My threescore years and ten : An autobiography

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Prelude 1

II. Earliest Recollections 4

Chapter I

Why does a man write liis Autobiography? The most obvious answer to this question is, because no one else can write it for him. But why write it ? There can be but one good reason, it seems to me ; that is, the conviction that his early struggles and subsequent successes or failures, if brought before the eyes of the young who are about entering on the long road, may give them courage and serve to keep alive their faith and hope. But how conceited and egotistic it seems! We cannot help thinking that the very ones whose lives and acts would be most useful to follow are those who naturally shrink from talking about themselves. Then what is my argument ? If my life and acts have been of the above quality, I must surely be outgrowing my “ retiring modesty.” If they have not, I have no business to be writing about them.

I have done a great many foolish things in my

life, many of which stand out in bold relief, and at o

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various times when I have thought of some of them I have blushed unseen, and said to myself, “Well, 1 am older now, and can never be so foolish again ; ’’ but I invariably find that my weakness asserts itself with the occasion, and afterward, to my utter confusion, that it was fully equal to it, — having led me to do something to make my past acts strong in comparison. But the act I am contemplating now will, 1 fear, surpass all for weakness ; and yet the very fact of my persisting would seem to indicate a certain kind of strength, which may appear paradoxical. Saint Paul says, “ When I am weak, then am I strong,” — which is exceedingly comforting to me.

How did I come to be drawn into this thing ? I ’ll tell you. My dear ones — my wife, daughter, and son-in-law — are responsible for it ; and if in the future they find the responsibility - too great, they must burn these papers, or keep them for their own private amusement.^

For many years, on every occasion when I have happened to relate any little incident in my past

1 It will be seen by the above words that I had no idea when I penned them that this book would be published until after death, if ever. But now that it is finished, the thought of this, my one literary chicken, being sent out an orphan into the cold world, is not a pleasant one. I have therefore determined that its advent shall be while its parent is still living to sympathize with it, at least, if abused.

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life that I thought would entertain them, they would cry out in chorus, ‘‘ Oh, papa, you must write your Autobiography!” In vain I have pleaded my inability. “ You know you can if you try ; you Vv^rite poetry and other funny nonsense so easily.” What could I do but plead that there would not be much poetry in my life, and that funny nonsense would weary them in book-form ? At length, one day at lunch I let out a rather amusing incident that I had not thought of for years ; when the usual chorus struck up, with the addition of a threat on the part of my son-in-law ; “ I shall go down town after lunch and buy a quantity of the best pencils and paper for taking notes, and you must begin to-day.” Accordingly, at dinner a bundle of paper appeared, about as much as I could lift, all cut into single leaves of the most convenient shape and size. What could I do after that but make the attempt ? I began the next day, and wrote thus far by way of apology for having begun.

Chapter II

The third of June, 1819, was the day of my hirth ; the place, Charlestown, Mass. My father, Thomas Ball, of Bedford, Mass. ; my mother, Elizabeth Wyer Hall, of Medford, Mass. The former I always remember as the kindest of fathers and the most generous of men, — perhaps too generous for his own good ; the other, the sweetest and kindest of mothers and the most patient of women. Although my father followed the humble profession of a house, sign, and fancy painter,” I think his must have been a thoroughly artistic temperament. I recall many little incidents, young as I was, that lead me to think so, — his intense love for the beautiful ; his changeable moods : one hour happy and free from all care, the next gloomy and sad, but never unkind. I remember one day when walking with him on Cambridge Bridge. He stopped and gazed into the water and pointed out to me the motion of the waves as they rose and fell, tinged with the gold of the setting sun, and said to me in a dreamy, thoughtful way, ‘‘ My boy, do you think you could ever learn to paint those

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waves ? ’’ Why did he ask me that, and I only about six years old ? And why have I always remembered it ? I don’t remember his ever suggesting or expressing any desire that I should become an artist.

To me as a boy his letters on the signs that he painted were more gracefully drawn than any others I saw about ; I was always comparing them. I have a vivid recollection of a group of sea-shells with which he decorated a piece of furniture for my mother, and which seemed a marvel to me. In our walks he always stopped at the shop windows where pictures were displayed, to point out and explain them to me. I remember his taking me up to the State House to see Chantry’s statue of Washington, which had recently been placed there, and asking me what I thought of it. I asked him if that was a real sheet that was wrapped round him ? I was very young then, but I have many times since looked at it, and never wondered why I asked the question.

All this to explain why I think he had a disappointed yearning to go beyond the limits of “ sign and fancy painting,” and that under more favorable auspices he would have been an artist. But with a wife and six children before he was much above thirty years of age, and struggling with poverty, what could he do ?

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But about my infancy. My very earliest recollections are associated with the three primary colors, — red, blue, and yellow: the first, a tall plume belonging to the uniform of the “ Charlestown Light Infantry,” of which company my father was a member ; the second, the cellar-door of the gun-house on the “ training-field,” near the spot where I was born, — which cellar-door was painted blue, and placed against the side of the house at an angle of forty-five degrees, and up which we little urchins of three years used to creep for the pleasure of sliding down again ; and the third, a little yellow cambric frock which I wore about that time, — all of which I remember distinctly. “Not very important to relate,” you will say. But you must pardon me one more reminiscence of those early years, because it relates to my alphabetical education.

The first school I attended was kept by a Miss or Mrs. Moorhead. There are but two things connected with this school that stand out in prominent relief. One is a large balm-of-Gilead tree in the back yard, the bitter buds of which the naughty little ones were made to hold in their mouths as a salutary punishment. The other was the lady’s dainty manner of eating the berries the children brought her, — one at a time, with a pin. I did not understand at the time how she could be so patient.

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My next recollections carry me across the bridge into Boston, where I entered the primary school in “ Leverett Lane,” kept by two maiden ladies named Townsend, one of whom in particular has retained a pleasant place in my memory ever since. There I was taught to read, and was prepared for entering the grammar-school at the usual age, seven years. We were living then, and for several years after, in Leverett Court, out of the street of that name, by a steep declivity down which I used to coast and slide, and often slip and roll, in winter.

About this time all of us children attended Sunday-school in what must have been the old Latin High-school building in School Street, all the children walking in procession from there to the “ Old South Church,” where we were seated in the gallery. I remember so well the old extinguisher sounding-board over the pulpit, and, opposite to it, the organ as big as a house, it seemed to me. How often I have watched with wonder the slats of the “ swell,” which opened in the front of the case while the organ was being played, — mistaking, of course, the effect for the cause.

Speaking of Sunday-schools reminds me that some years after, while we were still children, my two sisters and myself were three of five only who appeared the first .Sunday of the opening of a new

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school which a very good and religious blacksmith named Cobb considered necessary in our neighborhood. I speak of this, as it was the nucleus of the Milton Street Sabbath-school, which I think numbered its hundreds of pupils when last I attended it.

Chapter III

And now I approach the darkest days of my childhood, the sad details of which, although deeply graven upon my memory, my pen refuses to record. More than sixty years have passed since then, and I was a little child of six years; yet at the remembrance of those days my heart aches with compassion, not for myself, but for my poor dear parents. The thought has long deterred me from humoring my darlings when they have clamored for this Autobiography. I have shrunk from speaking or writing of that part of my life. But in painting this picture, if I revel in the sunny lights, why should I shirk the deepest shadows? Without going into details which would only prove truth to be stranger than fiction, I will only say that in that never-to-be-forgotten season fever laid us low; death visited us, carrying off our little brother ; hunger stared us in the face : “ The infant children cry for bread.” I forget through what channel Heaven sent us relief ; but of this I am sure, that it came in answer to the prayers of my dear mother. And to those prayers I owe my

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escape from many of the temptations and perils that surrounded my boyhood. My temper and disposition at that time were perhaps no worse than other boys’ ; but it seems to me that these were moments when I wrestled with the Evil One himself, and was only saved by the sweet influence of that patient one who first taught my infant lips to pray.

During my boyhood, up to the age of fifteen or sixteen, I don’t remember ever exhibiting the least artistic talent, or showing any indication of my future profession. I was always musical, and could sing from the time I first could speak, having inherited that talent from both my parents, who, I believe, first met at singing-school. My father was endowed with a lovely tenor voice, which made him very popular socially. My mother first taught me the melodies which I was trotted out on all occasions to perform, usually requiring more urging than it was at all worth, — at least I thought so. My mechanical genius was also thought to be quite surprising. I do not remember ever having possessed a new toy from the shop ; in fact, I should have been badly off for playthings if I had not been able to make them myself. With the exception of money, my pockets were generally well furnished by my less ingenious playmates, with v/hom I ‘‘ swapped ” my kites, boats, etc., for their

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marbles, pencils, knives, chalk, twine, buttons, and other pocket furniture. My kites would fly, my bows and arrows shoot, my boats would float, — which last seems somewhat remarkable when I remember the horror that seized me on first seeing a vessel in the sea.

I must have been about four years old when one day, after a raging storm had passed over, my two sisters, a year or two older than myself, and consequently braver, took it into their little heads to wander out with me between them, holding a hand of each, to a wharf a short distance from our house, to see the wonderfully high tide they had heard talked of all day. It was just after sundown when we arrived at the wharf; and the, to me, frightful scene that met my gaze is as vivid to my mind now as it was then. What I took in at that one glance would fully satisfy any modern “ impressionist.”

The tide had risen almost to a level with the wharf, over which the waves, tossing and rolling, — from the effect of the wind, that had gone down with the setting sun, — seemed about to rush. The lurid, brassy glare of the twilight sky, staring through the rents and slits in the palMike clouds, whose ragged fringe seemed almost to touch our heads ; the solitary, black-hulled sloop, anchored beyond, whose tall mast crossing those ghastly slits,

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and slowly swaying from side to side, apparently swept the clouds like the pendulum of a monster metronome marking adagio^ — were enough to frigliten any four-year-old. Not that I then made the above comparisons, for I believe the metronome did not at that time exist. The only thing suggested to me then was a horrid nightmare similar to many of the dreams of my childhood, which generally took the form of the supernatural. As I said before, one look was enough to make me turn my head and rush away from it ; thus abruptly finishing the entertainment of my brave sisters. One would think that one such fright would have been enough to last me the rest of my life. But in three or four years I found myself with the water over my head ; and as it came so near costing me my life and the world, — well, we won’t say anything about the world, — I may as well tell you how it happened.

I had been visiting for a few days an uncle who lived in Medford, — about five miles from Boston,— to which place I had frequently walked of a Sunday morning, to return at night. One day during the above-mentioned visit my uncle, accompanied by a friend, took me with him to a pond not far off, where the lilies were growing in great profusion, and at this time were in full “ blow.” Arriving at the pond, they took a boat and pushed off, I

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pulling the lilies as we sailed. But it was suggested that as the water was very shallow I should take off everything but my shirt, leaving that to protect me from the mosquitoes, and get into the water and wade, so that I could pluck the lilies with longer stems. No sooner said than done ; I was in for a bath also.

All went well until, having waded some distance from the boat, and gathered an armful of the floating beauties, I suddenly stepped into one of those treacherous holes and could not recover myself. Then, with the proverbial rapidity of thought of the drowning, it occurred to me that I had heard that the quickest way to teach a boy to swim was to throw him overboard where he could not touch bottom with his feet. “ Now,” I thought, “ I shall learn to swim.” But alas ! I had no sooner come to this comforting conclusion than I found my feet were so entangled in the skirts of these sirens that I could not “ strike out ” as I intended to do, and that the water was getting above my chin. Then with one despairing cry I sank, and knew nothing more until I found myself in the boat with two men over me, congratulating themselves and me that I had not taken off my shirt, as upon hearing my cry they had seen me sink, and when they reached the spot the only thing seen floating was the skirt of my shirt,

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which my friends grasped before it disappeared, and pulled me to the surface, thus frustrating the wiles of these enticing water-nymphs.

Before leaving the subject of water and boats — which I have seen a good deal of since then — I will only add that my early ship-building, for which 1 had a great passion a few years after this, afforded me an immense deal of practice, which I am confident educated my eye for my future profession quite as much as if the time had been spent in drawing.

My method of working necessarily obliged my memory to retain what my eye had seen, as it easily retained what passed my ear in the way of melody. I would go down to the wharf and attentively study the ships, beginning with the graceful lines and proportions of the hull ; then hurry home and work away on my little model, renewing my impressions day by day, sometimes two or three times a day, by journeys to the wharf, and so carrying the comparative size and position of the masts, spars, and ropes, one or two at a time, home to my work, until the whole was complete from stem to stern and from keel to topmast.

CHAPTER lY.

To return for a moment to the nightmare, — not a very pleasant thing to return to !

In my childhood I was often assailed in my sleep by horrible dreams, which generally took the form of the supernatural. These I gradually conquered and taught myself to escape from by closing and wrestling with them ; for we can assert ourselves with a little practice even in our sleep. From impressing upon my mind on awaking that it was only a dream, I came to be able, when the horrid thing appeared, to think “ It ’s only a dream,” and to grasp it courageously ; and whether ghost or devil, it would immediately vanish or I would awake.

The firm touch is the only right one ; as I have found all through my life, although in many things I have failed to realize its full importance till too late. In Art the brush or pencil must meet the canvas with an unfaltering touch; the thumb should press the clay with an uncompromising gouge, to carry out what the eye has first determined upon, — no niggling, no trembling ! In

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music, as well, the bow should attack and hold the string with the tenacity of a saw ; the fingers of the left hand, and of both hands for the pianoforte, should each act like a small hammer. The smoothing-plane may be brought in later. The purest vocal tone — not necessarily the loudest — will follow from full lungs and a firm grasp of the throat muscles. The most pernicious habits or temptations in life may be met and conquered by a firm determination without compromise, but with faith ill the assistance of a higher Power.

As one instance in my own case, — the first assault made upon me by evil spirits : for I have a firm belief in the influence of good and bad spirits, though not the slightest in their visible, audible, or tangible manifestation. It has sometimes seemed to me that children, boys in particular, were the natural prey of evil spirits until rescued sooner or later by the good angels who have watched over their infancy. Consequently I have a sincere sympathy for bad boys, and think they should not be too severely dealt with. I will relate in as few words as possible how the first assault made upon me by the evil spirits was overcome. I had been taught by precept and example, from my infancy, that to use profane language was not only ungentlemanly, but very sinful. Consequently my parents never heard a profane word from my lips.

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But, horrible confession ! when about seven or eight years old, the irresistible impulse would seize me when alone, and without the slightest cause or warning, to indulge in the wildest profanity, not only mentally but audibly, I all the time thinking it was terribly wicked. An hour afterward I Vvould lament with remorseful tears, not only the sin itself, but the deception practised upon my dear parents.

One day I was crossing the Common when I felt this impulse coming on me to swear. In a moment the words from the New Testament occurred to me, “ Resist the devil, and he will flee from you ; ” then those other words, which I delivered in my most commanding voice, — “ Get thee behind me, Satan ! ” Strange as it may seem, I have never uttered a profane word in a profane way from that day to this ; and I have also been able to subdue my rising temper — which was not always as serene as it is to-day — in the same way.

A little incident occurred to me not long after the above, which I will relate, as I think it will make you laugh, as it has me many times since, although at the time it seemed quite serious.

I was walking along Green Street, toward Bowdoin Square, when I heard a voice from the other side of the street calling, “ Little boy ! ” I ran across to a woman standing in a doorway.

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Pointing down an alley opening out of the street opposite, she said to me, ‘‘ Do you see those boys playing down there ? I wish you would run down and tell that one in a green jacket that I want him.” “ Yes, ma’am,” I said, and ran down, touched him on the shoulder, and simply said to him, “ Your mother wants you ; ” when the vulgar little wretch suddenly turned upon me with the exclamation, “Go to hell!” I immediately left him, and tried to steal out of the alley without being seen by the woman. But it was of no use ; she was waiting there for me, and called out, “ What did he say ? ” Just what I feared ! Thinking what a shock it would be to her if I repeated her son’s words, I resolved to spare her by telling a deliberate lie; so I replied very meekly, “He said he would come.” I have thought since then that possibly he might not have been her son, after all.

Chapter V

The next five years of my life I attended the Mayhew School — when I could not avoid it; for I must confess I detested it. I never played truant,— “hooked Jack,” as we used to call it, — but I always wanted to awfully ; seizing upon the weakest subterfuge to stay away, — often “too sick to go to school, but just sick enough to go a-fishing.” I was seldom happy at school. I never was flogged for any fault of my own worse than not knowing my lessons, but remember several whippings I got for the faults of other boys. I was in constant fear of the rattan or cowhide. I could not bear beating as some of the other boys could ; the prospect of it put every idea out of my mind. There were two masters whom I remember as being particularly severe. One, the reading-master, Parker, was only severe ; but the other. Holt, master of the writing-department, it seemed to me was at times brutal. He was the only one, as I remember, who wielded the cowhide ; and it was a particularly effective one, too, from having one or two strands broken in about the middle of it,

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giving it a flail-like action that was wonderfully telling when applied to a hoy’s jacket. Master Parker was a tall, slim, austere, and ratlier aristocratic looking man, but I think, on the whole, kind-hearted. He wore spectacles, by the help of vrhich the boys used to imagine he could see right through one boy to what another was doing beliind him. However, I think ‘‘ his bark was worse than his bite ; ” but he kept the boys straight. The writing-department occupied the first floor, and the reading the second ; the boys attending the former in the morning, and the latter in the afternoon.

One day Master Parker was sick, and sent as a substitute a gentleman of the name of Daw, I think, whom the boys at once saw they could impose upon. As a matter of course, a boy was soon called up for punishment, when he refused to hold' out his hand, making some impertinent remark, which was the signal for revolt, beginning by a shuffling of the feet among the boldest, and gradually spreading till the whole school was in an uproar, and the room fairly shook with the stamping and jumping. All this time, in their excitement, the scholars entirely forgot the old man in the room below, until he suddenly appeared standing in the doorway, cowhide in hand, like a statue of an avenging spirit. In a moment the hush of death reigned in the

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room. But in that moment his eagle eye had singled out two or three of the most rebellious “ forms,” and like a flash he was among them ; and that old cowhide travelled over the backs of the boys he had marked like a steam-flail. He then quietly retired with his flail under his arm. There was no more trouble that day.

Master Holt was a powerful, thickset man whose blows told, — especially his last one in that school. It was a summer day, and the windows were open ; the old gentleman, walking about with his mahogany ruler under his arm, caught sight of a boy leaning over his desk pretending to be writing, but who was doing something else, I forget what ; when, the first he knew, he received a most tremendous whack from the mahogany ruler, which, not being elastic like the old flail, broke in the middle in imitation of it. Holt quietly picked up the part on the floor, and tossed both pieces out of the window. I think that was his last day in old “ Mayhew.” But with all his severity, he had many warm adherents among the boys, and probably the best of them ; and I think they got up some sort of testimonial for him when he left.

If the masters were severe, the ushers or monitors were, as I remember them, kind and patient. They were chosen from the higher classes, to review the smaller boys in their lessons and to help

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them on ; thus relieving the masters from much of the drudgery of their profession, and the small boys from fears that were apt to drive every idea out of their stupid little heads. I bear in my mind to this day most pleasantly two of these monitors ; so kind, gentle, and patient were they with me. One was in the writing, and the other in the reading department. The former I think was named Floyd, and the latter I know was Turner. They both, recognizing my timid, retiring nature, treated me with all the loving attention of elder brothers, — the former spending many hours patiently guiding my hand in forming my capitals and adding my sums ; the other teaching me to read with intelligence, and to correct my spelling, which latter would have thoroughly disgusted him if I had not shown more than ordinary talent in the former. The happiest hours of my school life were when listening to the older boys declaiming or speaking their pieces. What small boy could study while there was anything of that kind going on ? I well remember one youngster, Ned Davenport by name, who was my particular delight and wonder ; for I could not understand how any boy could have the courage to stand up before the whole school and speak out loud. I can recall distinctly one year, when the candidates for the Franklin medals were preparing for “ examination day.” Davenport was

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to recite Dryden’s “ Alexander’s Feast ; ” and when he came to the words, thrice repeated, None but the brave,” the master stopped him to correct his emphasis. His example was thus : “ None but the hrave^ none but the brave, none hut the brave deserve tlie fair.” I thought at the time that Davenport’s way was the more natural, and now I know it was. Poor fellow ! he was sadly disappointed, when the day came, to find he had missed the Franklin medal because he had fallen short in some of liis other studies. I think every boy in the school sympathized witli him, and I was perfectly delighted to hear afterward from the other boys that the Committee had decided to award him a special gold medal for his declamation. I hope it was true ; if so, he has since proved the wisdom of their judgment by making himself one of the first and most honorable tragedians of his day.