he was solvent, and the creditors could not touch them.
"During the labor and excitement of moving, and before the neighbors, we strove to appear as cheerful as possible; but when all was over, and we came out on to this platform where we are sitting, each bearing something that had been forgotten,—I my violin and a pair of andirons, mother her press-board and a coffee-pot, the girls knives, forks, and spoons, father shovel and tongs,—I tell you, the sound of the bolt going into its place when he locked the door gave me a heartache.
"After we got off the steps, and turned round to take a last look at the old home, that never seemed half so lovely before, we couldn't any of us keep the tears back. I don't know but you will think it weak, but it made me feel real bad to see my dog, Fowler, wagging his tail, and frisking as though it was a holiday, and I almost wished I was a dog."
"Weak, Rich? A boy that could leave a home like that, where all his associations were formed, as he would leave an inn, or get out of a stage-coach, and never look back, could not be a friend of mine."
"The old cat would not go. She came and rubbed up against my legs, then went back, sat on the steps, looked after us, and mewed when we called her, but would not come.
"'Give me your things, my son,' said father, 'and go and get her.'
"I took her up, and carried her with us, but she went back the next day."
"I see a black and white cat now," said Morton, "sitting on the spur root of yonder big white oak."
Rich called, "Puss, Puss." The cat came running, jumped into his lap, and put her fore paws on the collar of his vest, opening and shutting her claws, lifting her feet up, and putting them down in the same place, as cats do when they feel happy, rubbing the side of her face against his chin, and shoving her nose between his vest and shirt bosom, and purring all the time.
"She loves me," said Rich, "but she can't bear to leave the old place.—We must go, Mort. Our folks won't know what has become of us. I do wish you could have come up here to thanksgiving, as you were going to do when we were in college, and the place was ours. To see it now is very much like looking at persons after they are dead—the house all shut up, and nothing alive but a homesick, heart-broken cat."
They walked along some time, each busied with the reflections excited by the previous conversation.
"Mort," said Rich at length, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to sleep in a poor place to-night."
"We've slept together in David Johnson's barn, in Peleg Curtis's fish-house, on a pile of wet menhaden nets, and in the woods on Great French. Didn't we make a fire and warm the ledge on the north-west side of Hope Island, sweep off the coals, and lie down—in November too?"
"Yes; but when folks go to visit their friends, they expect a little better treatment than when camping out. Don't you remember when we used to walk down to Maquoit of an afternoon in June, just before anything had faded, and it was high water, how beautiful everything looked? the sharp line of color, where the points fringed with the bright green of the thatch parted the blue water, the bolder outlines of the gray rocks, and the trees reflected in the calm water; and yet go down there two or three days after, at low tide, and there would be only a hundred acres of steaming flats, the shores and the grass on their edge strown with kelp, dead clams, horse-shoe crabs, dead limbs of trees, dead fish, chips, and rotten eel grass; no water to be seen nearer than a mile and a half!"
"Indeed I do; and the contrast was so great that one must be possessed of a most devout spirit not to arraign the order of nature, and wish it was high water all the time."
"I'm sure I can't imagine what should put Maquoit Bay in my head to-night, unless it was meeting with you, and thinking of old times; but it seems to set forth my condition exactly. Six weeks ago it was high water with us, a spring tide, up over everything, clear to the grass ground, filling every cove and creek, the mouths of the brooks kissing the birch roots on the edge of the cliffs, and lifting up the strawberry leaves. Now it is dead low water, bare flats, angry sky, and to me the voyage of life seems 'bound in shallows and in miseries.'"
"That's one side, old chum" (putting his arms around Rich's neck), "but the tide only ebbs to flow again. The farther it runs off, and the more it drains out at one time, the higher it flows the next."
It was the first manifestation of anything like depression that Morton had noticed in his friend. Rich, however, shook it off, as the bird shakes the dew from its plumage, saying, with a smile,—
"You are right, Mort; and that's the way I look at it generally; but I can't yet visit the old home, and come away again, without stirring up something that had better be kept down; especially when the cat puts her head in my bosom, as she did to-night, and says, 'Do stay here with me, I am so lonesome.'"
Morton, as they came in sight of the house now occupied by the Richardsons, was most forcibly struck with the contrast between this abode and the one they had just left. Their present habitation stood in a tan-yard; indeed it had, in the days of his poverty, been the residence of the owner of the tan-yard, who being pinched for room, had crowded his house into the smallest possible limits.
It was placed very near the line of the street, leaving barely space for a single doorstep, which was a pasture stone. The tan-pits at one side approached within two feet of the cellar wall. On the other was a currier's shop, leaving just space enough between the two buildings for a narrow cart road. Beneath the back windows of this shop were old oil barrels and heaps of curriers' shavings, stewing and simmering in the sun.
Directly behind the house a garden spot twenty-five feet by thirty was fenced out. It had not been ploughed for some years; the Richardsons did not care to cultivate it, as their stay was but temporary, and it was overgrown with weeds, and strewn with old boots and shoes, broken pottery, pots and pans that had outlived their usefulness, heaps of ashes, and the bleaching bones of cats that had come to an untimely end.
Abutting on this lot was a large shed, open on the side facing the dwelling in which was the "beam" house, where the green and bloody hides were received and "fleshed." Here were heaps of horns, and the pith or marrow that comes out of them when they taint. The roof of this shed was covered with glue skins, that is, the trimmings of the hides saved to make glue, spread to dry, and which attracted swarms of green flies; add to this a stagnant mill pond that supplied water for the pits, and to propel a bark mill, fences, and walls hung with sides of leather spread out to dry, and smeared, or, in technical language, dubbed, with tallow and rancid fish oil, and you have a faithful description of the surroundings of this delightful abode. But aside from actual experience, imagination cannot conceive or tongue describe the combined odors furnished by these various substances when operated upon by sun and wind.
The house was in perfect keeping with the site upon which it stood. The walls were covered with shingles, two courses of which had rotted away near the foundations, in consequence of banking up the walls with earth; part of the top of the chimney had fallen off, and lay on the roof that in places was bare of shingles and covered with moss.
Upon entering the house, a door on the left opened into the kitchen, the plastering of which was the color of milk and molasses, and appeared to have been flung on, and then clawed in by cats, affording in the furrows lodgments for smoke and secure harbors of refuge for flies. At the back of this room was a small bedroom, finished in the same manner, with the exception of being sealed to the height of a chair, and the wood work painted with a color intended, probably, for red; it, however, looked very much as though a hog had been killed on it. In this apartment the parents slept. Another door, on the right, admitted to an unfinished room, with a rough floor. Here were Rich's lathe and tool chest, a pair of cart wheels finished, except smoothing up, and a wheelbarrow that only required ironing.
"This is my workshop," said Rich. "My mechanical genius, that used to expend itself on flower-pots and vases, in turning canes and cups, tops and nine-pins, balls and drum-sticks, is now directed by stern necessity, into a more useful channel; and, believe me, when I have made a pair of wheels, got my money for them, and bought provisions for the family, I feel a great deal better satisfied with myself than I used to after spending two or three days making something that was a mere plaything, or at best only served the purpose of ornament."
At each end of the garret was a window, and there two bedrooms were made, with rough board partitions, one of which was occupied by the two daughters, the other by Rich. Here was his library, that was quite extensive, his father having indulged his fondness for books, among which was a German edition of the classics.
The room was small, and the roof of a low pitch. The book-cases, writing-desk, bureau, and chairs all occupied so much of the room that the bedstead was necessarily pushed far under the eaves in order to afford space enough in the middle to move around and stand upright.
"It is quite convenient," said Rich, as they entered, "for you can reach everything without getting out of your chair."
"And then to consider," replied Morton, in the same vein, "that the most celebrated philosophers and poets have meditated and sung in garrets."
"True," said Rich; "but I suspect it would be far more pleasant to meditate about than it will to occupy it come next dog days. Now, Mort, you must sleep on the front side, for the shingle nails come through the boards of the roof, and if you should forget, and jump up on end, they'd stick right into your skull."
"They are not long enough to go through."
"Probably not through a skull so thick as yours, but they would draw blood, and might give you a headache."
When they awoke in the morning, Rich said, "Mort, I can spend the whole forenoon with you, but in the afternoon they will need me at the shop. In the evening we can be together again."
When breakfast was over, Morton said, "Rich, what are your plans for the future? Have you decided in respect to a profession? for I don't suppose you really intend to pass your life at the anvil, after spending so many years and so much money getting an education."
"It would not be so much of a sacrifice as you may suppose, and if I had not been through college, I would do so, for I love to work iron; it comes as natural as water to a duck. Do you go up and look over my books while I split up some oven wood, and then I'll tell you."
"I'll help you split the wood."
"Come on."
"Rich, who was that old lady at the breakfast table?"
"Aunt Blunt, mother's aunt. Didn't they introduce you? She came last night, before we came home, and went to bed."
"I thought your mother's name was Lucy; but this morning the old lady called her Mary."
"Mother's name is Mary L.; Mary Lucy. The Lucy is for my great aunt, and she always calls her so, but we call her Lucy. One of my sisters is named Mary B., after mother and the Blunts."
Returning to the garret, Rich said, "About a profession—is it?" flinging himself on the bed, while Morton, seated in a chair, thrust his feet out of the window. "Just have the goodness to open that volume on the table."
It was Bell's Operative Surgery.
"Then you are going to study medicine?"
"It is registered on leaves of brass."
"When did you decide?"
"I've been trying to decide ever since I left college; but I did decide before I left the breakfast table the morning father told me the boom and mills had gone. I borrowed these books of our doctor, and at night, when I'm not too tired, I read them once in the while; when work permits I go with him to visit some patient. I went with him a week ago when he amputated a man's hand at the wrist. He is very kind, has large practice, and rides long distances, as he has the practice of this and the next town."
"You won't accomplish much in this way."
"I don't expect to; but I can't leave father now, as I find that my taking hold has been a great help and comfort to him and my uncle. They have a good deal of work, and it is increasing every day; and I don't mean to leave them till I see the family in more comfortable quarters. The shop and house adjoining was my grandfather's, and when my father failed, passed into the hands of a Mr. Montague. He gives my father the use of the shop and tools, and in the fall, when the family now in it moves out, will let him have the old house, which is an excellent one, built by my grandfather after he acquired property. My father and uncle are living in this old shell, working incessantly. When no other work comes in, my uncle, who can work in wood as well as iron, makes wheels. My father puts on the tires. They sell them. Mother takes in spinning, and saves every cent. I do all I can in order to be able, at the end of the summer, to buy back grandfather's tools, that we may have something of our own. Besides, they are dear to father. He helped make most of them when he was a boy, and says there's a history to every one of them."
"How long is it going to take to do all that?"
"Not longer than September or the middle of October, if we are all well. In the mean time I shall read what medicine I can, go round with Dr. Jones occasionally, and when I see the family in the new house and comfortable, take an academy somewhere or high school, and teach till I can earn money enough to go on with my studies."
"You're a good boy, Rich."
"Why don't you tell me some news?"
"I'm going to. That academy is all ready."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Did you think I would leave my studies and come way up here just to look at the wreck? Put my arm round your neck, whimper, and say, What a pity!"
"Explain, Mort, please, that's a good fellow."
"Who said I wasn't a good fellow? Well, Perk's got an academy for you in the next town to his whenever you're ready to take it, salary two hundred a year. He fitted for college there, knows all the trustees, and everybody in town; and he's cracked you up sky high; told all the boys what a nice fellow you are, the most lovable man ever God made, the trustees what a splendid classical scholar you are, and all the young ladies how handsome. So I advise you, as a sincere friend, to take unto yourself nitre and much soap, and wash off that smut, which seems to me to be under the skin."
"O, Mort, this is all your work!"
"No,'tain't; it's all old Perk's. I only came to tell the news."
"But you were the means of it."
"No; it was that good Being whom you, after so many years of prosperity, couldn't afford to think about or thank till he sent the river to put you in mind of him."
"How can I ever thank you enough?"
"Do you think a man ought to be thanked for helping himself?"
"No, of course not."
"Are not you and I one? Didn't you say only last night we were one, and that there never was a shadow between us? What are you talking about?"
"I can't understand how they can wait my leisure. There must of course be a definite time when the term begins."
"Certainly; Perk will send you a catalogue; but he will take the school till you come. I told him I knew something about your affairs, and thought it doubtful if you could come at the first part of the term."
"This is a kind of joyous time, Mort; makes this old attic seem real pleasant."
"Yes; the architecture is simple in design; but the atmosphere is most exhilarating."
"I suppose I can tell father and mother?"
"To be sure. A good story is no worse for being twice told."
"What is Perk doing?"
"Just what you were doing all last year."
After dinner Rich went to the shop, and Morton, first taking a long walk, called there on his way back, and found Mr. Robert alone.
"Where is Rich?" he asked.
"Well, a man came here to get a 'clevis' pin made, and let them take his horse and wagon to haul a load of coal, while I made the pin. You seem to think a good deal of Rich, as you call him, Mr. Morton."
"I don't know how I could love him any more than I do."
"Well, he's a boy that deserves to be thought of. He never was brought up to do the leastest individual thing, 'cept to study a book and make some little gimcrank with tools; and yet to see how he took hold the moment his father's misfortunes came—went right to the anvil, never murmured or complained; and though he's my nephew, I will say that he's worth as much to-day in this shop as the general run of apprentices that have worked two years; and as for working in wood, he always took to that. 'Twas born in him."
"Don't you think, Mr. Richardson, that a boy whose grandfather and father were blacksmiths is more likely to be handy in a shop?"
"I suppose these things are kind of handed down. I know there's a good deal in the blood; I know it by our girls. They are all broken down, sit and sigh, think what they used to have, and let their mother do all the work."
"Are they not own sisters to Rich?"
"The same father and mother; but they take back after the Armstrongs; they don't take after the Richardsons, who are a resolute, stirring breed of folks. Their old grandmother Armstrong was a dreadful slack-twisted, shiftless woman; had to be helped by the town; and when the selectmen gave her a cord of wood, she'd put about two foot into the great fireplace, declare she'd have one fire if she died for it, and then sit, fold her hands in her lap, and enjoy it. Her children took after her, 'cept my brother's wife, and she's smart as steel; took after her mother's people, the Blunts. But that old woman that's been dead and buried this twenty years has come out in the grandchildren. It is not the way, Mr. Morton, to bring up children. This twenty years past I've been saying to Clem and Lucy that they were doing wrong by their children. Says I, 'Bring them up to work as we were. If they don't need to, it's the easiest thing in the world to leave off; but it's hard to learn.' Then Lucy would say, 'Uncle, I don't want them to have to work as hard as I have.' Says I, 'Perhaps they may be obliged to. What then?' Then Clem would laugh, and say that old maids' and old bachelors' children were always brought up right."
"But I'm sure Rich has come out well."
"Indeed he has; but he is a remarkable boy, and is no rule to go by. Besides, we must thank you, and do thank you, for a good part of that: you did a parent's duty by him. Don't you think he is in better shape to keep the 'cademy, for teaching school in college, and wasn't he in better shape, and would he have had the pluck to go so willingly to the anvil if he hadn't been broke in by you in college?"
"I suppose you are right, Mr. Richardson; but in respect to the young ladies."
"Call 'em girls, Mr. Morton; and they are not very young at that."
"Well, girls, then. Would any training their parents could have given taken the thin blood (the Armstrong, as you call it) out of them."
"I don't suppose it would; but it would have helped it amazingly. You see if I get a bar of Swedish iron, first rate, stamped 'Hoop L,' I put it into the fire, and work it without fear; but if I have a bar of English iron, brash and coarse, can't get any better, and must work it up, why, by taking great pains, heating it just right, and working it just right, I can, by coaxing, make it answer—not so good a purpose as the other iron, but can make it very useful. That's the way with children; you've got 'em, and got to work 'em up, and must make the best of 'em, as I do with 'brash' iron. These girls were partly on our side the house, and if they had been put right to it, it would have helped the better part, and kept the other back, just as the saw-makers put the nature into a saw by hammering when it has been softened in grinding. Now all they do is to put the dishes on the table, sweep up the hearth and look In the glass, wring their hands, and tell about what used to be. They might teach school if they only had 'sprawl' enough."
Mr. Richardson then told Morton that his brother would take an apprentice when they moved into the old homestead and had room, after which Rich would be able to leave home.