Part 9

You may be assured it is from no lack of affection or sympathy with you in your mishap that I have not written before, but a complication of circumstances, some of them of a very sad nature, has rendered it impossible. In the first place, I strained my heel cord either by jumping out of the wagon or by wearing a very tight congress boot, and had to limp around for about ten days, but am all right now. Don’t you think, the second night it was done, just as I was going to bed, two men came from Bailey Island for me to attend a funeral the next day at two o’clock. I told them it was impossible as I could with greatest difficulty hobble to the barn. They said there was no minister in town but me, and if I did not go, the person would have to be buried without any service. Upon that I told them to go to John Randall’s and tell him to come over in the morning, and take me to the intervale point where they must meet me with a boat. John came; we rode to the point. John took me in his arms and put me into the boat. When we were across, two men, one on each side, led me to the house; when we got to the doorstep one of them said, “Mr. Kellogg, do you think you will be able to preach?” I replied, “Put me before the people, and the Lord will tell me what to say.” The next morning my foot and leg were swollen to the knee, and I could not get on a rubber boot, but had to wear arctics.... I am all right now, however, and carried a bushel of apples on my back to-day.

I put the harness on the colt this week for the first time since the 10th of last August, the week before I was hurt, and he behaved so well that I had to give him some sugar. I have cleaned him all up, combed his hair and washed his face, and he goes to school every day. He is a strapping great fellow and full of grit.

[Sidenote: Letter to son, Dec. 1, 1893.]

It is a rainy evening and I take it to write to you. Yesterday was a most lovely day. I went to George Dunning’s to dinner. Frank’s wife gave us a splendid dinner,--turkey, pudding, pies, and fruit, grapes and oranges. Betsy was quite disappointed; she meant to have me, but Frank got the start of her and invited me about the middle of the month. I let Delia go home right after breakfast, and told her I would get my supper. I came home from George Dunning’s about three o’clock, took care of the cattle and got an early supper, and had a long evening alone; that was just what I wanted and was planning for. I never can feel that Thanksgiving Day should be all taken up with eating and merriment. I never spent a happier evening than I did last evening in looking over the year, and in praising God for what He has done for me. I have food, fuel, and clothing, and food for my cattle that have come to the barn in excellent order. Let us be grateful. Gladness is not always gratitude.

I have been to Brunswick and preached to the students in Memorial Hall. I will send you and Mary both a notice of it. There are two magazines and you can exchange them. I feel quite happy that I have got through with the students. They checkmated me. I did not want to go and did not mean to, but Dr. Mason, the minister at Brunswick, and President Hyde wrote me and backed them up, and also the Brunswick people who gave me a good deal at the donation and have for several years followed suit; I had to give in. I was afraid I should not be able to see in the evening, as the hall is very large and I have been preaching in a small house for two years; but there was no trouble. It was a splendid light and I had the service all in my own hands; no responsive readings. The students did the singing and gave me two anthems. After it was all over, I had to shake hands with twenty-five or thirty, and President Hyde said he could hear every word.

The town has made a road to the Lookout. They are going to build a wharf in the spring, and the Mere Point boat will run there. It will be of no benefit. It will bring a Sunday boat, rum, and tramps of all kinds.

[Sidenote: Letter to son, March 29, 1894.]

I am glad you are having such good weather, and that you are enjoying yourself setting out fruit trees. You can see now why it is that I am so much attached to this spot. I have been through just what you are going through now. I am eating the fruit of the trees I have planted and grafted, and am sheltered by them in the winter and sit under their shadow in the summer. Such labors attach us in a most singular manner to the spot we have improved. The trees seem almost like children.

[Sidenote: Letter to son, Jan. 22, 1895.]

You ought to have been here to take supper with us last night. I got a peck of large clams. Fannie baked the most of them and we set to work tooth and nail. I never ate so many before in my life at one time. I was almost afraid to go to bed, but I had a good night’s sleep and experienced no trouble. We have had very cold weather till the last week when it has been moderate. Until last Thursday I have not been to Brunswick since the week before Christmas. The Sundays have been so stormy that we could not have meetings, and I never preached my New Year’s sermon till last Sunday which was a very pleasant day.

I have before me two letters both from different places in New York State and from men who have made their mark in the world, who attribute their success in life to the influence of my books. I had almost made up my mind to send them to you. Such letters do me good. I at one time used to fear that I had done wrong in devoting so much time to writing that might have been given to preaching the Gospel, but I have of late had so many letters of this kind that I feel differently, especially when I consider how many more persons a book reaches than a sermon.

I have never been so pleasantly situated since my great loss in parting with your mother as I am now. I have food, fuel, raiment, and health. There has not been a Sabbath since I was hurt that I have not been able to preach, nor a single day in the week that I have not been able to take care of my cattle and do all my work. I am sure this is something to thank God for. It is wealth without riches. Is it not something to thank God for to have so many friends, so many to love you and wish you well, and feel that you have been able to benefit them? When I looked over that assembly of a hundred and twenty-five persons last fall at the donation, many of them the grandchildren of old friends, and when I look at Fannie sitting here ready to anticipate all my wants, and doing all in her power to make me happy, and think here is the grandchild of Pennell Alexander, one of my earliest and best friends, I feel that life is worth living, at least for me.

[Sidenote: Letter to son, Dec. 3, 1895.]

Thirty years ago, Alcott Merriman died and left four young children fatherless and motherless. He was a great friend of mine, and I kept run of the children. Fourteen years ago Irving, the youngest, was taking me down to Potts’s, and I entered into conversation with him and urged him to give his heart to God. He received it so kindly that I began to pray for him and the other three boys, Alcott, John, and Paul Sprague, and have prayed for them ever since some time every day. Alcott was converted and is a member of my church; Irving was taken very sick a few months ago. I went to see him and found that he had not forgotten the conversation fourteen years ago, and was then praying for himself. I became intensely interested in him. I wanted him to get well. I asked my church and many others to pray for him, that God would forgive his sins and raise him up. I went to see him every week. He lived almost down to Potts’s and the going has been bad. God did not see fit to raise him up, but He gave him a new and wonderful peace of mind. I wish you a happy New Year....

[Sidenote: Letter to son, Jan. 1, 1896.]

Perhaps you recollect Mr. McKeen, the president of the alumni of Bowdoin College, who introduced me at the centennial. He sent _The Outlook_ for a year and five dollars as a Christmas present. He is the man who owns Jewel’s Island. It seems to me as if God had been with every step I have taken all this month. Everything I have put my hand to has prospered. I have my whole winter stock of wood under cover. Since I was injured I have always ridden to the afternoon meeting, but all this month and part of last I have walked. My fodder corn held out till the tenth of November. I have plenty of hay and my people seem to love me better than ever. I hated to part with the old year; it has been a pleasant year to me.... The missionary society got so poor in the hard times that they gave notice that they must cut down twenty-five per cent the churches which they helped, but they did not cut me down; was not that remarkable? Thus you see I have a Shepherd who watches over me.

[Sidenote: Letter to daughter Mary, Jan. 25, 1899.]

Though I have not written to you for a long time, you have seldom been out of my thoughts. I never had so many engagements as of late,--funerals, weddings, and letters that must be written. There were two persons, a brother and sister by the name of Chaplin from Georgetown, Massachusetts, who have visited here several years and have always been very constant at meeting. They were here the first Sunday in August when I preached in the old church where I preached my first sermon to the Harpswell people fifty-five years ago. At Christmas they sent me a most kind letter and a present of handkerchiefs and neckties. I think I will send you the letter that you may know what friends I have among the summer visitors....

George Dunning is dead. I shall miss him very much; we have been near neighbors and friends for more than half a century. There were seventy-five persons that got together, hewed out and raised the frame of my house when I came here to live, and George Barnes and Stover Pennell are all that are left of them....

Deafness is a great deprivation; it cuts me off from exchanging and going from home to preach. I go up to the college, but President Hyde sits beside me and keeps me from making blunders. I wanted to give up preaching three years ago, but our folks said they had rather hear me pronounce the benediction than any one else preach a whole sermon. I thank God for the love of my people even to the third generation.... I went to Betsy’s Thanksgiving to dinner, spent the rest of the day in praising God for the great measure of strength He has given me this winter and courage to face the weather and do a good deal of work; also for the help He has given me in hard places.... Thus I had a most happy day with my Maker and Benefactor who has held the tangled thread of my life all these years, who has by His providence preserved me from perishing in some of those harebrained, presumptuous freaks into which my reckless nature led me. I look back upon it all with astonishment and with gratitude. I can hardly realize that I once tied up one-fourth of a pound of powder and the same quantity of saltpeter and sulphur, and because the fuse I had fastened to it would not ignite, held it in my fingers and put a fire coal to it with the other hand. I was fearfully burnt; all the skin came off from my face, hands, and throat. But God had some better use for me when that courage was needed in His service. God bless you, my child!

[Sidenote: To daughter Mary, April 26, 1899.]

I am glad that you have named the little one Hugh. I trust that he will grow up to inherit not only the name, but the virtues and qualities of the old stock.... I am alone and have been for a month. It was a great trial to me losing Esther; she was like a daughter to me and anticipated all my wants. I trust the good Father who has thus far provided for me will continue His paternal care.... I have outlived a multitude of good friends and helpers, but the great Friend, He of whom other friends are the instruments, is everlasting.

[Sidenote: Letter to son, June 25, 1900.]

We had a great time here yesterday. We put off our service till eleven o’clock, which gave time for the boat to arrive and bring a great crowd from Portland. Many of them were old friends of mine. Every one seemed pleased and satisfied. It would have been a very hard day for me, but Fannie came over and got dinner, and John Randall carried me down, so that I had no horse to harness and take care of. I have lost one of the best friends I ever had in George Barnes. He was but a boy when I came here, and he helped me to get the timber to build my house.

[Sidenote: Last entry in Journal, Jan. 14, 1901.]

I am going to spend this evening in thanksgiving to God.

REMINISCENCES

JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN

A student coming to Bowdoin College in 1848 found the fame of Elijah Kellogg already among historic traditions, shading somewhat into the atmosphere of legend and the heroic. Wild stories of his youthful exuberance, and the surprising ways he had of manifesting it, involved so much that was extreme in prowess and peril, that they led more to wonder than to imitation. An unusual quality and combination of intellectual gifts, and a quaint style both of utterance and action, together with an openness of heart, and ease of manner quite peculiar to himself, gave him the reputation both of a genius, and of a queer genius.

His writings, too, had a peculiar effect that set him apart from others. So much of his stirring power had been poured into his classic descriptions that they were something like storage-batteries of manly emotion. Whoever of the prize declaimers took “Spartacus” for his performance was pretty sure to take the prize also, whoever were the judges; and it came to be deemed not quite fair for a contestant for the prize to make this his selection.

These stories and associations connected with his name gave a certain glamour to the idea of him before his personal presence showed how real he was. But surely to those who were disposed to enjoy all the advantages of college life, Elijah Kellogg was far from being a mythical personage. Although a well-employed minister of a church in the congenial neighboring town of Harpswell, he found frequent occasion to visit the college; and preferably, it seemed, at unappointed times. He did indeed, occasionally upon notice, address the religious societies, greatly to their enjoyment and spiritual edification. But he did not come into classrooms with formal introduction by the dignified professor. More likely his visit would be at a private room, and his announcement by a simple knock, known by its frankness and assurance, at any time and at any student’s room he thought he wanted to see. This was the signal, not for a general clearance, as would be the case in certain other instances, but for the summoning of a little group of special friends and those ambitious to become such. This was the beginning of free and wide discussion along the unmeasured circle of the _nihil humani alienum_. It need not be said that these communications were held in a noble range, and a thoroughly manly and wholesome tone. Sometimes, such was his confidence in us, or distinct intention of putting us each on his own responsibility, as to taking easy occasion to make fools of ourselves, that he would get upon the recital of old sea stories, and perhaps touch lightly on his boyish pranks in college. The element of personal courage, strength, self-reliance, the despising of physical danger whether of accident or consequence, lifted these examples out of the suggestion of meanness and trickery, which were far from him as he would have them far from any friend of his. Moreover, without the robust qualities of mind and nerve which characterized the original, no boy would be foolish enough to be led to imitation which would surely end in failure and ridicule. All that was said or intimated in these recitals was always with loyalty to the college and to the ideals of manliness.

If these symposiums were prolonged so far into the night as to render inexpedient his questionable return to his Harpswell domicile, it was easy to find a bed in a college room for such time as there was remaining before morning prayers. As to that matter, at the house in town of more than one hard-headed old sea-captain there was always ready just at the head of the stairs, with doors unlocked, a room set apart for Elijah Kellogg.

In the opinion of all he was the good genius of the college. The fellowship he held there was of a higher order than that pertaining to the arts and sciences; it was in the department of sound living and straightforwardness. Not only was he the friend of every student, but he was especially so of those who needed some guidance or correction inspired by sympathetic understanding and directed by practical good sense. For the faculty he served an office in the disciplinary line not easily described,--call it adviser, mediator, mitigator, or demonstrator of applied common sense. He had an idea that parents sent their boys to college to be made to stay there and perform their duties and work out their best, rather than to be sent away when any little thing went wrong with them. Still he admitted exceptions.

One of the recognized degrees of punishment in those days was that of “rustication,”--country residence being supposed to be a balance or compensation for some of the tendencies of the pursuit of the fine or liberal arts within a college town. This was applied to cases not quite deserving of technical “suspension”; but still was in fact removal from actual attendance on college exercises, whether required or prohibited,--a forced residence at the home of some scholarly and judicious gentleman, where the attractions would be wholesome influences rather than dangerous temptations, and where the pupil might receive instruction in the three branches of learning pertaining to a classical course, and thus be enabled to do what seemed less likely within college walls,--to keep up with his class.

Such were the peculiar qualities of Mr. Kellogg that these temporary sojourns with him were much in fashion at that time, and, it is truth to say, rather sought for by those a little backward or wayward. Borne on the college books as a grade of punishment, it certainly was not of the vindictive, but of the reformatory, or rather, the sanitary character. In either aspect, to the delinquent “student” this punishment was by no means clothed with terrors. To take up such familiar relations with a man of stalwart manhood, who never lost his sympathy and love for youth, and had the faculty of putting every one at his ease and at his best, to say nothing of the provision for needful exercise by going out often with an able seaman in a stout Hampton boat, braving the terrors of the seas, and the beauties of the islands of Casco Bay,--this should bring a boy whose forces were not yet knit together in just balance, to his best of body and heart and mind, and to some clearness of purpose and steadfast resolution.

When after three years the writer of these lines returned to the college as professor, Mr. Kellogg appeared in a new phase. The young wife had known him under this higher aspect during her girlhood association with mature and cultivated people. So we met now with a broader intellectual horizon. His opinions on theological, public, and political questions were rather conservative, but they were illuminated by his warm heart. His presence was cheering in the home as in the college room. He was a good adviser on practical questions of life--for other people!

When the War of the Rebellion threatened the existence of the Union and some of us went out for its defence, we looked to see him take the field or the seas for the honor of the flag under which he had sailed. But he saw his duty otherwise. He was not even drawn by the considerations which appealed to some of our brightest college men, to take service as paymaster in the navy. With so many men gone forward, he thought he had a duty to the homes.

After the war, when circumstances brought the relater of this into more responsible positions, our acquaintance became yet closer. He let himself be seen at his best, and also in his deeper needs. He had done a great and honored work among the sea-faring men in Boston, and he had written many right-minded, bracing books for boys which have gone the world over. All, however, from a singular course of mishaps, brought him more fame than fortune. He had held on to his old place and church relations in Harpswell; and thither he returned. His old people welcomed him back and gave him their hearty support. But with all that could be reasonably done, his income could not overtake his outgo. He was in the position of Paul in the storm, with four anchors out of the stern, wishing for the day.

But he had a good little farm on Harpswell Neck, a long way off the main road but with a fine outlook on the bay. With some strange freak,--an abnormal desire for seclusion perhaps,--he had shut off his front view by planting a thick hedge of black-spruce trees, effectually concealing his home from the bay view whether from without or from within. This black belt, however, served to mark the mouth of the channel for those of us obliged to make port farther up the bay, or good anchorage ground before his door for those who were bound to see him even if they had to carry intrenchments.

Well understanding the meaning of the old Antæus fable, he thought to recover strength by contact with the earth. He betook himself to his farm. No man ever worked harder at this or more completely conformed to its demands. City friends, of the learned professions, were not always considerate of his conditions and the pressure of his “environment.” One Saturday evening just before sunset, and a shower rapidly coming up, he was in his barn pitching off a load of hay up to the “great beams,” with two loads more to get in before the shower, when the “girl” came running out of the house calling, “Mr. Kellogg, Mr. Kellogg, there’s two ministers come, and I think they mean to stay to supper!” Strong stories are told about his remarks on this occasion; but when questioned as to the truth of them, he would neither affirm nor deny.

With his honesty and sincerity he did not think it necessary to change his working suit when he came to Brunswick for exchange of farm products for commodities. His classical friends could scarcely recognize him trudging through the streets accompanying--not driving--his contemplative oxen. More easily recognizable was he when, homeward bound and fairly out of the village, he would spur them to a brisk trot, and enter port as suited him well, on the jump, with “very rag of canvas flying.” At times, when under pressure, he would drive to town with a peculiarly endowed colt he had raised, whose inclination to freedom and independent “rustication” seemed to have well qualified for a degree in the liberal arts. On one of these voyages the demonstrations in these directions were of such centrifugal order as to dislocate the normal relations of horse, harness, wagon, and driver, and even the continuity of some constituent parts of the respective latter three, leaving wreck and confusion behind, and nothing to get home whole but the colt. Mr. Kellogg’s friends earnestly advised him to sell the colt; but to no avail. He seemed to like the colt better than ever; whether because of the colt’s facility of “high action,” or from the force of classical studies, applauding the victor in the game, or perhaps from that tenderness of heart that would not forsake a sinner.