Part 19

It was the custom at that time in Portland to send children to the Academy very soon after leaving the primary school, and there I first met Henry Longfellow; but he was a large boy fitting for college, and I was a little one. I can therefore only give you the impression made (by his habits and bearing) upon the mind of a boisterous boy who had with him nothing in common. But I recollect perfectly the impression made upon myself and others by his deportment, and from these impressions draw the inferences I communicate. He was a very handsome boy, retiring without being reserved; there was no chill in his manners. There was a frankness about him that won you at once; he looked you square in the face. His eyes were full of expression, and it seemed as if you could look down into them as into a clear spring. There were many rough boys in the school, a great deal of horse-play and a good many rough-and-tumble games at recess, and the boys who were not inclined to engage in them often excited the ill-will of their ruder mates who were prone to imagine that the former felt above them. As a result the quiet boys sometimes fell victims to this feeling and were dragged out and rudely treated. But no one ever thought of taking such liberties with Longfellow, nor did such suspicions ever attach to him. Not even John Bartels or John Goddard ever meddled with him. I think John Goddard expressed the common sentiment of the school when, after some boy had remarked upon Longfellow’s retiring habits, he exclaimed: “Oh, let him alone. He don’t belong to our breed of cats.” He had no relish for rude sports, but he loved to bathe in a little creek on the border of Deering’s Oaks. And he would sometimes tramp through the woods with a gun; but this was mostly through the influence of others. He loved much better to lie under a tree and read. Small boys think it a great affair to tag after larger ones, especially if the larger ones carry guns, and I have often picked up the dead squirrels that he and others used to shoot in the oaks. And he and John Kinsman or Edward Preble would boost me into a tree to shake off acorns for them.

His early associations were very strong, and as is the fact in respect to most of us, they strengthened with age and cropped out everywhere in his verse. One familiar with the scenes and events of his youth can readily trace to their source the allusions in many of his verses. It was doubtless after gathering the mayflower on some half-holiday or tramping through the woods that, as he lay beneath some one of those old oaks on the verge of the forest, with limbs thirty feet in length within reach of the hand, and looked up through the branches and watched the clouds go by, he received those impressions which took form in the following lines:--

“Pleasant it was when woods were green And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where the long drooping boughs between Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go.”

Though Longfellow was a thoughtful, he certainly was not a melancholy boy, and the minor key to which so much of his verse is attuned, and that tinge of sadness which his countenance wore in later years, were due to that first great sorrow which came upon him in the loss of her to whom I have referred, and which was chiselled still deeper by subsequent trials. He never buried her, and that beautiful tribute to her memory in the “Footsteps of Angels” is as true as tender.

He was ever ready to extend a helping hand to others. After leaving school we took different paths and never met again till 1870, when I received a communication from him through Mr. James T. Fields, saying that he had kept run of me and wished me to call upon him at a time fixed by him. I went and was most cordially received. I asked him how he had kept run of me. He replied through his brother Alexander, his sister Mrs. Pierce, and Mr. James Greenleaf, his brother-in-law, an intimate friend and later schoolmate of mine. We reviewed the past, and almost the first question he asked in relation to it was about the scholars in that Academy, and he mentioned almost every name but the one I knew was most dear to him. This is what led me to say that he never buried her.

But what a change in that care-worn face, marked with the deep lines of thought and sorrow, from the smooth-cheeked boy of my early recollections, unconscious of care and to whom the future was rainbow tinted and full of hope. The eyes, however, had not lost their wonted expression, and the same sweet smile was on his lips, and he encouraged me in the kindest manner to continue in the course I had just then commenced, in words that it does not become me to repeat, but which will never be forgotten. And from that time to his death I found that neither success nor sorrow had narrowed the sympathies or chilled the heart of Henry Longfellow.

BEN BOLT

Some time since, in the story of a wasted life, we depicted the results of intemperance and the terrible grasp which this vice fastens upon its victims, alas, but seldom broken. Lest our young readers should be left to imagine that reformation is hopeless, we will relate the story of Ben Bolt.

Ben Bolt was an English sailor about forty years of age, and a very powerful man, of an iron frame and constitution and a choice man on board ship. He was withal intelligent, having received a good common school education, and of most excellent disposition even when in liquor. He was honest as the sun, was never known to back out of a ship, cheat his landlord, or run away after getting his month’s advance. Ben was an excellent singer, and obtained his name from a song called “Ben Bolt,” that he was very fond of singing. What his real appellation was, for many years I did not know. He had none of the vices common to seamen except drinking, and that he had to perfection, insomuch that he was seldom sober while on shore.

I was conscious of a singular attraction towards Ben; I liked him; and whenever I could catch him comparatively sober, endeavored to wean him from his cups. Sailors are, in general, inclined to relate incidents of their life, and if they have religious or well-to-do parents, to speak of them with satisfaction and honest pride. Ben, however, was reticent in this respect.

One day I was sitting at an open window in the reading room of the Sailors’ Home, and Ben was seated on the piazza outside singing a psalm in a low tone; at the conclusion he turned, and seeing me, said:--

“Parson, I’ve sung that psalm many times in the parish church at home.”

Then, as though afraid I might pursue the subject further, abruptly left. I judged from this that during his youth he might have sung in the church choir; at any rate he could read music, had a thorough knowledge of it, and was a skilful player on the violin.

There were two hundred grog shops within a short distance of the Home, several within three or four rods of the door, and every inducement was held out to encourage seamen to drink. Ben had shipped for New Orleans, but when the hour came for the vessel to sail, he was missing. The superintendent of the Home told the “runners” to go to Ben’s room, get a key, open his chest, and see if he had got his outfit of sea-clothes and was ready to go, and if so, to search among the grog shops and find him; but if he had not got his outfit, he would take a man who was ready and put Ben in another vessel.

I happened to be in the entry when they came upstairs, and went into the room with them. They opened the chest, and there were his oil clothes, sea-boots, woollens, and every part of his outfit, and stowed snugly away among the flannels a two-gallon jug of whiskey. One of the “runners” took it and was about to pour the liquor out of the window, but I interfered, saying:--

“You have no right to pour his liquor out; he bought it and paid for it and worked hard to earn the money.”

“It is against the rules of the house to bring liquor into it.”

“Well, it is here now.”

“When he goes aboard, the mate of that ship will throw it overboard. The last time he went from here he carried a jug, and the mate of the ship took all their liquor away, for every man in the forecastle had a jug.”

“Well, the mate can do as he likes, but you shan’t pour it out.”

I put the jug back and sat down on the chest to wait for Ben. The “runners” did not succeed in finding him at his usual haunts, and, as time was pressing, another man was taken and Ben left behind. I knew he had a noble spirit of his own, and that taking liquor from him by force had accomplished nothing in the past, and I resolved to make an effort in another direction. I had some temperance tracts, written by the boatswain of an English man-of-war, discussing the evils of intemperance from the sailor’s standpoint, which I knew had produced impressions upon many sailors. I spread one of these over the jug, then took a Bible and opened to the twenty-ninth verse of the twenty-third chapter of Proverbs, locked the chest, and went away.

The doors of the Home were locked at twelve o’clock, and those who were not in by that time must stay out. Ben came home, as the watchman told me, about ten minutes before twelve pretty decidedly drunk. Finding himself safe in his room, he concluded as he was not going in the ship, and didn’t need the whiskey to carry to sea, he would have a good drink and turn in. Opening the chest, he saw the tract and read it, espied the Bible and read that, the result of which was that he turned in without tasting the whiskey. When he waked in the morning, he read the tract again, then took the jug, turned the liquor out of the window, and broke the vessel on the window-sill. At breakfast he told the “runners” what he had done. Upon this they told him of what had taken place the previous afternoon, and who had placed the tracts and Bible in his chest beside the rum jug. He then came into my room, the tears on his cheeks, exclaiming:--

“Parson, you wouldn’t let ’em pour out my whiskey.”

“No, Ben.”

“Well, I’ve poured it out and broke the jug, and so help me God not another drop of whiskey shall pass my lips. Rum and I have fell out. There’s two kinds of drunk, being drunk in the head and in the legs. I was drunk in the legs last night; I had all I could do to get upstairs, but my head was clear enough to read that tract and take the sense of it. The boatswain of that man-of-war talks well ’cause he talks from experience. I also read the Good Book and took the sense of that. I went to the “runners,” and they told me you wouldn’t let ’em pour out the whiskey. Ah, that took hold. I knew it wasn’t ’cause you wanted me to drink liquor that you wouldn’t let ’em pour it out. I knew you was a bitter enemy to liquor, but a good friend to the man who drinks it. Don’t think I’ve forgotten all the good words you’ve said to me during the four or five years I’ve been knocking about this house drunk. I’ve thought of ’em in the middle watch at sea when I was myself. I’ve thought of these bloodsuckers round this house trying to get my money away from me, to take the clothes off my back and the shoes off my feet, and you trying to get me out of their clutches and save my soul; and I’ve thought if ever I got ashore again, I’d ship in with you and sign the articles, and now I am going to do it.”

“Are you really determined to leave off drinking, or is it a mere impulse of the moment?”

“I never was more resolved to get drunk when I had come off a long voyage than I now am to keep sober.”

“You cannot do this in your own strength. I have known hundreds attempt it and fail; you do not, cannot realize the struggle it will cost. Let us ask help of God.”

We knelt down together. When I had finished, I asked him to pray; he said he could not.

“Then repeat the Lord’s Prayer with me; we are together in this thing and must both have our hands on the rope.” He did so, and added to it,” God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

“Your appetites and passions, Ben, have got you under their feet, and you must have help outside of yourself; so long as you seek it where we have sought it together this morning you will succeed.”

The next week he shipped for Australia. For five years I had seen him go from the house on different voyages, and he had always gone so intoxicated as to be barely able to sit in the wagon and unable to get aboard without help. The captain or mate would often say to the “runners”:--

“What did you bring that drunken fellow here for? I was to have good men from your place.” And the invariable reply would be:--

“Captain, he will be the best man in the ship when the rum’s out of him. He’s a bully man.”

This time he went aboard sober and fit for any duty, and came home as second mate of the ship. He was no longer Ben Bolt, but men who had been in the ship with him and whom he brought to the Home, called him Mr. Adams, William Adams.

Note these two characters so strikingly different in circumstances and in results.

George L., spoken of in “A Wasted Life,” after several struggles for victory over appetite, yielded and died by his own hand. William Adams conquered, continued steadfast through life, and accumulated property. George L. had youth on his side, a mother’s affection and many kind friends to encourage him, and he made shipwreck. Adams at forty years of age was a confirmed drunkard, all his associates were in the practice of the same vice, all leagued together to drag him back, and with but one friend to take him by the hand and encourage him to a better course. George L. had a home, his flute, books, and steady employment. He could attend lectures, find innocent amusement, and good society. Adams was in the narrow compass of a ship’s forecastle, where all the conversation among his shipmates was in respect to the debauchery they had practised while on shore and meant to practise again at the first opportunity. George L., if he had been so minded, could have turned down the next street and got clear of his evil companions, but Adams could not, and when the vessel arrived in a foreign port, and the crew had money given them and liberty to go ashore, the pressure was terrible. You may say, he could stay on board and let them go; so he did. But if you think this was an easy matter for a person of his previous habits, all I can say is, you don’t know what sailors are, and are entirely incapable of forming any conception of the strength of that instinct which leads a sailor to go with his shipmates either in good or evil. We talk about the strength of the college tie; the college tie is a spider’s web in the contrast.

Why, I have frequently known the whole watch in a crew of men who had just come off a long voyage to insist on sleeping in the same room, three in a bed, and the rest on the floor, because they had been so long together in the forecastle in the same watch; but after three or four nights they would pair off and take rooms two together.

All these trials, temptations, and discouragements Adams met and surmounted. I attribute the failure of George L. to the fact that he trusted in himself, and the success of Adams to the fact that he went out of himself at the very outset, went to God for aid. In his case it was the moral force supplementing the will that had become well-nigh powerless which decided a contest in which character, consideration, and happiness both here and hereafter, were at stake. All the talk at present is about forces of various kinds; but if a young man would have real force of character and wage a successful contest, let him seek for it where William Adams sought and found.

MA’AM PRICE

A notable woman was Ma’am Price who taught school in Portland, Maine; and Polly, her daughter, was a spunky piece and was ready with an answer to anybody. The schoolroom was in Ma’am Price’s own house that stood in Turkey Lane, so called from the following circumstance: Mr.----, who lived in that locality, invited the Reverend Samuel Deane to dine with him and partake of a turkey. The parson coming according to appointment found a Cape Cod turkey on the table,--a boiled salt fish. Notwithstanding the town christened the lane Newburg Street, the name Turkey Lane clave to the spot more than forty years.

When the British destroyed the town, Turkey Lane was directly in range of the enemy’s fire; and when Ma’am Price had removed her household stuff to a place of safety, Polly resolved to save her pig. A sea-captain who had assisted her advised her to turn the animal out to shift for itself, as Mowatt had opened fire, and it was not worth while to risk life to save a pig that was not likely to be hit by a cannon-ball. Polly, however, fastened a string to the creature’s leg and undertook to drive it a long mile to Bramhall’s Hill. The pig was obstinate, Polly determined, the progress necessarily slow. Meanwhile shells were bursting and flinging the dirt on Polly. One junk of earth struck the stick from her hand, and red-hot cannon-balls were whirring around her, but Polly was determined to save the pig, and save it she did.

Ma’am Price came to Portland from one of the West India Islands. She was a woman of culture, but very decided and strict in school discipline. If a boy refused to hold his head up, she fastened a fork under his chin. No trifling with her.

Some years after this she was obliged to suspend her school on account of an alarm of smallpox. A number of her scholars, among whom were my mother and uncles, were inoculated with smallpox virus, put in a pesthouse, and Ma’am Price, in whose experience and judgment the parents reposed the greatest confidence, employed to take care of them.

It was customary, before the discovery of Jenner, to inoculate with smallpox matter; but the patients being first put under a strict régime and properly and seasonably cared for, the disorder was not much more severe than varioloid. It was seldom that a patient died or was even pitted.

These young persons had been long kept on water gruel and were convalescent, when Hugh McLellan, by aid of friends outside, procured two lobsters. The whole company were around the table about to partake, when Ma’am Price made her appearance, and forbade them to take a mouthful, saying it would kill them. They were, however, resolved to eat, live or die. When unable to prevent them, for the boys were large, she took out her box that was filled full of yellow Scotch snuff, strewed it over the fish, and stirred it in with a spoon. Though provoked enough at the moment, they cherished no ill-will against her; at least I think not, when I recollect the number of presents the boys and girls, whose parents were Ma’am Price’s scholars, used to carry to Turkey Lane.

The good lady’s house was a great resort for captains of vessels, with whom her husband had been acquainted in the West Indies, and who brought her a great many presents,--fruit, shells, coral, eyestones, and vanilla beans. People who got anything in the eye would go to her to have an eyestone put in, and the old ladies went there for sweet-scented beans to put in their snuff-boxes.

We were everlastingly teasing to carry some present to Ma’am Price, and we found our account in so doing. She would put the eyestones in a saucer and pour in vinegar, when they would crawl all over the saucer. She would show us old pictures, needlework, and beautiful shells, and tell us stories about the West Indies and the pirates. And always when we carried a present, she gave us tamarind or guava jelly, or some West India fruit.

There was one fellow who thought--though doubtless it was just his silly notion--that the boy who carried the most acceptable present received the largest share of sweetmeats. So one time when he was going to the good woman’s with several other boys, and all he had to carry was a plate of doughnuts, while one of the others had a fifteen-pound turkey, he told that boy if he would present the doughnuts and let him present the turkey, he would give him two flounder hooks and a gray squirrel; thus they swapped. We all thought the other boy rather regretted it when going home, but he regretted it a good deal more about a week after when Ma’am Price came to call on their respective mothers and thanked his mother for “the nice plate of doughnuts” she sent her. Ma’am Price was very punctual and particular in returning her acknowledgments, and she did it like Britannia stooping to conquer.

I am now going to tell the most wonderful thing that ever happened to this excellent woman. One forenoon during recess she went into her little garden, picked a mess of beans in her apron, sat down in the schoolroom to shell them, and shelled out three diamonds. What a talk it did make! People came from all the towns round to hear the story and look at “the diamonds that grew in a bean pod.”

I hear some boy say, “That never could be; diamonds couldn’t grow in a bean pod.” I have quoted that as town talk, and Ma’am Price and Polly always thought they grew there. I believe, moreover, that she shelled them out of a bean pod; I shall stick to that. It’s not the least use for you to tell me she didn’t. Mrs. Commodore Preble saw her with her own eyes shell them out, and so did Mrs. Matthew Cobb who lived in the cottage on the eastern corner of High and Free streets. My mother said she did, and Mrs. James Deering said so too. Now, then, that’s not all. The very day before the old lady died Miss Sarah Jewett said to her: “Ma’am Price, did you truly shell those diamonds out of a bean pod? Hadn’t the pod been opened, or was it solid together like the other pods?”

“Bless you, Miss Jewett, how could I tell? You know folks don’t look at every bean or pea they shell, except there’s one that won’t open right. I was shelling away and looking at the children to see that they were all in their seats, when I felt something hard under my thumb and looked into my lap, and there were two little shining things among the beans, and another rolled out of the pod under my thumb when I took it up.”

Miss Jewett had one of the stones set in a ring that is now in the possession of William Gould of Windham. John Campbell, a relative of Polly’s, has another, and where the third is I do not know.

Whenever the children carried Ma’am Price a present, she would take the diamonds out of a cotton in which they were kept, lay them in her lap, and let the children handle them; after which she would tell how she shelled them out of the bean pod, and how surprised she was.