Chapter 2
At that school he met his first love, one Phoebe Hawkins, a very sweet, pretty girl, as he recalls her, and, of course, considerably his senior. How far he had advanced in the spelling of proper names at that period is shown by the well-authenticated fact that he put himself on record, once as "loving his love with an F, because she was Feeby!"
Poor Phoebe Hawkins died before she was out of her teens. The family moved to Poughkeepsie when The Boy was ten or twelve, and his mother and he went there one day from Red Hook, which was their summer home, to call upon his love. When they asked, at the railroad-station, where the Hawkinses lived and how they could find the house, they were told that the carriages for the funeral would meet the next train. And, utterly unprepared for such a greeting, for at latest accounts she had been in perfect health, they stood, with her friends, by the side of Phoebe's open grave.
In his mind's eye The Boy, at the end of forty years, can see it all; and his childish grief is still fresh in his memory. He had lost a bird and a cat who were very dear to his heart, but death had never before seemed so real to him; never before had it come so near home. He never played "funeral" again.
In 1851 or 1852 The Boy went to another dame's school. It was kept by Miss Kilpatrick, on Franklin or North Moore Street. From this, as he grew in years, he was sent to the Primary Department of the North Moore Street Public School, at the corner of West Broadway, where he remained three weeks, and where he contracted a whooping-cough which lasted him three months. The other boys used to throw his hat upon an awning in the neighborhood, and then throw their own hats up under the awning in order to bounce The Boy's hat off--an amusement for which he never much cared. They were not very nice boys, anyway, especially when they made fun of his maternal grandfather, who was a trustee of the school, and who sometimes noticed The Boy after the morning prayers were said. The grandfather was very popular in the school. He came in every day, stepped upon the raised platform at the principal's desk, and said in his broad Scotch, "Good morning, boys!" to which the entire body of pupils, at the top of their lungs, and with one voice, replied, "_G-o-o-d morning, Mr. Scott!_" This was considered a great feature in the school; and strangers used to come from all over the city to witness it. Somehow it made The Boy a little bit ashamed; he does not know why. He would have liked it well enough, and been touched by it, too, if it had been some other boy's grandfather. The Boy's father was present once--The Boy's first day; but when he discovered that the President of the Board of Trustees was going to call on him for a speech he ran away; and The Boy would have given all his little possessions to have run after him. The Boy knew then, as well as he knows now, how his father felt; and he thinks of that occasion every time he runs away from some after-dinner or occasional speech which he, himself, is called upon to make.
After his North Moore Street experiences The Boy was sent to study under men teachers in boys' schools; and he considered then that he was grown up.
The Boy, as has been said, was born without the sense of spell. The Rule of Three, it puzzled him, and fractions were as bad; and the proper placing of e and i, or i and e, the doubling of letters in the middle of words, and how to treat the addition of a suffix in "y" or "tion" "almost drove him mad," from his childhood up. He hated to go to school, but he loved to _play_ school; and when Johnny Robertson and he were not conducting a pompous, public funeral--a certain oblong hat-brush, with a rosewood back, studded with brass tacks, serving as a coffin, in which lay the body of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, or the Duke of Wellington, all of whom died when Johnny and The Boy were about eight years old--they were teaching each other the three immortal and exceedingly trying "R's"--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic--in a play-school. Their favorite spelling-book was a certain old cook-book, discarded by the head of the kitchen, and considered all that was necessary for their educational purpose. From this, one afternoon, Johnnie gave out "Dough-nut," with the following surprising result. Conscious of the puzzling presence of certain silent consonants and vowels, The Boy thus set it down: "D-O, dough, N-O-U-G-H-T, nut--doughnut!" and he went up head in a class of one, neither teacher nor pupil perceiving the marvellous transposition.
All The Boy's religious training was received at home, and almost his first text-book was "The Shorter Catechism," which, he confesses, he hated with all his little might. He had to learn and recite the answers to those awful questions as soon as he could recite at all, and, for years, without the slightest comprehension as to what it was all about. Even to this day he cannot tell just what "Effectual Calling," or "Justification," is; and I am sure that he shed more tears over "Effectual Calling" than would blot out the record of any number of infantile sins. He made up his youthful mind that if he could not be saved without "Effectual Calling"--whatever that was--he did not want to be saved at all. But he has thought better of it since.
It is proper to affirm here that The Boy did not acquire his occasional swear-words from "The Shorter Catechism." They were born in him, as a fragment of Original Sin; and they came out of him innocently and unwittingly, and only for purposes of proper emphasis, long before the days of "Justification," and even before he knew his A, B, C's.
His earliest visit to Scotland was made when he was but four or five years of age, and long before he had assumed the dignity of trousers, or had been sent to school. His father had gone to the old home at St. Andrews hurriedly, upon the receipt of the news of the serious illness of The Boy's grandmother, who died before they reached her. Naturally, The Boy has little recollection of that sad month of December, spent in his grandfather's house, except that it _was_ sad. The weather was cold and wet; the house, even under ordinary circumstances, could not have been a very cheerful one for a youngster who had no companions of his own age. It looked out upon the German Ocean--which at that time of the year was always in a rage, or in the sulks--and it was called "Peep o' Day," because it received the very first rays of the sun as he rose upon the British Isles.
The Boy's chief amusement was the feeding of "flour-scones" and oat-cakes to an old goat, who lived in the neighborhood, and in daily walks with his grandfather, who seemed to find some little comfort and entertainment in the lad's childish prattle. He was then almost the only grandchild; and the old man was very proud of his manner and appearance, and particularly amused at certain gigantic efforts on The Boy's part to adapt his own short legs to the strides of his senior's long ones.
After they had interviewed the goat, and had watched the wrecks with which the wild shore was strewn, and had inspected the Castle in ruins, and the ruins of the Cathedral, The Boy would be shown his grandmother's new-made grave, and his own name in full--a common name in the family--upon the family tomb in the old kirk-yard; all of which must have been very cheering to The Boy; although he could not read it for himself. And then, which was better, they would stand, hand in hand, for a long time in front of a certain candy-shop window, in which was displayed a little regiment of lead soldiers, marching in double file towards an imposing and impregnable tin fortress on the heights of barley-sugar. Of this spectacle they never tired; and they used to discuss how The Boy would arrange them if they belonged to him; with a sneaking hope on The Boy's part that, some day, they were to be his very own.
At the urgent request of the grandfather, the American contingent remained in St. Andrews until the end of the year; and The Boy still remembers vividly, and he will never forget, the dismal failure of "Auld Lang Syne" as it was sung by the family, with clasped hands, as the clock struck and the New Year began. He sat up for the occasion--or, rather, was waked up for the occasion; and of all that family group he has been, for a decade or more, the only survivor. The mother of the house was but lately dead; the eldest son, and his son, were going, the next day, to the other side of the world; and every voice broke before the familiar verse came to an end.
As The Boy went off to his bed he was told that his grandfather had something for him, and he stood at his knee to receive--a Bible! That it was to be the lead soldiers and the tin citadel he never for a moment doubted; and the surprise and disappointment were very great. He seems to have had presence of mind enough to conceal his feelings, and to kiss and thank the dear old man for his gift. But as he climbed slowly up the stairs, in front of his mother, and with his Bible under his arm, she overheard him sob to himself, and murmur, in his great disgust: "Well, he has given me a book! And I wonder how in thunder he thinks I am going to read his damned Scotch!"
This display of precocious profanity and of innate patriotism, upon the part of a child who could not read at all, gave unqualified pleasure to the old gentleman, and he never tired of telling the story as long as he lived.
The Boy never saw the grandfather again. He had gone to the kirk-yard, to stay, before the next visit to St. Andrews was made; and now that kirk-yard holds everyone of The Boy's name and blood who is left in the town.
The Boy was taught, from the earliest awakening of his reasoning powers, that truth was to be told and to be respected, and that nothing was more wicked or more ungentlemanly than a broken promise. He learned very early to do as he was told, and not to do, under any consideration, what he had said he would not do. Upon this last point he was almost morbidly conscientious, although once, literally, he "beat about the bush." His aunt Margaret, always devoted to plants and to flowers, had, on the back stoop of his grandfather's house, a little grove of orange and lemon trees, in pots. Some of these were usually in fruit or in flower, and the fruit to The Boy was a great temptation. He was very fond of oranges, and it seemed to him that a "home-made" orange, which he had never tasted, must be much better than a grocer's orange; as home-made cake was certainly preferable, even to the wonderful cakes made by the professional Mrs. Milderberger. He watched those little green oranges from day to day, as they gradually grew big and yellow in the sun. He promised faithfully that he would not pick any of them, but he had a notion that some of them might drop off. He never shook the trees, because he said he would not. But he shook the stoop! And he hung about the bush, which he was too honest to beat. One unusually tempting orange, which he had known from its bud-hood, finally overcame him. He did not pick it off, he did not shake it off; he compromised with his conscience by lying flat on his back and biting off a piece of it. It was not a very good action, nor was it a very good orange, and for that reason, perhaps, he went home immediately and told on himself. He told his mother. He did not tell his aunt Margaret. His mother did not seem to be as much shocked at his conduct as he was. But, in her own quiet way, she gave him to understand that promises were not made to be cracked any more than they were made to be broken--that he had been false to himself in heart, if not in deed, and that he must go back and make it "all right" with his aunt Margaret. She did not seem to be very much shocked, either; he could not tell why. But they punished The Boy. They made him eat the rest of the orange!
He lost all subsequent interest in that tropical glade, and he has never cared much for domestic oranges since.
Among the many bumps which are still conspicuously absent in The Boy's phrenological development are the bumps of Music and Locality. He whistled as soon as he acquired front teeth; and he has been singing "God Save the Queen" at the St. Andrew's Society dinners, on November the 30th, ever since he came of age. But that is as far as his sense of harmony goes. He took music-lessons for three quarters, and then his mother gave it up in despair. The instrument was a piano. The Boy could not stretch an octave with his right hand, the little finger of which had been broken by a shinny-stick; and he could not do anything whatever with his left hand. He was constantly dropping his bass-notes, which, he said, were "understood." And even Miss Ferguson--most patient of teachers--declared that it was of no use.
The piano to The Boy has been the most offensive of instruments ever since. And when his mother's old piano, graceful in form, and with curved legs which are still greatly admired, lost its tone, and was transformed into a sideboard, he felt, for the first time, that music had charms.
He had to practise half an hour a day, by a thirty-minute sand-glass that could _not_ be set ahead; and he shed tears enough over "The Carnival of Venice" to have raised the tide in the Grand Canal. They blurred the sharps and the flats on the music-books--those tears; they ran the crotchets and the quavers together, and, rolling down his cheeks, they even splashed upon his not very clean little hands; and, literally, they covered the keys with mud.
Another serious trial to The Boy was dancing-school. In the first place, he could not turn round without becoming dizzy; in the second place, he could not learn the steps to turn round with; and in the third place, when he did dance he had to dance with a girl! There was not a boy in all Charraud's, or in all Dodworth's, who could escort a girl back to her seat, after the dance was over, in better time, or make his "thank-you bow" with less delay. His only voluntary terpsichorean effort at a party was the march to supper; and the only steps he ever took with anything like success were during the promenade in the lancers. In "hands-all-round" he invariably started with the wrong hand; and if in the set there were girls big enough to wear long dresses, he never failed to tear such out at the gathers. If anybody fell down in the polka it was always The Boy; and if anybody bumped into anybody else, The Boy was always the bumper, unless his partner could hold him up and steer him straight.
Games, at parties, he enjoyed more than dancing, although he did not care very much for "Pillows and Keys," until he became courageous enough to kneel before somebody except his maiden aunts. "Porter" was less embarrassing, because, when the door was shut, nobody but the little girl who called him but could tell whether he kissed her or not. All this happened a long time ago!
The only social function in which The Boy took any interest whatever was the making of New-Year's calls. Not that he cared to make New-Year's calls in themselves, but because he wanted to make more New-Year's calls than were made by any other boy. His "list," based upon last year's list, was commenced about February 1; and it contained the names of every person whom The Boy knew, or thought he knew, whether that person knew The Boy or not, from Mrs. Penrice, who boarded opposite the Bowling Green, to the Leggats and the Faures, who lived near Washington Parade Ground, the extreme social limits of his city in those days. He usually began by making a formal call upon his own mother, who allowed him to taste the pickled oysters as early as ten in the morning; and he invariably wound up by calling upon Ann Hughes in the kitchen, where he met the soap-fat man, who was above his profession, and likewise the sexton of Ann Hughes's church, who generally came with Billy, the barber on the corner of Franklin Street. There were certain calls The Boy always made with his father, during which he did not partake of pickled oysters; but he had pickled oysters everywhere else; and they never seemed to do him any serious harm.
The Boy, if possible, kept his new overcoat until New Year's Day--and he never left it in the hall when he called! He always wore new green kid gloves--why green?--fastened at the wrists with a single hook and eye; and he never took off his kid gloves when he called, except on that particular New Year's Day when his aunt Charlotte gave him the bloodstone seal-ring, which, at first, was too big for his little finger,--the only finger on which a seal-ring _could_ be worn--and had to be made temporarily smaller with a piece of string.
When he received, the next New Year, new studs and a scarf-pin--all bloodstones, to match the ring--he exhibited no little ingenuity of toilet in displaying them both, because studs are hardly visible when one wears a scarf, unless the scarf is kept out of the perpendicular by stuffing one end of it into the sleeve of a jacket; which requires constant attention and a good deal of bodily contortion.
When The Boy met Johnny Robertson or Joe Stuart making calls, they never recognized each other, except when they were calling together, which did not often occur. It was an important rule in their social code to appear as strangers in-doors, although they would wait for each other outside, and compare lists. When they _did_ present themselves collectively in any drawing-room, one boy--usually The Boy's cousin Lew--was detailed to whisper "T. T." when he considered that the proper limit of the call was reached. "T. T." stood for "Time to Travel"; and at the signal all conversation was abruptly interrupted, and the party trooped out in single file. The idea was not original with the boys. It was borrowed from the hook-and-ladder company, which made all _its_ calls in a body, and in two of Kipp and Brown's stages, hired for the entire day. The boys always walked.
The great drawbacks to the custom of making New-Year's calls were the calls which _had_ to be made after the day's hard work was supposed to be over, and when The Boy and his father, returning home very tired, were told that they _must_ call upon Mrs. Somebody, and upon Mrs. Somebody-else, whom they had neglected to visit, because the husbands and the sons of these ladies had called upon the mother of The Boy. New Year's Day was not the shortest day of the year, by any means, but it was absolutely necessary to return the Somebody's call, no matter how late the hour, or how tired the victims of the social law. And it bored the ladies of the Somebody household as much as it bored the father and The Boy.
The Boy was always getting lost. The very first time he went out alone he got lost! Told not to go off the block, he walked as far as the corner of Leonard Street, put his arm around the lamp-post, swung himself in a circle, had his head turned the wrong way, and marched off, at a right angle, along the side street, with no home visible anywhere, and not a familiar sign in sight. A ship at sea without a rudder, a solitary wanderer in the Great American Desert without a compass, could not have been more utterly astray. The Boy was so demoralized that he forgot his name and address; and when a kindly policeman picked him up, and carried him over the way, to the Leonard Street station-house for identification, he felt as if the end of everything had come. It was bad enough to be arrested, but how was he to satisfy his own conscience, and explain matters to his mother, when it was discovered that he had broken his solemn promise, and crossed the street? He had no pocket-handkerchief; and he remembers that he spoiled the long silk streamers of his Glengarry bonnet by wiping his eyes upon them. He was recognized by his Forty-second-plaid gingham frock, a familiar object in the neighborhood, and he was carried back to his parents, who had not had time to miss him, and who, consequently, were not distracted. He lost nothing by the adventure but himself, his self-respect, a pint of tears--and one shoe.
He was afterwards lost in Greenwich Street, having gone there on the back step of an ice-cart; and once he was conveyed as far as the Hudson River Railroad Depot, at Chambers Street, on his sled, which he had hitched to the milkman's wagon, and could not untie. This was very serious, indeed; for The Boy realized that he had not only lost himself but his sleigh, too. Aunt Henrietta found The Boy sitting disconsolately in front of Wall's bake-shop; but the sleigh did not turn up for several days. It was finally discovered, badly scratched, in the possession of "The Head of the Rovers."
"The Hounds" and "The Rovers" were rival bands of boys, not in The Boy's set, who for many years made out-door life miserable to The Boy and to his friends. They threw stones and mud at each other, and at everybody else; and The Boy was not infrequently blamed for the windows they broke. They punched all the little boys who were better dressed than they were, and they were even depraved enough, and mean enough, to tell the driver every time The Boy or Johnny Robertson attempted to "cut behind."
There was also a band of unattached guerillas who aspired to be, and often pretended to be, either "Hounds" or "Rovers"--they did not care which. They always hunted in couples, and if they met The Boy alone they asked him to which of the organizations he himself belonged. If he said he was a "Rover," they claimed to be "Hounds," and pounded him. If he declared himself in sympathy with the "Hounds," they hoisted the "Rovers'" colors, and punched him again. If he disclaimed both associations, they punched him anyway, on general principles. "The Head of the Rovers" was subsequently killed, in front of Tom Riley's liberty-pole in Franklin Street, in a fireman's riot, and "The Chief of the Hounds," who had a club-foot, became a respectable egg-merchant, with a stand in Washington Market, near the Root-beer Woman's place of business, on the south side. The Boy met two of the gang near the Desbrosses Street Ferry only the other day; but they did not recognize The Boy.
The only spot where The Boy felt really safe from the interference of "The Hounds" and "The Rovers" was in St. John's Square, that delightful oasis in the desert of brick and mortar and cobble-stones which was known as the Fifth Ward. It was a private enclosure, bounded on the north by Laight Street, on the south by Beach Street, on the east by Varick Street, and on the west by Hudson Street; and its site is now occupied by the great freight-warehouses of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.