Part 2

Thither they had gone on Christmas Sunday, 1811, to be met on the threshold by the news of the burning of the theatre on Saturday night. My mother, although but six years old, never forgot the scenes of that day. Doctor Rice had deviated from the rutted road of the “long prayer” constructed by ecclesiastical surveyors along the lines of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication (“A, C, T, S”)—to talk as man to man with the Ruler of the universe of the terrible judgment which had befallen the mourning city. He had even alluded to it in his sermon, and it was discussed in awe-stricken tones by lingering groups in the aisles when service was over. Then, her little hand locked fast in that of her mother, the child was guided along the valley and up the steep hill to the smoking ruins, surrounded by a silent crowd, many of them in tears. In low, impressive accents the mother told the baby what had happened there last night, and, as the little creature began to sob, led her on up the street. A few squares farther on, my grandfather and a friend who walked with him laughed slightly at something they said or saw, and my grandmother said, sorrowfully:

“How can you laugh when sixty fellow-creatures lie dead over there—all hurried into Eternity without warning?”

I have never passed the now-old Monumental Church without recalling the incident engraved upon my childish mind by my mother’s story.

In the volume of “D. Lacy’s Letters” I found, laid carefully between the embrowned leaves for safest keeping, several letters from Capt. Sterling Smith to his “dear Judy,” and one from her to him, written while she was on a visit to Montrose, her birthplace, with her only son. We have such a pretty, pathetic expression of her love for husband and child, and touches, few but graphic, that outline for us so clearly her personality and environment, that I insert it here:

“MONTROSE, _September 5th, 1817._ “(Ten o’clock at night.)

“MY DEAR MR. SMITH,—I am sitting by my dear Josiah, who continues ill. His fever rises about dark. The chills are less severe, and the fever does not last as long as it did a week ago. Still, he suffers much, and is very weak. He has taken a great deal of medicine with very little benefit. His gums are sore. The doctor thinks they are touched by the calomel. He was here this morning, and advised some oil and then the bark.

“We have been looking for you ever since yesterday. Poor fellow! He longs to see you—and so do I! I was up last night, and I have been to-night very often—indeed, almost constantly—at the door and the window, listening for the sound of your horse’s feet. I have written by post, by John Morton, and by Mr. Mosby. I think if you had received either of the notes I should see you to-night, unless something serious is the matter. I am so much afraid that you are ill as to be quite unhappy.

“My love to my dear girls and all the family. My dear! my heart is sore! Pray that God may support me. I am too easily depressed—particularly when you are not with me. I _long_ to see you! I hope I shall before you receive this. God bless you!

“Your very affectionate—your own

JUDY.

“(Saturday morning.)

“We are both better. Josiah’s fever is off, but he is very weak.”

That the wife should begin the love-full epistle, “My dear Mr. Smith,” and sign it, “your own Judy,” seems the queerer to modern readers when it is considered that her husband was also her cousin, and had married her niece as his first wife. Few wives called their lords by their Christian names a hundred years back, and the custom is not yet fully established in the Southern States.

The few letters written by my grandfather that have been preserved until now show him to have been a man of sincere piety, sterling sense, and affectionate disposition. One herewith given betrays what a wealth of tenderness was poured out upon his fairy-like wife. It likewise offers a fair sketch of the life of a well-to-do Virginia planter of that date.

His wife was visiting her Montrose relatives.

“OLNEY, _March 30th, 1814._

“With inexpressible pleasure I received yours by Mr. Mosby. I rejoice that the expected event with our dear sister has turned out favorably, and that you, my dear, are enjoying better health.

“I hope that you will not be uneasy about my lonely situation. Every one must know that it cannot be agreeable, but when I consider that you may be benefited by it, and even that your health may be restored (which we have reason to hope for), what would I not forego to secure so great a blessing!

“I have kept close at home, except when I went to meeting on Sabbath, and to town to-day to hear from you. During the day I have been busy, and at night have enjoyed the company of good books until ten or eleven o’clock, then gone to bed and slept tolerably well. I eat at the usual times, and have as good health as usual. Thus situated, I will try to be as comfortable as I can until God shall be pleased to bring us together again.

“Some of our black people are still sick. Amy is much better, and speaks plainly. Rose is but poorly, yet no worse. Nanny is in appearance no better. Becky has been really sick, but seems comfortable this evening. The doctor has ordered medicine which will, I hope, restore her to health. Oba was a little while in the garden on Monday, but has been closely housed ever since. His cough is very bad, and I suppose him unable to labor.

“I wish to come for you as soon as possible, and I would, if I could, rejoin you to-morrow. The election would not keep me, but I have business I wish to attend to this week, and also to attend the meeting of the Bible Society at the Capitol on Tuesday. I hope to see you on Wednesday. I wish you to be prepared to come home with me soon after that. With regard to Betsy, I don’t expect she will be ready to come home with us, and, if she could, I dread riding an ill-gaited horse thirty miles. Mr. Mosby’s carriage is to go to Lynchburg in a few days, and he talks of returning home by way of Prince Edward, and bringing the two Betsies home. The carriage will be empty. I shall persuade him to be in earnest about it.

“Now, my dear, I must conclude with committing you to the care of our Heavenly Father. May He keep you from every evil! Give my love to the dear family you are with. May you be a comfort to them, and an instrument in the hands of God to do them good! Kiss my little ones for me, and tell them I love them!

“Your own affectionate, “WM. S. SMITH.”

The matter-of-fact manner in which the writer hints at the ride of thirty miles upon the ill-gaited horse he would have to bestride if the women, babies, and maid filled the family chariot, and his intention of making Mr. Mosby “earnest” in the scheme of despatching his empty carriage to Lynchburg—a distance of one hundred and forty miles—returning by way of Prince Edward, eighty miles from Olney—to fetch “the two Betsies” home, was a perfectly natural proceeding in the eyes of him who wrote and of her who read. There was not so much as a stage-coach route between the two towns. Heavy as were the carriages that swung and creaked through the red mud-holes and corduroy roads that did duty for thoroughfares all over the State, they were on the go continually, except when the mud-holes became bottomless and the red clay as sticky as putty. Then men and women went on horseback, unless the women were too old for the saddle. The men never were.

It was, likewise, an everyday matter with our planter that five of his “black people” should be down “sick” at one time. The race had then, as they have to our day, a penchant for disease. Every plantation had a hospital ward that was never empty.

A letter penned three years earlier than that we have just read:

“We are going on bravely with our subscription for building a meeting-house. Yesterday was the first of my turning out with subscription-paper. I got 162 dollars subscribed, with a promise of more. We have now about 1800 dollars on our subscription-list, which sum increases at least 100 dollars a day. I hope, with a little help that we have reason to expect from New York, we shall soon be able to begin the work, which may the Lord prosper in our hands!”

The “meeting-house,” when constructed, was popularly known as the “Pineapple Church,” from the conical ornament topping the steeple. As Richmond grew westward and climbed up Shockoe Hill, the First Presbyterian Church was swept up with the congregation to another site. The deserted building was bought by the Episcopalians, and christened “Christ Church.” As long as it stood it was known by the “old-timers” as the “Old Pineapple.”

The daughters of Captain Sterling’s first wife were Mary and Elizabeth (the “Betsy” of his letters). She married Rev. Thomas Lumpkin, whom she met on one of her visits to Prince Edward County, where her aunt, Mrs. James Morton, lived in the vicinity of Hampden Sidney College. Her husband lived but seven months from the wedding-day, and she returned to Olney and the fostering care of her father and the second mother, who was ever her fast and tender friend. There, in the house where she was born, she laid in her stepmother’s arms a baby-girl, born four months later. The posthumous child became the beloved “Cousin Mary” of these memoirs. She had been the petted darling of the homestead five years when her mother married again, and another clergyman, whom I shall call “Mr. Carus.” He was a Connecticut man who had been a tutor in the Olney household before he took orders. For reasons which will appear by-and-by, I prefer to disguise his name. Others in his native New England bear it, although he left no descendants.

From my mother I had the particulars of the death-scene in that first-floor “chamber” in the homestead, when, on a sultry August day (1820), “the longest, saddest day I have ever known”—said the daughter—the dainty, delicate creature who was soul and heart to the home passed away from earth.

My mother has told me how the scent of white jessamine flowed into the room where grief was hushed to hearken for the failing breath.

Dr. Rice’s niece leaned over the pillow in which the girl of fourteen smothered her sobs in clinging to the small hand so strangely cold.

“She does not breathe!” the weeper heard the friend whisper. And in a moment more, “Her heart does not beat!”

I have dwelt at length upon the character and life of my maternal grandmother because of my solemn conviction that I inherit what humble talent is mine from her. I cannot recall the time when everything connected with her did not possess for me a sweet and weird charm; when the fancy that this _petite_ woman, with a heart and soul too great for her physique, was my guardian angel, did not stay my soul and renew my courage in all good emprises.

Her profiled portrait hangs before me as I write. The features are finely chiselled and high-bred; the expression is sweet. She wears a close cap with a lace border (she was but fifty-three at death!), and a crimped frill stands up about a slender neck.

My fantasy may be a figment of the imagination. I cherish it with a tenacity that tells me it is more. That my mother shared it was proved by her legacy to me of all the books and other relics of her mother she possessed at the time of her own decease, and the richer legacy of tales of that mother’s life and words, her deeds of mercy and love, which cannot but make me a better woman.

The mortal remains of my patron saint lie in the old family burying-ground. War, in its rudest shape, swept over the ancestral acres for two years. Trees, centuries old, were cut down; ruffian soldiery camped upon and tramped over desolated fields; outbuildings were destroyed, and the cosey home stripped of porches and wings, leaving it a pitiful shell. Captain Sterling had fought at Germantown and Monmouth, leading his Henrico troopers in the train of Washington and Gates. And Northern cannon and Southern musketry jarred his bones after their rest of half a century in the country graveyard!

Yet—and this I like to think of—the periwinkle that opens its blue eyes in the early springtime, and the long-stemmed narcissus, waving its golden censers above the tangled grasses, spring from the roots _her_ dear hands buried there one hundred years ago.

II

LAFAYETTE—REVOLUTIONARY TALES—PARENTS’ MARRIAGE

MY father’s wooing, carried on, now at Dr. Rice’s house in town, now at Olney, progressed propitiously. During the engagement, Lafayette visited Richmond. My father was a member of the once-famous volunteer company, the Richmond Blues, and marched with it when it was detailed as a body-guard for the illustrious guest of the nation. My mother walked at the head of her class of Sunday-school children in the procession of women and girls mustered here to do him honor, as was done in Trenton and other towns. She kept among her treasured relics the blue-satin badge, with Lafayette’s likeness stamped on it in silver, which she wore upon her left shoulder. The Blues were arrayed in Continental uniform, with powdered hair. So completely was my father metamorphosed by the costume that, when, at the close of the parade, he presented himself in Dr. Rice’s drawing-room to pay his devoirs to his fiancée, she did not recognize him until he spoke.

I have heard the particulars of that day’s pageant and of Lafayette’s behavior at the public reception awarded him by a grateful people, so often that I seem to have been part of the scene in a former incarnation. So vivid were my reminiscences that, when a bride and a guest at Redhill, the former home of Patrick Henry, I exchanged incidents and sayings with the great orator’s son, Mr. John Henry, who had been on the Committee of Reception in 1824. In the enthusiasm of his own recollections of the fête he inquired, naïvely:

“Do you, then, remember Lafayette’s visit to America so well?”

The general burst of merriment that went around the table, and Wirt Henry’s respectful, half-distressed—“Why, father! she wasn’t born!” brought both of us back to the actual and present time and place.

A large platform erected upon the Capitol Square was filled with distinguished guests and officials. From this Lafayette reviewed the regiments of soldiers, and here he stood when the schools of the city sent up as their representative a pretty little girl, eight or ten years of age, to “speak a piece” written for the occasion by a local bard. The midget went through the task bravely, but with filling eyes and trembling limbs. Her store of factitious courage exhaled with the last line reeled off from the red lips, and, with a scared, piteous look into the benign face brought upon a level with hers by the table upon which she had been set, like an animated puppet, she cast herself upon the great man’s decorated breast and wept sore. He kissed and cuddled and soothed her as he might pet his own grandchild, and not until she could return his smile, and he had dried her tears upon his laced handkerchief, did he transfer her to other arms.

Major James Morton, of “Willington,” Prince Edward County, who married my grandmother’s sister Mary, of Montrose, had served under Lafayette and came down to Richmond to do honor to his former chief. The Major’s _sobriquet_ in the army was “Solid Column,” in reference to his “stocky” build. Although he had been on Washington’s staff, he did not expect to be recognized, after the lapse of thirty years and more, by the renowned Frenchman, who had passed since their parting through a bloodier revolution than that which won freedom for America.

General Lafayette was standing at the head of the ball-room (which was, I think, in the Eagle Hotel), where he received the crowds of citizens and military flocking to pay their respects, when he espied his whilom comrade on the outskirts of the throng. Instantly stepping outside of the cordon of aids and attendants, the Marquis held out both hands with:

“Vy, old So_lee_d Col_uu_me! I am ’appy to see you!”

A marvellous memory and a more marvellous facile tongue and quick wit had the distinguished leader of freedom-lovers! There lived in Richmond, until the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, a stately gentlewoman of the very old school whom we, of two younger generations, regarded with prideful veneration, and with reason. For Lafayette, who had seen her dance at the aforesaid ball, had pronounced her, audibly, “the handsomest woman he had seen in America.” Time had handled her disrespectfully by the time I heard the tale. But I never questioned the truth of it until I found in three other cities as many antique belles upon whom he had set a seal of the self-same pattern.

We were generously fed with authentic stories of Revolutionary days in my far-off childhood. I have sat at Major Morton’s feet and learned of the veteran much that nobody else wots of in our rushing times. I recall his emphatic denial of the assertion made by a Fourth-of-July orator to the effect that so grievous was the weight of public cares upon the Commander-in-Chief, he was never seen to smile during those eventful eight years of struggle and suspense.

“Not a word of truth in it, sir!” Thus old Solid Column to the man who reported the speech to him. “I was with him at Valley Forge, sir, and nobody there tried harder to keep up the spirits of the men. I recollect, particularly, one bitter cold day, when a dozen or so of the officers were amusing themselves and trying to get warm by jumping up and down, leaping high up in the air and trying to clap their heels together twice before they struck the ground in coming down. General Greene was sure he could do it, but he was fleshy and never light on his feet, besides being naturally sober. He was a Quaker, you know, and was turned out of meeting for joining the army. Well, on this particular day he took his turn with the others in jumping. And a poor hand he was at it! He couldn’t clap his heels together once on the way down, let alone twice. By-and-by he made a tremendous effort and pitched over, head down and heels up—flat on the snow. General Washington was watching them from where he stood in his tent door, and when General Greene went down—how the General laughed! He fairly held his sides!

“‘Ah, Greene!’ he called out. ‘You were always a lubberly fellow!’

“I am not saying he wasn’t one of the gravest men I ever saw, as a rule, but he often smiled, and he did laugh sometimes.”

My grandfather’s uncle and godfather, Sterling Smith, was one of our family Revolutionary heroes. My mother, who had a fair talent for mimicry, had an anecdote of the old war-horse’s defence of Washington against the oft-repeated charge of profanity upon the field of Monmouth:

“‘He did not swear!’ the veteran would thunder when irreverent youngsters retailed the slander in his hearing—and with malice prepense. ‘I was close behind him—and I can tell you, sir, we rode _fast_—when what should we meet, running away, licketty-split, from the field of battle, with the British almost on their heels, but Gen’ral Lee and his men?

“‘Then, with that, says Gen’ral Washington, speaking out loud and sharp—says he, “Gen’ral Lee! in God’s name, sir, what is the meaning of this ill-timed prudence?”

“‘Now, you see, Gen’ral Lee, he was mighty high-sperrited always, and all of us could hear what was going on. So he speaks up as haughty as the Gen’ral had done, and says he:

“‘“I know of no one who has more of that most damnable virtue than your Excellency!”

“‘So, you see, young man, it was Gen’ral Lee that swore, and not Gen’ral Washington! Don’t you ever let me hear that lie again!’”

A Revolutionary reminiscence of my mother’s (or mine) is always renewed by the sight of an Old Virginia plantation-gate, swinging gratingly on ponderous hinges and kept shut by the fall of a wooden latch, two yards long, into a wooden hook set in the gate-post. This latch is usually nearly half-way down the gate, and a horseman approaching it from the outside must dismount to lift the heavy bar, or be practised in the trick of throwing himself well over the top-rail to reach the latch and hold it, while he guides his horse through the narrow opening.

My grandfather, “Captain Sterling,” was at the head of a foraging-party near Yorktown when they were chased by British troopers. The Americans scattered in various directions and escaped for the most part, being familiar with the country by-ways and cross-roads. Their captain was closely pursued by three troopers to a high plantation-gate. The Virginian opened it, without leaving the saddle, shot through, shut the gate, and rammed down the latch into the socket _hard_. The pursuers had to alight to raise the latch, and the delay gave the fugitive time to get away.

My parents were married at Olney, in Henrico County, January 25, 1825.

The bride—not yet nineteen years of age—wore a soft, sheer India muslin, a veil falling to the hem of the gown, and white brocade slippers embroidered with faint blue flowers. The bridegroom’s suit was of fine blue cloth, with real silver buttons. His feet were clad in white-silk stockings and low shoes—“pumps” as they were called—with wrought-silver buckles. Those shoes and buckles were long preserved in the family. I do not know what befell them finally. The ceremony was performed by the brother-in-law whom I have called, for the sake of convenience, the Reverend Mr. Carus.

The girl had laughingly threatened that she would not promise to “obey,” and that a scene would follow the use of the obnoxious word in the marriage service. The young divine, with this in mind, or in a fit of absent-mindedness or of stage-fright, actually blundered out, “Love, honor—and obey, _in all things consistent_!”

As may be imagined, the interpolation produced a lively sensation in the well-mannered company thronging the homestead, and took rank as a family legend. How many times I have heard my mother quote the saving clause in playful monition to my masterful father!

The bride’s portion, on leaving home for the house her father had furnished for her in town, was ten thousand dollars in stocks and bonds, and two family servants—a husband and wife.

The following summer the wedded pair visited the husband’s mother in Roxbury, Massachusetts. The journey from Richmond to New York was by a packet-ship, and lasted for two weeks. My poor little mother was horribly seasick for a week each way. To her latest day she could not hear of “Point Judith” without a qualm. She said that, for a time, the association “disgusted her with her own name.” The mother-in-law, hale and handsome at forty-five, had married, less than a year before, Deacon John Clapp, a well-to-do and excellent citizen of Roxbury, and installed the buxom, “capable” widow, whose father was now dead, as the mother of four children by a former marriage, and as mistress of a comfortable home. She had not come to him portionless. The sturdy “Squire,” mindful of her filial devotion to him in his declining years, had left her an equal share of his estate with her sisters. The brother, Lewis Pierce, had succeeded to the homestead.

Mrs. Clapp appeared in the door of her pretty house, radiant in her best black silk and cap of fine lace (she never wore any other), her husband at her side, the little girls and the boy in the background, as the stage bringing her son and new daughter from Boston stopped at the gate.