Seth Way; a romance of the New Harmony community

Front matter

PS

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Foreword

All the improbable things in this story are true. The probable ones were invented by me.

In character and scientific attainments the hero is Thomas Say. But I have not dared to make his character so perfect nor his attainment so swift as were Say's. In fiction they would not be believed.

As to the girl of the story, she is almost entirely drawn from a good and beautiful woman who lived in Harmony, and who undertook the headlong, unselfish enterprises which I have described.

The little girl, Columbine Neef, is my own mother set back a generation. I have referred to no other persons by fictitious names. The other characters are either pure fiction or actual Harmony people bearing their real names.

For the story of the New Harmony Community I am chiefly indebted to my dear grandmother, at whose knee I learned it, and who made the bright Community days more real to me than my own childhood.

C. D. O.

Contents

I. In which I ASSIST at a Concert 1

II. In which I BEE Robert Owen , . . 5

III. In which I BEE THE MOON 11

Chapter I ' In Which I Assist At A Concert

The scene is so far back in my childhood that the surrounding air seems a shadowy dusk, and myself an unreal little Scot about three feet high, wearing the tartan skirt with the plaidie over one shoulder — surely it was not the present I.

We had come to the old town of Lanark to visit my mother's kin, the McNiif s. My Quaker father had decided to emigrate to the United States. He could not feel satisfied save in a purely Quaker city where the Spirit coiild move unhampered; and such a city was Philadelphia. My father was a visionary: yes, in the true sense of that word; for he saw visions and had trances which were famous among our little circle of Friends. I remember that even then I regarded his visions with distrust. I had seen him in one of them. His set and lacking eyes had filled me with terror. He said he had been to heaven and described the place. This gave to my childish mind a contempt .for the notion of heaven which yet reacts upon me with chill.

My mother had no such wiU-o'-the-wisp luring her to America. We were well-placed in Scotland. She desired to stay there. It was hard to fare across the water with no quest. I think I pitied my mother for that parting, though it may be that her after misfortunes tinge my recollection at this point. She was come now to bid a last good-bye to her old mother and brother.

I meanwhUe was meeting for the first time my small cousin Wully McNiff. His broad-cheeked face, with its continual "girn," had quickly fascinated me. WuJly's real power lay in a certain pixy mentahty. Wully could open new realms — and did!

I had not been in the house an hour before he led me out into the copse beside the road.

" Seth, did ever ye skirl the pipes?"

" Naw," I admitted.

"But I can, fine."

" Dae they let ye hae the bagpipes in yer own haund? " I asked with awe.

" They dinna, I inveented ane."

The marvel of this kept me silent.

"Ye dinna spier what I make it o'," said Wully impatiently.

I "spiered."

"It's made Uke a fiddle, out o' a cat! If I make ane an' play, will ye sing? Sing 'Tibbie Fowler o' the Glen,' or, 'There's nae luck aboot the hoos ' ? "

I ASSIST AT A CONCERT 3

"I ken 'The Cawmills are cominV " I ventured.

"That'll dae," said WuUy.

It took him but a second to catch the cat. I think all animals would have come at his beck, no matter how cruelly he used them. He thrust her under his arm with her head and fore-claws toward his back, tossed his plaid over one shoulder and started jaimtily across the road, stepping to a hidden tune.

We came imder the window. The folk inside were in serious conversation. I could hear my father admonishing and instructing. I knew it was no time for foolery.

"Can't ye sing?" whispered WuUy. "Sing, I teU ye!"

" The Cawmills are comin'!" I yelled at the top of my voice, and with that the strange eK beside me pinched the tail of his instrument, controlling the unhappy howls by well-timed elbow pressures to the proper rhythm of the tune — a most unholy minstrelsy.

The folk in the house jumped to their feet. Chairs were overturned.

"It's the warlocks!" cried Jeannie McNiff.

"Eh, Jean," cried her mother. "Dinna ye ken WuUy by this time?" And she swooped out upon us so swiftly that before I could blink she had caught us both.

"I'll whup ye good the noo!" she announced.

Wully's "gim" only widened.

"Och, an' ye don't care a mite for it!" she cried desperately. "I'll tell ye, I'll dae waur nor thot."

I held my breath at the penalty forthcoming.

"Ye '11 bide hame frae the skule" — then seeing the effect, " Ye '11 keep hame a week, ye wuU ! "

Had WuUy suddenly gone crazy? Here he was crouching down, lifting his freckled nose in air with more pitiful howling than ever cat let forth!

"Oh, nae, nae, nae, mither," he wailed.

"Hurtin' the pnir cat-body that never did ye no harm. I'll hurt ye now a mite."

" Oh, I maim gae to skule, I maun gae to skule ! " cried WuUy.

I -had "gone to skule" myself and knew what it was, the high narrow benches which brought aches even to my strong httle back, the dirty books with never a picture, the lessons without meaning, the terrifying whack coming like thunderclap upon wrong answer — these made school the chief bugbear of my existence.

But Wully begged so pitifully to go, was so earnest in his promises for better behavior that his mother let him off with a day's absence.

We crept back to the copse. My respect for Wully was fast becoming contempt.

" Whatever made ye sic a fule?" I asked.

"Mr. Owen 'ul know," he hiccoughed miserably.

"Is it nine-tails he beats ye with, this schoolmaster?"

"Mr. Owen's no' the schoolmaster. He's the owner o' the mills," said Wully loftily. "Did ye never hear o' him?"

I shook my head.

"Ye don't ken much," sniffed Wully.

Chapter II In Which I See Robert Owen

I KNOW not what heartless boy-curiosity prompted me to go with Wully when at last he returned to school. It would be no light thing to witness the punishment that was sure to overwhelm so reckless a spirit. The road from Old to New Lanark and the mills led between stone walls through a bare, treeless country. As we trudged along, I could not but note with envy the steadiness of Wully's courage. He even whistled to himself and glanced at me with infinite mischief out of the corner of his eye.

" Whaur be yer books?" I asked.

"I lost 'em," Wully answered with an astonishing "gim."

Now the Clyde, which had been loud in our ears all the way, grew louder yet, and its sound was mingled with a great humming. The gray, homely mills were all about us. It was the first time I had heard the roar of machinery and its power frightened me a Uttle.

Owen, the man who owned all this — what a terrible figure he must be!

We entered the farthest gray building. Wully led me through the entrance-hall, and suddenly we came upon a sun-filled, open court and the strangest, prettiest scene I had ever witnessed in my short Scotch Ufe.

Looking back at it now so far away it seems hke a bright scrap of some Paradise garden where babies grew instead of flowers. Babies were everywhere, — round babies, tall babies, fairy babies with wonder-faces, and roly-poly babies all of this world.

Every one was laughing, chatting, or clapping hands. They were barely able to toddle and none were above four years old.

They were dressed ra clean cotton shifts — so I thought then. I learned later that it was a Greek costume. In the midst was a wholesome yoxmg girl of seventeen loving them like some symbol figure of Charity.

"But this is no' a skule," I found voice to say.

"Then get anither name for 't," answered Wully. "Let's gae o'er and see what Miss Molly 's got."

Miss Molly had a brown lark — was holding it in her hands while the children crowded around to see.

" It hurt its leg," she explained to Wully quite as if he were a grown-up. I remember wondering at this among all the other wonders of that day.

"And we cured it, did n't we, Katie?"

Tiny Kate nodded her head.

"And now we're e'en going to let her go."'

"I dinna want her to gae," she cried hardily; "I want the lavrock bide wi' us!"

I saw a puzzled look pass over Miss MoUy's face. She seemed to be feeling her way to some reply. Then she put the lark back into its cage and took both Katie's hands, holding them tightly together.

" Now, Katie, the wee lavrock feels just like this. She canna spread her wings" (she spread the little arms a moment) ; "she canna fly to her hame up in the sky, an' talk with ither lavrocks. She maun bide still, still!"

Katie stood so for several minutes, her hands closed in

I SEE ROBERT OWEN 7

Miss Molly's. It was strange to see the wee battle going on in the baby face. But childish victories are apt to be lavish when won at all.

"Let the birdie gae free the noo, the noo!" cried Katie, pulling her hands free.

The other children crowded around closer than before. Miss Molly carefully put her hand into the cage and brought forth the trembUng bird. One baby toddler secretly put down a rosy mouth and kissed the tip of the tail feathers which peeped from Miss Molly's hand. >

Urchin though I was, beyond the magic of babyhood, I knew that the Uttle one was touching something that was soon to be one with cloud and star and all the airy mystery of the sky.

Then Miss Molly tossed the lavrock upward.

Wonderful how instantly it found wing, swept up in clear control, then circled and circled, and, probably from the reflex of this action, seon-old in conjunction with song, it broke into showery singing. Never shall I forget that picture, the rosy upturned faces, the bird, the sunny sky.

Wully took my hand. We reentered the corridor. A flock of merry youngsters were clattering up the stairway. They were the older children of Mr. Owen's mill-hands. We joined them, but Wully was very solemn. I saw him gulp twice, then he said to me: "That cat! Happen the taU-pinch hurted her."

"Cats dinna hae feelin's like us!" I voiced the boy theory, but for the first time wavered in beUef .

" But Mr. Owen ? " I asked fearfully, — " wUl he be up in the skuleroom?"

' The next instant I altogether forgot Mr. Owen and the cat.

We were in a large, lofty room, lighted with tall, manypaned windows. Across the walls and windows midway stretched a double row of great pictm-es, animals colored to hf e and seemingly life-size. There was a prancing horse, a wolf, an elephant, an astonishing giraffe, and a boaconstrictor lifting its head to feed from the top of a tall palm. I have since questioned the accuracy of this latter presentation.

But there must then have entered me something of the passion of my life study. I was unacquainted with pictures of any sort. Here were the first illustrations of zoology that had ever met my eye. My head swam with overpowering interest.

Wully pulled my shoulder.

"Sit doon," he commanded. "We're goin' to have geography tTie noo."

"I hate geography," I answered.

"Och, ye ken juist — naethin','' said Wully desperately, for I had afforded him not even one exclamation of surprise.

The children had now plunged inio the geography game which has been so often described by visitors to the school. That is, I was aware of the game, but my eyes were constantly on the animals. I was conscious of a httle girl on the front platform holding a long white wand and pointing to different places on a map. It was a huge map covering all one end of the room.

I was aware, too, of the tense interest when some child called out a place which the girl hesitated in finding, and the shout of approbation when she did find it. Finally, a

I SEE ROBERT OWEN 9

lad, who had named a sea which she could not pomt out, marched up to take the wand and in turn stand the testing of his fellows.

By this time I was counting the stripes on the zebra's body. There were just twenty-two includiag the broken ones toward the hiad legs.

Then the chairs were pushed back, and a little orchestra took a corner and began a rousing reel. WuUy, I should have said, had doffed his kilt for the white Greek costume, and like Pan himself he looked ia it. Most of the children were thus dressed, though a few destined for a hornpipe wore the brightest of kilts.

Then the little bare feet began to twinkle hither and yon, and as the dance grew swift the high, sweet childhood laughter jBlled the place. Shy as I was, the teacher had me out among the rest. They were exquisite dancers, these poor children of the mills. They had been trained since the age of two. I among them was a creature all heels and elbows, but so instant and understanding was the kindness shown me that I danced happily.

Then, after some singing of Scottish songs, we went downstairs. As we turned again into the court, the place of the babies, I was aware of some stir among the children.

"Mr. Owen's coomin'," went up the cry. "He's cam ben already."

My heart sank. Somehow I no longer wanted to see Wully get his thrashing. And, simpleton that I was, I had not yet associated the curious gladness of the school (this first of its kind) with the mill owner himself. I know not what bug-a-boo I expected.

Then he came among us with a swift, short-stepping gait, his large-featured face fresh-colored like a boy's and smiling with a most outreaching affection. He seemed to love us all as his own children.

The babies ran to him catching his hands, pulling his coat, reaching up tiny palms to him, folding and imfolding their little fingers in impatience to be taken, and one tinylet too small to walk endeavored to get forward along the wall, chattering her baby purpose earnestly to herself.

Robert Owen hurried to her, sweeping her up in his arms. I saw his homely face redden with pleasure as if he had won great praise. Then he caught sight of WuUy!

"Why, William," he said, "I've missed you from school. Where have you been these days?"

I saw WuUy's face as if a white veil had been let down over it. He answered not a word. I may have felt pity before, but this is my first recollection of that emotion.

"He made a cat o' bagpipe," I burst out. "It was na sae bad, thot. An' he did n't mean it."

"William will answer for himself, I'm sure," said Owen, putting down the little child and taking WuUy's hand.

"It waur bad," said WuUy loudly. "It hurted the cat an' brak oop my mither's party."

"Did you realize this at the time, my son — did you think of it, I mean?"

"Oh, nae, sir. I niver thocht aboot a cat that way ava."

"But you do now. I am quite sure you will not do it again. It is all purely a matter of imderstanding."

"Oh, nae, sir; nae, sir!"

Was this the pixy Wully, with this soft human look on his freckled face, clinging with painful shyness to the grown-up hand?

And so the picture fades.

Chapter III In Which I See The Moon

We sailed to America in a brig and a stormy voyage we had of it. After we had been in Philadelphia a sixmonth my father died. He makes a rather stern, eerie figure as I recollect him. But I know my estimate of him must be false, for my mother's joy in him and her treasuring of his love is the one sweet thing I recall in her life.

Mother was alone and frightened ia the strange land, and it seemed a piece of good fortune when the strong and handsome Bill Swently made her an offer of marriage. He was just starting to take up land in Western Virginia and he needed a wife.

So we came West with two pack-horses — a voyage through the Allegheny wilderness; slow toilings ia forest depths, sweet-smelling, dusky, endless; day-long climbs with sudden reachings of height, views where the fathomless billows of tree-tops flowed to the horizon. It was an adventure to delight the heart of a boy. But for me it was so marred with the beatings and cursings of my brutal stepfather that I remember nothing else. I can still see my mother cowering pitifully on her horse and uttering no word in my defense.

So my life clouded and darkened. Any growing thought that had stirred within me that day at the Lanark School settled down into silence. I grew too dull even to hxmger for better things.

I fear I never have forgiven Bill Swently. At the mention of his name a mental nausea arises in me. I judge it to be the extreme of anger. And I have not yet conquered it. I think he killed my mother, and I know he killed my mother's companionship with me.

I lived my childhood in lonely mountain places. BUI Swently's rule was "When ye kin hear your neighbor's gun, move fm-der." So deeper and deeper in the wilderness we reared and abandoned our rude huts. The dark forest swept up to our door, engulfed us, and passed on to the unknown. I forgot Scotland. The forest seemed to me to cover the world.

We ourselves grew soUtary and mute. The appearing of a stranger filled me with a curious fear which made me dive instantly into the forest. I have seen beavers dive so at the cracking of a twig. But the stranger-faces that I oftenest saw were those of the children brought into the world by my poor mother. I remember digging a grave for one of these httle ones. It had been with us about six months. My mother and I fetched a stone to set at the head. We worked together silently and did not weep. But the sternness of the task entered my soul and made me strangely wise.

My daily toil was heavy. I chopped the wood when I could barely lift the axe. I fetched water from the "draft," as we called it, which was always near our door. How well I remember the voice of those old streams sounding through the night. I planted and tended our httle patch, and on rainy days sat listless and received the maledictions of Bill Swently.

When I grew older the woods received me. I roamed aU day with my gun. I began to learn the lives of animals through depriving them of life. I knew where to find their

I SEE THE MOON IS

tracks in the snow and by the streams. I learned their burrows and nests, when their young would be born and how they cared for them. I learned their curious cleverness and their still more curious lapses. But I saw no significance and no beauty in the things that I learned. No sunrise made me pause with stroke of joy; no habit of deer or bird, no growth of tree caused me to wonder.

Only once do I remember wondering "Why?" with a disturbing sense of knowledge beyond me and with a puzzling dehght.

One evening at dusk I sat out in front of the cabin skinning a deer by the light of a rude lantern, stripping off the only garment the beautiful creature had ever worn. The task irked me after my long day of hunt. Our cabin was near the edge of an open ravine. Presently I saw the full moon come up and blessed it because it helped the lantern.

As I spread the skin upon the ground, I noticed the moon. It was but three quarters. I stared at it.

"Be I crazy?" I asked. For like all woodsmen I talked to myself. I ran to the cabin.

"Ma," I called, "ham't the moon full to-night?"

"Caant ye look yersel, ye loon?" she responded.

"It war fuU when it riz," I asserted, "but suthin's happened!"

She came out and instantly threw up both hands.

"Oh, Lord!" she cried, "the baby's goia' to die!"

Bill Swently came out and swore at it; so I knew that he, too, was scared.

But I did not catch their fright. I was too interested. I could not make the connection between the baby, pitifully unimportant in our household, and this so great marvel. The judgment-terrors of the preachers did not occur to me. I crept along the ravine to get away from the noise, and watched the moon with the first reverence I had ever felt. It grew slenderer until the last thread of the crescent disappeared.

Then I perceived that the ghostly disk stUl hung there, changing the whole aspect of the sky by its look of death. Was it consummg before my eyes? Was it subject to some disease? Could some veil have passed in front of it? Would it disappear entirely?

Suddenly the thread of light appeared on the opposite side. I watched it for hours vintil the disk shone perfect again in the heavens; and I was left trying to fit the marvel into my httle cosmos. It was my first experience of divine curiosity, a curiosity which never quite left me and which henceforth deepened my loneliness with a sense of bafl^ng and shame. ^

1 Note by Seth Way:

Here my narrative is interrupted and is taken in hand by my daughter, for whose pleasure I am writing down these memories of my boyhood.

Chapter IV My Daughter Columbine Explains

Father had come thus far in his narrative when a box of fossil shells and crinoids arrived from Mr. Lesueur by the hand of Allan Curtis. I had it brought ia,.

Father looked up from his desk with shining eyes. Such boxes arrive, four or five of them in the year, but father always receives them with this same enthusiasm. I saw his dear hands tremble as he lifted the hd. Then he broke the seal of the accompanying letter and was lost in the close script.

"Only think, daughter," he cried, "Lesueur has sent me this only known specimen ! " He fingered eagerly ia the box and brought forth a tiny Silurian plant.

"He found it on the shores of Lake Superior — the only one in all his northern journey. What wonderful generosity!"

"But, father, you are generous, too. Don't you remember the beetle that you gave to 'Gene Micheux last spring?"

" But, Colley, dear, the lad was so eager. He is becoming a true naturalist, and the beetle partly did it. I never regret that gift."

"You never regretted any gift in your life," I said, and went out. For though I longed to see the unknown shells, I know that in the first flush father works best alone.

Father worked all that day and until three in the morning over the shells. And the next night at two I woke out of a sound sleep, crept to his door to find light at the crack, and so dragged him off to his room. For mother is away and she never allows him to do this when she is at home.

And several mornings later when he overslept and I took his breakfast to his great canopy bed, he awoke Uke a disappointed child.

"I have been wastefuUy sleeping!" he cried. "Oh, Columbine, when I think how the entire range of North America awaits us, whole moxmtain chains, great coasts and rivers as yet totally untouched, their mighty secrets all unknown, it is insupportable that I should sleep."

"But, father, the mountains will wait."

"Yes, child; it is I who cannot wait. Being himian, I shall be gone with a breath — and now must I eat, you say?"

"Absolutely."

"Oh," he sighed, "if I could but make a small opening in my side and insert the food, enough for a month." Then he threw back his dear brown head and laughed.

"And what if you hurt my feelings?" I asked. "I made the coffee myself, and these biscuits are my very best, Virginia Dupalais's recipe."

He caught me close, dangerously tipping the tray. "Dear chUd," he said; "dear child!"

That day I found the scattered leaves of his "Life" imder his table where he had pushed them off to make room for the box. I gathered them up and determined to try working on it myself. I ran into the study. Father is different from all the other scientists here in Harmony. You can inteirupt him and he is never angry. He only works the later at night.

' MY DAUGHTER COLUMBINE EXPLAINS 17

"Let me write it, father," I said; "I know all the stories so well."

He sighed relief . "That's the thing. You'll do it much better than I. You have your mother's gift."

"Now, father; see how slily you slip out of it! I'm only going to do a very little of it."

I kissed him and ran out, and the next chapter is what I have written.

Chapter V - Columbine's Narrative I. The Rock-chinker

One morning in early ^ring, my father (that is, Seth Way) was laboring along the trace under a heavy burden of furs. He was going down to the Settlement to trade them off for commeal and salt.

The mountain forest was a mist of tiny leaves. Through it sounded the clear, downward call of the redbird, which broke always at the end into a chime of little bells. But Seth was swept this morning with that disgust which sometimes falls upon the young. Of late several times Seth had turned upon Bill Swently and tried to fight him. But what was the use? Would not the misery of the cabin remain? He had had notions of running away; but the lack of plan for himself and the feeling that his mother must face the turmoil alone had held him back. Yet Seth despised himself for not finding some way out.

Suddenly through the forest he heard a sound different from the redbird's note. The woodpecker he knew made a redoubtable drumming, but this was no woodpecker. It lacked the rhythmic busyness of forest creatures. Now it stopped altogether, now began, purposeful and short.

"Chink-chink, chink-chink-chiok." Seth walked on for a time, listening.

"Dern it, I got to know," he said, and hurried to it through the wood.

The sound brought him to the deep gorge of Cow Pas-

THE ROCK-CHINKER 19

ture River. Seth peeped over, saw the brawling mountain water at the bottom, and — no animal, but a man taptapping at the cliflf with a hammer. Why a stalwart human should so occupy himself, Seth could not imagine. But how busy he was!

A backwoodsman works with a kind of impersonal swing, but this man was working with a gleeful eagerness that was almost haste. He was moving along the foot of the cliff, now picking up a fragment'and cracking it open, now striking the cliff itself, and stopping at times to snatch from his pocket a book in which he wrote.

Seth clambered noiselessly down into the gorge, snapped a twig to show his presence, picked his way expertly across the stony brook, and sat down to view the thing.

"Howdy," he said.

The noan, quite unstartled, straightened up from his task.

"How do you do?" he answered. "I supposed I was quite alone."

"Ye hain't ben alone in quite some time," responded Seth with scorn.

A long silence followed in which the man pecked industriously at the rock. Seth slowly noted the belted gray suit which he thought fitted too close, the curious shoulder-pack, and the stUl more curious hammer, very heavy on one face and long-pointed at the other.

"He must a' fund that hammer a fur way off," he decided.

The man breathed a sigh of accomplishment.

"Yes, it had to be here," he said. But whatever he had found he failed to pick up. He merely took out a round compass, held'it before him, and seemed observing an imaginary line which dipped eastward into the heart of the cliff.

"Look a here, mister," said Seth; "whut ye breakin' them rocks fiir?"

The man failed to answer; apparently failed to hear. Perhaps he was accustomed to rustics cmiously watching his work.

"Them ain't wuth shucks," added Seth; "I seed 'em all my life."

The man smiled. Very mild his manner was. Seth was disposed to laugh at it.

"It is just possible," returned the stranger, "that you have never seen them."

"Say, now; whut's the use o' pokin' it onto me like thet?"

"Nevertheless, it may be true," said the man, still absorbed.

"Looky here," said Seth, rising, "I hain't a blind vm." And he picked up a stone to throw.

The man gave Seth his full attention.