THE AFFAIRS
OF my father's family were always at boiling point. It seemed a great boon
when grandfather bought another drug store for father. This one was in the
town of Fair Haven, about twenty-five miles from Wallingford. The family
was reassembled and in due time, grandfather bought a good home for us.
All seemed favorable; father's optimism and enthusiasm knew no bounds. We
were taken in by the best people in town; we children went to church and
Sunday school and took our places in the village school.
Father
worked hard and spent his leisure hours with the family. Sunday afternoons
he assembled us around the Chickering piano that grandfather had bought
for mother. Father led the singing although he knew not one note from
another; there were no more ups and downs in his bass voice than there is
in a bass drum but nevertheless he kept ponderously on in his exuberance
of spirit. When unfamiliar with the words of a hymn, father used to
extemporize; one never knew when he started a hymn where he would finish
up but he used to enjoy it because of its effect upon mother. For example,
he would sing:
"The
mistakes of my life have been many
The sins
of my life have been more, But thank Cod, I am no knocker."
The last
line being his own, he sang it with gusto.
Quite true,
my dear father, you were never a knocker. Your list of friends included
all sorts and conditions of men and you were as free from religious and
political prejudices as any man I have ever known, except perhaps your
father, my grandfather, from whom both you and I inherited tolerance. And
then there is another thing about you, my dear father. It happened long
after the years of which I have been writing; in fact, long after you had
left Vermont. I refer to the latter period of your life when you were
living in Denver. Mother was, at the time, sadly broken; she was totally
blind and helpless and then came the great transformation of your life.
You waited on mother so tenderly all of those latter years; lifting her
from her bed and placing her in her wheel chair. I remember so well how
patiently you fed her with a spoon; how you hung on her every word and
became her abject slave and when she passed away, you tried so bravely to
face life without her. You expiated all shortcomings of former years.
Father
resolved to be very economical when he took up life in Fair Haven; he
devised a system of barter and exchange; he used to swap cigars for liver,
tongue and tripe which he liked very much. Mr. Powell, the butcher, was a
prodigious smoker, and there being very little demand for liver, tongue
and tripe, the exchange seemed to be mutually profitable. Father carried
his system of barter and exchange all down the line. He even used to hire
horses and surreys from Mr. Hyde, who ran the livery stable, and pay for
their use in ten cent cigars. We had many happy rides Sunday afternoons
because of father's system of barter and exchange. He would swap cigars
for anything anyone had to offer whether he needed it or not. He never
seemed to figure that his cigars cost him anything; it was alright with
father so long as he didn't have to pay cash.
In course
of time, a new crop of children began to arrive, Guy, Claude and Reginald
came in turn and Aunt Sue, who came to live with us, got back into her
stride raising mother's children. Guy died in his boyhood. Claude gave his
life in his country's service in the Philippines at the turn of the
century. Reginald survived, became a member of the faculty of the
University of Wyoming, served in the U. S. Army during World War I, and
now resides in California.
Father
worked in the garden during the growing season and raised abundant
supplies of potatoes, strawberries, grapes, chatting occasionally with the
Catholic priest who lived on the adjoining property. Father figured that
his garden produce cut down the cost of living greatly.
So long as
father continued to devote his best efforts to his drug business and
mother continued to devote hers to the home, things went on fairly well
but when father began to turn back to his old weakness, inventions, and
mother turned the housekeeping over to hired girls while she gave music
lessons, led church choirs and Welsh choral groups, things did not go so
well. Sometimes there was plenty of good food to eat and sometimes the
cupboard was almost bare; it was either feast or famine.
Seeing the
drift in the direction of the rocks, grandfather gave father timely advice
but father smiled indulgently, convinced that grandfather was in his
dotage at last. He invented a potato bug poison in competition with paris
green; he named his concoction london purple but paris green continued to
be the favorite. He also invented a physic and gave it the name of august
flower and since he had no guinea pigs to use for experimental purposes,
he used to practice on us children.
His
experiments with chemicals resulted in several explosions severe enough to
rip the buttons from his vest and spot his clothes beyond recovery. In
business affairs and in domestic affairs, the tragedy of Racine was being
enacted all over again; it was as if neither of my parents had learned
anything whatsoever from the unhappy events of former years.
We three
older children were kept in school. The principal was a tall, angular,
rawboned man with deep-set severe eyes. His name was Ichabod Spencer. He
never stood erect but had an habitual slouch which created the impression
that he was in constant readiness to pounce upon someone, innocent or
guilty. His attitude struck tenor to the hearts of all children within his
jurisdiction. He was a natural born sleuth and was likely to shuffle into
our room almost any time of day. He wore a long black coat and trousers
which bagged at the knee. I don't recall ever having seen the vestige of a
smile on his face. Corporeal punishment was a factor to be reckoned with
in the public school of my day and Ichabod Spencer seemed to enjoy
administering severe floggings. There were plenty of rooms in the building
beside the school rooms where he might have indulged himself, beyond the
sight and hearing of the innocent children, but it was not his practice to
use them. The brutal punishment was always administered even in the
presence of the tiniest of the children. In one case a child was so
shocked that it shrieked in agony and had to be removed from the room. A
boy, in another case, was so frightened and stunned that he could not bear
food on his stomach for a week.
In major
offenses it was customary for the teacher to send a boy for Professor
Spencer who always appeared with alacrity, bearing his customary rawhide
whip. There was a little Welsh boy in our department by the name of Harry
Parry; he was an incorrigible. In his case Professor Spencer wasted no
words. He used but two sentences, one, 'Harry Parry, come forward" and,
"take off your coat, sir." Then amid the boy's shrieks, Professor Spencer
rained the cruel blows on, while the pallid faced children trembled in
their seats.
If Charles
Dickens, before writing his Nicholas Nickelby, could have seen Professor
Ichabod Spencer, it would not have been necessary for him to create the
character, Mr. Wackford Sqeers. Professor Spencer was the incarnation of
the immortal headmaster of the Dotheboys School, and Harry Parry, an
American equivalent of poor Smike.
New
England, unfortunately, had no Charles Dickens to throw a floodlight of
publicity on the abuse of authority in schools but educational methods
were undergoing great changes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
My
experience in the school dominated by Professor Ichabod Spencer was to me,
"the last ounce that broke the camel's back." I could put up with
mismanagement in the home and in father's business affairs but the incubus
of Professor Ichabod Spencer was too much to bear.
However,
our home at Fair Haven had to be given up and other arrangements made.
Eventually father and mother took up residence in Colorado and remained
there until summoned to the Great Beyond-mother in 1920 and father in
1926.
My home in
Wallingford was still open to me and for the third time in my brief
history, I took refuge in its calm and repose. My experience in Fair Haven
greatly increased my sympathy for grandfather in the shadow which
enshrouded him during the closing years of his life.
I anxiously
noted the effect of father's letters on grandfather. After reading them,
he used to sit for hours in his arm chair, sighing audibly and his sighs
at times seemed much like sobs; his sadness depressed me; scalawag though
I was, my heart was full of pity for grandfather, the bearer of so many
burdens.
At times
grandfather and I enjoyed little confidences although the initiative was
always mine. While grandfather never said a word about his feelings toward
me, he had a way of looking wondrously tender at times.
As he
advanced in years, it became increasingly difficult for him to care for
himself; sometimes he asked me to shave him and I responded as best I
could. At other times he asked me to adjust his truss. I cannot recall his
ever having asked me to do the chores but when he was driven back into the
house one day before completing his job of shoveling the path through a
heavy snow, I slipped out the back door, picked up his shovel where he had
left it and cut a clean path through the high drift which had confronted
him and then scurried along to the post-office.
One day as
I was sitting in his lap, he told me that he could not expect to be with
us much longer. When I asked him how long, he replied, "at the very
outside, ten years" I then inquired, "do you want to live, grandpa?" and
he answered resignedly, "Oh yes, I want to live."
And so it
is with men and with all creatures from the tiniest insect in the air to
the mammoth fish in the sea, they all cling to life; manifestly Providence
did not intend to make the passage from this world too easy or invitin
I wondered
how death must seem to one who must soon face it; would it seem so
terrible as it did to me? Grandfather had nothing to say on the subject; I
had done pretty well to get him to talk that much. Had I been less
tempestuous in nature and less interested in the amazing things I was
finding in life, I would have looked well to it that I added nothing to
grandfather's burdens, but I am sorry to relate that my affectionate
outbursts were not so frequent as they might have been and that most of
the time, I was just a boy well tuned to fun and mischief and to little
else.
Despite all
my misdemeanors and not infrequent relapses into savagery, there was a
warm spot in the heart of grandfather for his erring grandson. One day
when I was at my worst, grandfather told Mary Foley as she was working in
the kitchen at her pots and pans, "that boy will make his mark in the
world."
Many long
years after grandfather's death, there came to me a small well-preserved
leather covered memorandum book containing a brief summary of his
financial standing on the first of January each year beginning with 1826
and continuing until 1888, the year of his death. Inscribed without date
on one of the pages were the words: "For Ma and Paul." It was an eloquent
testimonial of the careful planning and self-denial which made his
benefactions possible.
Grandfather
always had much time in which to think; some folks I knew didn't have to
do much thinking in order to talk, thinking and talking to them being
disconnected processes. With grandfather it was different; it required
several minutes even to say, yes or no," and he had to do a certain amount
of hemming and hawing before he could get those words out and even they
were qualified and buttressed by "perhapses," and "may-bees," and "like
enoughs," which would have taken the starch all out coming from anyone
except grandfather.
I soon
learned that grandfather used these words as extra safeguards against
trouble in case his "yes or no," proved to be in error; it was like
throwing the brakes on when coasting down a steep hill. When folks got to
know grandfather well, they took his "yes" and "no" as the copper-riveted
low-down on the subject and it didn't make any difference how many "perhapses,"
"may-bees" and "like enoughs" he threw in.
While
Vermonters in general were not so conservative in speech as grandfather,
moderation was customary. We shall not forget the classic story of Silas
and Obadiah. Si was trying out his new automobile and as ill-luck would
have it, he ran over his friend Obadiah. In consternation, he stopped his
car and sang out, "Did I hurt you, Obe?" The latter propped his head up on
his arms and answered, "Can't say as you done me any good, Si."
Most
children have the advantage of the teaching and example of their parents;
few have the advantage of the teaching and example of their grandparents
as well. The philosophy of their parents, as a rule, becomes their
philosophy. I consider myself doubly fortunate in having had the
opportunity of choosing between the careful, orderly methods of my
grandparents and the disorderly though well-intended, methods of my
parents; I could never have been so appreciative of the home of my
grandparents had I not lived at times in the home of my parents.
A dear
friend of mine used to say that every well regulated home should have one
ceremonial meal each day at which all members of the family could be
expected to be present and participate in the discussion of events and
plans for the future; he contended that ceremonial meals were incomparable
as character builders. Our supper was our ceremonial meal if such a term
could be applied to so simple a repast; at any rate, it was at the supper
table in my grandparent's home that we talked things over. Grandfather
used to sit in his arm chair at the supper table paring microscopically
thin slices from a small piece of hard cheese or a doughnut and it was at
these times that he gave voice to some of his finest epigrams.
I have spoken before
of his unusually large thumbs. The wags of the day when grandfather ran a
country store, used to say that he could make a barrel of molasses spin
out much farther by grasping his quart measure with one of his enormous
thumbs inside; the more thumb there was, naturally the less molasses.
While the quip was of course sheer calumny, grandfather did have big
thumbs and they showed to their best as we sat at our supper table talking
things over; there was something eloquent and convincing in grandfather's
thumbs.
